Traitors: The Secession Period November 1860 - July 1861

by Edward S. Cooper

From the publisher:
A myth has grown that there were no traitors during the period leading up to the American Civil War. Edward S. Cooper debunks that myth in this book.

He provides documentation that officers on active duty in the army and navy of the United States secretly negotiated for positions in the Confederacy, surrendered their ships, forts, and posts to state authorities, conspired in the seizure of other forts, deserted their posts and advised their subordinates to join them, and wrote letters detailing how the Confederacy could defeat the very army and navy in which they were serving.

Members of the president's cabinet ensured southern arsenals were stocked with northern weapons, posted southern sympathizers to forts and arsenals in the south, and sold weapons to agents for states that had announced their intention to secede. Other cabinet members urged states to secede and gave southern states advance notice of United States troop movements. Members of the United States Congress, collectively and individually, used their positions to warn southern states of Federal troop movements, obtain plans of arsenals and forts and how they were manned, and acquire lists of military officers along with their pay in order to seduce them into Confederate service. The governors of some slave-holding states had men seize forts and arsenals, burned bridges to impede the movement of Federal troops, and allowed Confederate troops into their states before they had seceded or even called conventions to consider secession.