Charles Cowlam’s career as a convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, and con artist spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. He is the only person known to have been pardoned by both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. One contemporary reported that Cowlam “has as many aliases as there are letters in the alphabet.” He was a chameleon in a world of strangers, and scholars have overlooked him due to his elusive nature. His intrigues reveal how Americans built trust amid the transience and anonymity of the nineteenth century. The stories Cowlam told allowed him to blend in, where he cultivated the connections needed to extract patronage from influential members of American society. Whereas historians of capitalism have uncovered the vulnerabilities of an economic system dependent upon trust and personal relationships, Cowlam’s life exposes the liabilities of a political system constructed on the same foundations.
Written by Frank W. Garmon, Jr.