Napoleon Bonaparte Latta -- Lincoln, abolition and Universalism: Latta's supporters in Monroe, Wisconsin -- Indignation and Monroe's Miner family -- Louisville, Kentucky -- "Jot" Miner in New York City -- Lincoln: banking on the public -- The Kentucky Colony -- The Sons of Liberty -- Beef and the sex trade -- The Palmer House Hotel

'In need of cash to finance the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln turned to the nation's leading counterfeiters, including a band of enterprising criminals based in Monroe, Wisconsin. Operating under the nose of Allan Pinkerton, the Bonelatta Gang worked alongside the Kentucky Colony, who formed Chicago's corrupt Democratic Machine and nurtured the Levee Lords all the way down to Al Capone. Even Salmon P. Chase helped this ring of Monroe crooks, but this did not stop the Secret Service from throwing them under the bus when Republican scandals became too hot for President Grant to handle. ... [the author shares this] story of an obscure gang in rural Wisconsin that helped birth not only the Chicago mob but also the Ziegfeld Follies and the New Age movement"--Page 4 of cover