Corey Recko – författare

Timothy Webster, best known for his work as a spy for the Union during the Civil War, began his career as a New York City policeman. In the mid-1850s he left the police department and took a job for Allan Pinkerton with his newly formed detective agency. As an operative for Pinkerton's agency, Webster excelled. His cases included tracking a world famous forger, investigating grave robberies in a Chicago cemetery, and seeking to uncover a plot to destroy the Rock Island Bridge. It was also as a Pinkerton detective that Webster made his greatest contribution to his country when he was part of a small group of operatives that uncovered a plot to assassinate then President-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Webster went on to serve the United States as a spy in the Civil War. He traveled to the Confederate Capital multiple times and made many connections high up in the Confederate military and government. For a time he was the Union's top spy, but his career came to an abrupt end when, in 1862, he was betrayed by fellow spies and became the first spy executed in the Civil War.

On a cold February evening in 1896, prominent attorney Col. Albert Jennings Fountain and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared near the White Sands of New Mexico at the hands of suspected cattle rustlers. The governor called in both the Pinkerton Agency and Pat Garrett, killer of Billy the Kid, to investigate. The evidence pointed at three former deputies, who were defended by powerful ex-judge, lawyer, and politician Albert B. Fall. The verdict? Not guilty. The bodies of Albert Fountain and his young son Henry have never been found. Corey Recko tells for the first time the complete story of the Fountains and, through extensive research, reconstructs what really happened to them and who the likely killers were.

When New Mexico became part of the United States, the territory contained 295 land grants, the largest of these being the Maxwell Land Grant. The size and boundaries of the grant were disputed, with some believing that much of the land was public domain. Settlers on this land were fought not only by the land grant owners but also by a group of corrupt politicians and lawyers--known as the Santa Fe Ring (most notably Thomas Catron and Stephen Elkins)--who tried to use the situation for personal profit and land acquisition. The fight escalated in late 1875 with the assassination of Reverend F. J. Tolby, an outspoken critic of the Santa Fe Ring. In a confession one of the assassins stated that men connected to the ring had paid to have Tolby killed. Outrage, civil unrest, and more murders followed. The town of Cimarron alone was the scene of a lynching, a barroom gunfight in the St. James Hotel involving legendary gunman Clay Allison, and a nighttime murder of a prisoner. For a time the troubles in New Mexico were ignored by the federal government. But in 1878 the murder of John Tunstall set off a wave of violence known as the Lincoln County War. Following that, a letter came to light that appeared to show that the governor of the territory, Samuel B. Axtell, planned a mass execution of critics of the Santa Fe Ring, who he considered to be agitators in the Colfax County troubles.Finally, officials in Washington took notice and sent Frank W. Angel with orders to investigate the violence, murders, and corruption that plagued the territory. Following his investigation, Angel concluded, “It is seldom that history states more corruption, fraud, mismanagement, plots and murders, than New Mexico, has been the theatre under the administration of Governor Axtell.” The actions taken as a result of Angel’s investigation wouldn’t end the violence in New Mexico, but they did lead to the end of the Colfax County War.