What history books don't tell you about the American Civil War

The above quote by Abraham Lincoln is from Charles Chiniquy’s book, “Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.” More quotes:

I will be forever grateful for the warning words you have addressed to me about the dangers ahead to my life, from Rome. I know they are not imaginary dangers. If I were fighting against a Protestant South, as a nation, there would be no danger of assassination. The nations who read the Bible fight bravely on the battlefield, but they do not assassinate their enemies. The pope and the Jesuits, with their infernal inquisition, are the only organized powers in the world which have recourse to the dagger of the assassin to murder those who they cannot convince with their arguments or conquer with the sword.

Unfortunately, I feel more and more every day that it is not against the Americans of the South, alone, I am fighting, it is more against the pope of Rome, his perfidious Jesuits and their blind and bloodthirsty slaves. As long as they hope to conquer the North, they will spare me; but the day we route their armies, take their cities and force them to submit, then, it is my impression that the Jesuits, who are the principal rulers of the South, will do what they have almost invariably done in the past. The dagger or the pistol will do what the strong hands of the warriors could not achieve. This civil war seems to be nothing but a political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the secret springs of that terrible drama. But it is more a religious than a civil war. It is Rome who wants to rule and degrade the North, as she has ruled and degraded the South, from the very day of its discovery. There are only very few of the Southern leaders who are not more or less under the influence of the Jesuits through their wives, family relations, and their friends. Several members of the family of Jeff Davis belong to the Church of Rome….

But it is very certain that if the American people could learn what I know of the fierce hatred of the priests of Rome against our institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly bought liberties, they would drive them away tomorrow from among us, or they would shoot them as traitors. But you are the only one to whom I reveal these sad secrets for I know that you learned them before me. The history of these last thousand years tells us that wherever the Church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a free nation, she is a stone to her neck, to paralyze her, and prevent her advance in the ways of civilization, science, intelligence, happiness and liberty. — Ibid. pp. 294, 295.

This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons…. I pity the priests, the bishops and the monks of Rome in the United States when the people realize that they are, in great part, responsible for the tears and the bloodshed in this war. — Ibid. pp. 296,297.

You are perfectly correct when you say it was to detach the Roman Catholics who have enrolled themselves in our army. Since the publication of that [the pope’s] letter, a great number of them have deserted their banners and turned traitor…. It is true also, that Meade has remained with us, and gained the bloody battle of Gettysburg. But how could he lose it, when he was surrounded by such heroes as Howard, Reynolds, Buford, Wadsworth, Cutler, Slocum, Sickles, Hancock, Barnes, etc. But it is evident that his Romanism superceded his patriotism after the battle. He let the army of Lee escape when he could easily have cut his retreat and forced him to surrender after losing nearly half of his soldiers in the last three days carnage.

When Meade was to order the pursuit after the battle, a stranger came in haste to the headquarters, and that stranger was a disguised Jesuit. After ten minutes conversation with him, Meade made such arrangements for the pursuit of the enemy that he escaped almost untouched with the loss of only two guns! — Ibid. p. 298.

The common people see and hear the big, noisy wheels of the Southern Confederacy’s cars: they call them Jeff Davis, Lee, Toombs, Beauregard, Semmes, etc., and they honestly think they are the motive power, the first cause of our troubles. But this is a mistake. The true motive power is secreted behind the thick walls of the Vatican, the colleges and schools of the Jesuits, the convents of the nuns and the confessional boxes of Rome. — Ibid. p. 305.