Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America (Luskey - CH) Picture by Rick Atkinson

by Rick Atkinson

Despite his major achievements in war and peace

Metal is silver plate over brass

The alchemy of creative genius

Sometimes their nightly visions brought the horrors of the conflict vividly to life

Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America (Luskey - CH) Picture by Rick Atkinsonby Brian P. Luskey When a Civil War substitute broker told business associates that Men is cheep here to Day, he exposed an unsettling contradiction at the heart of the Unions war effort. Despite Northerners' devotion to the principles of free labor, the war produced rampant speculation and coercive labor arrangements that many Americans labeled fraudulent. Debates about this contradiction focused on employment agencies called intelligence offices,