Much has been heard of the heroism and sacrifice displayed during the conflict, but little of the crimes committed by both sections. Only the pleasant phases of the war have survived. When Joseph Holt and Robert Dale Owen were appointed by Secretary of War Stanton to adjust claims for materials supplied to the War Department, they found fraud at every turn, and before making their final report in July, 1862, secured deductions of nearly $17,000,000 from claims amounting to $50,000,000. One claim alone was reduced $1,000,000 and another was reduced $580,000. One senator had received $10,000 for securing an order from the War Department for a client. Colonel Henry S. Olcott, who was appointed special commissioner to investigate frauds, after a thorough examination of the facts announced that from 20% to 25% of the expenditures of the Federal treasury during the Civil War was tainted with fraud, and, according to his estimate, approximately $700,000,000 was paid through fraud. (See Rhodes, Vol. V, page 220.) In commenting upon moral conditions during the conflict, the _Springfield Republican_ said editorially: "It is a sad, a shocking picture of life in Washington, which our correspondents are giving us;--a Bureau of the Treasury Department made a home of seduction and prostitution; the necessities of poor and pretty women made the means of their debauchery by high government officials; members of Congress putting their mistresses into clerkships in the departments; whiskey drinking ad libitum." (See Rhodes, Vol. V, page 212.) These are some of the typical incidents of conditions in both sections, but text books in treating of this war, as of all others, present only those phases which glorify the conflict. The cost of the Civil War, including the expenditures of both sections, pensions, destruction of property, and other indirect expenses, was $12,000,000,000. Its damage to the moral and spiritual development of the United States cannot be estimated. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dodd, W. E.--_The Cotton Kingdom_. Lonn--_Desertion During the Civil War_. Macy, Jesse--_The Anti-Slavery Crusade_. Macy, Jesse--_Political Parties in the United States_. Chapters 7-22. Rhodes, James Ford--_History of the United States_. Vols. I-V. Stephenson, N. W.--_The Day of the Confederacy_. Stephenson, N. W.--_Abraham Lincoln and the Union_. Wood, William--_Captain of the Civil War_. CHAPTER VI THE WAR WITH SPAIN For almost a century, the Spanish possession of Cuba had been regarded with disfavor by certain elements in the United States. Reasons for this attitude varied from those of acquisition on grounds of "manifest destiny," to those of the highest altruism. When the Spanish American republics won their independence during the early years of the nineteenth century, Porto Rico and Cuba remained in the possession of Spain.