The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details Part 1

The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details.

by I. Windslow Ayer.

INTRODUCTION.

The trial before the Military Commission in Cincinnati, just concluded, was in many respects one of the most remarkable events of the war. The investigation has elicited testimony of the most startling character, showing conclusively to the minds of all reasonable men who have given to it careful, earnest attention that there was a most formidable, deep and well arranged conspiracy, which, but for timely discovery and judicious action, would have resulted most disastrously, not only to the particular cities and towns specified and doomed to destruction, but to the whole country. None can contemplate the danger through which we have pa.s.sed without a shudder and without a recognition of the hand of a merciful Providence who has guided our beloved country in its darkest hours and who has crowned our struggles for liberty and union with glorious victory.

To have proclaimed to the public, even a few short months ago, that a scheme had been concocted in Richmond, of so vast and formidable a character, so insidious in its operations, so complete in its details that it had found favor and support in all the great cities and towns in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Iowa, and sections of other States that scarcely a village was exempt from its corruption, that it numbered in its ranks more traitors in the aggregate than the number of brave men in the combined armies of the gallant Grant and Sherman, and that all who had thus united recognised but one common cause--the destruction of our country, the defeat and humiliation of our people, and the triumph of the Rebellion--the author of such a proclamation would have been written down a madman or a fool, by most persons in the community; and yet the developments before the military tribunal have established the fact, to the eternal infamy of all who were leagued in the conspiracy.

As the trial opened, and the charges if the indictment were made public, all sympathisers with the conspiracy affected to disbelieve its existence, and raised their eyes and hands to Heaven, in pious horror, and prayed that _justice_ might be meted out to the accused, who were, they claimed, the best of citizens, the most devout Christians, the most zealous patriots, the most earnest advocates of law and order, and that their accusers might be shunned of all good men forever. To this prayer the accused will scarce utter the response, Amen! Even some good, careful, honest Union men, astonished at the startling revelations, refused, for a time, to believe that there was any truth in the allegations against the prisoners; by degrees, however, as corroborative evidence acc.u.mulated, the truth was forced upon their minds, and there are now few persons of ordinary intelligence and candor, who have not been able to discover that "there was something in it, after all," and that we have been Providentially saved a most terrible disaster.

But the investigation has been lengthy, and the reports in the newspapers have been brief and irregular, and few, comparatively, there are who have heard or read all of even the more important testimony, or appreciate fully the vast magnitude of the conspiracy; and there are many who having read only the indictment, have conceived the idea that if the charges therein alleged are true, the crime was confined to a few desperate and wicked men in Chicago alone, and that, therefore, it possessed but a local interest. Such a conclusion is wholly groundless.

The history of this conspiracy is of the most vital interest for the people of every State in the Union, for had the conspirators not been foiled at a most opportune moment, their plans would have been successful in every particular, and once in operation they could not have been frustrated by any force we could have arrayed against them; and who shall say that had the savage hordes of Jeff. Davis then been turned loose upon an unarmed community, to carry desolation and ruin as they should sweep over our fair States, that to-day the Southern rebels would be, as they now are, in their last extremity--that victory would now be perched upon our banners wherever our n.o.ble pioneers of freedom advance, and that our brave boys of the Potomac would now be reposing from, their labors in the halls of the rebel capitol! Those who, upon investigation, fail to recognise the magnitude, the sagacity, the completeness of this Northwestern Conspiracy, and realise its immense importance to the rebel chieftains at the South, corroborated as the evidence before the Commission has been by incidents of almost daily occurrence for many months, have not learned to read correctly the history of the Great Southern Rebellion. If an idea ever entered the heads of malcontents at the North to establish a Northwestern Confederacy, it was speedily chased away by the more promising schemes of the arch traitor late of Richmond. It is to collect facts already elicited, and to give further information, and with a hope of aiding the cause of the Union so sacred and dear to us all, that the writer has yielded to the oft-repeated requests of his friends to present a connected and concise history of the Northwestern Conspiracy.

THE AUTHOR.

CHAP.I.

SECRET SERVICE TO SECURE SUCCESS OF SOUTHERN ARMS--STATE SOVEREIGNTY--THE GENERAL PURPOSES OF SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS--RECOLLECTIONS THAT CAN NEVER DIE--VOICES FROM OUR BRAVE SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT, BESPEAKING OUR PROTECTION FOR THEIR WIVES, CHILDREN, PARENTS AND HOMES FROM NORTHERN COPPERHEADS--CHARACTER OF THE LEADERS OF THE DIFFERENT SECRET ORDERS.

The signal potency of secret organizations at the South prior to the secession of States, and indeed the only really effective machinery by which an attempt at disunion by the people could have been made to appear possible, early in the great struggle engaged the earnest attention of the Southern leaders. Knowing as they did that had the question of secession been primarily an open one, for free discussion, that the ma.s.ses of the people would have rejected the proposition with deserved scorn and indignation, and hung the ambitious adventurers who dared propose the sacrilege. They realized the importance of establis.h.i.+ng the order in the North. The leaders saw with delight the working of secret organizations, where men were sworn to secrecy, and drawn onward step by step, till they reached the very brink of the fearful precipice. Thus did the people fasten upon themselves and each other the shackles of slavery, which they have since so unwillingly worn. The doctrine of State sovereignty proclaimed by John C. Calhoun, and which, together with its apostles, Jackson well knew how to receive, had been instilled into the minds of the people of the States, which since their admission into the Union had been at war with destiny, and in the hope of securing perpetuity of their peculiar inst.i.tutions, they attempted the dissolution of the Union. Truly gratifying it must have been to the extremists in those States to have watched the gathering clouds, and to listen to the low murmuring thunder which presaged the coming storm, and well they knew how fearful would be its fury, but blinded to the inevitable result, they were confident of ultimate success, when they should have so far disseminated the Calhoun poison at the North, as to have made oath-bound slaves in such numbers as would paralyze the efforts of Union men, and render it necessary to recall our armies from the field to suppress insurrection at home, and to change the theatre of the war to Northern soil. None knew the importance of introducing the machinery of secret political organizations better than Davis himself, for he had not forgotten the Charleston Convention, the working of the secret orders then, and subsequent events had of course confirmed him in the opinion that a divided North would not be a formidable adversary, and that he was warranted in the firm belief that his wish to be "let alone" would be realised. With these views, shrewd and sagacious men established themselves early in Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and other States, and put the machinery in motion.

The order sprung up in various sections of the country, and treason flourished well, as poisonous plants often show the greatest vitality.

This plan was a success. Men high in rank and station--men from every profession and walk in life, embraced the principles of the order, and soon it could boast of legislators, judges of the higher courts, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, merchants and men from every avocation.

Judge Bullitt, from the Supreme bench in Kentucky, Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois, Judd and Robinson, lawyers and candidates for the highest State offices, Col. Walker, agent of the State of Indiana, editors of the daily press, and men high in official station, and in the confidence of the people, ex-Governors of States and disaffected politicians, all seized upon this new element of power and with various motives, the chief of which was self agrandis.e.m.e.nt at any cost, even at the cost of our National existence--entered with zeal upon the work of disseminating the doctrines, and extending the organization throughout the North and West.

The leaders gratified by success, courted the support of the organizations they fostered till the candidates for the highest offices in the State and Nation felt certain of obtaining election, were they but in favor with the secret orders they aided in establis.h.i.+ng.

While the leaders were men of cunning, many of them of intellect and education, the rank and file was made up of different material. It not being necessary by the tenets of the order that they should _think_ at all, brains were at a discount--muscle only was required--beings who would fall into line at the word of command and follow on to an undertaking, however desperate and criminal, without asking or thinking, or caring for the purpose to be attained; beings who could be put in harness and led or driven wherever and whenever it might suit their masters. Men from the lowest walks of life were preferred. In the lower strata of the order, social distinction was waived by the leaders, and the lowest wretch in the order was placed on a level with judges, merchants and politicians, at least within the hall of meeting, thus offering inducements potent enough to make the lodge room a place of interest and pleasure, and thus the organization thrived.

It became known of course that secret organizations of a most dangerous cla.s.s were in existence, and their fruits were easily recognized. Our brave boys in the army were often importuned by letters, to desert their posts and to betray their flag. Union men were subject to annoyances that became unendurable, soldiers wives and families were grossly insulted, soldiers visiting their homes upon furloughs were often a.s.saulted or murdered, quarrels upon petty pretexts were incited, neighbors arrayed against each other, dwellings burned by incendiaries, unoffending union men murdered, military secrets of greatest importance betrayed, libels of the most gross and malicious character by such papers as the Chicago Times, and by such men as Wilbur F. Story, its editor, till at length a voice came to us from the army in the field, which was often echoed, begging Union citizens at home, by their love of the Union, by the love they bore their own families, to protect the absent soldiers' wives, mothers, sisters and firesides from the Copperheads who remained at home; they would meet the enemy at the front, they would march fearlessly to the cannon's belching throat, and meet death or mutilation upon the field of battle for their Country's cause; not for themselves did they know fear or care for danger, but when the tidings came to them from home, when after toilsome marches, hunger and fatigue, or suffering from wounds received in desperate engagements, when resting a brief hour, and their eyes fell upon missives from home, from wives who bade them go and fight for freedom, and return not with shame upon their brows, when tender thoughts of home, of children and every "loved spot" that they had left behind, came crowding to their minds, who shall say that they were wanting in heroism if their faces became pale, their lips trembled and the tears dimmed their eyes, as they read of wrongs and insults endured from Copperheads at home, or of plots and acts by cowardly traitors to aid the common enemy; and when their entreaty comes to us to strike down the deadly foe at home and give protection to the helpless, let him blush with shame to call himself a man, let him never claim to be an American citizen, never claim protection of our Country's flag, let him close his ears to the sound of rejoicing for final and complete victory, let him only hold companions.h.i.+p with cowards and with culprits, and hide himself from the light of day who will turn a deaf ear to the soldiers' prayer.

Copperheads who have withheld their sympathy and their efforts for our country in its days of darkness and of peril, should and will be known of men in all future time; their lives will be blighted, their names will be a reproach and a by-word, their children will blush for their parents, and the name of Benedict Arnold will no longer be the synonym of treason and betrayal--his name will be rescued from the infamy each pa.s.sing year of the existence of our country has heaped upon it, and the Copperheads of the present day will receive the anathemas of all coming generations, till their very names shall be a curse too horrid for mortals to apply, and thenceforth be only echoed in the lowest depths of h.e.l.l.

By Providential discovery of the existence of the Order of Sons of Liberty in Chicago, and the utmost vigilance, prudence, perseverance, patience, promptness and daring, the aims, designs and acts of this Order, of the American Knights and kindred organizations have been brought to light, its every evil purpose and plan laid before the Government, and the pet inst.i.tution of Jeff. Davis has been turned inside out, so that "he who runs may read;" the curtain has been raised and the light of noonday has been let in, discovering to the public the horrid creation of traitors in our very midst--people who breathe the very air we do, who enjoy the same blessings and privileges, aye, and perhaps sit at the same tables. The friends and sympathizers of these traitors have sought to cast obloquy and distrust upon the statements of those who have successfully broken up the great conspiracy, and perjury has sought to blacken their reputations, but in vain. _Truth will prevail_.

The list of names of the members of the Sons of Liberty have been obtained and preserved, and will be valuable for reference hereafter.

As the reader pa.s.ses down South Clark street, at the corner of Monroe, he will notice upon the right a large building of peculiar structure, and, now bearing the name "Invincible Club Hall." It was here the temples of the Sons of Liberty, or, as they were then called, the "American Knights," held their secret sessions, going stealthily up the stairs singly or in groups of two or three, to avoid observation, and when once inside the hall they were guarded by an outside sentinel, whose duty it was to apprise them of danger and to guard against its approach to the "temple"; but let not the fault-finding Sons blame their Tyler now for any neglect of duty; once under the ban of suspicion he has proved himself as staunch a rebel and traitor as Jeff. Davis himself, and is ent.i.tled to all the consideration of a "devilish good fellow." But within a year, more or less, the "temple" of the _Illini_, as it was called, removed from Clark street to the large building upon the corner of Randolph and Dearborn streets, known as "McCormick's Block." Every Thursday evening prior to the eighth of November 1864, the windows of the hall in the fifth story gave evidence that the hall was occupied, but further than this evidence was not for the observer, however curious he might be, unless, perchance, he was a member of "the Order." Clambering up the long nights of stairs that lead to the hall, on a Thursday evening, the party in quest of discovery would be not a little surprised at the cla.s.s of men he would notice upon the march upward; he would involuntarily b.u.t.ton up his pockets and keep as far distant from his fellow travelers as possible, for a more G.o.d-forsaken looking cla.s.s of vagabonds never before entered a respectable building, and it is a matter of some doubt whether so many graceless scoundrels were ever before convened in one building in Chicago, not excepting the Armory when the police have been unusually active and vigilant.

Occasionally a fine looking man would brush hastily by you, as if afraid to be discovered and recognised--not in the least conscience-stricken, perhaps, for his purposes and intentions. Should the gas-light show to you the comely features of the Grand Senior Obadiah Jackson, Jr. Esq., on his pilgrimage upward, you would scarcely be willing to believe that he was the presiding genius of the room in the upper regions, and bound to dispense light and wisdom to the motley crowd who would so soon be filling the hall with fumes of cheap tobacco and the poorest quality of whiskey, mingled with the fragrance of onions, borne by gentle zephyrs from yonder open vestibule. Yonder comes L.A. Doolittle, Esq., a lawyer of some distinction and a justice of the peace; he wears a look of wisdom, and you can read upon his face that he is certain that the "despot Lincoln," and "Lincoln's hirelings," and "Lincoln's bastiles"

are all going under together beneath the wheels of the triumphal car drawn by the opposition party, with Vallandigham as the leader. But we will not try to find any great number of fine looking men in very close proximity to the hall. Arriving on the fifth floor, and proceeding to a door upon which you find the sign of the "American Protestant a.s.sociation," your friends casting furtive glances around and behind them, disappear by the door and are lost to view; one by one, like stars upon the approach of dawn, our constellation vanishes. You open the door, but your curiosity is not repaid; the seedy friends who preceded you but an instant are lost to sight--presto! the room is as vacant as a last year's robin's nest, and observation detects a hole of six inches in diameter in a door in one side of the room; you try the door, but it is fast, and you may leave if you wish, but the idea of a Copperhead crawling through a hole six inches in diameter will haunt your dreams that night.

CHAP. II.

FOREIGN POWERS THE ENEMIES OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT--THEIR PART IN THE PROGRAMME OF THE REBELLION.

The event of the American revolution burst upon the world as the most startling era in the history of nations. Monarchical Europe had long envied the proud career and inevitable destiny of these States, which had been shaken as the brightest jewels from the British Crown.

Monarchs, Emperors, Queens, lords, princes and diplomats, who wield the sceptre of dominion, could not conceal the joy afforded them by a scene, which executed, promised the speedy extinguishment of the leading national power on the globe, and the final demolition of the only altar of liberty upon which the fires of freedom had continued bright.

The event created the more joy, because it was attributable partly to the efforts so strenuously put forth for many preceding years by the combined enemies of American Independence, to poison the American mind and breed disunion in the ranks of a free, industrious and honest yeomanry, with a view to the ultimate dissolution of the bonds of the Union.

These enemies, however, for some time anterior to the development of the fruit of their labors, had begun to despair of the cause in which they had engaged, and it is possible that the scheme of American wreck and ruin upon their part had been permanently abandoned, hence their immediate demonstrations of joy at the triumph of their cause of sedition.

But seeds sown, however barren the soil, seldom fail of some growth, and subsequent to the presidential election of 1860, the great American rebellion became transparent to both friend and foe. To enumerate and examine in detail the different phases of the programme of artificial causes which precipitated defiance of the General Government, and gave origin to the chronic disorder of the people of different sections upon the subject of their government, would occupy more s.p.a.ce than has been allotted this brief narrative, which is more especially intended to embrace a readable compilation of the later movements of the enemies of the Government to crown the Confederate cause with success, through the b.l.o.o.d.y implement of Conspiracy and Revolution in the Northern States.

Having alluded to the prominent part occupied by foreign hostile powers in the general scheme of Conspiracy against the Federal Government, a brief allusion to the part executed by the native born American will not be out of place.

The cheek tingles with the blush of shame, when alas, it _must_ be said that the pride of the American has been humbled by his too faithful adherence to the grand original compact of treason, even after the second most potent auxiliary to the plan had been tenderly touched with the wickedness of the scheme, and had withdrawn in dismay at the approach of the enactment of crime so revolting.

All things material and tangible have their bases and starting points, so too, had the Southern Rebellion its foundation stone laid deep and solid in the minds of the people by John C. Calhoun, the first great Supreme Commander of the germ from whence sprung the various elements of treason, which have entered into the composition of the powers seeking the destruction of the Federal Government. As for the doctrine of State Rights as expounded by Calhoun, it is carried beyond the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of '98, to that point which renders it destructive of the end for which it is claimed to be enunciated.

It has been sought to carry the doctrine to that extremity beyond the exercise of its own reserved powers, which must inevitably bring it in collision with the legitimate operation of the powers delegated to the General Government.

With this extreme, hence fallacious, doctrine of State Rights thus firmly imbedded in the hearts and heads of a zealous people, rendering them, upon conscientious principles, the ready tools of ambitious leaders, filled with l.u.s.t for power and place, it should not be a matter of so much surprise, that, after years of uninterrupted and persistent education and training of the generations in their order, that the year of 1860 found the continent trembling beneath the crack of musketry, the tread of horse, and the roar of cannon.

As among the more important means used by designing men in aid of the scheme of rebellion, and the ultimate establishment of a separate government in the South, the nucleus of which was to be the cotton states, secret organizations, a.s.suming different names and traditions in different localities in the South were established, having for their special mission in the meantime the privacy of the plot, and the education of the people to that indispensable standard of treason which would eventually lead them to avow their principles at the point of the sword.

These organizations, in point of antiquity, are traced to a time not long anterior to the nullification of South Carolina in 1832, which was so promptly suppressed by General Jackson, then President of the United States. Some of them, however, claim even greater antiquity, and point with affected pride to the historical period of the American colonial revolution against the taxation and tyranny of England, as the date of their origin. Whatever may be the facts as to the precise date of the existence, respectively, of these disreputable cables, laid to undermine the greatness and glory of the National Union, cemented as it is by the blood of the sires and sages of the Revolution, is unimportant to the purpose of the author, while the great living fact that they have been the most deadly weapon in the hands of the enemy is corroborated by the eventful history of the union of these States.

Prior to the breaking out of the rebellion in 1861, these various organizations, being the van-guards in the general conspiracy against the integrity and perpetuity of the Federal Government, had not been introduced, to any great extent, in the non-slaveholding states, and in consequence thereof had little or no tangibility north of the compromise of 1820, familiarly known as Mason and Dixon's line. South of this line, however, they had long been standing inst.i.tutions in every city, town, hamlet, villa and populated district throughout all of the late so-called Confederate States of America; vying the Palmetto in rankness of growth, and rivaling the rattlesnake in deadness of poison, until at length, gorged with their own baneful offspring, and pale with the sickness of their own stomachs, the child of secession was born unto them as a curse and reproach to the Southern people and the generations to follow them forever.

On the 17th of April, 1861, the report of the gun fired upon Fort Sumter was heard by every member of these secret conclaves in the South, and was the signal for the opening of the outer gates of every temple of treason in the land.

From that inauspicious moment forward to the present, no mask has hid from the scorn of the Christian world treason's hideous visage, but that blear-eyed monster, armed with every weapon of iniquity which devilish invention could devise, has alternately, with rage and despair, rushed to and fro across the continent, spilling the blood of innocence.

When, upon the occurrence of the Presidential election in 1860, it was found that the kernel planted by Calhoun had been fostered to maturity by secret organization, the blood and treasure of seven states was at once staked upon the fearful result, and the disruption of the Republic and the erection of a slave-driving despotism upon the ruins solemnly declared. In the outset, it was thought by leading political minds at the North, that but little sincerity could be attached to the a.s.sertion of independence by the Southern people. But as time elapsed and the contest grew more formidable and b.l.o.o.d.y, Northern men began by degrees to comprehend the magnitude of a chronic conspiracy which had cost the life-long labors of its ablest advocates to prepare. And though the hosts enlisted in the execution of this conspiracy for a time won the prestige of victors upon fields of blood, knowledge of their sincerity of purpose and the extent of their carefully collected resources at length came to every loyal man in the country, and vigorous measures, corresponding to the necessity, were at once devised, the effects of which are now seen in the capture of Richmond and the surrender of Lee.

Earlier than this date in the progress of the struggle, however, it became manifest that the wheel of fortune would eventually turn against the cause of the South in consequence of her comparative weakness to contend against a power so amply provided with the material of war as the government at Was.h.i.+ngton. Then it was that the project of enlarging the area of the rebellion, first fell upon the Southern mind as indispensable to their cause, now fast becoming desperate in the extreme. Hurried raids into border northern states gave to the prowess of southern arms but momentary _eclat_, and little or no enduring strength was added to the stability of the Richmond government, beyond the plunder obtained in the line of march. On the contrary, these raids, instead of being evidence of the power of the South to maintain the standard of independence, were looked upon by the military chieftains of the North, without apprehension further than the demoralization, consequent upon the particular neighborhoods and districts thus invaded.

In fact each recurring raid gave additional grounds for the confident belief on the part of the North, that the downfall of the rebellion was but a question of time, much sooner to be solved than many people of both sections supposed. These symptoms of the distress of the cause meantime did not escape the sagacity of the leaders of the rebellion, and as an expedient remedy, the plan of secretly organizing traitors in the northern states was determined upon as early as 1862, by the political representatives and agents of the confederate states, the attempt, character and success of which project will be the subject of the next chapter.

CHAP. III.

ARENA OF THE REBELLION EXTENDED--SECRET ORGANIZATION--PLAN OF FORMATION--KNIGHTS OF GOLDEN CIRCLE--TRANSPORTS ON THE RIVERS BURNED--EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES--SUPREME COUNCIL IN NEW YORK--DEGREES OF THE ORDERS.

As above intimated, early in 1862 the Richmond Government foresaw the necessity of bringing to its aid the hitherto comparatively dormant resources of treason in the Northern States, and the enlargement of the arena of the Rebellion. Raids having ominously failed in their design to arouse the lethargic spirits of Northern sympathizers and advocates, to rush to the standard of the misguided South, it was immediately determined to prolong the war, at least, to the date of the next Presidential election, and then through the agencies of secret organization and equipment, seize upon the excitement of the people in a hotly contested election, to force a rebellion against the administration elect in the North, as had been done in the South in 1860.

The executive part of this object was at once given into the hands of such trustworthy men, both North and South, as were deemed suitable to the enterprise, and the work of secret political organization was vigorously begun in Northern Missouri and Kentucky, from thence it gradually spread, until it was firmly rooted in the political tenets of the minority party in the States of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and portions of other adjoining States.