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The Great North Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details

I >> I. Windslow Ayer >> The Great North Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details



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THE GREAT NORTH-WESTERN CONSPIRACY IN ALL ITS STARTLING DETAILS.

_The Plot to plunder and burn Chicago--Release of all Rebel
prisoners--Seizure of arsenals--Raids from Canada--Plot to burn New
York--Piracy on the Lakes--Parts for the Sons of Liberty--Trial of Chicago
conspirators--Inside views of the Temples of the Sons of Liberty--Names of
prominent members._

ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS OF LEADING CHARACTERS, ETC., ETC.


By I. WINSLOW AYER, M.D.

[Illustration: I. WINSLOW AYER, M.D.]




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 passed
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 accumulated, 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
noble 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 masses 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 establishing 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 institutions, 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
agrandisement 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 establishing. 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
class 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 assaulted 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 companionship 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 passing 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 hell.

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
institution 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 passes 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 entitled 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 class of men he would notice upon
the march upward; he would involuntarily button up his pockets and keep as
far distant from his fellow travelers as possible, for a more God-forsaken
looking class 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 Association," 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 space 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
bloody 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 lust 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, assuming 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 institutions 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.

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