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The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details By: I. Windslow Ayer |
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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... Continue reading book >>
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