The Great Conspiracy, Complete

by John Alexander Logan

Thus this great and good Ruler of our reunited People was foully stricken down in the very moment of his triumph; when the Union troops were everywhere victorious; when Lee had surrendered the chief Army of the downfallen Confederacy; when Johnston was on the point of surrendering the only remaining Rebel force which could be termed an Army; on the self-same day too, which saw the identical flag of the Union, that four years before had been sadly hauled down from the flagstaff of Fort Sumter, triumphantly raised again over that historic fort; when, the War being at an end, everything in the future looked hopeful; at the very time when his merciful and kindly mind was doubtless far away from the mimic scenes upon which he looked, revolving beneficent plans for reconstructing and rebuilding the waste and desolate places in the South which War had made; at this time, of all times, when his clear and just perceptions and firm patriotism were most needed,

[For his last public words, two nights before, had been: "In the present 'situation,' as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am CONSIDERING, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.">[

alike by conquerors and conquered, to guide and aid the Nation in the difficult task of reconstruction, and of the new departure, looming up before it, with newer and broader and better political issues upon which all Patriot might safely divide, while all the old issues of States-rights, Secession, Free-Trade, and Slavery, and all the mental and moral leprosy growing out of them, should lie buried far out of sight as dead-and-gone relics of the cruel and devastating War which they alone had brought on! Abraham Lincoln never spoke again. The early beams of the tomorrow's sun touched, but failed to warm, the lifeless remain of the great War-President and Liberator, as they were borne, in mournful silence, back to the White House, mute and ghastly witness of the sheer desperation of those who, although armed Rebellion, in the open field, by the fair and legitimate modes of Military warfare, had ceased, were determined still to keep up that cowardly "fire in the rear" which had been promised to the Rebel leaders by their Northern henchmen and sympathizers.

The assassination of President Lincoln was but a part of the plot of Booth and his murderous Rebel-sympathizing fellow conspirators. It was their purpose also to kill Grant, and Seward, and other prominent members of the Cabinet, simultaneously, in the wild hope that anarchy might follow, and Treason find its opportunity. In this they almost miraculously failed, although Seward was badly wounded by one of the assassins.

That the Rebel authorities were cognizant of, and encouraged, this dastardly plot, cannot be distinctly proven. But, while they naturally would be likely, especially in the face of the storm of public exasperation which it raised throughout the Union, to disavow all knowledge of, or complicity in, the vengeful murder of President Lincoln, and to destroy all evidences possible of any such guilty knowledge or complicity, yet there will ever be a strong suspicion that they were not innocent. From the time when it was first known that Mr. Lincoln had been elected President, the air was full of threats that he should not live to be inaugurated.

That the assassination, consummated in April, 1865, would have taken place in February of 1861, had it not been for the timely efforts of Lieutenant-General Scott, Brigadier-General Stone, Hon. William H. Seward, Frederick W. Seward, Esq., and David S. Bookstaver of the Metropolitan Police of New York—is abundantly shown by Superintendent John A. Kennedy, in a letter of August 13, 1866, to be found in vol. ii., of Lossing's "Civil War in America," pages 147-149, containing also an extract from a letter of General Stone, in which the latter—after mentioning that General Scott and himself considered it "almost a certainty that Mr. Lincoln could not pass Baltimore alive by the train on the day fixed"—proceeds to say: "I recommended that Mr. Lincoln should be officially warned; and suggested that it would be altogether best that he should take the train of that evening from Philadelphia, and so reach Washington early the next day." * * * General Scott, after asking me how the details could be arranged in so short a time, and receiving my suggestion that Mr. Lincoln should be advised quietly to take the evening train, and that it would do him no harm to have the telegraph wires cut for a few hours, he directed me to seek Mr. W. H. Seward, to whom he wrote a few lines, which he handed to me. It was already ten o'clock, and when I reached Mr. Seward's house he had left; I followed him to the Capitol, but did not succeed in finding him until after 12 M. I handed him the General's note; he listened attentively to what I said, and asked me to write down my information and suggestions, and then, taking the paper I had written, he hastily left. The note I wrote was what Mr. Frederick Seward carried to Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia. Mr. Lincoln has stated that it was this note which induced him to change his journey as he did. The stories of disguise are all nonsense; Mr. Lincoln merely took the sleeping-car in the night train.

Equally certain also, is it, that the Rebel authorities were utterly indifferent to the means that might be availed of to secure success to Rebellion. Riots and arson, were among the mildest methods proposed to be used in the Northern cities, to make the War for the Union a "failure"—as their Northern Democratic allies termed it—while, among other more devilish projects, was that of introducing cholera and yellow fever into the North, by importing infected rags! Another much-talked-of scheme throughout the War, was that of kidnapping President Lincoln, and other high officials of the Union Government. There is also evidence, that the Rebel chiefs not only received, but considered, the plans of desperadoes and cut-throats looking to the success of the Rebellion by means of assassination. Thus, in a footnote to page 448, vol. ii., of his "Civil War in America," Lossing does not hesitate to characterize Jefferson Davis as "the crafty and malignant Chief Conspirator, who seems to have been ready at all times to entertain propositions to assassinate, by the hand of secret murder, the officers of the Government at Washington;" and, after fortifying that statement by a reference to page 523 of the first volume of his work, proceeds to say: "About the time (July, 1862) we are now considering, a Georgian, named Burnham, wrote to Jefferson Davis, proposing to organize a corps of five hundred assassins, to be distributed over the North, and sworn to murder President Lincoln, members of his Cabinet, and leading Republican Senators, and other supporters of the Government. This proposition was made in writing, and was regularly filed in the 'Confederate War Department,' indorsed 'Respectfully referred to the Secretary of War, by order of the President,' and signed 'J. C Ives.' Other communications of similar tenor, 'respectfully referred' by Jefferson Davis, were placed on file in that 'War Department.'" All the denials, therefore, of the Rebel chieftains, as to their complicity in the various attempts to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, ending with his dastardly murder in April, 1865, will not clear their skirts of the odium of that unparalleled infamy. It will cling to them, living or dead, until that great Day of Judgment when the exact truth shall be made known, and "their sin shall find them out."

[The New York Tribune, August 16, 1885, under the heading "A NARROW ESCAPE OF LINCOLN," quotes an interesting "Omaha Letter, to the St. Paul Pioneer Press," as follows:

"That more than one attempt was made to assassinate Abraham Lincoln is a fact known to John W. Nichols, ex-president of the Omaha Fire Department. Mr. Nichols was one of the body-guard of President Lincoln from the Summer of 1862 until 1865. The following narrative, related to your correspondent by Mr. Nichols, is strictly true, and the incident is not generally known:

One night about the middle of August, 1864, I was doing sentinel duty at the large gate through which entrance was had to the grounds of the Soldiers' Home. The grounds are situated about a quarter of a mile off the Bladensburg road, and are reached by devious driveways. About 11 o'clock I heard a rifle shot in the direction of the city, and shortly afterwards I heard approaching hoof-beats. In two or three minutes a horse came dashing-up, and I recognized the belated President. The horse was very spirited, and belonged to Mr. Lamon, marshal of the District of Columbia. This horse was Mr. Lincoln's favorite, and when he was in the White House stables he always chose him. As horse and rider approached the gate, I noticed that the President was bareheaded. After assisting him in checking his steed, the President said to me: 'He came pretty near getting away with me, didn't he? He got the bit in his teeth before I could draw the rein.' I then asked him where his hat was, and he replied that somebody had fired a gun off down at the foot of the hill, and that his horse had become scared and jerked his hat off. I led the animal to the Executive Cottage, and the President dismounted and entered. Thinking the affair rather strange, a corporal and myself started in the direction of the place from where the sound of the rifle report had proceeded, to investigate the occurrence. When we reached the spot where the driveway intersects with the main road we found the President's hat—a plain silk hat—and upon examining it we discovered a bullet hole through the crown. The shot had been fired upwards, and it was evident that the person who fired the shot had secreted himself close to the roadside. We listened and searched the locality thoroughly, but to no avail. The next day I gave Mr. Lincoln his hat and called his attention to the bullet hole. He rather unconcernedly remarked that it was put there by some foolish gunner, and was not intended for him. He said, however, that he wanted the matter kept quiet, and admonished us to say nothing about it. We all felt confident that it was an attempt to kill him, and a well-nigh successful one, too. The affair was kept quiet, in accordance with his request. After that, the President never rode alone.">[

That this dark and wicked and bloody Rebellion, waged by the upholders and advocates of Slavery, Free Trade, and Secession, had descended so low as to culminate in murder—deliberate, cold-blooded, cowardly murder—at a time when the Southern Conspirators would apparently be the least benefitted by it, was regarded at first as evidencing their mad fatuity; and the public mind was dreadfully incensed.

The successor of the murdered President—Andrew Johnson—lost little time in offering (May the 2d) rewards, ranging from $25,000 to $100,000, for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson,