CHAPTER XIX.
THE SCHEME TO CAPTURE OR KILL THE PRESIDENT AND GEN.
SILENT.—A VILLANOUS PLOT.—THE RECKLESS AND DESPERATE
SCHEMES OF THE CONSPIRATORS.—THE PLAN REVEALED.—THE
PRESIDENT AND GEN. SILENT WARNED OF THEIR DANGER.
“I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze up thy young body.”
—Shakespeare.
“The death of my son Peter and my beloved wife cast such a deep gloom over our household that it seemed we never could rally again to do anything for ourselves or our country. Gen. Anderson returned to his command a sad and despondent man. He had left Ham to look after things for us at home, our family now being reduced to Jennie Lyon, Mary Anderson, the two children, Ham, Martha and myself. We were lonely in the extreme, and seemed, for some cause undis-coverable to us, to be drinking the bitter dregs from the poisoned chalice. Ham and Aunt Martha saw my distress and tried in their honest and simple way to pour consolation into my soul. The little children, in their childish simplicity, seemed to be the only fountain whence I could drink draughts of comfort in my lonely hours of distress. Seraine came to our house to attend the funeral, as Henry could not reach home in time to be with us and see the last of his mother and brother. I wrote him by his wife and directed him to remain. He came to Detroit terribly broken down with grief, and returned, sad and dejected, to Canada. He was frequently interrogated as to the cause of his melancholy, but parried it as best he could.
“About the 12th of February he returned to Detroit, and, bringing Seraine with him, came to my house. Our meeting was mixed with joy and sadness. The ladies, as well as my myself, were very much gratified at having dear Seraine (as we all called her) with us again. She conversed so sensibly on the subject of our misfortunes that she made us almost feel that they must be for our good.
“As soon as we could do so, Henry and I sat down to talk over the situation in Canada and the schemes of the conspirators. He reported to me all he had seen or heard on the question of the war, stating in the beginning that there was no time to lose. When he found Wintergreen they set out for a trip through Canada. After visiting many places and meeting various persons from the South who had been in Canada for the purpose of aiding in carrying the Presidential election in favor of the anti-war or Democratic party, but who had not been able to return since the election, and were waiting, Micawber-like, for something to turn up, they had finally arrived at Montreal, where they again met Joseph Thomlinson and quite a number of faces to them unfamiliar. These persons were evidently there for some purpose looking to the success of the rebellion. Thomlinson received them kindly, inquired of Winter-green how he felt since his return from London, and asked many questions about certain people at Windsor. Henry was also interrogated as to how matters looked to him, to which he answered that the signs were not so favorable as heretofore.
“Thomlinson went into a long disquisition on the recent campaigns. He denounced Gen. Head, who had been so utterly destroyed by Papson, as a 'brainless ass,' and spoke of Gen. Laws as having lost much of his vigor and daring. He said that if Gen. Wall, their greatest General, was alive, he would drive Silent out of Virginia in one month. He said that the re-election of Lincoln was a severe blow to them; that they had been deceived by their Northern friends. They had been led to believe that there was no doubt of Little Mac's election, with a liberal expenditure of money; that he had drawn checks and paid out for that purpose on behalf of the Confederacy $1,100,000, and seemed to think that unless measures were taken at once to strike consternation into the hearts of the Northern people all would be lost; that the President of the Confederacy and his Cabinet had been all along expecting some great result from the efforts of their Northern allies, and especially from the efforts of Valamburg and Thomas A. Strider.
“'True,' he said, 'Valamburg had been very much hampered by the suspicions resting upon him in the minds of the people, but it was not so with Strider. He could have done a great deal more if he had not been so timid. He (Strider) seemed to think that he could secure the success of the Confederacy by crippling the U. S. Government in opposing legislation and breeding strife and jealousies in the Union armies. 'But,' he continued, 'Lincoln is an old fox, and soon smelled out those little devices of Strider. He has completely checkmated him and his friends who were acting on his line, by relieving from command all those who were playing into Stridor's hands, and has put in their places a set of fanatics, who are fighting on moral grounds alone.'
“He spoke of Silent as a man who did not value life or anything else, saying that he was a superstitious man, who believed that he was merely an instrument in the hands of the Almighty to wipe out slavery. Not only so, but believed that he was guided and directed in all his movements by the mysterious hand of Providence. So he (Thomlinson) could not see the use of relying longer on any satisfactory result to come from the course being pursued by their Northern friends. He said they must act more openly, energetically and promptly, if they were to help the Confederacy.
“There were two men present that Henry thought he had seen somewhere before, but could not place them. One was a medium-sized man, with rather dark complexion, dark hair, eyes and mustache. He was introduced as a Mr. Wilkes. The other was a young man, perhaps thirty years of age, slight, with brown hair, blue eyes and no beard, named John Page. These two men seemed nervous and uneasy; they conversed but little. The man Wilkes remarked that there was but one way, which was a part of every insurrection, and he was in favor of that way. Page agreed with him, both seeming to understand the proposition; yet it was not stated in the conversation at that time what Wilkes meant by 'but one way.'
“Thomlinson made no answer to Wilkes or Page, but continued by saying: