Immediately after I left Big river on my last raid, Robert Hill became satisfied that, as I took his horses, he could no longer pass himself off for a Rebel and a Union man at the same time. He was a member both of the “Knights of the Golden Circle” and the “Union League.” A few days after I “swapped horses” with him, he went before the provost marshal, at Potosi, and represented that in consequence of his Union sentiments he could not live at home on Big river without a band of soldiers for his protection.
Failing, however, in his purpose, he went to Ironton and made a similar statement to the provost marshal at that place. Certain Union men, however, who knew all the facts in the case, represented the whole matter as arising from personal enmity against Dr. A. W. Keith and others.
Thwarted again in his designs, he was left a few days to muse over his misfortunes; but a bright idea finally came to his relief: He would expose the “Knights of the Golden Circle,” and consign his brother members to an indiscriminate butchery!
The war was nearly at an end; the Union cause was about to triumph; and one string was enough to play on during the balance of the struggle. He would startle the world by his disclosures; the earth should be dumbfounded, and mankind should stand aghast at the magnitude of his revelations! He sought and obtained a private interview with the provost marshal. At this time the sun was serenely smiling upon the earth; spring had just made her advent, and was strewing garlands of flowers along the meadows and sunny hillsides, as if nothing was about to happen; and men throughout the world, unmindful of what was about to take place, were plodding on in their daily pursuits.
All things being now ready, he told the marshal that he was a member of the Union League. This announcement was a satisfactory proof of his loyalty, for this Northern KuKlux League was instituted to save the National Union secretly.
He then stated that, for the good of his country, he had also joined the Knights of the Golden Circle; that the Circle met at the house of Joseph Herrod, on Big river, and that many of the leading men in that neighborhood were members.
The patriotic motives of Robert Hill will be very apparent to the reader, when I state that at the outbreak of the rebellion, when he joined the Golden Circle, he was a slaveholder, and utterly pro-slavery in sentiment.
How pure, then, must have been his motives when, for the good of his country, even at that early day, he bound himself with oaths like adamant for the purpose of finally exposing the Circle, as soon as it should have run its race and become defunct!
If the Southern Confederacy had won, his patriotism would have prompted him to expose the Union League; and when the last expiring beacon of Federal hope was about to be extinguished, he probably would have called for troops to crush the members of the Union League to which he belonged!
The representations he made to the provost marshal had the desired effect; a telegram was sent to Col. Beverage, at Cape Girardeau, who sent Lieutenant Brown, with forty men, to Big River Mills.