On the eve of the last general election, the country was startled by the publication of a Report from the Judge Advocate of the United States, disclosing the existence of a wide-spread conspiracy at the West, which had for its object the overthrow of the Union. This conspiracy, the Report stated, had a military organization, with a commander-in-chief, general and subordinate officers, and five hundred thousand enrolled members, all bound to a blind obedience to the orders of their superiors, and pledged to "take up arms against any government found waging war against a people endeavoring to establish a government of their own choice."
The organization, it was said, was in every way hostile to the Union, and friendly to the so-called Confederacy; and its ultimate objects were "a general rising in Missouri," and a similar "rising in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, in coöperation with a Rebel force which was to invade the last-named State."
Startling and incredible as the Report seemed, it told nothing but the truth, and it did not tell the whole truth. It omitted to state that the organization was planned in Richmond; that its operations were directed by Jacob Thompson, who was in Canada for that purpose; and that wholesale robbery, arson, and midnight assassination were among its designs.
The point marked out for the first attack was Camp Douglas, at Chicago. The eight thousand Rebel soldiers confined there, being liberated and armed, were to be joined by the Canadian refugees and Missouri "Butternuts" engaged in their release, and the five thousand and more members of the treasonable order resident in Chicago. This force, of nearly twenty thousand men, would be a nucleus about which the conspirators in other parts of Illinois could gather; and, being joined by the prisoners liberated from other camps, and members of the order from other States, would form an army a hundred thousand strong. So fully had everything been foreseen and provided for, that the leaders expected to gather and organize this vast body of men within the space of a fortnight! The United States could bring into the field no force capable of withstanding the progress of such an army. The consequences would be, that the whole character of the war would be changed; its theatre would be shifted from the Border to the heart of the Free States; and Southern independence, and the beginning at the North of that process of disintegration so confidently counted on by the Rebel leaders at the outbreak of hostilities, would have followed.
What saved the nation from being drawn into this whirlpool of ruin? Nothing but the cool brain, sleepless vigilance, and wonderful sagacity of one man,—a young officer never read of in the newspapers,—removed from field-duty because of disability, but commissioned, I verily believe, by Providence itself to ferret out and foil this deeper-laid, wider-spread, and more diabolical conspiracy than any that darkens the page of history. Other men—and women, too—were instrumental in dragging the dark iniquity to light; but they failed to fathom its full enormity, and to discover its point of outbreak. He did that; and he throttled the tiger when about to spring, and so deserves the lasting gratitude of his country. How he did it I propose to tell in this paper. It is a marvellous tale; it will read more like romance than history; but, calling to mind what a good man once said to me, "Write the truth; let people doubt, if they will," I shall narrate the facts.
There is nothing remarkable in the appearance of this young man. Nearly six feet high, he has an erect, military carriage, a frank, manly face, and looks every inch a soldier,—such a soldier as would stand up all day in a square hand-to-hand fight with an open enemy; but the keenest eye would detect in him no indication of the crafty genius which delights to follow the windings of wickedness when burrowing in the dark. But if not a Fouché or a Vidocq, he is certainly an able man; for, in a section where able men are as plenty as apple-blossoms in June, he was chosen to represent his district in the State Senate, and, entering the army a subaltern officer, rose, before the Battle of Perryville, to the command of a regiment. At that battle a Rebel bullet entered his shoulder, and crushed the bones of his right elbow. This disabled him for field duty, and so it came about that he assumed the light blue of the veterans, and on the second day of May, 1864, succeeded General Orme in command of the military post at Chicago.
When fairly settled in the low-roofed shanty which stands, a sort of mute sentry, over the front gateway of Camp Douglas, the new Commandant, as was natural, looked about him. He found the camp—about sixty acres of flat, sandy soil, inclosed by a tight board fence, an inch thick, and fourteen feet high—had a garrison of but two regiments of veteran reserves, numbering, all told, only seven hundred men fit for duty. This small force was guarding eight thousand Rebel prisoners, one third of whom were Texas rangers, and guerrillas who had served under Morgan,—wild, reckless characters, fonder of a fight than of a dinner, and ready for any enterprise, however desperate, that held out the smallest prospect of freedom. To add to the seeming insecurity, nearly every office in the camp was filled with these prisoners. They served out rations and distributed clothing to their comrades, dealt out ammunition to the guards, and even kept the records in the quarters of the Commandant. In fact, the prison was in charge of the prisoners, not the prisoners in charge of the prison. This state of things underwent a sudden change. With the exception of a very few, whose characters recommended them to peculiar confidence, all were at once placed where they belonged,—on the inner side of the prison-fence.
A post-office was connected with the camp, and this next received the Commandant's attention. Everything about it appeared to be regular. A vast number of letters came and went, but they all passed unsealed, and seemed to contain nothing contraband. Many of them, however, were short epistles on long pieces of paper, a curious circumstance among correspondents with whom stationery was scarce and greenbacks were not over-plenty. One sultry day in June, the Commandant builded a fire, and gave these letters a warming; and lo! presto! the white spaces broke out into dark lines breathing thoughts blacker than the fluid that wrote them. Corporal Snooks whispered to his wife, away down in Texas, "The forthe of July is comin', Sukey, so be a man; fur I'm gwine to celerbrate. I'm gwine up loike a rocket, ef I does come down loike a stick." And Sergeant Blower said to John Copperhead of Chicago, "Down in 'old Virginny' I used to think the fourth of July a humbug, but this prison has made me a patriot. Now I'd like to burn an all-fired sight of powder, and if you help, and God is willing, I shall do it." In a similar strain wrote half a score of them.
Such patriotism seemed altogether too wordy to be genuine. It told nothing, but it darkly hinted at dark events to come. The Commandant bethought him that the Democratic Convention would assemble on the fourth of July; that a vast multitude of people would congregate at Chicago on that occasion; and that, in so great a throng, it would be easy for the clans to gather, attack the camp, and liberate the prisoners. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and the young Commandant was vigilant. Soon Prison-Square received a fresh instalment of prisoners. They were genuine "Butternuts," out at the toes, out at the knees, out at the elbows, out everywhere, in fact, and of everything but their senses. Those they had snugly about them. They fraternized with Corporal Snooks, Sergeant Blower, and others of their comrades, and soon learned that a grand pyrotechnic display was arranged to come off on Independence-day. A huge bonfire was to be built outside, and the prisoners were to salute the old flag, but not with blank cartridges.
But who was to light the outside bonfire? That the improvised "Butternuts" failed to discover, and the Commandant set his own wits to working. He soon ascertained that a singular organization existed in Chicago. It was called "The Society of the Illini," and its object, as set forth by its printed constitution, was "the more perfect development of the literary, scientific, moral, physical, and social welfare of the conservative citizens of Chicago." The Commandant knew a conservative citizen whose development was not altogether perfect, and he recommended him to join the organization. The society needed recruits and initiation-fees, and received the new member with open arms. Soon he was deep in the outer secrets of the order; but he could not penetrate its inner mysteries. Those were open to only an elect few who had already attained to a "perfect development"—of villany. He learned enough, however, to verify the dark hints thrown out by the prisoners. The society numbered some thousands of members, all fully armed, thoroughly drilled, and impatiently waiting a signal to explode a mine deeper than that in front of Petersburg.