Fielding was the assumed name of the Rebel who burrowed with Hines out of town, where not even his fellow-fiends could find him. Did the old fox scent the danger? Beyond a doubt he did. Another day, and the Texan's life might have been forfeit. Another day, and the camp might have been sprung upon a little too suddenly! So the Commandant was none too soon; and who that reads this can doubt that through it all he was led and guided by the good Providence that guards his country?
But what said Chicago, when it awoke in the morning? Let one of its own organs answer.
"A shiver of genuine horror passed over Chicago yesterday. Thousands of citizens, who awoke to the peril hanging over their property and their heads in the form of a stupendous foray upon the city from Camp Douglas, led by Rebel officers in disguise and Rebel guerrillas without disguise, and concocted by home Copperheads, whose houses had been converted into Rebel arsenals, were appalled as though an earthquake had opened at their feet.... Who can picture the horrors to follow the letting loose of nine thousand Rebel prisoners upon a sleeping city, all unconscious of the coming avalanche? With arms and ammunition stored at convenient locations, with confederates distributed here and there, ready for the signal of conflagration, the horrors of the scene could scarcely be paralleled in savage history. One hour of such a catastrophe would destroy the creations of a quarter of a century, and expose the homes of nearly two hundred thousand souls to every conceivable form of desecration."[G]
But the men of Chicago not only talked, they acted. They went to the polls and voted for the Union; and so told the world what honest Illinois thought of treason.
More arrests were made, more arms taken, but the great blow was struck and the great work over. Its head gone, the Conspiracy was dead, and it only remained to lay out its lifeless trunk for the burial. Yet, even as it lay in death, men shuddered to look on the hideous thing out of which had gone so many devils.
FOOTNOTES:
[D] See Fremantle's "Three Months in the Southern States," p. 148.
[E] Detective's description.
[F] Since the foregoing was written the Commandant's official report has been published. In reference to these arrests, he says, in a dispatch to General Cook, dated Camp Douglas, Nov. 7, 4 o'clock, A. M.:—
"Have made during the night the following arrests of Rebel officers, escaped prisoners of war, and citizens in connection with them:—