The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details | Page 2

and the reports in the
newspapers have been brief and irregular, and few, comparatively,
there are who have heard or read all of even the more important
testimony, or appreciate fully the vast magnitude of the conspiracy; and
there are many who having read only the indictment, have conceived
the idea that if the charges therein alleged are true, the crime was
confined to a few desperate and wicked men in Chicago alone, and that,
therefore, it possessed but a local interest. Such a conclusion is wholly
groundless. The history of this conspiracy is of the most vital interest
for the people of every State in the Union, for had the conspirators not
been foiled at a most opportune moment, their plans would have been
successful in every particular, and once in operation they could not
have been frustrated by any force we could have arrayed against them;
and who shall say that had the savage hordes of Jeff. Davis then been
turned loose upon an unarmed community, to carry desolation and ruin
as they should sweep over our fair States, that to-day the Southern
rebels would be, as they now are, in their last extremity--that victory
would now be perched upon our banners wherever our noble pioneers
of freedom advance, and that our brave boys of the Potomac would
now be reposing from, their labors in the halls of the rebel capitol!
Those who, upon investigation, fail to recognise the magnitude, the
sagacity, the completeness of this Northwestern Conspiracy, and realise
its immense importance to the rebel chieftains at the South,
corroborated as the evidence before the Commission has been by
incidents of almost daily occurrence for many months, have not learned
to read correctly the history of the Great Southern Rebellion. If an idea

ever entered the heads of malcontents at the North to establish a
Northwestern Confederacy, it was speedily chased away by the more
promising schemes of the arch traitor late of Richmond. It is to collect
facts already elicited, and to give further information, and with a hope
of aiding the cause of the Union so sacred and dear to us all, that the
writer has yielded to the oft-repeated requests of his friends to present a
connected and concise history of the Northwestern Conspiracy.
THE AUTHOR.

CHAP.I.
SECRET SERVICE TO SECURE SUCCESS OF SOUTHERN
ARMS--STATE SOVEREIGNTY--THE GENERAL PURPOSES OF
SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS--RECOLLECTIONS
THAT CAN NEVER DIE--VOICES FROM OUR BRAVE
SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT, BESPEAKING OUR PROTECTION
FOR THEIR WIVES, CHILDREN, PARENTS AND HOMES FROM
NORTHERN COPPERHEADS--CHARACTER OF THE LEADERS
OF THE DIFFERENT SECRET ORDERS.
The signal potency of secret organizations at the South prior to the
secession of States, and indeed the only really effective machinery by
which an attempt at disunion by the people could have been made to
appear possible, early in the great struggle engaged the earnest attention
of the Southern leaders. Knowing as they did that had the question of
secession been primarily an open one, for free discussion, that the
masses of the people would have rejected the proposition with deserved
scorn and indignation, and hung the ambitious adventurers who dared
propose the sacrilege. They realized the importance of establishing the
order in the North. The leaders saw with delight the working of secret
organizations, where men were sworn to secrecy, and drawn onward
step by step, till they reached the very brink of the fearful precipice.
Thus did the people fasten upon themselves and each other the shackles
of slavery, which they have since so unwillingly worn. The doctrine of
State sovereignty proclaimed by John C. Calhoun, and which, together

with its apostles, Jackson well knew how to receive, had been instilled
into the minds of the people of the States, which since their admission
into the Union had been at war with destiny, and in the hope of
securing perpetuity of their peculiar institutions, they attempted the
dissolution of the Union. Truly gratifying it must have been to the
extremists in those States to have watched the gathering clouds, and to
listen to the low murmuring thunder which presaged the coming storm,
and well they knew how fearful would be its fury, but blinded to the
inevitable result, they were confident of ultimate success, when they
should have so far disseminated the Calhoun poison at the North, as to
have made oath-bound slaves in such numbers as would paralyze the
efforts of Union men, and render it necessary to recall our armies from
the field to suppress insurrection at home, and to change the theatre of
the war to Northern soil. None knew the importance of introducing the
machinery of secret political organizations better than Davis himself,
for he had not forgotten the Charleston Convention, the working of the
secret orders then, and subsequent events had of course