SECOND ATTEMPT--HINES IN COMMAND AGAIN--COPPERHEADS AGAIN TO BE THE MAIN
FORCES TO BE RELIED UPON--REBEL GENERALS TO TAKE COMMAND OF THE RELEASED
PRISONERS AND THE INSURRECTIONARY FORCES--THE DAY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION APPOINTED AS THE ONE MOST PROPER FOR THE UPRISING--THE CAPTURE
OF SOME OF THE REBEL LEADERS AND THEIR SYMPATHIZING FRIENDS.
At the time the rebel officers and soldiers left Chicago, after the
Convention, none of them had any idea of ever coming back again, except
Capt. Hines and a few of the leaders who consulted with him. He was
shrewd enough to see that any effort at that time would be fruitless,
and determined, so far as possible, to have all the Copperheads
who would assist him in any second affair of the kind, drilled and
organized, and men able to render effective assistance. It was for
this purpose that he, with his comrades, went to Southern Illinois and
Indiana with cavalry and infantry tactics and all the appliances for
instructing others in military matters. The conspirators having failed
at Chicago during the convention to make their starting point, having
failed to make the great bonfire, which was to be the signal for
thousands of others not quite so large, to burn up brightly from almost
every hill-top in Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, it
was necessary for their leaders to meet again, and determine upon a
new programme. It appears that they did meet again, and again the
starting-point of the whole conspiracy was the release of the rebel
prisoners of war at Chicago, and from facts brought to light by the
evidence before the great military commission held in Cincinnati, Ohio,
the plan of operations was nearly the same as that of the first. The
prisoners being released at Chicago, those at Johnston's Island,
Camp Morton, Camp Chase and other places were to be released by their
friends, and then all were to be immediately placed under the command of
rebel generals sent here for the purpose of heading the rebellion, when
it once broke out. This may seem like fiction to some; the idea of rebel
generals being here in the North for the purpose of aiding and taking
the lead of the conspirators; but it is nevertheless true, as disclosed
by one of the prisoners taken at Chicago; and it also appears that
these generals had several states partitioned off into districts and
departments, of which, each department commander was to have exclusive
control.
The new programme having been adopted, all that was necessary was to fix
upon the day. The day must be one upon which more than the usual number
of visitors would be in the city, in order that their coming and staying
would not be noticed, and it seemed they selected the day of election,
as the one most suitable for their purposes; and if possible a day when
the military and civil authorities would be most likely to be caught
off their guard. For several days before the 8th of November last, their
spies had been coming into the city, in order to get suitable quarters
for the men when they arrived, and in parts of the city where they would
be least liable to suspicion. In the efforts to secure suitable boarding
houses for these incendiaries, various citizens of Chicago took an
active part, and even went to the depots to receive them, and escort
them into the bosom of the city they were so soon to attempt to destroy.
It was not until the Saturday just before the election, that Gen. Sweet
had positive information of the _rebels_ being in the city, and received
full information of the details of their plans, and began to take
measures quietly to capture them. This he did at once, and at the same
time had every preparation made to repel any attack upon the garrison of
Camp Douglas; and he succeeded admirably, following up his information
with such energy, that before daylight of the Monday morning following,
he had captured enough of the rebel leaders (and their friends in such
connexion as to leave no doubt of their guilt,) to make every disloyal
man quake in his boots. The captures of the military and police were
not confined alone to the conspirators, and in addition to them were
captured immense military stores of all kinds, boxes of guns already
shotted, cart loads of army pistols loaded and ready for the bloody work
expected of them, holsters, pistol belts, cartridges by the cart load,
and enough munitions of war to have started an arsenal of moderate size.
These arms were not taken from the rebels, but found in the houses
of citizens of Chicago, who can produce witnesses upon the stand (of
pretended loyalty and standing, some of them being office-holders under
the Government,) to swear that they themselves are, and have always been
loyal and true to their allegiance. In the house of Charles Walsh,
most of these arms were taken, and also there were captured two rebel
soldiers, Captain George Cantrill and Charles Travis Daniels, who were
shortly after identified; and Cantrill partly confessed his views, and
his complicity with the Copperheads. This man Cantrill had been one
of those who had come to Chicago during the Convention, for the same
purpose, and averred that then and at the election, the Copperheads had
offered and held out to them every inducement to get them here. That had
it not been for them he would never have come here. It may be well
here to publish a little incident, showing fully the kindred feelings
existing between the conspirators and the inmates of Camp Douglas. It
was a well known fact, that there were several thousand of John Morgan's
desperadoes confined in this prison, and the Copperhead conspirators, to
show their refinement of feeling, their accommodating dispositions, and
their attention to the worst of these men, had purchased for their use
exclusively, the finest cavalry carbines then made in the United States,
and had them stored in the immediate neighborhood of the prison, when
upon being released they could at once begin to revel in a carnival of
blood. Happy, happy for the people of Chicago, having passed through one
of the most critical periods of their existence, without knowing that
they were threatened with any disaster, ignorant that there was a mine
beneath their feet, just ready to be sprung at any moment, with their
own fellow citizens pulling at the spring, willing to involve them in
general and complete ruin--willing to subject them to the ravages of
such bloodthirsty villains as the inmates of Camp Douglas. The people of
Chicago never can appreciate, to its fullest extent, the danger through
which they have passed, for several reasons. First, because they were
ignorant of it at the time, and the conspirators had and have now at
their command, a bitter partizan press in their interests, and entirely
subservient to their views, whose interests it is to prevent these facts
from becoming generally believed, and when they are presented to the
public with the naked truth, to hiss at and cry them down as emanating
from the brains of lunatics, or a conspiracy of detectives to ruin the
reputation of innocent and guiltless persons. Secondly, because they
never experienced the horrors which must necessarily have followed had
the conspirators been successful.