EVIDENCE IN REGARD TO ATROCITIES NOT EMBRACED IN THE CHARGE AND
SPECIFICATIONS, FOR WHICH DAVIS AND HIS CANADA CABINET WERE
RESPONSIBLE.
It will have been noticed that in its charge and specifications
against the prisoners on trial the government charged Jefferson Davis,
George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary,
Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown,
with combining, confederating, and conspiring together with one John
H. Surratt and John Wilkes Booth to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln,
Andrew Johnson, William H. Seward, and Ulysses S. Grant; and in the
specifications it is alleged that David E. Herold, Edward Spangler,
Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt,
George Atzerodt, and Samuel A. Mudd, together with the said John H.
Surratt and John Wilkes Booth, incited and encouraged thereunto by
Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson,
William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and
others unknown, did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, and assault
violently with intent to kill William H. Seward. In this the government
distinctly and unequivocally charged Jefferson Davis and his allies
with inciting and encouraging the prisoners on trial to the commission
of this great crime, with the political intent of giving aid to their
sinking cause. They were not arraigned before the Commission, for they
were not in custody; but they were arraigned before the world. The
Commission was then not called upon to render a finding in their case;
but the government was called upon to present to the world through
the Commission the evidence on which its grave charge against these
men, who had rendered themselves conspicuous before the world, was
founded. Its honor and dignity made this obligatory upon it. A careful
reading of the charge and specifications on which the assassins were
arraigned and tried will show that it was competent for the government
to present, on that trial, the evidence in its possession on which
it charged Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly
Tucker, George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George Young, George
Harper, and others, as being inciters to this crime. This evidence was
so conclusive of their guilt as charged, that had they been before the
Commission they could only have escaped conviction by impeaching the
government's witnesses.
Before entering upon the consideration of the evidence a few prefatory
remarks seem to be necessary. At an early period of the rebellion
Jefferson Davis and his cabinet felt the necessity of sending some of
the strongest men of the Confederacy to establish their headquarters
in Canada, to look after the interests of the rebel cause, both at
home and abroad, and to render assistance to that cause in every way
that they could. Amongst its agents thus sent to Canada we find Jacob
Thompson of Mississippi, who had been Secretary of the Interior during
Buchanan's administration; Clement C. Clay, who had been a United
States Senator from Alabama; Beverly Tucker, who had been a circuit
judge in Virginia; George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George
Young, George Harper, and others of less note, acting in subordinate
capacities under the above conspicuous leaders and agents.
These agents had been domiciled within the territory of a neutral
government to carry on belligerent operations, contrary to the laws of
nations and also of war; and the operations planned by them from time
to time, and sometimes executed, were of the highest moral turpitude.
The fact that, although the government of Canada held the position of
a neutral power as between the belligerents, yet its people, in the
proportion of five to one, sympathized with the rebellion, made it very
favorable to the execution of the schemes of these Southern emissaries.
They also occupied a position that geographically was most favorable to
their purposes. They were within easy and constant communication with
the enemies of the government that were to be found in every Northern
State, and at the same time were able to afford a place of refuge for
rebel prisoners who were able to find means of escape from Northern
prisons. Canada was a place where disloyal refugees and persons accused
of offenses against the government congregated all through the war; and
so Jefferson Davis's Canada Cabinet was never at a loss for material
for carrying out its plans without regard to their character. They
were constantly surrounded by desperate and reckless men, who were in
deep sympathy with them in their desperate purpose to overthrow the
government, and like them, ready to engage in anything that might give
aid in carrying out that purpose. From the head of the rebel government
on down through the ranks of this class of its agents, there appears
to have been no restraint from any moral consideration. The honorable
men of the Confederacy were found, to a large extent, in the ranks of
its soldiers engaged in open warfare. The assassination plot was the
last card of these desperate men; it was preceded by many others in
which the laws of war and the laws of morals were utterly ignored. We
will, therefore, in the first place, present some of the most flagrant
of these, in regard to which the evidence makes Jefferson Davis and
his Canada Cabinet responsible, in order that from these revelations
we may be thoroughly informed of their utter disregard of every moral
consideration, and that we may thus be prepared for the conclusions to
which the evidence of their complicity in, and responsibility for, the
assassination plot point.
To show the utter lack of moral appreciation, the entire disregard of
all moral requirements, and contempt for the enlightened Christian
sentiment of the world as embodied in the accepted codes of martial and
international law, and that the assassination plot was only in keeping
with their other schemes to aid the rebel cause, I deem it necessary
to dwell at some length on the statement of these schemes, as shown
by the testimony before the Commission. The St. Albans raid, under
the lead of Lieutenant Bennett H. Young (made a lieutenant for this
occasion only, and that by the filling up for him of a Commission that
was sent to Clay, in blank, by the rebel secretary of war, and to be
thus conferred by him, at his discretion, on the persons he engaged in
such expeditions, as a protection in case of a trial for extradition),
was simply a hostile expedition planned by these conspirators, who
organized a squad of about twenty escaped Confederate soldiers from the
prisons in which they had been confined, and placed them under command
of Young, armed with one of these commissions for his protection. This
bogus lieutenant was instructed to pass through the New England States
with his command, and escape by the way of Halifax, burning towns
and farm-houses as he went; and by robbing and plundering to secure
all the money he could, and whatever else he could convert to the
use of the Confederate government. He made a foray into Vermont; set
fire to the town of St. Albans; robbed two banks, securing about two
hundred thousand dollars; and then, finding himself confronted by such
opposition that he was unable to proceed, was compelled to retreat into
Canada, being so closely pursued that he and a good part of his command
were made prisoners. They were committed to jail to await a trial for
extradition.
This was simply a guerilla raid, organized on neutral territory, not
for the purpose of engaging in open and honorable warfare against an
armed foe, but to burn and plunder the property of unarmed people,
who were non-combatants engaged in the pursuits of peaceful life.
Young's commission, however, enabled him to defeat the demand for his
extradition, as he was not captured until he had regained that neutral
territory on which, in violation of the law of nations, his expedition
had been organized. It is easy to see from this where the sympathies
of the Canadian court that tried this case lay. Pending this trial for
extradition, Clay became very uneasy for fear the commission conferred
by him on Young might not prove a sufficient protection, and so he sent
Richard Montgomery, who was in the employ of the United States in its
department of secret service, and who had so well wormed himself into
the confidence of the Canada Cabinet as to be employed by them on this
mission, with a letter to James A. Seddon, the rebel secretary of war,
urging him by every consideration he could think of to give a direct
sanction to Young's act, and to demand in the name of the Confederate
government that he should be released.
This letter was carried to Richmond by Montgomery, after having been
exhibited to the Secretary of War of the United States. I refer to
this as showing the status of Montgomery with these agents of the
Confederate government in Canada, and as evidence of his having gained
their entire confidence; and so he was in a position to be a witness,
before the Commission, as being informed of their plans and of their
doings. In response to this argument and earnest appeal of Clay, the
rebel government shouldered the responsibility of the St. Albans raid,
and shielded the raiders against extradition. The following is a copy
of Lieutenant Young's instructions from the rebel government:--
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,
WAR DEPARTMENT,
RICHMOND, VA., June 16th, 1864.
TO Lieutenant BENNETT H. YOUNG:--
LIEUTENANT:--You have been temporarily appointed first
lieutenant in the provisional army for special service. You
will proceed without delay to the British Provinces, where you
will report to Messrs. Thompson and Clay for instructions.
You will, under their direction, collect together such
Confederate soldiers who have escaped from the enemy, not
exceeding twenty in number, as you may deem suitable for the
purpose, and will execute such enterprises as may be entrusted
to you.
You will take care to commit no violation of the local law, and
to obey implicitly their instructions.
You and your men will receive from these gentlemen
transportation and the customary rations and clothing, or
commutation therefor.
JAMES A. SEDDON,
_Secretary of War_.
VA. June 16th.
Here we have the response to Clay's letter, and everything fixed up for
the defense of Young and his men after the act had been committed, the
papers being antedated to meet the requirements of the case.
During the progress of this trial for the extradition of the raiders,
Thompson, Clay, Tucker, and Sanders necessarily held a kind of
professional intercourse with the counsel representing the United
States. Sanders, on one occasion, became full of self-importance, as
also, probably, of whiskey, when his discretion forsook him, and he
gave vent to the vaunting and boasting of a braggadocio. He said this
raid was not the last that would occur, but it would be followed by the
depleting of many other banks and the burning of other towns on the
frontier, and that many Yankee sons of ---- (using a coarse and vulgar
expression) would be killed. He said they had their plans perfectly
organized, and men ready to sack and burn Buffalo, Detroit, New York,
and other places, and had deferred them for a time, but would soon see
the plans wholly executed; and any preparations that could be made by
the government to prevent them, would not, though they might delay them
for a time. He claimed to be acting as the agent of the Confederate
government, and we have seen that it assumed the responsibility.
Several other raids of like character were planned, but were prevented
by preparations which the government was enabled to make by being
informed of them in advance by persons engaged in its secret service,
or by other friends in Canada, who, being in the confidence of the
conspirators, became informed as to their plans.
These plans involved a warfare against non-combatants; a war, as we
shall see, of poisoning reservoirs, of burning towns and cities by
wholesale; a war of the destruction of men, women, and children;
burning of hospitals, churches, and private dwellings; a war for the
destruction of life and property; in short, a war against humanity.
The City of New York came in for a large share of their consideration.
The destruction of the Croton dam was an enterprise that seemed very
desirable to them, and for which they planned; and had the rebel armies
been able to keep the field a little while longer, this would no doubt
have been attempted and perhaps accomplished. The poisoning of the
reservoirs supplying the city with water seemed very desirable to them,
and was much discussed. This was one of the hobbies of the infamous Dr.
Blackburn and a Mr. M. A. Pallen of Mississippi, who had been a surgeon
in the rebel army. They had made a calculation of the capacity of the
reservoirs supplying the city, and had calculated the amount of poison
required to make an ordinary draught of water fatal to life. Amongst
the poisons they had considered arsenic, strychnine, and prussic acid
as available. Blackburn thought the project feasible. Thompson feared
it would be impossible to collect so large a quantity of poisonous
matter without exciting suspicion and leading to the detection of the
parties engaged in it. Pallen and others thought it could be managed
in Europe. This matter was fully and freely discussed in June, 1864, by
Blackburn, Pallen, Thompson, Sanders, and Cleary.
The moral question involved in the destruction, by poison, of the
entire population of the American commercial metropolis,--men,
women, and children,--did not enter into their thoughts; it was, in
fact, a scheme dear to their hearts; the difficulties attending its
accomplishment were the only things that gave them any trouble.
This is that same Dr. Blackburn who, with the approbation of Thompson
and his gang, made an effort in the summer of 1864 to spread pestilence
in Washington City, and in other cities occupied by federal troops,
as far south as could be reached, by means of clothing infected with
yellow fever and with small-pox.
Conover testified to this positively and circumstantially as one of
their many wicked schemes to spread consternation over the North, and
so demoralize the people that they would be willing to make peace on
any terms.
As this last scheme is so monstrous in character that it can only be
believed on the fullest proof, I give the testimony of Godfrey Joseph
Hyams before the Commission, in full.
"I am a native of London, Eng., but have lived south nine or ten years.
During the past year I have resided in Toronto, Can. About the middle
of December, 1863, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Blackburn. I was
introduced to him by the Rev. Stewart Robinson at the Queen's Hotel
in Toronto. I knew him by sight previously, but before that had no
conversation with him. I knew that he was a Confederate and was working
for the rebellion. Dr. Blackburn was then about to take south some men
who had escaped from the federal service, and I asked to go with him.
He asked me if I wanted to go south and serve the Confederacy. I said I
did. He then told me to come upstairs to a private room, as he wanted
to speak to me. He took me upstairs, and after we had entered his room
he pledged his word as a freemason, and offered his hand in friendship,
that he would never deceive me. He said he wanted to confide to me an
expedition. I told him I would not care if I did. He said I would make
an independent fortune by it, at least one hundred thousand dollars,
and get more honor and glory to my name than General Lee, and be of
more assistance to the Confederate government than if I was to take one
hundred thousand soldiers to reinforce General Lee. I pledged my word
that I would go if I could do any good. He then told me he wanted me
to take a certain quantity of clothing, consisting of shirts, coats,
and underclothing, into the States, and dispose of them by auction. I
was to take them to Washington City, to Norfolk, and as far south as I
could possibly go, where the federal government held possession and had
the most troops, and to sell them on a hot day or of a night; that it
did not matter what money I got for the clothing, I had just to dispose
of them in the best market where there were the most troops, and where
they would be most effective, and then come away. He told me I should
have one hundred thousand dollars for my services, sixty thousand
dollars of it directly after I returned to Toronto; but he said that
would not be a circumstance to what I should get. He said I might make
ten times one hundred thousand dollars. I was to stay in Toronto, and
go on with my legitimate business until I heard from him. He told me
to keep quiet, and if I moved anywhere I was to inform Dr. Stewart
Robinson where I went to, and he would telegraph for me, or write to me
through him. Sometime in the month of May, 1864, I went to my work and
worked on until the 8th day of June, '64; it was on a Saturday night; I
had been out to take a pair of boots home to a customer of mine; when I
returned home my wife had a letter for me from Dr. Blackburn, which Dr.
Stewart Robinson had left in passing there. I read the letter, and went
out to see Dr. Robinson. I asked him what I was to do about it. He said
he did not know anything about it; that he did not want to furnish any
means to commit an overt act against the United States government. He
advised me to borrow from Mr. Preston, who keeps a tobacco manufactory
in Toronto, enough money to take me to Montreal, and there get money
from Mr. Slaughter, according to the directions contained in Dr.
Blackburn's letter. This letter instructed me to proceed from Montreal
to Halifax to meet Dr. Blackburn; it was dated Havana, May 10th, 1864.
I went to Halifax to a gentleman by the name of Alexander H. Keith,
Jr., and remained under his care until Dr. Blackburn arrived in the
steamer 'Alpha,' on the 12th of July, 1864. When Dr. Blackburn arrived
he sent to the Farmer's Hotel, where I was staying, for me. I went
to see him, and he told me that the goods were on board the steamer
'Alpha,' and that the second officer on the steamer would go with me
and get the goods off, as they had been smuggled in from Bermuda. Mr.
Hill, the second officer, told me to get an express wagon and take it
down to Cunard's steamboat wharf. I did so, and there got eight trunks
and a valise. I was directed to take them to my hotel, and put them
in a private room. I put them in Mr. Doran's private sitting-room. I
then went around to Dr. Blackburn, and told him I had got the goods off
the steamer. He told me that the five trunks tied up with ropes were
the ones for me to take, and asked me if I would take the valise into
the States and send it by express, with an accompanying letter, as a
donation to President Lincoln. I objected to taking it, and refused
to do so. I then took three of the trunks and the valise around to
the hotel. He was then staying at the Halifax Hotel. The trunks had
Spanish marks upon them, and he told me to scrape them off, and that
Mr. Hill would go with me the next morning and make arrangements with
some captain of a vessel to take them. There were two vessels there
running to Boston, and I was to make an arrangement with either of them
to smuggle the trunks through to Boston. The next morning I went down
with Mr. Hill to the vessels. Mr. Hill had a private conversation with
Captain McGregor, the captain of the first vessel, to whom we applied
to take the goods, and he refused.
"We then went to see Captain O'Brien of the bark 'Halifax.' Hill told
him that I had some presents in my trunks, consisting of silks, satin
dresses, etc., that I wanted to take to my friends. The Captain and
Mr. Hill had a private conversation, and when the Captain came out he
consented to take them. I was to give him a twenty-dollar gold piece
for smuggling them in. I put them on board the vessel that day and he
stowed them away. The vessel lay five days at Boston before he could
get a chance to get them off, but finally he succeeded in getting them
off, and expressed them to Philadelphia, where I received them and
brought them to Baltimore. I then took out the goods, which were very
much rumpled, and smoothed them out and arranged them, bought some new
trunks, and repacked them and brought them to this city. Dr. Blackburn,
by way of caution, asked me before leaving if I had had the yellow
fever, and on my saying 'no,' he said, 'You must have a preventive
against taking it. You must get some camphor and chew it, and get some
strong cigars, the strongest you can get; and be sure to keep gloves
on your hands when handling the things.' He gave me some cigars that
he said he had brought from Havana, which he said were strong enough
for anything. When I arrived in this city, I turned over five of the
trunks to Messrs. W. L. Wall & Company, commission merchants in this
city, and four to a man by the name of Myers, from Boston, a sutler
for Siegel's or Weitzel's division. He said he had some goods which he
was going to take to New Berne, N.C., and I told him that I had a lot
of goods that I wanted to sell, and, to make the best market I could
for them, I would turn them over to him on commission. I also told him
I would shortly have more, and mentioned that I had disposed of some
to Wall & Company, of this city. Dr. Blackburn told me, when I was
making arrangements, that I should let the parties to whom I disposed
of my goods know that I would have a big lot to sell, as it was in
contemplation to get together about a million dollars' worth of goods
and dispose of them in that way. Dr. Blackburn stated that his object
in having these goods disposed of in different cities was to destroy
the armies, or anybody that they came in contact with. All these goods,
he told me, had been carefully infected in Bermuda with yellow fever,
small-pox, and other contagious diseases.
"The goods in the valise, which were intended for President Lincoln,
I understood him to say had been infected with yellow fever and
small-pox. This valise I declined taking charge of and turned it over
to him at Halifax Hotel, and I afterwards heard that it had been
sent to the President. On the five trunks that I turned over to Wall
& Company I got an advance of one hundred dollars. Among these five
trunks there was one that was always spoken of by Blackburn to me as
'Big No. 2,' which he said I must be sure to have sold in Washington.
On disposing of the trunks I immediately left Washington, and went
straight through until I got to Hamilton, Canada. In the waiting-room
there I met Mr. Holcomb and Clement C. Clay. They both rose, shook
hands with me, and congratulated me upon my safe return, and upon my
making a fortune. They told me I should be a gentleman for the future,
instead of a working man and a mechanic. They seemed perfectly to
understand the business in which I had been engaged.
"Mr. Holcomb told me that Dr. Blackburn was at the Donegan Hotel, in
Montreal, and that I had better telegraph to him stating that I had
returned. As Dr. Blackburn had requested me to telegraph to him as soon
as I got into Canada, I did so, and the next night, between eleven and
twelve o'clock, Dr. Blackburn came up and knocked at the door of my
house. I was in bed at the time. I looked out of the window, and saw
Dr. Blackburn there. Said he, 'Come down, Hyams, and open the door; you
are like all damned rascals who have been doing something wrong--you're
afraid that the devil is after you.' He was in company with Bennett
H. Young. I came down and let him in. He asked me how I had disposed
of the goods and I told him. 'Well,' said he 'that is all right as
long as "Big No. 2" went into Washington; it will kill them at sixty
yards distance.' I then told the doctor that everything had gone wrong
at my home in my absence; that I needed some funds; that my family
needed money. He said he would go to Colonel Jacob Thompson and make
arrangements for me to draw upon him for any amount of money that I
required. He then said that the British authorities had solicited his
services in attending the yellow fever that was then raging in Bermuda;
that he was going on there; and that as soon as he came back he would
see me. I went up to Jacob Thompson the next morning, and told him what
Dr. Blackburn had said. He said 'Yes'; Dr. Blackburn had been there
and had made arrangements for me to draw one hundred dollars whenever
it was shown that I had made disposition of the goods according to his
directions. I told him I needed money; that I had been so long away
from home that everything I had was gone, and I wanted money to pay
my rent, etc. He said, 'I will give you fifty dollars now, but it is
against Dr. Blackburn's request; when you show me that you have sold
the goods, I will give you the balance.' He asked me to give him a
receipt, which I did: 'Received of Jacob Thompson the sum of fifty
dollars on account of Dr. Blackburn.' That was about the 11th or 12th
of August last. The next day I wrote to Messrs. Wall & Company, of
Washington, desiring them to send me an account of the sales, and the
balance due me. When I received their answer, I took it to Colonel
Thompson. He then said he was perfectly satisfied I had done my part,
and gave me a check for fifty dollars on the Ontario Bank. I gave him
a receipt: 'Received of Jacob Thompson one hundred dollars in full
on account of Dr. Luke P. Blackburn.' I told Thompson of the large
sum which Dr. Blackburn had promised me for my services and that he
and Mr. Holcomb had both told me that the Confederate government had
appropriated two million dollars for the purpose of carrying it out;
but he would not pay me any more. When Dr. Blackburn returned from
Bermuda, I wrote to him at Montreal, and told him I wanted some money,
and that he ought to send me some; but he made no reply to my letter. I
was then sent down to Montreal with a commission for Bennett H. Young,
to be used in his defense in the St. Albans raid case. I there met Dr.
Blackburn. He said I had written some hard letters to him, abusing him,
and that he had no money to give me. He then got into his carriage at
the door and rode off to some races, I think, and never gave me any
more satisfaction. As I wanted money before leaving for the States,
I went to the Clifton House, Niagara. Dr. Blackburn told me he had
no money with him then, but that he would go to Mr. Holcomb and get
some, as he had Confederate funds with him. Blackburn said that when I
returned he would get the money for the expedition from either Holcomb
or Thompson, it did not matter which. From this, and from Holcomb and
Clay both shaking hands with me and congratulating me at Hamilton upon
my safe return, I thought, of course, they knew all about it. I do not
know that Dr. Stewart Robinson knew of the business in which I was
engaged, but he took good care of me while I was at Toronto, in the
fall, and until Dr. Blackburn wrote for me in the spring; and when he
gave me Dr. Blackburn's letter, he told me to borrow the money from Mr.
Preston to take me to Montreal, as he said he did not want to commit
an overt act against the Government of the United States himself. Mr.
Preston lent me ten dollars to go to Montreal. On arriving at that
place, according to the directions of Dr. Blackburn's letter, I went
to Mr. Slaughter to get the means to take me to Halifax. Mr. Slaughter
was short of funds, and had only twenty dollars that he could give me.
He said that I had better go to Mr. Holcomb, who was staying at the
Donegan Hotel, and he would give me the balance. I went to the Hotel
and sent up my name, and he sent for me to come up. I told him I wanted
some money to take me to Halifax; he asked me how much I wanted; I told
him as much as would make up forty dollars; he said 'You had better
take fifty dollars,' but as I did not want that much I only took enough
to make forty dollars. When I came to Washington to dispose of my
goods, which was on the 5th of August, 1864, I put up at the National
Hotel, registered my name as J. W. Harris, under which name I did
business with Wall & Company."
Here we have a straightforward, circumstantial account of the efforts
made and the means used to spread pestilence and death amongst citizens
and soldiers alike, in the capital of the nation, and in other cities
and camps, a special consignment, supposed to contain the contagion
of yellow fever and small-pox, being sent as "a donation to President
Lincoln." This was for the purpose of taking his life, and at the
risk of the lives of his household. Blackburn, Clay, Thompson, and
Holcomb were the originators of the plan, and as guilty as the infamous
scoundrel, Hyams, who, to gratify his desire for revenge on them for
their perfidy in putting him off with a mere pittance of the promised
reward for his services in the matter, comes before the Commission and
reveals the whole history of their infamy. No one who reads his story
will doubt that he was a conscienceless scoundrel, who, for the hope of
obtaining a large sum of money, according to their promise, was willing
to make himself an instrument in the wholesale and indiscriminate
destruction of human life. But monster as he was, he was not more a
monster than was each one of his employers. He was evidently a man
well qualified for the task in which he was employed; in the first
place destitute of conscience, and then a man of a good degree of
intelligence, shrewdness, and knowledge of affairs. Granting that he
was selected by Dr. Robinson, and recommended by him to Dr. Blackburn,
he could not have made a better selection had he had full knowledge
of the work cut out for him to do. And when we consider Blackburn's
perfidy in his dealings with him, pledging his faith as a freemason and
giving him his hand in friendship, assuring him that he would never
deceive him; then building him up in the idea that he would receive
one hundred thousand dollars, and perhaps ten times that amount as his
reward; and then, after he had performed a service that put his own
life in jeopardy, to put him off with a mere pittance of the amount
promised, we cannot wonder that a man constituted as Hyams was should
divulge the terrible secret in revenge for the shabby treatment he had
received at their hands.
See how Clay and Holcomb meet him on his return! They understand all
about the character of his mission, congratulate him on his safe
return, and on the fact that from thenceforth he was not to be known as
a laboring man and a mechanic, but as a gentleman.
No wonder that he, when for the pitiful sum of one hundred dollars he
had signed for Thompson a receipt in full on account of Dr. Blackburn,
vowed to have revenge. How true it is that there must be honor even
amongst the worst of villains, in order that they may hang together.
They broke faith with Hyams, and Hyams revealed circumstantially, and
fully, their great crime against humanity. We have now seen these men
planning to poison the water supply of New York City to the extent of
fatality to its whole population, men, women, and children,--helpless
age, and more helpless infancy doomed to death by the scope of their
plan; and now, we have found them engaged in an effort to spread
pestilence with the same purpose of the indiscriminate destruction of
human life. What worse can they do? Can we after this be surprised at
anything they may undertake? It will not avail to say that a man who
could be hired to do such a thing as this is unworthy of credence, even
under oath, and so that his testimony is not to be received. Hyams'
story bears on its face the marks of a truthful narrative of the facts,
just as they occurred, and it does not follow that because a man is a
confessed scoundrel he is incapable of telling the truth. No adequate
motive for falsehood in this case can be assigned. Had his employers
kept faith with him, he would no doubt have kept their terrible secret,
and it would have been buried with him. That they did not, only becomes
a reason for his disclosure of the facts, not for his fabrication of
falsehoods. But then his statement as to how he disposed of the goods
in Washington City is fully confirmed by the testimony of Wall &
Company, who produced an account of the transaction agreeing exactly,
in date and amount, with that given by Hyams, and also in regard to his
_alias_ of J. W. Harris. It was also corroborated by the National Hotel
register of that date.
Conover testified to this as one of the schemes planned by Thompson
and his gang, and Hyams gives a full account of the manner of its
execution. For some reason the infection was a failure in Washington
City; but not so with the goods sent by Myers, the sutler, to New
Berne, N.C. It will be recollected that an epidemic of yellow fever
broke out there in the latter part of the summer of 1864, that swept
away large numbers of people, both citizens and soldiers. No doubt this
epidemic was due to the infection carried in the clothing that Myers
received from Hyams, to be sold on commission; and that in the great
day of final account these men will find themselves arraigned as the
murderers of all those who fell as the victims of their hellish plot,
before a tribunal that is infinitely perfect in its knowledge and just
in its decisions.
_Plot to Burn New York City and its Attempted Execution._
The plot to burn the city of New York was attempted to be carried out
on the 25th of November, 1864. I will give the history of this attempt
as narrated in his confession, by Robert C. Kennedy, one of the gang
of incendiaries sent there for that purpose, who was arrested, tried,
found guilty, condemned, and hanged for his crime. Before his execution
he made a full confession as follows:--
"After my escape from Johnson's Island I went to Canada,
where I met a number of Confederates. They asked me if I was
willing to go on an expedition. I replied: 'Yes, if it is in
the service of my country.' They said: 'It is all right,' but
gave me no intimation of its nature, nor did I ask for any.
I was then sent to New York, where I stayed some time. There
were eight men of our party, of whom two fled to Canada. After
we had been in New York three weeks we were told that the
object of our expedition was to retaliate on the North for the
atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley. It was designed to set
fire to the city on the night of the Presidential election; but
the phosphorus was not ready, and it was put off until the 25th
of November. I was stopping at the Belmont House, but moved
into Prince Street. I set fire to four places--in Barnum's
Museum, Lovejoy's Hotel, Tammany Hotel, and the New England
House. The others merely started fires in the house where each
one was lodging, and then ran off. Had they all done as I did,
we would have had thirty-two fires and played a huge joke on
the fire department. I know that I am to be hung for setting
fire to Barnum's Museum, but that was only a joke. I had no
idea of doing it. I had been drinking and went in there with a
friend, and, just to scare the people, I emptied a bottle of
phosphorus on the floor. We knew it would not set fire to the
wood, for we had tried it before, and at one time had concluded
to give the thing up. There was no fiendishness about it.
After setting fire to my four places, I walked the streets all
night, and went to the Exchange Hotel early in the morning. We
all met there that morning and the next night. My friend and I
had rooms there, but we sat in the office nearly all the time
reading the papers, while we were watched by the detectives,
of whom the hotel was full. I expected to die then, and if I
had it would have been all right; but now it seems rather hard.
I escaped to Canada and was glad enough when I crossed the
bridge in safety. I desired, however, to return to my command,
and started with my friend for the Confederacy _via_ Detroit.
Just before entering the city he received an intimation that
the detectives were on the look-out for us, and giving me the
signal he jumped from the cars. I did not notice the signal,
but kept on and was arrested in the depot. I wish to say that
the killing of women and children was the last thing thought
of. We wanted to let the people of the North understand that
there were two sides to this war, and that they could not
be rolling in wealth and comfort while we at the South were
bearing all the hardships and privations. In retaliation for
Sheridan's atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley, we desired to
destroy property; not the lives of women and children, although
that would, of course, have followed in its train."
Done in the presence of
LIEUT. COL. MARTIN BURKE and
J. HOWARD, JR.
March 24th, 1865, 10.30 P.M.
Kennedy, in the presence of death, made this free and full confession,
carefully confining himself to the narration of his own and the
acts of his fellow incendiaries. He does not tell who planned this
enterprise of death and destruction for the great metropolis of the
country, and whilst honestly confessing his own part in it, is very
careful not to compromise anybody else. But we are not left without
information as to who were the employers of him and his gang; and
here again Thompson and his fellow agents of the rebel government
in Canada are made to appear as its originators, and must be held
responsible, not only for the attempt thus made to destroy New York by
fire, but also for the worst consequences that could have happened had
their attempt proven successful.[3] Kennedy says they did not desire
to destroy the lives of women and children, although that would of
course have followed in its train. Thompson, Clay, Cleary, Sanders,
and any others that had any hand in setting this expedition on foot,
could not fail to know what would necessarily follow in its train if
successful, but were not deterred by the knowledge of the fact that
it involved not merely the destruction of property, but of necessity
also the destruction of women and children; for the firing of a city
like New York in many places, simultaneously, if successful in its
object, the destruction of the city, must necessarily result in the
same kind of indiscriminate destruction of human life that resulted
at New Berne, from the dissemination of pestilence sent there in the
clothing that that inhuman fiend, Dr. Blackburn, had carefully infected
and sent there for that very purpose. In the early ages of the world
war meant the indiscriminate destruction of all that belonged to the
enemy. The spirit of war then was to exterminate the foe. Prisoners of
war were slaughtered after the battle was ended. Women and children
were killed or carried into slavery. Men had not learned to exercise
mercy in war. It meant universal destruction of life, and confiscation
of the property of the enemy. It meant even the confiscation of the
territory or country in which he lived. It is so yet among the savage
tribes of the earth. With them the murder of a woman about to become a
mother is nothing, and the dashing out of the brains of her children
against a stone or a tree, before her eyes, yields to them a fiendish
satisfaction. Civilized nations, however, do not so carry on war, and
the laws of war do not permit this mode of warfare. The annals of no
age of the world, or of the most rude and savage people of the earth,
afford examples more atrocious than those planned and executed, or
attempted to be executed, by these agents of Jefferson Davis in Canada,
and by other agents, as we shall see, whose deeds were sanctioned and
paid for by Davis and his Secretary of State Benjamin.
The prison-pen at Andersonville was evidently planned for the
destruction of the lives of the prisoners of war that were sent
there; and if any escaped death, it was intended that they should be
so physically injured that they could never again render any service
to the Union cause. In a country abounding in forest shade and pure
water, there can be no excuse given for locating a prison-pen in a
little intervale, wholly destitute of shade, where men without tents or
shelter of any kind were huddled together by the thousands, with a very
meagre supply of water, for a long time, even for quenching thirst, and
none at all for the purposes of cleanliness, and what they had for the
former purpose being contaminated with all the filth from the drainage
of the town just above.
It is evident that this location was made with a view to the
destruction of life and the ruin of health. Then, for the further
carrying out of this purpose, the rations supplied were not only wholly
insufficient in quantity, but most unwholesome in quality, exactly
adapted to aid the effects of miasmatic exposure, and foul water, in
bringing on stomach and bowel troubles and low forms of fever, which
were kept up until life was literally drained out, and death from
exhaustion ensued. Here, without any sympathetic medical assistance or
proper medicine, men were dying daily by the fifties and the hundreds,
and the survivors becoming mere ghostly spectres; whilst the inhuman
monster, Wirtz, stood gloating over the scene in devilish glee, and
his inhuman guards were constantly on the look-out for pretexts to
shoot down their fellowmen, as though the terrible harvest of death,
secured by their arrangements and management of this graveyard of the
living, was too meagre, and required their bullets to enrich it. Such
was Andersonville. The purpose of its location and management are too
obvious to need remark; and for all this, Jefferson Davis and his
Secretary of War are to be held responsible. Far be it from me to bring
up this matter for the purpose of giving a fresh impulse to sectional
enmity. I only do it to show the low moral status of those who were
responsible for the conduct of the war on the side of the rebellion, in
order that from all this we may be prepared for the evidence presented
to the world through the Commission, sustaining the grave charges of
the government.
There was no doubt an element, perhaps a large element of the
population of the Southern States, that was in full sympathy with
this policy; but such a policy could only have been abhorrent to the
honorable foe who bravely confronted us on the field of conflict.
It was the stay-at-home-and-fight element that sanctioned these
atrocities. War is cruel when conducted on the strictest rules of
civilized warfare. War is destructive; it is harsh and unrelenting.
Foeman must meet foeman with his steel. It is a game in which human
life is always the price of success and the cost of failure. The enemy
must be met and overcome; his resources must be reached and cut off if
it can be done, thus starving him into submission, as a more humane way
of getting the victory over him than by taking his life. But amongst
civilized people no enemy is to be deprived of life but the armed
and active foe in the field, in honorable and open combat, except
for crime. The lives of women, children, prisoners of war, and of
non-combatants generally, must be held sacred. Thus we see how much the
horrors of war have been mitigated by the more enlightened sentiments
and Christian morality of the world's present state of civilization.
When these shall have done their perfect work, wars will cease. The
time will yet come when men shall learn war no more. May God hasten the
day.
In charging Jefferson Davis, and those associated with him in the
conduct of the war with an utter disregard of the laws of war, and of
being guilty of atrocities that are only matched in savage life, I wish
again to make a distinct disclaimer in behalf of those who fought, and
of those who conducted his operations in the field. Whilst I abhor
their construction of the Constitution and theory of the union of the
States as destructive of the hopes of liberty and of free government,
tending continually to disintegration, and making the idea of a nation
an impossibility, I admire and honor the courage and bravery with which
they maintained their theory, and accord to them the honor, as well as
the courage of true soldiers.
To them the idea of winning success by the means we have had under
consideration, and for which we have found the political leaders
of the rebellion responsible, including the highest officer of the
Confederacy, would have been as abhorrent as to myself. Not a word
that I have written can tarnish the fame of the true soldier; and I
have carefully avoided charging anything against even the politicians
of the Confederacy that is not sustained by indisputable evidence.
Considered morally, their methods can never be justified; yet it was
by these methods, with assassination added, that the political leaders
of the rebellion sought to obtain success, and because of this, must
for all time in history fall under the condemnation of the enlightened
Christian conscience of the world. That they were guilty of all these
things has been abundantly proven; but as we shall see, the evidence
has not yet been exhausted. They attempt to shield themselves under the
claim of justifiable retaliation. Retaliation for what? They answer,
"The atrocities committed by Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley." Let us
consider this question for a moment. It was the fortune of the writer
to be serving under Sheridan at the time these alleged atrocities were
committed, and to be an eye-witness of them. What did Sheridan do? He
burnt all the stack-yards and barns containing grain and hay, and all
the mills and factories found in the valley from above Harrisonburg
on down to near Winchester, or perhaps lower down than that. He also
appropriated all the horses, cattle, sheep, etc., that could have been
made available for the support and aid of an enemy. He dealt merely
with property, and that such property alone as would have enabled
General Lee again to have threatened the national capital by an
invading foe by this route, as he had twice, or oftener, done before,
thus making it necessary to employ a large force from our army in
guarding this route. General Grant determined to render this division
of his forces unnecessary, by rendering the valley impracticable to
Lee by this destruction of the abundant supplies that it furnished,
in order that he might have the benefit of Sheridan's forces in his
investment of Richmond.
It was simply the destruction of property by which the rebellion could
sustain itself, and thus prolong its existence, in order to shorten the
war, and thus save the expenditure of human life. There was no property
destroyed or confiscated but such as could be used for the subsistence
and movements of an army. It was simply a question of shortening the
war, and thus economizing human life by the destruction of property,
and so was a measure fully justified by the laws and usages of war.
Sheridan acted under Grant's orders in this matter, and his acts were
only atrocious as war itself is atrocious, and can never serve as a
justification of schemes that in every instance involved the lives of
non-combatants, and even of women and children. All of this destruction
of property in the Shenandoah Valley by Sheridan was done, and
accounted for, strictly in accordance with the laws and usages of war,
and has never been challenged by the civilized nations of the world as
an unwarranted atrocity. It was harsh in the extreme; but as a military
necessity it was justifiable. It included in its object mercy towards
the lives of men.
As the cause of the Confederacy began to lose ground in the summer
of 1864, and the signal success of our arms made it clear that it
would not be able to maintain the fight to a successful close, the
political leaders became desperate and reckless as to the means to
which they resorted. The City Point explosion, the burning of a number
of steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the burning of a
soldiers', or United States, hospital at Louisville, Ky., were amongst
the occurrences of that eventful summer. The following extract from
the report of John Maxwell to Captain Z. McDaniel, commanding Torpedo
Company, explains the City Point explosion:--
"Captain: I have the honor to report that in obedience to your order,
and with the means and equipments furnished me by you, I left this city
(Richmond) 26th July last for the line of the James River, to operate
with the 'hozological torpedo' against the enemy's vessels navigating
that river. I had with me Mr. R. K. Dillard, who was well acquainted
with the localities, and whose services I engaged for the expedition.
"On arriving in Isle of Wight County, on the 2d of August, we
learned of immense supplies of stores being landed at City Point; and
for the purpose, by stratagem, of introducing our machine upon the
vessels there discharging stores, started for that point. We reached
there before day-break on the 9th of August last, having travelled
mostly by night, and crawled upon our knees to pass the east picket
line. Requesting my companion to remain behind about half a mile, I
approached cautiously the wharf, with my machine and powder covered by
a small box. Finding the captain had come ashore from a barge then at
the wharf, I seized the occasion to hurry forward with my box. Being
halted by one of the wharf sentinels, I succeeded in passing him by
representing that the captain had ordered me to convey the box on
board. Hailing a man from the barge, I put the machine in motion, and
gave it in his charge. He carried it aboard. The machine contained
about twelve pounds of powder. Rejoining my companion we retired to a
safe distance to witness the effect of our effort.
"In about an hour the explosion took place. Its effect was communicated
to another barge beyond the one operated upon, and also to a large
wharf building containing their stores (enemy's), which was totally
destroyed. The scene was terrific, and the effect deafened my companion
to an extent from which he has not recovered. My own person was
severely shocked, but I am thankful to Providence that we have both
escaped without injury. We obtained and enclose slips from the enemy's
newspapers, which afford their testimony of the terrible effects of the
blow. The enemy estimate the loss of life at fifty-eight killed and
one hundred and twenty-six wounded, but we have reason to believe it
greatly exceeded that.
"The pecuniary damage we heard estimated at four millions of dollars;
but of course we can give you no account of the extent of it exactly. I
may be permitted, Captain, here to remark _that a party of ladies_, it
seems, were killed by this explosion. It is saddening to me to realize
the fact that the terrible effects of war [he should have added as thus
conducted] induce such consequences; but when I remember the ordeal to
which our own women have been submitted, and the barbarities of the
enemy's crusade against us and them, my feelings are relieved by the
reflection that whilst this catastrophe was not _intended_ by us, it
amounts only, in the providence of God, to _just retribution_."
Hear the pious scoundrel salving his conscience with the old cry of
"just retribution!"
The following will explain the agency by which boats on the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers, and the United States Hospital at Louisville,
Ky., were burned. It is the testimony of Edward Frazier before the
Commission:--
"I am a steamboat man, and have been making St. Louis my home for the
last nine or ten years. During 1864 I knew of the operations of Tucker,
Minor Majors, Thomas L. Clark, and Colonel Barrett, of Missouri, for
burning boats carrying government freight, transports, and other
vessels on the Ohio and Mississippi and other rivers. These men were
in the service of the Confederate Government. I knew of the following
steamboats having been burned by the operations of these parties: the
'Imperial,' 'Hiawatha,' the 'Robert Campbell,' the 'Louisville,' the
'Daniel G. Taylor,' and others, besides some in New Orleans that I
do not know the names of. The 'Imperial' was one of the largest and
finest transports on the western waters. In the case of the burning
of the 'Robert Campbell,' which was destroyed in the stream when
under way, at Milikin's Bend, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg,
there was a considerable loss of life. The agent who destroyed this
boat was on board. These boats were all owned by private individuals.
The operations of these men were to include government hospitals,
store-houses, and everything appertaining to the enemy. A United States
hospital at Louisville was burned in June or July of 1864. I do not
know who burned it, but a man named Dillingham claimed compensation for
it. I was in Richmond from the 20th to the 25th or 26th of August last,
when I had an interview with the rebel Secretary of War, the Secretary
of State, and Mr. Jefferson Davis. Thomas L. Clark, Dillingham, and
myself, called there in connection with the boat burning, and put in
claims to Mr. James A. Seddon, the rebel Secretary of War. Mr. Clark
introduced me to Mr. Seddon. He told me that he had thrown up that
business, that it was now in the hands of Mr. Benjamin. We went to
him, and Mr. Benjamin looked at the papers we brought him, and asked
me if I knew anything about them. I told him that I did, and that I
believed they were all right. He asked me if I was from St. Louis. I
told him I was. He then asked Mr. Clark if he knew me to be all right,
and he said I had been represented to him by Mr. Majors as being all
right. Mr. Benjamin told us all three to call the next day. We did
so, when he said he had shown these papers to Jefferson Davis, and he
(Benjamin) wanted to know if we would not take thirty thousand dollars
and sign receipts in full. We told him we would not. Mr. Benjamin
then said that if Dillingham was to claim this in Louisville, he
wanted a statement of it. We went back to the hotel, and I wrote the
statement myself. It read that Mr. Dillingham had been hired by General
Polk, and that he had been sent to Louisville expressly to do that
work; namely, to burn the hospital. It was then talked over with Mr.
Benjamin, and we made a settlement with him for fifty thousand dollars;
thirty-five thousand dollars down in gold, and fifteen thousand dollars
on deposits, to be paid in four months, provided the claims proved
correct. The money was paid by a draft on Columbia for thirty-four
thousand, eight hundred dollars, in gold, and two hundred dollars in
gold we got in Richmond. We received the gold on the draft at Columbia.
Whilst in Richmond, Mr. Benjamin told me that Mr. Davis wanted to
see me. I went in with Mr. Benjamin to see Mr. Davis, and we sat and
talked. The conversation first was about what was called the Long
Bridge, between Nashville and Chattanooga. Mr. Davis wanted to know
what I thought about destroying it. He said they had been thinking of
it, and of sending some one to have it done. I told him I knew of the
bridge, though I did not, for I had never been there, but did not know
what to think about destroying it. He said I had better study it over.
Finally I told him I thought it could be done. Mr. Benjamin, I believe
it was, first remarked that he would give four hundred thousand dollars
if that bridge was destroyed, and asked me if I would take charge of
it. I told him I would not unless the passes were taken away from those
men that were now down there, and Mr. Davis said it should be done.
The conversation then turned on the burning of the steamboats. I told
Mr. Davis that I did not think it was any use burning steamboats, and
he said no, he was going to have that stopped. The next day I saw an
order taking away passes issued on or before the 23d of August. These
passes were permits to do this kind of work. I presume Mr. Davis knew
that the money I received was for the work that I had done; he knew
that I had received money there. Mr. Davis seemed fully aware of what
we had done, and he did not condemn it. Mr. Majors and Barrett belonged
to an organization known as the 'O. A. K.', or 'Order of American
Knights.'" The witness was asked to state, if he thought proper to
do so, whether he was also a member of that order; but he declined
to say. "I understood" (said the witness) "that Colonel Barrett held
the position of adjutant general of this organization, of the Sons
of Liberty, for the State of Illinois. I do not know that Majors and
Barrett were in Chicago in July last, but Mr. Majors left St. Louis
either in June or July, to go to Canada, and I presume went there by
way of Chicago."
Here again, we see the moral plane on which Davis and Benjamin worked
for the success of the Confederacy. We find them employing and paying
agents for burning boats, midstream, regardless of the destruction
of the lives of non-combatants, including, most likely, women and
children amongst the passengers aboard; burning a hospital filled
with sick, wounded, and dying soldiers, who, according to the laws of
civilized warfare, are entitled to the sacred protection of even the
enemy, whether in or out of their territory and possession. We have now
found Davis and his agents in Canada planning and carrying out schemes
for assassination or murder by wholesale, by spreading pestilence,
poisoning of reservoirs, burning cities, hospitals, and boats on their
way loaded with passengers, and by the use of explosives murdering
women. Human life, under any imaginable conditions of existence,
received no consideration at their hands if its sacrifice held out to
them any prospect of advancing their cause.
Another foul plot to murder prisoners of war held in Libby Prison,
right under the eyes of Davis and his Cabinet, is detailed as follows
by Erastus W. Ross, a witness before the Commission:--
"I was in the service of the rebel government. I was conscripted and
detailed as a clerk at Libby Prison, and never served in the army. In
March, 1864, General Kilpatrick was making a raid in the direction of
Richmond. About that time the prison was mined. I saw the place where I
was told the powder was buried under the prison; it was in the middle
of the building. The powder was put there secretly in the night. I
never saw it, but I saw the fuse. It was put in the office. I was away
at my uncle's the night that the powder was put there, and was told of
it the next morning by one of the colored men at the prison. There were
two sentinels near the place to prevent any person approaching it. The
excavation made was about the size of a barrel head, and the earth was
thrown up loosely over it. Major Turner, the commandant of the prison,
had charge of the fuse. He told me that the powder was there, and that
the fuse was to set it off; that it was put there for the security of
the prisoners, and if the army got in it was to be set off for the
purpose of blowing up the prison and the prisoners. The powder was
secretly taken out in May, and the whole building was then shut up.
The prisoners had all been sent to Macon, Ga. I suppose the powder was
placed there by the authority of General Winder or the Secretary of
War. Major Turner said he was acting under the authority of the rebel
war department, though I never saw any written orders about it."
John Latouche testified as follows: "I was first lieutenant in Company
B, Twenty-fifth Virginia Battalion, C. S. A. I was detailed to post
duty in Richmond to regulate the details of the guards of the military
prisons there, and in March, 1864, I was on duty at Libby Prison. Major
Turner, the keeper of the prison, told me that he was going to see
General Winder about the guard. On his return he told me that General
Winder himself had been to see the Secretary of War, and that they were
going to put powder under the prison. In the morning of the same day
the powder was brought. There were two kegs of about twenty-five pounds
each, and a box which contained about as much as the kegs. A hole was
dug in the centre of the middle basement, and the powder was put down
there. The box when put in just came level with the ground, and the
place was covered over with gravel. I did not see any fuse to it then.
I placed a sentry over this powder so that no accident might occur, and
the next day Major Turner, who had charge of the fuse, showed it to
us in his office; he showed it to everybody there. It was a long fuse
made of gutta-percha, such a one as I had never seen before. In May, I
think it was, Major Turner went South, and all of the prisoners were
sent out of the Libby building proper to the south; and General Winder
sent a note down to the office with directions to take up the powder
as privately or as secretly as possible. I forget his exact words. The
note was delivered into my hands for the inspector of the prison, to
whom I either gave or sent it. I afterward heard Major Turner say that
in the event of the raiders coming into Richmond he would have blown up
the prison. I understood him to say those were his orders."
We are not left, however, to infer that this gunpowder plot, by
which the lives of twelve hundred Union officers held as prisoners
of war were to have been sacrificed in case Colonel Dahlgren should
have gotten into the city for the purpose of their liberation, was
authorized by the head of the rebel government.
The box turned over by General Johnson to General Schofield, containing
the archives of the Confederate government, contained the proof that
Jefferson Davis ordered these preparations to be made, and that his
subordinates had orders to carry the plot into execution in the event
of the contingency above referred to. These archives also showed that
in this he was sustained by the committee of the rebel congress on
the conduct of the war. Pollard, also, in his history of the "Lost
Cause," attempts to justify this plot. In all this we see the debasing
influence of human bondage on the moral sense of a people. Who, except
under the influence of such a demoralization, could have planned for
the wholesale sacrifice of their prisoners of war?
Here we have Mr. Seddon, the rebel Secretary of War, of course not on
his own responsibility, but under the orders of his superior, Jefferson
Davis, ordering the officer in charge of the prisoners of war in their
possession to mine the building in which they were confined, and in
the event of a Yankee raid entering the city, to blow up the building,
and thus murder, at one fell swoop, all the prisoners in it to prevent
their being rescued and taken back into the service. Need we wonder
that an administration that could deliberately prepare to murder its
prisoners of war rather than suffer their liberation under the fortunes
of war, should have deliberately planned for the destruction of its
prisoners by the starvation and cruelties of Andersonville?
It gives me no pleasure to rehearse these things, but it is due to the
truth of history that they should be known. I desire to see a speedy
and complete reconciliation of these two sections of our country; and
I have always rejoiced that we who faced each other on the fields of
deadly conflict, have, from the time of the surrender of Lee's army,
been ready to meet each other as friends and brothers and fellow
citizens of a common country. The sight witnessed at Appomattox of the
soldiers of our army emptying their haversacks to satisfy the wants of
men who but the hour before stood confronting them as foes, but who
now had laid down their arms, worn out and famishing, was a glorious
exhibition of the best side of our nature, and plainly said that
though we had been enemies in war in peace we would be friends, and
foreshadowed the speedy reconciliation that has followed our terrible
strife, so far as the soldiers of the two armies are concerned. I
charge none of these things on these men. I fix the responsibility
for these things on the political leaders of the rebellion, and not
even on them indiscriminately but only on such of them as are named in
the charge and specifications under which, through the medium of the
Commission, they were arraigned before the world, and the evidence of
their guilt was produced. It is to show that the government in so doing
completely vindicated its dignity and honor that I write.
If the acts of public men render them infamous in history, the
responsibility rests in their bad exercise of that freedom of will that
makes us responsible beings.[4] And in human affairs, bad examples
should be held up as warnings, just as good examples should be held up
for imitation and encouragement.
We shall now approach a little more closely to the consideration of
the responsibility of Jefferson Davis and his Canada Cabinet for
the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; and will show, we think, by
incontestible evidence, that they were co-conspirators with Booth and
his gang, or rather, that they originated and concocted the plan, and
that Booth and his followers were merely their hired assassins for the
accomplishment of their purposes.