But extra sessions were almost monthly called during the year of 1864, prior to the election, to take precautionary and other expedient action upon the continually recurring changes of that eventful year. No considerable battle was fought in the front, that was not the signal for the assembling of this council, and no political event of any importance transpired that did not receive the solemn deliberations of this already _de facto_ legislative body. Of course no person ever became a member of this Council who had not first been inducted into the Temple, and then by his Temple elected as a representative in the Grand Council, the election for which purpose was held semi-annually as above, and new representatives took their seats at each regular session. The Grand Council embraced in its sphere of labors such duties as experience seemed to dictate, as being necessary to the fulfilment of the mission of the Order. It provided remedies for unmistakable evils, and watched with a zealous care and fostering hand, every interest of treason within the boundaries of its jurisdiction. The Supreme Council or Third and highest Degree of the Order in organization, was built after the pattern of the Federal government at Washington, and wielded a similar general control over the affairs of the Order, that our National government exerts over the consequences growing out of the union of the States under one central government. Here we see how admirably the design to effect Northern rebellion was conceived. The whole machinery of a government _de facto_, and in disguise though, it was, with all its branches, both civil and military in active operation for months and years within the very sound of the echoing steps of senators in the halls of the Capitol, was indeed a source of the most serious concern to the authorities, for the safety of the Republic. But valorous daring, tempered with prudence, was destined to bring to the light of day this infernal work of years, and accordingly the city of St. Louis was the scene of the first public development of the Order of American Knights, early in the spring of 1864, the principal facts of which disclosure the public learned from the press at the time, hence the writer will only allude in this connection to the effect created in various Circles of the Order, by the attempt upon the part of the Government to thwart the perpetration of the red-handed crimes contemplated by the leaders. When it was officially announced by Reuben Cassile, presiding Grand Seignior of the Chicago Temple, then recently removed from the Invincible Club Hall to McCormick's Building, that disclosures of the Order in St. Louis had occurred, every countenance was stamped with dismay. The timely appearance at the Temple, however, of Judge Morris and other leaders, served to interpose restraint upon any serious apprehensions of difficulty resulting to the Order. CHAP. IV.