The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling DetailsAyer, I. Winslow
History
The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details
Ayer, I. Winslow
Knights of the Golden Circle; Northwestern Conspiracy, 1864
hesitated in a course of duty so plain, and yet so distasteful would
have been criminal, cowardly, and unworthy of an American citizen. The
advantage gained was followed up unremittingly, by day and by night, for
many weary months, regardless of all professional duties and personal
considerations. It was at the outset found highly necessary, if not
indispensable, to have the concurrence of one good, loyal man of marked
qualification--one who was discreet, who had experience upon police
duties, who was prompt, energetic, persevering, patient, fearless,
and withal a strictly honest man, a citizen whose reputation was above
reproach; that man was found; he was Robert Alexander. After brief
consideration, Mr. Alexander gave to the writer his hearty and earnest
concurrence. Nothing was left undone by him that could further
the hazardous undertaking, and personal gratitude for his ready
acquiescence, which we tender to him, will meet with a ready response
in the hearts of all good citizens. It is now Thursday evening in July
1864. We will now ask the reader to go again with us up those long,
tedious flights of stairs to the outer rooms of the "temple" of the Sons
of Liberty in Chicago. We left the room before with the remembrance of
only a hole six inches in diameter for a full sized Copperhead to crawl
through, but we shall have better success this time. Advancing to the
aforesaid door, and giving three distinct raps, the slide, which we find
covers the hole from the inside, is moved up, and a live, full-grown
Copperhead peers through the orifice. "We whisper the word "Peace," or
"Peoria," or whatever the monthly pass-word is, and the door is open,
and we find ourselves within the vestibule of the temple, surrounded by
a little group going through the preliminary exercises of initiation. We
see the candidate and sponsors, with hands uplifted, and listen to the
very poor reading of an officer, from the ritual, and giving the new
comer his first dose of States' sovereignty and secession. This is so
mystified and clouded with high-sounding words that the poor devil nods
at every time the reader stops for breath, or to expectorate tobacco
juice, and the ceremony is concluded, and the candidate, respectable
for the good clothes which he wears this night as a rarity, follows
his conductor to another door, where he hopes for admission, the only
impression on the candidate being, that his right arm is weary from
being elevated so long, and that he is coming rapidly into good
fellowship with men of high judicial standing, who propose to give
Abolitionists and Lincoln particular "hell under the shirt tail." Again
they knock and are challenged by an inside guardian, who lectures the
newly fledged Son, who having nodded sufficiently, is conducted to the
Ancient Brother in the West, so that the _Son_, reversing the order of
nature, begins rising in the West. The "Ancient Brother" is a better
reader, for here we find _brains_ for the first time, as it is the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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