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
THE REASONS WHY REBEL AGENTS WERE SENT TO CANADA, AND THEIR
DOINGS--VARIOUS PLOTS OF MISCHIEF, HARRASSING, PILLAGING, &c.--THE
WATCHWORD OF THE REBELS IN CANADA.
The United States armies being continually pressed forward, step by
step, towards the heart of the Confederacy, occupying more and more of
the soil from which their commissary was but illy and scantily supplied,
together with a desire on the part of the Southern people, to let the
people of the North see what invasion meant, to make them feel and
see the destruction and desolation following our army of invasion,
determined the Richmond government, in 1863, to send its agents to the
Canadas, well supplied with money, to endeavor to foment discord, and
to intensify the dissatisfaction already existing in certain political
circles, with the government, to such an extent that it could be made
available for their own uses and purposes. Knowing that thousands of
their soldiers were confined at Johnston's Island, and Camp Douglas near
Chicago, almost within twelve hours' travel of Canada, it was the great
object of the rebel government to release those prisoners of war, and in
the mean time having stirred up and excited a formidable conspiracy in
the North, particularly in the North-West, having in view the subversion
of the government, and the securing of material aid and assistance
to the rebels, and those rebel prisoners being released through the
instrumentality of the rebels from Canada and those of the Northern
sympathizers who could be induced to join in the expeditions for
that purpose, the conspiracy was to culminate all over the North--but
principally in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and New York,
and effect the release of the prisoners of war confined in the various
prisons in those States. The prisoners at all these places being
released, were to form a nucleus around which all the dissatisfied
people of the Northern States could rally, and endeavor to maintain
themselves and their cause here in the North, and by rallying in
formidable numbers, to cause the withdrawal of so many troops from the
field in front, to establish peace at home, that it would materially
change the whole character of the war, and remove the seat of war
from the cotton States to the Northern States--Kentucky, Tennessee and
Missouri. Upon the withdrawal of the troops in any considerable numbers
from the front, was to follow the advance of the rebel armies into
Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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