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. CHAP. XIII. FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE REBELS TO CAPTURE UNITED STATES STEAMER MICHIGAN CARRYING EIGHTEEN GUNS--MODUS OPERANDI--WHY THEY FAILED, &c., &c.--UNITED STATES COMMERCE UPON THE LAKES TO BE DESTROYED--NORTHERN CITIES TO BE LAID UNDER CONTRIBUTION, &c.