Having found a clue to the furtive foe, the general, through wisely chosen and trusted lieutenants, followed it up. He discreetly kept his own counsels. He was sleeplessly persistent. His adroit agents or spies wormed themselves into the confidence of the clandestine enemies of the Republic, joined their secret organization and learned all their plots; at the same time they kept constantly in touch with their chief, by whom they were directed. They reported to him each startling fact that they unearthed. One discovery quickly led to another. To be sure the existence of a hostile secret organization had been hazily known for many months, but through the efforts of General Rosecrans its extensive ramifications were traced out, and its treasonable designs were laid bare. It proved to be the most formidable secret political organization that probably ever existed in America; it was conceived in treason; its avowed object was the dismemberment of the Union, the overthrow of the government of the United States. Its members were bound by oath to effect this nefarious purpose. They were to hesitate at no crime in order to reach their end. Rather than fail in it, they swore that they would commit perjury, arson, pillage, assassination. The penalty for disobedience of any command, even one that demanded the committing of these diabolical crimes, was death. The organization, while one brotherhood, bore in different localities different names: the most notorious of which were: “The Knights of the Golden Circle,” “The Order of American Knights,” “The Order of the Star,” and “The Sons of Liberty.”[95] Its ramifications were found both north and south of Mason and Dixon’s line. It claimed in Missouri twenty-five thousand members; in Illinois one hundred and forty thousand; in Indiana one hundred thousand; in Ohio eighty thousand; in Kentucky seventy thousand; and some in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Vallandigham of Ohio was supreme commander of the northern wing of this secret organization, while General Sterling Price was the supreme commander of the southern wing. The northern wing for many months had done what it could to supply the rebels with provisions and war material; it had also done for them the work of spying, keeping them informed as to what was transpiring in the North. It was still committing these treasonable acts, and even a few officers in our army were suspected of lending a hand to help on this villainous work. And, in that summer of 1864, the northern part of this oath-bound society had planned to put forth a united and desperate effort to aid the rebels in invading and revolutionizing the northern States of the Middle West[96].