Copperhead Activities
by Dr. John W. Miller
©1996 The Cincinnati Civil War Round Table
Copperhead, a sinister word when used during the time of the War between the
States.
It usually struck terror and consternation to the hearts of the Union
Administration. A ray of hope and possibly a way out, to the Confederacy.
The names Copperhead or Butternuts were used to cover all groups of Peace
Societies, Peace Democrats, Peace at any Price, or militant groups working
to overthrow the existing government and interfere by force, or otherwise
with the conduct of the War between the States.
They were instrumental in bringing about one of the most controversial
issues of the War. Were they traitors to the Union, or were they people
fighting for freedom of action, of speech and the pursuit of their own
convictions?
In the words of Lincoln, "were they testing whether that Nation, or any
Nation, so conceived and so dedicated could long endure."
Many Northern political leaders and writers thought the Slave States had a
perfect right to accede and were glad they were doing so.
Senators and Congressmen made speeches in the Halls of Congress, such as
Pendleton, Long, Greeley and others, that nowhere in our Constitution did
it say that any State had agreed or were they duty bound to remain in the
Union if they wished to do otherwise. I do not believe that our Constitution
as it stands today, has any rule or disciplinary action to follow if a State
wished to secede.
In fact, some went so far as to say that in all probability the Founding
Fathers had planned it this way. That if any State in due time felt that
they could do better alone or in another group, they were perfectly free to
leave the Union.
The confusion of ideas and impulses in the South was equalled by the
hysterical state of the North in the face of actual secession.
The abolitionists, or most of them, thought that nothing at all ought to be
done to bring back the seceded Statea. They felt that the Northern people
should thank God that secession had helped the Union to get rid of slavery.
Horace Greeley wrote ponderously in the New York Tribune that secession was
justifiable, and that he was glad the slave Statea were saying good-bye.
Wendell Phillips delivered an impassioned, erratic speech in which he declared
that a War against the South could end only in disaster. The people of the
North would not fight, he said, and the only result of a War would be the
conquest of the North by the South, with slavery fastened on the country
forever.
New York City was a center of disunion sentiment. Its Mayor, Fernando Wood,
proposed in black and white that in case of hostilities, the Metropolis
should dissociate itself from the Uhion and become a free and neutral City.
The bankers and politicians whom W. B. Russell met in New York on his arrival
from England held similar views. "They told me", he wrote in the London
Times, "that the majority of the people of New York, and all the respectable
people, were disgusted at the election of such a fellow as Lincoln to be
President, and would back the Southern Statea if it came to a split".
The story of the Copperheads, gaudy with secret symbols, passwords and other
conspiratorial paraphenalia, is bloody and full of mighty terror. Beneath
the theatrical props were real violence and fanticism. The true scope of the
Copperheads will probably never be known. When Richmond was burning,
Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin burned the record of his and Hines' secret
dealings with the Copperhead leaders. However, Hines kept copies of many
of his reports and letters, which he sent to his wife with instructions to
hide them.
The Knights of the Golden Circle Mayor may not have been the outgrowth of
the Southern Rights Clubs of the 1830's. Six ships, all equipped for piracy,
were sent out on the high seas by the Clubs, but they were seized and burned
by the British.
In 1854 a wonderful old humbug, George W. L. Bickley, took over the Clubs
and organized the Knights of the Golden Circle, with headquarters in Cincinnati,
Bickley had an impressive list of medical degrees - all forged, of
course, - and a suitcase of secret signs, symbols and a "book of rites".
Under his management the Knights spread like wildfire all through the Cotton
South. From hocuspocus rituals they turned to violence and conquest when
they tried to promote the extension of slavery by the conquest of Mexico.
Secession wee their goal in 1860. "Castles" as the Knights called their
lodges, sprang up in non-seceding States. Bickley, active in this work in
Kentucky, was threatened with arrest and fled to Virginia. But the movement
flourished in Kentucky and became a real danger to the Union Army after war
broke out.
Not all the Knights knew the secret aims of their leaders. Many solemnly
went through the fantastic rituals, swore their oaths, believing themselves
to be only Democrats preserving the freedom of the ballot against tyrannica1
Republicans. Only those who took the last two advanced degrees of the ritual
were told - then only orally - of the violent goals their leaders had set.
Armed sentries, sometimes the strength of a full Company, guarded the
meeting places.
In Illinois the Knights were openly gathering recruits for the Confederate
Army in 1861. In Iowa they burned the homes of men who joined the Federals.
In Des Moines the U. S. Marshall found evidence that the Knights were gunnrunning
into Missouri for Quantrill's guerrillas. In August, 1862 the Chicago
Tribune declared the movement had 20,000 members. Missouri membership was
reported from 10,000 to 60,000 with Castles springing up in every section of
the State.
Althought I find no connection between the two groups, long before the
hysteria of secession and actual warfare which brought the Copperheads into
being, a group of men in our government dreamed of an empire to stabilize
slavery in the area. They took the first opportunity to do just that. Their
idea was that an imaginary Golden Circle be drawn, 16 degrees latitude and
16 degrees longitude, with its center at Havana, Cuba. It reached north
into Pennsylvania and Ohio, also including the slave States, and South - - to
the Isthmus of Darien. It embraced the West Indian Islands and those of the
Carribean Sea with a great part of Mexico and Central America. The idea
was, to purchase Cuba if possible, otherwise take it by force. Their first
opportunity came when the U. S. Merchant vessel Black Warrior wee seized and
condemned by authorities at Havana (28th Feb. 1864) for an error in her
manifest. A clamor for war with Spain broke out among expansionists in
Congress. Pierre Soule' U. S. Minister to Spain, presented a claim for
damages, followed by an ultimatum demanding immediate satisfaction. Secretary
Marcy checked Soule', and in 1855 the U. S. accepted a Spanish apology and
reparation. Soule' was instructed by Marcy to meet at Ostend, Belgium, with
John Y. Mason, and James Buchanan, U. S. Minister to France and Great Britain,
respectively, for the purpose of shaping a policy on the acquisition of
Cuba. The meeting with the approval of President Pierce, resulted in the
Ostend Manifesto. Declaring Cuba indispensable for the security of slavery,
the Ministers recommended that the U. S. should make every effort to buy
Cuba, should Spain refuse, "then by every law, human and divine, we shall
be justified in wresting it from her, if we possessed the power."
The aggressive pronouncement of the document was the work of Soule'. The
document brought Marcy's disavowal, and Soule' resigned. Publication of
the Manifesto aroused Northern feeling and intensified Spanish resentment
of the administration's annexationists policy. The newly born Republican
party pointed to the Manifesto as proof that a Southern-dominated administration
had surrendered to pressure for more slave territory, Buchanan's
participation recommended him to Southern Democrats.
What were the economical and social reasons that made secession seem so
important to the South? And a possible creation of a New Empire?
I find the best estimation of this has been made by the historian Dr.
Woodward, and I quote, - There were somewhere near 1,600,000 white families
in the South, lesa than 400,000 held slaves. Three-fourths of the southern
families held no slaves and had no direct interest in its continuance. About
10,000 families owned the great slave plantations and constituted the wealthy
and ruling class of the slave States and they wanted to keep it that way.
The rank and file of the Copperhead movement were the smaller farmers and
poor artisans of the region, if measured by the accumulation of wealth. They,
like the poor whites of the South, saw another vision from that which was seen
by the followers of Lincoln. Why were they so strong in the middle west?
The census of 1860 shows that about 6% of the white population of Ohio were
immigrants or descendants of immigrants from slave States, chiefly, Virginia
and Kentucky, and from 12 to 25% from the same states in Indiana, Illinois
and Missouri.
The name Copperhead and Butternut, first came into use in 1861 and it
depended on which side you were, as to meaning. If you were a Union
sympathizer it was likened to the Copperhead snake that struck without warring,
and the Butternut wood was so soft it was useless. If you were a Southern
aympathlzer, the head cut out of a copper penny indicated freedom, and a
butternut cut in half showed two perfectly shaped hearts joined together
which could not be separated either by law or war.
Different peace societies had many different names: Knights of the Columbian
Star, American Knights and Sons of Liberty, Corps de Belgium, The Democratic
Invincible Club, Democratic Reading Room, Knights of the Mighty Host, Knights
of the Circle of Honor and Mutual Protective Society. These names were
obviously used to confuse as to their real purpose. Their Lodges or Castles,
as they were called, were scattered over a number of Western States. They
were strongly entrenched in Southern California, and a number of Lodges were
reported in Michigan, Iowa, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and
Delaware. In several counties in Pennsylvania and even as far north as
Boston, the agents tried to get a foothold. Who sent these agents out, I have
been unable to determine, but they certainly were active. Indiana, Illinois,
Missouri, Kentucky and Ohio were the hot beds of the Copperhead movement.
By 1863, Vallandigham speaking in Dayton on the strength of the Copperheads,
estimated their number to be 500,000 in the United States, and this according
to Judge Advocate Holt was very near the truth. They were organized in almost
every county and by this time had set up a military organization. Indiana,
alone, was divided into four military districts by a man named Dr. Wm. Bowles,
a wealthy physician from French Lick, who planned, when the time came, to
murder all State and City Officials and take over the government. They used
the same signs as the Confederate Army, such as hand-grips, marking houses
that were known to be Copperheads and firing four shots, counting to fifty
between shots. When in trouble, the penalty for any traitor to the Copperhead
cause, was to have his body cut into four pieces and cast to the four winds.
It is amazing, in the light of al1 this, that some men had the courage to
divulge these and other secrets and to become Federal counter-spies within
the organization. Among them was a young clerk named Felix Stidger, under
order from Col. Carrington, who was the Union Commander at Indianapolis. If Hines was the Confederacy's
most dangerous agent, Stidger was his Northern counterpart. When Stidger's
reports arrived, Col. Carrlngton, a judicious man of sober judgement thought
his investigator's imagination had run away with him. But when Stidger
predicted that certain Federal supply warehouses would be burned, and they
were burned, then Col. Carrington acted.
On March 19, 1863, Col. Carrington, in a direct wire to Lincoln, reported of
Morgans next raid, that he (Morgan), will leave the command and quietly
reappear to raise the standard of revolt in Indiana. Thousands believe this
and his photograph was hung in many homes. In some counties his name was
daily praised. It would appear, then, that by this time the purpose of
Morgan's raids had expanded. Now according to Col. Carrington's information,
the Confederates - or at least Morgan - had made some sort of alliance with
the Copperheads for a revolt in the Northwest. On April 1st, Gen. Burnslde,
who had been given the command of the department of Ohio after the Fredericksburg
debacle, issued his famous Order No. 38, which authorized the death
penalty for Confederate Couriers carrying secret mails, recruiting officers
of secret societies and "persons found concealed in lines belonging to
service of the enemy".
The following day 3,000 wildly chearing Copperheads greeted Vallandigham at
an open-air meeting in Dayton, to watch the former Congressman spit on a
copy of the Order and hear him denounce Gen. Burnside as a "Usurper of
American Freedom". That afternoon Gen. Burnside heard of the speech. He
immediately ordered the Provost Marshall of Ohio to arrest Vallandigham. The
hour of midnight was melodramatic enough, but Vallindigham added a few tricks.
Grabbing a pistol and barricading himself and his wife in a bedroom, he fired
several shots from a window, shouting "Asa, Asa, Asa", into the darkness.
What the words meant, no one knows. But it is said they were signals to
secret agents who were watching his house night and day in case a Burnside
man attempted to arrest him. The Soldiers smashed in a door, arrested
Vallandigham and took him to a Dayton Military prison. Word swept across the
countryside. In towns and villages men fastened the copper Indian head of a
penny in their lapels, armed themselves with rifles and pistols and marched
on Dayton. Thousands streamed into the City all day, Soldiers with bayonets
ringed the jail three deep to stand off the shouting, jeering mob. When they
were usable to break through the ring of steel, the mob led by Copperhead
leaders, took its revenge on the City. Public buildings were burned to the
ground, stores looted, houses broken into and hundreds wounded by stray
bullets. In the morning the mob was gone, leaving behind streets littered
with rocks, splintered glass and overturned wagons. A pall of smoke hung
over the City.
Across the sides of many buildings was painted "Release Vallandigham".
Vallandigham was whisked to Cincinnati, where several lawyers of distinction
defended him. His defense was that no Military Court could try him as
there was no rebellion in his State. In the newspapers were frequent
accounts of bands of armed men galloping about the squares of small towns,
firing pistols and shouting and cheering for Jeff Davis, John Hunt Morgan
and Vallandigham. On May 10th, Vallandigham was convicted, found guilty of
treason and sent to Ft. Warren in Boston. Then Lincoln reviewed his case and
decided he, (Vallandigham) could do less harm in exile than at home. He sent
him to Gen. Rosecrans' headquarters to be sent through the lines. On the
25th of May he was taken to Murfreesboro, Tenn., and held there under guard.
The next day he was placed on the Shelbyville Pike and before nine wee riding
into the Confederate lines to be escorted to Gen. Braxton Bragg's headquarters
at Shelbyville. On June 2nd Vallandigham left Gen. Bragg's headquarters for
Chattanooga. He next appears in Canada, a man without a country.
Felix Stidger probably did more to bring the Copperhead leaders to trial
than any other man, along with a man named S. P. Coffin, who was not trusted
by Copperhead leaders and was ordered by Dr. Wm. Bowlee to be murdered by
Stidger. This did not occur, as Stidger had him removed in time to save his
life. (There were four other detectives working with this group, but I found
no record of their activities.) This gives us an idea of the lengths to
which the leaders would go to gain their ends. The same organization prevailed
also in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky.
In the spring of 1864, Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet, willing to believe
almost anything that would aid the Confederacy, had come to the conclusion
from the report of the Copperhead organization, that it could be of great aid
if the Northwest was invaded.
On March 16th of that year (1864), Capt. Thomas Henry Hines and several
other officers chosen by Hines'were detached from Morgan's command and
instructed by Jefferson Davis and Secretary of War Seddon, to proceed to
Canada in any manner possible to collect and organize all Confederate
soldiers in that country, most of whom were escaped prisoners. With these
men as agents, he and the officers named Lieutenants Bennett, Martin,
Headley, Castleman, Young, Ashbrook and Thompson, who was already in
Canada as Commissioner for the Confederate government. They were to try to
organize the Copperheads into a formal group to aid in what is now known as
the Northwest Conspiracy. At the same time, to show that the feeling was
general, a group of 1,500 men in Holmes County, Ohio, defied the Union troops
in Columbus to come and get them. Troops were dispatched from Columbus and
in one charge the so-called Copperhead "Army" was dispersed. But they gained
the name in history of "The Holmes County Rebellion".
Hines made his first report to Sec'y. of War, Seddon, in June 1864, from
Toronto. Hines reported that he had met Thompson and had been requested by
him to "submit to you (Seddon) the proposed plan for a revolutionary movement
in the West".
The two regiments now in the process of formation in Chicago, will be placed
under my command, to move upon Camp Douglas and free the prisoners.
Simultaneously with this movement, the Democrats in every county of Illinois,
and portions of Indiana and Ohio will rally to arms. A force of 3,000
Democrats under a competent leader will march upon Rock Island for the release
of the 7,000 prisoners at that place. The remainder will concentrate upon
Chicago and Springfield. State governments of Indiana, Ohio and Illinois wilt
be seized and their executives disposed of. By this means we hope to have,
within 10 days after the movement has begun, a force of 50,000 men. We hope
to make a certainty of releasing the prisoners.
Perhaps this dispatch best
shows the narrow-mindedness, the provincialism, found in many of the leaders
of the Confederacy. They could never understand that Lincoln's high ideals
of "Union Forever" really inspired a large section of the North. It was this
blind prejudice which made them believe that they could overthrow the
Republic. Relying on the ignorance and credulity of men, in the end they
deceived only themselves.
At about the same time that Hines was planning to move on Chicago, Capt.
Castleman on Rock Island, a group under Capt. Robt. M. Martin attempted to
burn New York City. Capt. Kennedy was captured and executed for his part in
the New York City conflicts and other spy work. Another group under John
Yates Beall tried to capture the U.S.S. Michigan, the only gun-boat on the
Lakes, raid the Lake Cities and storm the Johnson Island prison. Beall was
captured and executed for his part. Lt. Bennett H. Young robbed three St.
Alban's balks, Cal. Martin and Dr. John W. Headley planned and attempted to
kidnap Vice-President Andrew Johnson in Louisville.
On the 29th day of Aug. 1864 the Democratic Convention was held in Chicago,
which was also to be the time for the uprising of the Copperhead group, but
owing to the great number of Union soldiers in the City, the plan had to be
given up to be tried at another time. A very bitter disappointment to the
Confederate leaders.
In the early fall of 1864, the plan of Capt. Thomas H. Hines to bring
revolution to the Northwest received its most severe blow. Carefully conceal-
ing the identity of his counter-spy, Felix Stidger, Col. Carrington, Union
Commander at Indianapolis, in one swoop arrested H. H. Dodd, Dr. Wm. A. Bowles,
L. Milligan and other Copperhead leaders in the State. Col. Carrington made
sure there were no leaks in his command. He gathered together a picked band
of provost marshals and detectives and at a melodramatic midnight meeting
handed out the arrest warrants in sealed envelopes. In isolated farmhouses,
secret hideouts and City flats, men were taken from their beds. They were
forced to listen in sleepy bewilderment as the warrants charging treason were
read to them, then they were hustled off to the military prison. More than
30,000 rifles, revolvers and cane of powder were found under floors, in hay-
stacks, and in graveyards. The Indianapolis trials opened in early October.
Bowles, Dodd, Milligan and the others entered the court room, which was
packed with their friends, all hostile to the Commission. Outside soldiers
stood guard, their bayonets keeping at bay the hundreds who milled about,
"shouting that Bowles and Dodd and the rest must be freed or they would have
their vengeance". The military tribunal was sworn in and took their seats.
The first witness shook the court room. He was Felix Stidger, former Grand
Secretary of the Sons of Liberty, and second in command only to Bowles.
Stidger testified for two hours. A recess was taken until the next day. The
following morning the Judge Advocate rose to announce to the court that Dodd
had escaped at 4 o'clock by sliding down to the ground from the second floor
by means of a rope "furnished by his immediate friends". Bowles and Milligan
were sentenced to be executed by hanging. Gallows were erected on the parade
ground of Camp Chase. The State bubbled with excitement. Riders of the "Sons
of Liberty" galloped along roads and lanes, calling the faithful to arms. Men
drilled openly in the yards of schoolhouses, behind churches or on village
greens. As Col. Carrington reported, "The State is ripe for revolution".
Col. Carrington and even Gov. Morton and Democrats of both factions sent
telegrams to Seward and Stanton, predicting that widespread rioting and blood-
shed would follow the hangings. But at the 11th hour, Lincoln acted. The
death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment and order slowly returned
to the State.
The humiliating failure of the attempted insurrection during the Democratic
national convention in Aug. 1864, convinced the Confederate commissioners in
Canada that the Sons of Liberty could not be depended upon to lead a
revolutionary movement in the Northwest ... Captains Hines, Cantrill, Anderson
and a few of the Confederate officers who still lingered in the vicinity of
Chicago, did not consider the situation so hopeless. They continued to
believe that members of the secret organization could be used to advantage in
fomenting a revolution in the rear of the Union armies. They conferred with
some of the more radical peace men and found that they were still disposed
to assist in an attack on Camp Douglas for the purpose of releasing prisoners.
Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1864, the night of the Presidential election, was selected
as the time for this second attempt. Public interest at that time, they
thought, would be centered on the result of the election and the presence of
a large body of men from southern Illinois, members of the Sons of liberty
and southern sympathizers, would not create any suspicion in a city the size
of Chicago. Furthermore, the garrison at Camp Douglas had been reduced to
800 men, chiefly of the veteran reserve corps, with Col. E. J. Sweet, commanding. At this time the prisoners numbered between 8,000 and 9,000 Confederates,
many of whom were reckless bushwhackers from Morgan's band of raiders.
Captain Hines was confident, that if these men could be set at liberty, they
would create consternation in the northwest.
The small Chicago contingent, in the meantime, was employed in the purchase of
arms, and the manufacture of ammunition. The home of Charles Walsh, one of
the most active of the Sons of Liberty, who lived within a block of Camp
Douglas was made the store house and the factory for these amateur
revolutionists. The campaign was to be under the direction of Captains Hines
and Fielding, Colonels George St. Leger Grenfel, and Vincent Marmaduke. The
plans in general were the same as those adopted for the uprising on Aug. 29,
with the exception that the field of operation was to include only Indiana
and Illinois. At a given signal on the night of election Camp Douglas was
to be attacked from three sides and the Confederate prisoners were to rise in
revolt and overpower the guards; arms were to be seized in different parts of
the city; telegraph wires were to be cut, banks robbed, and a band sent west
to free the prisoners at Rock Island and seize the arsenal. These things
accomplished, the forces were to move through Indiana and Illinois, accumulat-
ing strength as the proceeded south, to a chosen rendezvous on the Ohio where
a junction was to be made with the Confederate forces under Forrest, then in
Kentucky.
There was some reason for their confidence in a successful attack on Camp
Douglas, for, according to Cal. Sweet's testimony, there were not more than
250 men on duty at any one time. The Camp, including an area of 60 acres,
was surrounded by a board fence 12 ft. high and could be easily assailed from
either side. A band of 500 men on the outside, working in conjunction with
8,000 seasoned Confederate soldiers on the inside, could readily overpower
so small a garrison. Moreover, the time chosen was a most seasonable one.
In the midst of the rejoicing over the result of the election the firing of
signal rockets would not be noticed and the presence of the citizens down
town would leave the region about the Camp practically free of inhabitants.
But the Confederate leaders were again at fault in their estimation of the
character of the men with whom they had to deal. Informers were within their
own camp. A majority of the members of the Sons of Liberty were men of smell
calibre and little honor and they admitted into their confidence - - men who
had no scruples against the role of informer. These men offered to report the
transactions of the order for a stipulated sum per report. Col. Sweet
employed not only these men, but two Confederates who were willing to betray
their comrades. (John T. Shanks and Maurice Langhoon.) To verify the
reports of these informers he enlisted the services of Col. Thomas H. Keefe,
of the war department secret service, and Capt. E R.P. Shurly of the veteran
reserve corps, acting adjutant general at Camp Douglas. Since the fiasco of
Aug. 29th, Col. Sweet had not ceased his vigilance. He learned through these
agents that the plan for the release of prisoners had not been abandoned . . .
At his request Gen. Hooker, commander of the department, came to Chicago to
confer with him. A number of conferences were held with the military, State
and City authorities, all of whom were convinced that a plot for the release
of the prisoners was developing.
The election, it will be remembered, was to take place on Tuesday, Nov. 8th.
On the 5th, Col. Sweet was informed of the arrival of a large number of
suspicious characters from Fayette and Christian counties. On Sunday, the 6th,
it became evident that additional bands had arrived in the city, many of whom
were escaped Confederate prisoners of war and soldiers of the rebel army.
Colonel Sweet delayed making any arrests, hoping that by Monday, the 7th, all
the leaders and many more of the men and arms of the expedition might be
captured. But he decided, as he says in his report, that "the great interests
involved would scarcely justify taking the inevitable risks of postponement".
He, therefore, sent a dispatch to Brigadier General John Cook, commanding the
district of Illinois, urging him to send reinforcements at once.
Col. Sweet made arrangements at once for a raid on the conspirators. Col.
Lewis C. Skinner, commander of the Eighth Veteran Reserve Corps, was sent with
a squad of 50 men to search and guard the house of Charles Walsh, another
squad, under command of Capt. Pettiplace, was sent to surround the Richmond
House, While a third detachment of 100 men, under Capt. Strong, marched into
the heart of the City to preserve order and arrest suspects. After some
difficulty Col. Skinner gained admittance to Walsh's house where he arrested
Walsh and three of the Confederate Officers - Captains Cantrill, Travers, and
Daniel. At the Richmond House, Col. St. Leger Grenfel and J. T. Shanks were
arrested - the latter for mere form's sake, for he was employed by Col. Sweet
to spy on Grenfel. At the home of Dr. E. W. Edwards, 70 Adams St., Col.
Marmaduke and Capt. Hines were known to be stopping. The former was arrested,
but the latter (Hines) eluded Detective Keefe. Judge Buckner C. Morris,
treasurer of the Sons of Liberty, was next arrested at his home. All of these
arrests were completed before Monday morning, Nov. 7th.
These prisoners were examined at Camp Douglas by Col. Sweet and his assistants
The testimnyy convinced him that the Sons of Liberty furnished the inspiration
for this attempted insurrection and that some of the leaders were in consultation
with the rebel officers. These arrests completely crushed the conspiracy
and put an end to further efforts on the part of Confederate commissioners to
use the "Sons of Liberty" in their desperate attempt to create a "fire in the
rear".
The history of the society, however, is not complete without a brief account
of the trials of the Chicago conspirators in the spring of 1865. A military
tribunal was convened in Cincinnati on Jan. 9th composed of Officers of the
Army, with Major H. L. Burnett, Judge Advocate of the department of Ohio, as
prosecutor. After several preliminary sessions the commission met on Jan.
11th and proceeded to the trial of Charles Walsh, Buckner S. Morris, Vincent
Marmaduke, R. T. Semmes, Charles T. Daniels, George St. Leger Grenfel, and
Benjamin M. Anderson.
The accused submitted a plea against the jurisdiction of the military
commission, stating that, the offense charged, not being an infraction of any
article of war, they there not amenable, therefore, to its jurisdiction. They
prayed that the court would take no further cognizance of the matter, but
remit it to the courts of the United States in the northern district of
Illinois for trial. This prayer was denied by the commission. The charges
and specifications preferred against these men, practically the same in each
case, were as follows:
1 - Conspiracy, in violation of the laws of war, to release rebel prisoners
confined by authority of the United States at Camp Douglas near Chicago, Ill.
2 - Conspiring to lay waste and destroy the city of Chicago, Illinois, by
capturing the arsenal, cutting the telegraph wires, burning railroad depots,
taking forcible possession of banks and public buildings, and leaving the
City to be sacked, pillaged, and burned by rebel prisoners of war confined
at Camp Douglas.
To these charges each of the accused pleaded not guilty, and the commission
proceeded to take evidence. Ninety-four witnesses were examined.
In the arguments the lawyer for the defense argued strongly against the
jurisdiction of the military commision to try civil cases when the regularly
established courts were open. The Judge Advocate, in his reply, asserted
that the military commission had its justification in the necessity of the
case, that in time of war the executive for the time being becomes, and must
be, all powerful, that the chief executive officer, as commander-in-chief, is
the great fountain head of power, and transmits that power to his subordinates
who exercise it in their departments.
He admitted that some of the witnesses had been seriously contradicted and
impeached, but in the essential particulars, he contended that their testimony
remained uncontradicted and was collaborated by a number of witnesses.
The commission, after a session lasting from Jan. 9th to April 19th, brought
in its verdict. Semmes and Walsh were convicted and sentenced to three and
five years, respectively, in the Ohio penitentiary, Grenfel and Daniels were
sentenced to be hanged, Morris and Marmaduke were acquitted. Daniela had
escaped from confinement during the trial and Anderson had committed suicide in
prison, sometime before the trial wee concluded. Immediately after the
verdict was rendered the members of the commisaion requested the Commanding
General to pardon Walsh and remit his sentence. After a brief confinement both
he and Semmes were liberated. Daniels was not recaptured and Grenfel's
sentence was afterward commuted to "imprisonment for life, at hard labor,
at the Dry Tortugas", by order of President Johnson. It appears, however,
from the records that Grenfel was never taken to that island but to Fort
Jefferson, Florida, from which place he escaped on Mar. 7th, 1868. With his
escape the history of the Camp Douglas conspiracy was ended.
Where did these Copperhead leaders get their financial backing for all this
intrigue and bribery? The Confederate government helped a little, but most
of it was derived from bank and Federal pay-roll robberies and some personal
fortunes. They had during that period about $3,000,000.00 with which to
operate. With this they purchased the Illinois gorernership, arms and amunition,
and of course, there was quite a lot of bribery. Only about $200,000.00
was actually accounted for by Capt. Hines, the rest just disappeared. The
leaders certainly didn't keep any. Hines and Castleman had to borrow money
from friends to start their law practice after the war, and the other
leaders fared just about the same. Now what happened after the war, of
the leaders of his "old squadron", as Hines liked to call his Northern
command? (Hines, himself, entered public life in 1875. He was elected
Chief Justice of Kentucky's Court of Appeals, and defeated the well known
jurist of that State, Caswell Bennett. Hines served two terms.)
Lt. Bennett Young, the leader of the St. Albanta raid, became President of
the Monon Route, a railroad running between Louisville and Chicago. He later
became President of the Louisville Southern R.R. and of the Kentucky & Indiana
Bridge Co. He was a member of the Louisville delegation at the Constitutional
Convention in 1890-91, where he met Hines again. He opened his own law
office in Louisville in the late nineties, having studied law in Canada under
Justice Bullitt. He became a celebrated orator and author of several excellent
books on the War, though curiously enough, he never wrote anything about
the most thrilling chapter in his own life, the Vermont raid. He died in
1917.
Col. Martin settled in Evansville, Indiana, where he engaged in the tobacco
warehouse business. In 1874 he returned to New York, the very City he had
tried to burn, to become manager for a Company there. In 1887 he returned to
Louisville, stiIl in the tobacco business. In the winter of 1900 he died.
Lt. Headley, who was also in the tobacco business, moved frequently about
Kentucky. In 1891 he entered public office and was elected Sec. of State of
Kentucky, serving until Jan. 1896. Be later left the State. Date of death
not known.
Capt. Castleman, like Hines, had a particularly distinguished career. When
the Spanish-American War broke out, he interrupted the writing of his memoirs
to enlist in the army. He served in Puerto Rico as a Colonel under Gen.
Nelson Miles, who highly praised his bravery. Shortly after his return to the
States, he was commissioned a Brigadier General by President McKinley. He
returned to Kentucky to serve as the State's Adjutant Gen'l. In 1900 when
Gov. Goebel was assassinated and Kentucky wee in a state of insurrection, it
was Castleman's cool-headedness and decision which prevented mobs from storming
arsenals and state buildings. Castleman later served as chairman of the
Louisville Board of Parks. It was due to his imagination and unceasing efforts
that the City'a Cherokee Park became a model of municipal Parks.
Nearly all of the former leaders rose to superior positions in business and
atatesmanship.
Lt. Ashbrook became head of the Underwriters' Association of Kentucky and
Tennessee.
Thompson who had lost more than 100 slaves and a great deal of property, but
was still a wealthy man, went home to Oxford, Miss. He remained one of
Jefferson Davis' closest friends and visited him often.
Life flowed on for all of them. Felix Stinger, the Federal Spy, in 1902 was
writing the Pension Bureau, War Department, asking for a copy of his war
record. He was then 65 years old, and owner of the Stidger Progressive
American Twentieth Century Shorthand School in Chicago. He revealed that he
had been a hunted man after the war, being constantly threatened and once
almost assassinated on a Louisville street. Finally, "weary of being afraid
of going out on the street after hours", he left the South "forever". There
is no record of his death.
The Copperhead Leaders and the Movement has past into History.
BIBLIOGRAPHY & SOURCES
The Great Northwestern Conspiracy, by Winslow I. Ager
The Chicago Conspiracy, by Atlantic Monthly Vol. 16 Pages 108 - 120
Secret Political Societies in the North during the Civil War Vol. 14, by Mayo Feeler
The Hidden Civil War, by Wood Gray
Abraham Lincoln and the 5th Column, by George F. Milton
Meet General Grant, by W. E. Woodshed
Confederate Agent, by James D. Horan
Published Articles: Richmond Palladin Items, Richmond, Indiana, Luther M. Feeger
Published Articles: Western Star Newspaper, Lebanon, Ohio
Holmes County Rebellion, Holmes County, Ohio, R. Vana
Daniel Drake and his followers, by Otto Juetiner
Active Service, Louisville, Ky., J. B. Castleman
The Rebel Raider, by Howard Swiggett
Papers found in Libraries of the following Historical Societies:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Harrisburg, Pa.
Indiana State Library
Indiana, Pa.
Lebanon, Ohio
Mansfield, Ohio
Ohio State Library
Pennsylvania State Library
Richmond, Indiana
Washington, Pa.
Britannica Research Service
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