USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 30
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40 Chicago Tribune, March 18, October 19, 1863, October 20, 1866; Belleville Advocate, January 1, 1864; Cairo Democrat, March 9, 1864; Halleck to Grant, August 11, 1864, War of the Rebellion, Official Records, series I, volume 42, part 2, p. 112; Illinois State Journal, January 12, 13, 15, 28, 29, February 3, 1863. 41 See list of murders in Illinois State Journal, February 8, 1864. General Wright issued an order prohibiting the traffic in arms and ammunition in the department of the Ohio. Ibid., March 31, 1863. Jacksonville Journal, March 19, September 17, 1863 ; Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1862, April 18, May 5, 1863. Finally Jonesboro, the residence of a number of the marauders, and a town with only three union men, was seized by federal troops who made a large number of arrests.
ABOLITIONISTS AND COPPERHEADS 307
Many of these acts, it must be remembered, were done in a spirit of retaliation for the lynch law visited upon more or less harmless peace advocates. The latter, indeed, had at the start the more ground for complaint against the outrages perpetrated on them by the super-patriots of the day. The democrats com- plained that Governor Yates had repeatedly condoned such acts of violence; and as "the arch-criminal who has 'sowed the wind'" they hoped for the sake of justice that he might "reap the whirlwind." They invoked the law of reprisals in their defense: having in vain counseled obedience to law and an appeal to it for redress in all cases of lawlessness, they felt that responsibility for having to organize for their own protection and to make reprisals in kind, rested upon their opponents. 42
In the closing years of the war this organized retaliation became extremely serious. Gangs of bushwhackers from Mis- souri, horse thieves and deserters from both armies swelled the ranks of the copperhead desperadoes in the river counties and for a long time threw all central and southern Illinois into a panic.43 Under the daring leader named Clingman one band of armed guerrillas, largely clad in butternut clothing or in gray rebel uniforms with white ribbons on their hats, did espe- cial damage in the vicinity of Montgomery county until it was broken up in the summer of 1864.
Edgar and Coles counties were the seats of especial dis- turbances. On the outskirts of Paris a band of several hundred insurgents had its rendezvous and terrorized the neighborhood. In February, 1864, the town was threatened by attack until federal forces came to its relief; even then armed clashes be- tween the copperheads and the soldiers took place.44 On March 28, the storm broke loose in Charleston when a bloody affray occurred between armed backers of Congressman J. R. Eden and soldiers under Major York who were then on a fur- lough; Major York and two union men were killed while two copperheads met their death. The Fifty-fourth Illinois regi-
42 Chicago Times, March 11, April 28, 1864.
43 Illinois State Register, May 31, 1863; Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1864; Illinois State Journal, August 3, 1864; Cairo Morning News, January 12, 1865. 44 Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1864; Illinois State Journal, March 2, 5,
1864.
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ment was promptly dispatched from Mattoon, and the Forty-first Illinois and Forty-seventh Indiana followed as re- enforcements. Although before their arrival the rioters had disbanded, numerous arrests were made and the city and county placed under martial law. For several days rumors circulated that a force of ten hundred to twelve hundred insurgents had collected outside the town, threatening to attack either Charles- ton or Mattoon; Sheriff John O'Hair of Coles county and the sheriff of Edgar county were said to be the ringleaders of the conspiracy. The unionists of Charleston organized to prevent a repetition of this experience, and little difficulty was expe- rienced in this region for the remainder of the war. The Charleston "riots," however, loom up as the worst example of copperhead "outrages" in Illinois.45
A secret political society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle furnished the basis for unity of action by those anti-war forces that preferred to work under cover. This was originally an organization of young southern filibusters who had purposed to invade Mexico in order finally to American- ize and annex that republic; when first brought to the attention of Illinoisians in the spring of 1860, the newspapers warned adventuresome spirits against the "humbug." With the out- break of the rebellion, however, it became the stronghold of secession sympathizers; it found a foothold in Egypt where conditions were most favorable and spread rapidly over the state.46 Chicago was said to have established a lodge in the spring of 1861 ; the organization became a formidable factor in the political life of every section of Illinois. The activities of the various lodges remain obscured by the secrecy of meet-
45 Illinois State Journal, March 30, April 1, 2, 4, 1864; Charleston Plain- dealer, March 28, clipped in ibid., April 16, 1864; Chicago Tribune, March 29, 30, 31, 1864. The brother of Sheriff O'Hair and the son of the sheriff of Shelby county were included in the list of prisoners arrested by the military. O'Hair was later murdered in retaliation for the "Charleston murders." The Coles County Ledger, a democratic paper, vigorously condemned the "votaries of Jeff Davis and slavery," but the opposition papers throughout the state treated the incident as a row between drunken citizens and drunken soldiers, which the union men used for political capital. Chicago Times, April 1, 1864; Joliet Signal, April 5, 1864; Ottawa Free Trader, April 2, 1864; Carthage Republican, May 5, 1864; Cairo Democrat, June 26, 1864; Coles County Ledger clipped in Belleville Advocate, April 15, 1864.
46 Cairo Gazette, April 5, 1860; the ritual may be found in The (Columbus, Ohio) Crisis, December 30, 1863 ; Canton Weekly Register, May 21, 1861.
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ings protected by signs and passwords; evidence points, how- ever, to an organization which covered anything from a dark lantern democratic reorganization as an anti-war party to actual constructive treason. In 1861, a number of persons in southern Illinois arrested as Knights of the Golden Circle were investigated before a commission appointed by Judge Samuel H. Treat of the federal district court; the commission reported, however, that membership in these organizations did not involve treason to the United States. A further investigation of the order followed the arrest of Congressman W. J. Allen and Judges Duff and Mulkey in the summer of 1862. The existence of the order and even the object of effecting the reorganization of the democratic party could easily be proved; but the charge that it was organized along military lines for armed opposition to the government and its policies could not be substantiated. A state convention or Grand Castle was held in Chicago, August 4, 1863, with seventy-one counties repre- sented but its secrecy was not penetrated; another state con- vention met on March 4-8, 1864, after which the Chicago Tribune published what purported to be the newly adopted ritual of the order, but this, whatever its other points of vulnerability, furnished no proof of treasonable inten- tions.47
In order to combat the anti-war propaganda of the Knights of the Golden Circle, the unionists organized a secret oath- bound political society of their own, known as the Union League. The first Illinois council was formed at Pekin, Taze- well county, on June 25, 1862; and the order was well under way by the end of the summer when the first state convention was held. In the following year the goal of a league in every township was set up. Lists of names and residences of "cop- perheads " were drawn up and sent to the league headquarters at Springfield, and the order went forth that " the council must be put on a war footing;" just what this meant was extremely indefinite, although their opponents thought they found-in
47 In December, 1861, ten thousand members were said to have been enrolled. Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1861, August 26, 1862, March 27, 28, 1864; Cairo Gazette, November 14, 1861; Belleville Advocate, September 5, 1862; Illinois State Journal, August 27, 1862; Carbondale Times clipped in ibid., December 7, 1861.
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shipments of government arms and equipment from Springfield to local leagues-an answer of civil war.48
The Union Leaguers pointed ominously to a new danger on the horizon, the danger of a revolt to effect the establishment of a northwestern confederacy. This more dangerous venture had apparently become the undertaking of the reorganized Knights of the Golden Circle who had adopted the name of Ancient Order of American Knights or Sons of Liberty. This order, obviously political in its aims, was charged with arming and organizing its members for a revolt to detach the north- western states. How far this purpose was accepted in Illinois is obscured by the secrecy of the methods of the day and by the lapse of time; many democratic leaders undoubtedly did believe in the desirability and inevitability of the detachment of the west from its New England connections, but they were not always prepared to secure this end through the work of secret political orders.49 In August, 1864, however, a band of alleged conspirators was arrested; and when the trial was held at Indianapolis, evidence was submitted that a conference had been held at Chicago by a council of sixteen representing the states of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky and, in order to clear the way for an uprising, had formulated the plan of overturning the governments of those states and releas- ing the rebel prisoners at the prison camps.50 These plans, however, were not communicated to the body of the society; and the wild rumors that, out of a membership of 100,000 in Illinois, 40,000 or 50,000 armed knights stood ready to coöper- ate with the confederate forces to overthrow federal control, seem to have had little foundation in fact. When, moreover, on November 8, during the excitement of election day, copperhead leaders and confederate agents from Canada attempted to release the nine thousand rebel prisoners at Camp Douglas, they were thwarted and the so-called "rebel inva- sion" or "Chicago conspiracy" ended with the arrest of a
48 Canton Weekly Register, April 20, 1863; the league ritual was published in the March 23, 1863 issue. Belleville Democrat, February 20, 1864; Carthage Republican, April 14, October 27, 1864.
49 Chicago Times, July 30, August 1, 1864; St. Louis Democrat clipped in Illinois State Journal, August 6, 1864; Jonesboro Gazette, January 3, 1863.
50 Illinois State Journal, November 2, 4, 8, 1864; Pitman, Indiana Treason Trials; Ayer, The Great Treason Plot, 56 ff.
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half dozen alleged ringleaders. In the conspiracy trials at Cincinnati the following spring, two of these, Buckner S. Mor- ris and Vincent Marmaduke, were acquitted but the others, including an English soldier, were convicted.51 In this atmos- phere of plot and counterplot, Illinois wrestled with the nightmare of civil strife.
51 Chicago Tribune, November 8, 9, 1864, April 25, 1864; Chicago Times, November 8, 9, 1864; Cairo Weekly Democrat, April 27, 1865; Atlantic Monthly, 16: 108-120; Ayer, The Great Treason Plot, 163-171; Rhodes, History of the United States, 5:324 ff.
XIV. THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN
T HE time was rapidly drawing near when it was necessary to prepare for the elections of 1864. The heavy repub- lican reverses of 1862 made the national political situation extremely uncertain, while in Illinois the democratic victories had been so sweeping that the republicans displayed consider- able anxiety over the coming popular decision. The election was to be a test of the success of the Lincoln administration; yet, although it was logical for the republicans to name Lincoln as their standard bearer, it was by no means certain that he could lead their hosts to victory. While his success with diffi- cult feats of political balancing compelled the admiration of many who chose to travel along middle ground, there were others who scorned his dispassionate efforts to maintain his political equilibrium. Democratic obstructionists on the one side and radical republicans on the other were convinced that Lincoln possessed " neither consistency, statesmanship or reso- lution ; " the latter, however, could not subscribe to the partisan charge that "even the claim set up for his honesty was abso- lutely unfounded and that the country has never before been afflicted with a ruler so absolutely destitute of integrity and principles." 1
In handling the problems of civil war, President Lincoln had assumed certain powers which made his rôle quite as sig- nificant as that of a dictator in the days of Rome's glory. Without legislative warrant and without precedent in American history, he had suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, one of the dearest of civil rights in the minds of the American freeman. He had given at least indirect approval to most arbitrary arrests at the direction of the secretaries of state and war. Even Senator Trumbull, the radical, openly condemned the imprisonment of citizens upon lettres de cachet
1 Illinois State Register, February 28, 1864, cf. February 13, 1864
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while General John M. Palmer declared that it would mean the conversion of "this Constitutional Republic into a des- potism." 2 There had been also arbitrary interference with freedom of speech and of the press even outside the zone of actual fighting, the responsibility of which Lincoln had to share. By executive order he had undertaken to strike the shackles from thousands of slaves and thus to destroy property rights to the amount of millions of dollars, though slavery was recog- nized, if not protected, under the constitution. He had recom- mended and officially approved, March 3, 1863, a conscription act which provided for compulsory military service by citizens selected at the turn of a wheel. These were only the principal features of a situation which made it possible for James Bryce to say: "Abraham Lincoln wielded more authority than any single Englishman has done since Oliver Cromwell."
These acts of the executive seemed indeed to involve infrac- tions of the constitution, unless the war powers of the president could be interpreted to cover them-even their supporters could justify them only under the plea of military necessity. Here clearly was ground for wholesome and legitimate oppo- sition on the part of the opponents of the administration, and the democrats sought on this ground to rally round their stand- ards the defenders of personal liberty. "There is hardly a provision of the constitution which the President has not vio- lated or treated with contempt," was the campaign slogan announced by the Chicago Times.3
The Cairo Democrat, July 14, 1864, took up the hue and cry with less restraint: "When a President will thus put aside the will of Congress, what are the people to expect from him ? The freedom of the press and the habeas corpus, the two great bulwarks of our liberty, ruthlessly invaded. And last of all the voice of the ballot box has been crushed, and 'military necessity,' that bloody and envenomed queen, has seized upon its holy precincts. Great Heavens! how much more iniquity will the freemen of America stand from the usurper and tyrant
2 John M. Palmer to Trumbull, January, 1862, Trumbull manuscripts. See also Illinois State Register, June 6, 1863.
3 Chicago Times, February 22, 1864; Illinois State Register, February 28, 1864.
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who is only fit to split rails." Democrats claimed that Lincoln had taken these steps because, ambitious of reëlection, he had allowed himself to be coerced and had surrendered to the guid- ance of the radicals. "Oh, Abraham," queried the tantalizing critic, "why do you let the radical tribe always badger you from three to five months, before they get you up to the good work ?" 4
While the democrats, on the one hand, were worrying Lincoln with complaints of executive usurpation, he confronted on the other the even greater problem of satisfying those of his party who, without the responsibilities of his office, sought to hurry things more rapidly along antislavery lines; chafing at his slowness of action, they were not certain as to their influence with the president and bitterly complained of the lack of real aggressiveness in his endeavor to conquer the south. Among the disgruntled in Illinois were leading republicans, influential party organs, the state administration from Gover- nor Yates down, together with Senator Trumbull and members of the congressional delegation. Lincoln's friend Herndon charged him with trying to put down the rebellion by squirting rosewater at it, while Jonathan B. Turner, the Jacksonville educator, condemned Lincoln for too much reading of the New Testament instead of using the sword after the fashion of that Old Testament saint, Andrew Jackson.5
Other evidences of the republican party's lack of homo- geneity were added to this clash between the antislavery element and the conservatives; survivals of the old alignment between whig and democrat revealed themselves in mutual mistrust and jealousy. Lincoln was charged with being too generous toward his former whig associates; disappointed ex-democrats ques- tioned the honesty and sincerity of their colleagues of whig
4 " We have a President, but he is merely a clerk for registering the decrees of Secretary Chase," bewailed the Chicago Times, December 11, 1863. "He is as good an Abolitionist as the best of them, but the great trouble is, ' he is always six months behind in acting the thing out.'" Cairo Democrat, January 3, 1864. 5 The editors of the Chicago Tribune were ready for a break with the president if developments should require it. Browning was the only conserva- tive Lincolnite and Joseph Medill claimed that he represented "only the secesh of Illinois." See Medill to Trumbull, July 4, 1864, and other letters in Trum- bull manuscripts; Cole, "Lincoln and the Illinois Radical Republicans," Mis- sissippi Valley Historical Review, 4:430-431.
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origin. There was also the problem of the foreign vote; could concessions be made to it without stirring up opposition from persons of nativist prejudices ? To make matters even worse, Lincoln's cabinet was a hotbed of bickering, suspicion, jealousy, and rivalry; he could not secure the hearty support of a majority of it on any fundamental proposition or policy.6
Illinois republican leaders were baffled by the intricacies of the whole situation. They recognized that Lincoln had secured a strong claim to consideration by issuing his emancipation proclamation. The Chicago Tribune, cautiously presented his claims to reelection with the warning: "Just so surely as their [the radicals ] policy is abandoned by one who has been com- mitted to it, just so sure will that one, thus guilty and thus foolish, be trodden under their feet."7 In general, sentiment grew that the party could ill afford to refuse Lincoln the nomination, although the radicals were loath to acquiesce in the expediency of taking the lesser of two evils-that Lincoln might not win, but anyone else was even less likely to succeed.
There was, however, little real enthusiasm for Lincoln. Even in Washington, Senator Trumbull found that there was " a distrust & fear that he is too undecided & inefficient to put down the rebellion; " party leaders felt that if possible, some other man "supposed to possess more energy" than Lincoln ought to be nominated.8 General Fremont had a considerable following of ultra radicals; Chase was eagerly seeking sup- porters to back his claims; other persons like Trumbull were frequently mentioned as available. A group of prominent republican senators and congressmen issued a pronunciamento charging the responsibility for the failure to suppress the rebellion on the president in whose ability to restore the union it was declared "the people have lost all confidence." 9 "9 "A
6 Secretary of the Treasury Chase became more and more independent and having presidential aspirations of his own, finally left the cabinet. Diary of Gideon Welles, 2: 102, 106-107, 166.
7 Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1863. The Tribune concluded: "It is a great historical fact that in revolutions the radical party always wins."
8 Trumbull to H. G. McPike, February 6, 1864, Trumbull manuscripts ; Washington correspondence of Chicago Times, January 13, 1864.
9 See Senator Pomeroy's circular in behalf of Chase, Chicago Times, Feb- ruary 26, 1864; Illinois State Register, February 28, 1864.
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secret movement against Mr. Lincoln's renomination is ex- tended all over the North," announced the Chicago Journal. " We hear of its workings in New England, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It has male and female traveling agents, correspondents, popular lecturers and newspapers, employed to promote its object." 10
German republican voters, many of whom were radicals of the deepest dye, enthusiastically supported the claims of Fremont, an old favorite. They grew steadily bolder in their opposition to Lincoln and were encouraged by such papers as the Missouri Democrat and the Chicago Telegraph. They announced their inability to support Lincoln's reelection and busied themselves with the organization of Fremont clubs. The Illinois Staats-Zeitung, to be sure, did urge an indorsement of Lincoln, but this was explained by the Fremont following as accomplished by flattery and official favors. Through the col- umns of the Mississippi Blätter many Germans announced their loss of faith in Lincoln and declared their unwillingness to be led or coaxed in the Lincoln camp.11 The Highland Union, a German republican paper, hoisted the Fremont banner. The Blätter, March 4, 1864, indorsed the sentiment of the Indiana Freie Presse: "We cannot and dare not vote for Lincoln, unless we are willing to participate in the betrayal of the repub- lic, unless we are willing to remain for all future the most despicable step-children of the nation."
This radical German opposition came to a focus in the state convention on May 25, 1864. There Friedrich Hecker led a futile fight against the instructions to support Lincoln. The convention was divided into determined factions of Lin- coln and Fremont men, although paradoxically called the union state convention. The fact that it was far from a homogeneous body was seized upon with relish by democratic opponents. "It was literally what it purported to be-a 'Union conven- tion'-an assemblage of incongruities," reported the State Register. "United on no principle, but brought together by the cohesive attraction of public plunder. There
10 Chicago Journal clipped in Jacksonville Journal, March 10, 1864.
11 Chicago Times, February 1, 13, March 28, May 3, 1864; Mississippi Blätter, February 14, 1863, March 13, 20, April 10, 1864.
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was Jack Kuykendall and Jack Grimshaw - Deacon Bross and Deacon Haynie -the life-time abolitionist and the quondam Nebraska man-disciples of Calhoun and followers of Garri- son -preachers and profanity. The millenium is coming, for we have seen the lion lie down with the lamb." 12 Even in this assemblage, however, the feeling grew that they could not afford to refuse Lincoln the nomination; and, when the committee on resolutions sought middle ground by com- mending Lincoln's administration without, however, indors- ing him for reelection, the resolutions were tabled and a new committee appointed. Granting Lincoln's inavailability, yet who offers greater ? was a question no one could answer. When, therefore, resolutions damning Lincoln with faint praise and instructing delegates to vote for him were finally presented, they were, after a hot debate, adopted.13
The disappointed radicals then took up the movement for an independent nominating convention at Cleveland, a week before the regular meeting at Baltimore; there John C. Fre- mont and General John Cochrane were nominated as the true champions of freedom and of the union. The Illinois delega- tion largely represented the Germans; Ernest Pruessing was honored by being made one of the vice presidents, while Caspar Butz was a member of both the committee on permanent organization and of the committee on resolutions.14
The Cleveland convention cleared the republican ranks of a large group of obstructionists. The situation was thereby rendered more favorable for Lincoln's nomination at the regu- lar republican, or union, convention at Baltimore on June 7. Chase still canvassed his chances, and his followers did not give up the field until an examination of the political situation at Washington on the eve of the convention indicated the hope- lessness of the contest.15 The delegates, catching the political 12 Illinois State Register, May 26, 1864; cf. Illinois State Journal, May 26, 1864.
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