Testament: A Soldier's Story of the Civil War
by Benson Bobrick
Excerpt from Chapter Eight
"....were known as Peace Democrats or, less kindly, Copperheads, after the venomous snake. Some rejected the epithet as a slander; others took pride in the name and wore on their lapels the goddess Liberty cut from copper pennies, to give it a patriotic twist. Their slogan was, "The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was." They saw the war as a failure, creating unbridgeable hatred between the sections and futilely spilling blood.
The more militant Copperheads were of a different stripe. Though often mingled with the moderates, they were a seditious "third column" in the Union's midst. Many belonged to a secret society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle (later, the Order of American Knights and the Sons of Liberty), established satellite "lodges" or "castles" in various towns and cities, and, sometimes under the guise of constitutional concerns, fomented opposition to the war. But their real agenda was threefold: the perpetuation of slavery, its extension into Central and South America, and military victory for the South.
Unrest in the North culminated in the antidraft riots of 1863. On July 14, two days after the first drawing in New York, crowds of workmen, most belonging to the Irish poor, poured into the streets shouting "Down with the rich men" and "We'll hang Horace Greeley on a sour apple tree." As the mob surged up Third Avenue, it tore down lampposts, ransacked mansions, and, coming to the induction center, ripped up the census lists and smashed the lottery wheel. Then the building itself was set on fire. Before long, the violence turned into a race riot, and over the next few days mobs attacked blacks at random, looted the Second Avenue Armory, destroyed the offices of Greeley's pro-war Tribune, and razed a black orphanage to the ground. For two days control of the city remained in the vandals' hands until Federal troops, straight from the Gettysburg carnage, arrived to restore elected rule. Sharpshooters were perched on rooftops; cannon swept the streets. When it was all over, a thousand lay dead.
Disorder erupted elsewhere throughout the North and Midwest, including Coles County, where the Knights of the Golden Circle had a lodge. There Copperheads built up a hidden cache of arms that included a small cannon and even met for military drill. They made threats against local Republicans, provoked fights with soldiers on leave, and in some cases ominously marked the houses of their opponents with a circled K, the emblem of their clan. In Paradise, Charleston, Mattoon, and other towns there were various reprisal killings, followed, in March 1864, by the so-called Charleston Riot that left twenty-one dead and wounded, most of them Union troops."
A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln
Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History
Published October, 1902
Author: John G. Nicolay - 1832-1901
Excerpt
"Though Vallandigham and the Democrats of his type were unable to prevent
or even delay the draft, they yet managed to enlist the sympathies and
secure the adhesion of many uneducated and unthinking men by means of
secret societies, known as "Knights of the Golden Circle," "The Order of
American Knights," "Order of the Star," "Sons of Liberty," and by other
equally high-sounding names, which they adopted and discarded in turn,
as one after the other was discovered and brought into undesired
prominence. The titles and grips and passwords of these secret military
organizations, the turgid eloquence of their meetings, and the
clandestine drill of their oath-bound members, doubtless exercised quite
as much fascination on such followers as their unlawful object of aiding
and abetting the Southern cause. The number of men thus enlisted in the
work of inducing desertion among Union soldiers, fomenting resistance to
the draft, furnishing the Confederates with arms, and conspiring to
establish a Northwestern Confederacy in full accord with the South,
which formed the ultimate dream of their leaders, is hard to determine.
Vallandigham, the real head of the movement, claimed five hundred
thousand, and Judge Holt, in an official report, adopted that as being
somewhere near the truth, though others counted them at a full million."
The Richmond Daily Dispatch, October 11, 1862
The horrors of Fort Lafayette--a Bold voice at the North.
The New York Weekly Caucasian, published by the former proprietors of the Day
Book and News, has not yet been suppressed by the Lincoln Government, though,
from the following article, we should think its season will be brief:
Few people know, or even think, of the suffering men, pining for liberty, in
Fort Lafayette, and none realize how cruelly and harshly they are reported to be
treated. The Express states that Messrs. Soule and Mazarean, of New Orleans,
`"are not even allowed to leave their cells, and the privilege accorded to other
captives, of taking exercise in the yard, has been denied them. No writing
utensils are in their reach, and they are under constant surveillance."' Dr.
Olds, of Ohio, it is said, has been placed in close confinement, and, what is
most remarkable of all, the Express report also states that `"every prisoner
released from Fort Lafayette, and every visitor thereto, is bound not to reveal
anything of the discipline of the prison or the names of those confined, and
hence the press knows something, and can report but little, of what is going
on."'
Was there over anything in Austrian or Neapolitan dungeons that could exceed the
despotic character of such regulations? `"The names of those confined"' must not
be revealed. Who knows, then, how many people are languishing there, or for what
trivial offences? We know of one man who was kept in Fort Lafayette last year
for six months because his children raised upon a pole a rag through which he
had been straining black berries! Some neighbor, who was at enmity with him,
started the report that he had raised `"a secession flag," ' and suddenly he was
arrested, hurried off hundreds of miles, (he resided in Michigan) and
incarcerated in Fort Lafayette, and kept there more than half a year without any
attention being paid to his case. He was finally informed that there was no
charge against him, and allowed to go. Six ladious months of cruel imprisonment,
simply on account of a little harmless playfulness of his children!--Can that be
called a free or just Government under which such shameful outrages are
perpetrated. And yet this is but a sample of what arbitrary arrests must and
will ever be. If any persons have committed offences, let them be tried and
punished. It is folly to say the law is not adequate to reach all cases. It is
adequate to punish all real offences. It is only because the powers that be wish
to torture into terms acts that are not crimes, that they resort to the high
handed measures they do.
A few days since some Black Republican speculators in the substitute business,
who had violated the orders of the War Department, were sent to Fort Lafayette.
The Abolition papers, however, made a great howl over it, and they have been
released. There are, however, scores of better men and truer patriots in there
than those released, in whose behalf not a word is uttered. There is Judge
Carmichael, of Maryland, Guilty of what! Why, of the gross crime (1) of telling
the Grand Jury of his county what the law in relation to arrests was. For months
has Judge C. suffered the horrors of the Bastile, for simply doing his duty. Is
it possible, therefore, that the recent Republican outburst of indignation
against arbitrary arrests proceeds from any regard for the principles of civil
liberty? No, it is the grossest hypocrisy. They wish only Democrats to be
imprisoned. If they are sincere, why do they not ask for the release of Dr.
Edson B. Olds, of Ohio, now in the fort, for simply expressing an opinion
against the Administration?--How many more good and true men are also in the
same gloomy prison walls, against whom no charges are preferred, we can only
conjecture. We hear every day of men arrested in different parts of the country.
They are spirited away, their friends and their families know not whither. Some
dark and no some prison vault receives them, and they are buried alive! Where is
D. A. Mahoney, Esq., of the Dubuque Herald, the central organ of the lowa
Democracy? Where is Mr. D. Sherwood, editor of the Fairfield (Iowa) Union,
recently snatched from his family by the Lincoln Kidnappers? Where is Judge
Allen, member of Congress recently elected from Southern Illinois? We might
increase this list indefinitely, but it is not necessary.--If there is but one
man unjustly deprived of his liberty, it ought to arouse every American to
instant action. The principle is the same. Our liberties are overthrown, and the
rights of the individual are left to the whim or caprice of some upstart
official. There is a day of retribution coming, however, for the murderers of
liberty and the persecutors of Democrats amongst us. As Mr. Valiandignam says in
his excellent speech, which we publish this week, `"the measure they have meted
out to us shall be measured to them again."' Yes, that it will, `"shaken down
and pressed together."' `"The arrest of Dr. Olds,"' chuckles the Abolition
tyrants of the Evening Post, `"and the summary squelching of Charles Ingersoll,
show that the Government is wide awake!"' Yes, indeed, it is wide awake. It can
conquer unarmed men, and that seems to be about the extent of its victories. It
can send posses of kidnappers to the houses of quiet citizens in the North, gag
them, and bind them, and immure them in forts and fortifications; but it has not
the ability, with hundreds of thousands of troops, to keep the Confederates from
besieging the National Capital. It can wreak a petty vengeance upon some
individual, who has had too much honesty to bend before its usurpations; but it
is incompetent to save the country from the calamities which menace it. It loves
duplicity and deceit, and pays a high premium for them, in the person of the
renegade Democrats who go over to it for plunder and pelf; but it especially
hates manliness and honesty, and persecutes every individual who possesses
enough of these qualities to tell it of its faults or rebuke its follies. It has
finally convicted itself of party favoritism by releasing from imprisonment men
of its own party and retaining Democrats in custody, though the offences charged
were the same in both cases. Dr. Olds, of Ohio, is charged with discouraging
enlistments, yet he is imprisoned, while Black Republicans are released! It is
no wonder that some of its own party papers are calling for the resignation of a
President who has allowed the Government to degenerate into an organization
which would seem to exist, just now, mainly for the persecution of those who
have intelligence enough to see the truth, and manliness enough to utter it.
Page 2
The secret society ? movements in the Northwest.
The stories about the existence of a league of `"Knights of the Golden Circle"'
in the Northwest, which have been circulated in the New York press, appear to
have some foundation in fact. A correspondent of the New York Times, writing
from Vincennes, Ind., says that there the people are living over the `"fires of
a volcano that may burst any hour."' He says:
` There is an organization in the Western States known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle. I believe it is not known in the Eastern and Northern States. Its
members have been most successful in securing offices in the army. I know
several who hold positions there, and it is strange how they get them, but those
I refer to I know to be sympathizers with the rebellion. Again, they are most
active at home in poisoning the minds of the people against the Government of
the United States. Since our late reverses on the Potomac they are exceedingly
exultant. Lee's proclamation in Maryland, they say, is the right doctrine. That,
they say, utters the sentiments of genuine republicanism and liberty, and that
the policy of Lincoln's Administration is tyranny and oppression. These
sentiments are openly avowed by many with whom you are acquainted in this place.
The utterances of such sentiment is bad enough, but it is evident that but an
opportunity is wanted to inaugurate a guerrilla warfare in the States north of
the Ohio ? and that opportunity will not be wanting so soon as the troops called
for have gone to the South. A few days since we had at Lawrenceville an instance
of the effect of the spirit of lawlessness which pervades society. A
narrow-minded, bigoted, vicious Democrat, without any cause of quarrel, but as a
proof that he was not for negro equality, met a negro, took up a club and
knocked him down. This occurred a few miles north of the town. A number of
persons were present who testify that the negro said not a word to his assailant
before or after the assault. The next day the negro came to town and made
complaint. His assailant expecting that a writ would be issued also came to town
and told the constable he had better not attempt to serve the writ; that he
intended that night to kill the negro, and if the officer attempted to serve the
writ he would kill him. That night this fellow and fourteen others, all
Democrats and Knights of the Golden Circle, armed themselves, passed openly
through Lawrenceville, and beat over to where the negro lived, shot him and
stabbed him nine times with a bowie-knife, of course killing him. Law-abiding
citizens were, of course, shocked at the spirit of lawlessness manifested, but
men of the secesh persuasion unblushingly say that they did right, "the d ? d
negro ought to be killed." The parties who perpetrated the deed move in open
defiance of law and have sent notices to the citizens of Lawrenceville and
vicinity, who condemn the act, that if any attempt is made to indict them, that
they will kill every d ? d Black Republican and Abolitionist about here.--The
Circuit Court meets there on Monday next, and I am curious to see what will be
done.
A few days since I was at Mr. --, in Richland county, and he told me that he had
just been notified that the Knights had made an order confiscating his property.
A Mr. --,living on Bonds, where there is known to be an extensive lodge of the
Knights, and where they shout daily for Jeff. Davis, came to Mr.--, and told him
that he had been some time before persuaded to join the Order; that he was told
it was for the purpose of better organizing the Democratic party, and for a time
he supposed such was the real purpose, but gradually the conviction was forced
on him that its purpose was treasonable. At their last meeting it was announced
that a rising would soon take place, and then they would seize Mr. --'s stores
at Claremont and Summer, and transfer his goods to the South for the advancement
of Southern rights. Mr.--is a firm partisan of the Democratic persuasion, but in
other respects a good citizen, and there is no doubt of the truth of his tale.
Why, sir, in this town the Union and Disunion parties are terribly embittered
against each other ? churches are divided. A Secesh preacher, from Kentucky,
came here and split the Presbyterian Church wide open. The Secesh party was the
strongest, and hold the old church building. Others have organized a second
church, and instead of engaging in a common cause to fight the devil, they are
fighting each other with a zeal worthy a better cause. The Episcopal Church
would be divided in the same way if there was enough of it, but there are so few
members that they can't divides they pray together in church and abuse each
other out of church. Such is a faint idea of the condition of things in this
country, and it is growing daily worse. If the rebellion does not receive a
fatal blow soon, a reign of terror will be inaugurated here before the idea of
November.
Mr.--is an infamous Secesh, and it is said his house is a castle where the
Knights hold their nocturnal orgies, and I have no doubt of it, for I saw the
most prominent sympathizers in this town go there one night, under very
suspicious circumstances. Just after our reverses on the Potomac; he came into
my office in the happiest mood imaginable. "That was a bad slam, " says he,
"that we got in Virginia. I think there is some prospect now of a compromise,"
&c. #x34;We can never put them down; we must settle it some other way. " Of
course, he and I soon quarreled.
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