THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
Its Origin and History
Part 1.
PREFACE.
In the preparation of this work it has been the writer's aim to presentin it, with historical accuracy, authentic facts; to be fair andimpartial in grouping them; and to be true and just in the conclusionsnecessarily drawn from them. While thus striving to be accurate, fair,and just, he has not thought it his duty to mince words, nor to refrainfrom "calling things by their right names;" neither has he sought tocurry favor, in any quarter, by fulsome adulation on the one side, norundue denunciation on the other, either of the living, or of the dead.But, while tracing the history of the Great Conspiracy, from its obscurebirth in the brooding brains of a few ambitious men of the earliest daysof our Republic, through the subsequent years of its devolution, down tothe evil days of Nullification, and to the bitter and bloody period ofarmed Rebellion, or contemplating it in its still more recent and,perhaps, more sinister development, of to-day, he has conscientiouslydealt with it, throughout, in the clear and penetrating light of thevoluminous records so readily accessible at the seat of our NationalGovernment. So far as was practicable, he has endeavored to allow thechief characters in that Conspiracy—as well as the Union leaders, who,whether in Executive, Legislative, or Military service, devoted theirbest abilities and energies to its suppression—to speak for themselves,and thus while securing their own proper places in history, by a processof self-adjustment as it were, themselves to write down that history intheir own language. If then there be found within these covers aughtwhich may seem harsh to those directly or indirectly, nearly orremotely, connected with that Conspiracy, he may not unfairly exclaim:"Thou canst not say I did it." If he knows his own heart, the writercan truly declare, with his hand upon it, that it bears neither hatred,malice, nor uncharitableness, to those who, misled by the cunningsecrecy of the Conspirators, and without an inkling or even a suspicionof their fell purposes, went manfully into the field, with a courageworthy of a better cause, and for four years of bloody conflict,believing that their cause was just, fought the armies of the Union, ina mad effort to destroy the best government yet devised by man upon thisplanet. And, perhaps, none can better understand than he, how hard, howvery hard, it must be for men of strong nature and intense feeling,after taking a mistaken stand, and especially after carrying theirconviction to the cannon's mouth, to acknowledge their error before theworld. Hence, while he has endeavored truly to depict—or to let thosewho made history at the time help him to depict—the enormity of theoffence of the armed Rebellion and of the heresies and plottings ofcertain Southern lea