CHAPTER X.

EVIDENCE IN REGARD TO ATROCITIES NOT EMBRACED IN THE CHARGE AND SPECIFICATIONS, FOR WHICH DAVIS AND HIS CANADA CABINET WERE RESPONSIBLE.

It will have been noticed that in its charge and specifications against the prisoners on trial the government charged Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, with combining, confederating, and conspiring together with one John H. Surratt and John Wilkes Booth to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William H. Seward, and Ulysses S. Grant; and in the specifications it is alleged that David E. Herold, Edward Spangler, Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, George Atzerodt, and Samuel A. Mudd, together with the said John H. Surratt and John Wilkes Booth, incited and encouraged thereunto by Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, and assault violently with intent to kill William H. Seward. In this the government distinctly and unequivocally charged Jefferson Davis and his allies with inciting and encouraging the prisoners on trial to the commission of this great crime, with the political intent of giving aid to their sinking cause. They were not arraigned before the Commission, for they were not in custody; but they were arraigned before the world. The Commission was then not called upon to render a finding in their case; but the government was called upon to present to the world through the Commission the evidence on which its grave charge against these men, who had rendered themselves conspicuous before the world, was founded. Its honor and dignity made this obligatory upon it. A careful reading of the charge and specifications on which the assassins were arraigned and tried will show that it was competent for the government to present, on that trial, the evidence in its possession on which it charged Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George Young, George Harper, and others, as being inciters to this crime. This evidence was so conclusive of their guilt as charged, that had they been before the Commission they could only have escaped conviction by impeaching the government's witnesses.

Before entering upon the consideration of the evidence a few prefatory remarks seem to be necessary. At an early period of the rebellion Jefferson Davis and his cabinet felt the necessity of sending some of the strongest men of the Confederacy to establish their headquarters in Canada, to look after the interests of the rebel cause, both at home and abroad, and to render assistance to that cause in every way that they could. Amongst its agents thus sent to Canada we find Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, who had been Secretary of the Interior during Buchanan's administration; Clement C. Clay, who had been a United States Senator from Alabama; Beverly Tucker, who had been a circuit judge in Virginia; George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George Young, George Harper, and others of less note, acting in subordinate capacities under the above conspicuous leaders and agents.

These agents had been domiciled within the territory of a neutral government to carry on belligerent operations, contrary to the laws of nations and also of war; and the operations planned by them from time to time, and sometimes executed, were of the highest moral turpitude. The fact that, although the government of Canada held the position of a neutral power as between the belligerents, yet its people, in the proportion of five to one, sympathized with the rebellion, made it very favorable to the execution of the schemes of these Southern emissaries. They also occupied a position that geographically was most favorable to their purposes. They were within easy and constant communication with the enemies of the government that were to be found in every Northern State, and at the same time were able to afford a place of refuge for rebel prisoners who were able to find means of escape from Northern prisons. Canada was a place where disloyal refugees and persons accused of offenses against the government congregated all through the war; and so Jefferson Davis's Canada Cabinet was never at a loss for material for carrying out its plans without regard to their character. They were constantly surrounded by desperate and reckless men, who were in deep sympathy with them in their desperate purpose to overthrow the government, and like them, ready to engage in anything that might give aid in carrying out that purpose. From the head of the rebel government on down through the ranks of this class of its agents, there appears to have been no restraint from any moral consideration. The honorable men of the Confederacy were found, to a large extent, in the ranks of its soldiers engaged in open warfare. The assassination plot was the last card of these desperate men; it was preceded by many others in which the laws of war and the laws of morals were utterly ignored. We will, therefore, in the first place, present some of the most flagrant of these, in regard to which the evidence makes Jefferson Davis and his Canada Cabinet responsible, in order that from these revelations we may be thoroughly informed of their utter disregard of every moral consideration, and that we may thus be prepared for the conclusions to which the evidence of their complicity in, and responsibility for, the assassination plot point.

To show the utter lack of moral appreciation, the entire disregard of all moral requirements, and contempt for the enlightened Christian sentiment of the world as embodied in the accepted codes of martial and international law, and that the assassination plot was only in keeping with their other schemes to aid the rebel cause, I deem it necessary to dwell at some length on the statement of these schemes, as shown by the testimony before the Commission. The St. Albans raid, under the lead of Lieutenant Bennett H. Young (made a lieutenant for this occasion only, and that by the filling up for him of a Commission that was sent to Clay, in blank, by the rebel secretary of war, and to be thus conferred by him, at his discretion, on the persons he engaged in such expeditions, as a protection in case of a trial for extradition), was simply a hostile expedition planned by these conspirators, who organized a squad of about twenty escaped Confederate soldiers from the prisons in which they had been confined, and placed them under command of Young, armed with one of these commissions for his protection. This bogus lieutenant was instructed to pass through the New England States with his command, and escape by the way of Halifax, burning towns and farm-houses as he went; and by robbing and plundering to secure all the money he could, and whatever else he could convert to the use of the Confederate government. He made a foray into Vermont; set fire to the town of St. Albans; robbed two banks, securing about two hundred thousand dollars; and then, finding himself confronted by such opposition that he was unable to proceed, was compelled to retreat into Canada, being so closely pursued that he and a good part of his command were made prisoners. They were committed to jail to await a trial for extradition.

This was simply a guerilla raid, organized on neutral territory, not for the purpose of engaging in open and honorable warfare against an armed foe, but to burn and plunder the property of unarmed people, who were non-combatants engaged in the pursuits of peaceful life. Young's commission, however, enabled him to defeat the demand for his extradition, as he was not captured until he had regained that neutral territory on which, in violation of the law of nations, his expedition had been organized. It is easy to see from this where the sympathies of the Canadian court that tried this case lay. Pending this trial for extradition, Clay became very uneasy for fear the commission conferred by him on Young might not prove a sufficient protection, and so he sent Richard Montgomery, who was in the employ of the United States in its department of secret service, and who had so well wormed himself into the confidence of the Canada Cabinet as to be employed by them on this mission, with a letter to James A. Seddon, the rebel secretary of war, urging him by every consideration he could think of to give a direct sanction to Young's act, and to demand in the name of the Confederate government that he should be released.

This letter was carried to Richmond by Montgomery, after having been exhibited to the Secretary of War of the United States. I refer to this as showing the status of Montgomery with these agents of the Confederate government in Canada, and as evidence of his having gained their entire confidence; and so he was in a position to be a witness, before the Commission, as being informed of their plans and of their doings. In response to this argument and earnest appeal of Clay, the rebel government shouldered the responsibility of the St. Albans raid, and shielded the raiders against extradition. The following is a copy of Lieutenant Young's instructions from the rebel government:--

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT, RICHMOND, VA., June 16th, 1864.

TO Lieutenant BENNETT H. YOUNG:--

LIEUTENANT:--You have been temporarily appointed first lieutenant in the provisional army for special service. You will proceed without delay to the British Provinces, where you will report to Messrs. Thompson and Clay for instructions.

You will, under their direction, collect together such Confederate soldiers who have escaped from the enemy, not exceeding twenty in number, as you may deem suitable for the purpose, and will execute such enterprises as may be entrusted to you.

You will take care to commit no violation of the local law, and to obey implicitly their instructions.

You and your men will receive from these gentlemen transportation and the customary rations and clothing, or commutation therefor.

JAMES A. SEDDON, _Secretary of War_. VA. June 16th.

Here we have the response to Clay's letter, and everything fixed up for the defense of Young and his men after the act had been committed, the papers being antedated to meet the requirements of the case.

During the progress of this trial for the extradition of the raiders, Thompson, Clay, Tucker, and Sanders necessarily held a kind of professional intercourse with the counsel representing the United States. Sanders, on one occasion, became full of self-importance, as also, probably, of whiskey, when his discretion forsook him, and he gave vent to the vaunting and boasting of a braggadocio. He said this raid was not the last that would occur, but it would be followed by the depleting of many other banks and the burning of other towns on the frontier, and that many Yankee sons of ---- (using a coarse and vulgar expression) would be killed. He said they had their plans perfectly organized, and men ready to sack and burn Buffalo, Detroit, New York, and other places, and had deferred them for a time, but would soon see the plans wholly executed; and any preparations that could be made by the government to prevent them, would not, though they might delay them for a time. He claimed to be acting as the agent of the Confederate government, and we have seen that it assumed the responsibility. Several other raids of like character were planned, but were prevented by preparations which the government was enabled to make by being informed of them in advance by persons engaged in its secret service, or by other friends in Canada, who, being in the confidence of the conspirators, became informed as to their plans.

These plans involved a warfare against non-combatants; a war, as we shall see, of poisoning reservoirs, of burning towns and cities by wholesale; a war of the destruction of men, women, and children; burning of hospitals, churches, and private dwellings; a war for the destruction of life and property; in short, a war against humanity. The City of New York came in for a large share of their consideration. The destruction of the Croton dam was an enterprise that seemed very desirable to them, and for which they planned; and had the rebel armies been able to keep the field a little while longer, this would no doubt have been attempted and perhaps accomplished. The poisoning of the reservoirs supplying the city with water seemed very desirable to them, and was much discussed. This was one of the hobbies of the infamous Dr. Blackburn and a Mr. M. A. Pallen of Mississippi, who had been a surgeon in the rebel army. They had made a calculation of the capacity of the reservoirs supplying the city, and had calculated the amount of poison required to make an ordinary draught of water fatal to life. Amongst the poisons they had considered arsenic, strychnine, and prussic acid as available. Blackburn thought the project feasible. Thompson feared it would be impossible to collect so large a quantity of poisonous matter without exciting suspicion and leading to the detection of the parties engaged in it. Pallen and others thought it could be managed in Europe. This matter was fully and freely discussed in June, 1864, by Blackburn, Pallen, Thompson, Sanders, and Cleary.

The moral question involved in the destruction, by poison, of the entire population of the American commercial metropolis,--men, women, and children,--did not enter into their thoughts; it was, in fact, a scheme dear to their hearts; the difficulties attending its accomplishment were the only things that gave them any trouble.

This is that same Dr. Blackburn who, with the approbation of Thompson and his gang, made an effort in the summer of 1864 to spread pestilence in Washington City, and in other cities occupied by federal troops, as far south as could be reached, by means of clothing infected with yellow fever and with small-pox.

Conover testified to this positively and circumstantially as one of their many wicked schemes to spread consternation over the North, and so demoralize the people that they would be willing to make peace on any terms.

As this last scheme is so monstrous in character that it can only be believed on the fullest proof, I give the testimony of Godfrey Joseph Hyams before the Commission, in full.

"I am a native of London, Eng., but have lived south nine or ten years. During the past year I have resided in Toronto, Can. About the middle of December, 1863, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Blackburn. I was introduced to him by the Rev. Stewart Robinson at the Queen's Hotel in Toronto. I knew him by sight previously, but before that had no conversation with him. I knew that he was a Confederate and was working for the rebellion. Dr. Blackburn was then about to take south some men who had escaped from the federal service, and I asked to go with him. He asked me if I wanted to go south and serve the Confederacy. I said I