did. He then told me to come upstairs to a private room, as he wanted

to speak to me. He took me upstairs, and after we had entered his room he pledged his word as a freemason, and offered his hand in friendship, that he would never deceive me. He said he wanted to confide to me an expedition. I told him I would not care if I did. He said I would make an independent fortune by it, at least one hundred thousand dollars, and get more honor and glory to my name than General Lee, and be of more assistance to the Confederate government than if I was to take one hundred thousand soldiers to reinforce General Lee. I pledged my word that I would go if I could do any good. He then told me he wanted me to take a certain quantity of clothing, consisting of shirts, coats, and underclothing, into the States, and dispose of them by auction. I was to take them to Washington City, to Norfolk, and as far south as I could possibly go, where the federal government held possession and had the most troops, and to sell them on a hot day or of a night; that it did not matter what money I got for the clothing, I had just to dispose of them in the best market where there were the most troops, and where they would be most effective, and then come away. He told me I should have one hundred thousand dollars for my services, sixty thousand dollars of it directly after I returned to Toronto; but he said that would not be a circumstance to what I should get. He said I might make ten times one hundred thousand dollars. I was to stay in Toronto, and go on with my legitimate business until I heard from him. He told me to keep quiet, and if I moved anywhere I was to inform Dr. Stewart Robinson where I went to, and he would telegraph for me, or write to me through him. Sometime in the month of May, 1864, I went to my work and worked on until the 8th day of June, '64; it was on a Saturday night; I had been out to take a pair of boots home to a customer of mine; when I returned home my wife had a letter for me from Dr. Blackburn, which Dr. Stewart Robinson had left in passing there. I read the letter, and went out to see Dr. Robinson. I asked him what I was to do about it. He said he did not know anything about it; that he did not want to furnish any means to commit an overt act against the United States government. He advised me to borrow from Mr. Preston, who keeps a tobacco manufactory in Toronto, enough money to take me to Montreal, and there get money from Mr. Slaughter, according to the directions contained in Dr. Blackburn's letter. This letter instructed me to proceed from Montreal to Halifax to meet Dr. Blackburn; it was dated Havana, May 10th, 1864. I went to Halifax to a gentleman by the name of Alexander H. Keith, Jr., and remained under his care until Dr. Blackburn arrived in the steamer 'Alpha,' on the 12th of July, 1864. When Dr. Blackburn arrived he sent to the Farmer's Hotel, where I was staying, for me. I went to see him, and he told me that the goods were on board the steamer 'Alpha,' and that the second officer on the steamer would go with me and get the goods off, as they had been smuggled in from Bermuda. Mr. Hill, the second officer, told me to get an express wagon and take it down to Cunard's steamboat wharf. I did so, and there got eight trunks and a valise. I was directed to take them to my hotel, and put them in a private room. I put them in Mr. Doran's private sitting-room. I then went around to Dr. Blackburn, and told him I had got the goods off the steamer. He told me that the five trunks tied up with ropes were the ones for me to take, and asked me if I would take the valise into the States and send it by express, with an accompanying letter, as a donation to President Lincoln. I objected to taking it, and refused to do so. I then took three of the trunks and the valise around to the hotel. He was then staying at the Halifax Hotel. The trunks had Spanish marks upon them, and he told me to scrape them off, and that Mr. Hill would go with me the next morning and make arrangements with some captain of a vessel to take them. There were two vessels there running to Boston, and I was to make an arrangement with either of them to smuggle the trunks through to Boston. The next morning I went down with Mr. Hill to the vessels. Mr. Hill had a private conversation with Captain McGregor, the captain of the first vessel, to whom we applied to take the goods, and he refused.

"We then went to see Captain O'Brien of the bark 'Halifax.' Hill told him that I had some presents in my trunks, consisting of silks, satin dresses, etc., that I wanted to take to my friends. The Captain and Mr. Hill had a private conversation, and when the Captain came out he consented to take them. I was to give him a twenty-dollar gold piece for smuggling them in. I put them on board the vessel that day and he stowed them away. The vessel lay five days at Boston before he could get a chance to get them off, but finally he succeeded in getting them off, and expressed them to Philadelphia, where I received them and brought them to Baltimore. I then took out the goods, which were very much rumpled, and smoothed them out and arranged them, bought some new trunks, and repacked them and brought them to this city. Dr. Blackburn, by way of caution, asked me before leaving if I had had the yellow fever, and on my saying 'no,' he said, 'You must have a preventive against taking it. You must get some camphor and chew it, and get some strong cigars, the strongest you can get; and be sure to keep gloves on your hands when handling the things.' He gave me some cigars that he said he had brought from Havana, which he said were strong enough for anything. When I arrived in this city, I turned over five of the trunks to Messrs. W. L. Wall & Company, commission merchants in this city, and four to a man by the name of Myers, from Boston, a sutler for Siegel's or Weitzel's division. He said he had some goods which he was going to take to New Berne, N.C., and I told him that I had a lot of goods that I wanted to sell, and, to make the best market I could for them, I would turn them over to him on commission. I also told him I would shortly have more, and mentioned that I had disposed of some to Wall & Company, of this city. Dr. Blackburn told me, when I was making arrangements, that I should let the parties to whom I disposed of my goods know that I would have a big lot to sell, as it was in contemplation to get together about a million dollars' worth of goods and dispose of them in that way. Dr. Blackburn stated that his object in having these goods disposed of in different cities was to destroy the armies, or anybody that they came in contact with. All these goods, he told me, had been carefully infected in Bermuda with yellow fever, small-pox, and other contagious diseases.

"The goods in the valise, which were intended for President Lincoln, I understood him to say had been infected with yellow fever and small-pox. This valise I declined taking charge of and turned it over to him at Halifax Hotel, and I afterwards heard that it had been sent to the President. On the five trunks that I turned over to Wall & Company I got an advance of one hundred dollars. Among these five trunks there was one that was always spoken of by Blackburn to me as 'Big No. 2,' which he said I must be sure to have sold in Washington. On disposing of the trunks I immediately left Washington, and went straight through until I got to Hamilton, Canada. In the waiting-room there I met Mr. Holcomb and Clement C. Clay. They both rose, shook hands with me, and congratulated me upon my safe return, and upon my making a fortune. They told me I should be a gentleman for the future, instead of a working man and a mechanic. They seemed perfectly to understand the business in which I had been engaged.

"Mr. Holcomb told me that Dr. Blackburn was at the Donegan Hotel, in Montreal, and that I had better telegraph to him stating that I had returned. As Dr. Blackburn had requested me to telegraph to him as soon as I got into Canada, I did so, and the next night, between eleven and twelve o'clock, Dr. Blackburn came up and knocked at the door of my house. I was in bed at the time. I looked out of the window, and saw Dr. Blackburn there. Said he, 'Come down, Hyams, and open the door; you are like all damned rascals who have been doing something wrong--you're afraid that the devil is after you.' He was in company with Bennett H. Young. I came down and let him in. He asked me how I had disposed of the goods and I told him. 'Well,' said he 'that is all right as long as "Big No. 2" went into Washington; it will kill them at sixty yards distance.' I then told the doctor that everything had gone wrong at my home in my absence; that I needed some funds; that my family needed money. He said he would go to Colonel Jacob Thompson and make arrangements for me to draw upon him for any amount of money that I required. He then said that the British authorities had solicited his services in attending the yellow fever that was then raging in Bermuda; that he was going on there; and that as soon as he came back he would see me. I went up to Jacob Thompson the next morning, and told him what Dr. Blackburn had said. He said 'Yes'; Dr. Blackburn had been there and had made arrangements for me to draw one hundred dollars whenever it was shown that I had made disposition of the goods according to his directions. I told him I needed money; that I had been so long away from home that everything I had was gone, and I wanted money to pay my rent, etc. He said, 'I will give you fifty dollars now, but it is against Dr. Blackburn's request; when you show me that you have sold the goods, I will give you the balance.' He asked me to give him a receipt, which I did: 'Received of Jacob Thompson the sum of fifty dollars on account of Dr. Blackburn.' That was about the 11th or 12th of August last. The next day I wrote to Messrs. Wall & Company, of Washington, desiring them to send me an account of the sales, and the balance due me. When I received their answer, I took it to Colonel Thompson. He then said he was perfectly satisfied I had done my part, and gave me a check for fifty dollars on the Ontario Bank. I gave him a receipt: 'Received of Jacob Thompson one hundred dollars in full on account of Dr. Luke P. Blackburn.' I told Thompson of the large sum which Dr. Blackburn had promised me for my services and that he and Mr. Holcomb had both told me that the Confederate government had appropriated two million dollars for the purpose of carrying it out; but he would not pay me any more. When Dr. Blackburn returned from Bermuda, I wrote to him at Montreal, and told him I wanted some money, and that he ought to send me some; but he made no reply to my letter. I was then sent down to Montreal with a commission for Bennett H. Young, to be used in his defense in the St. Albans raid case. I there met Dr. Blackburn. He said I had written some hard letters to him, abusing him, and that he had no money to give me. He then got into his carriage at the door and rode off to some races, I think, and never gave me any more satisfaction. As I wanted money before leaving for the States, I went to the Clifton House, Niagara. Dr. Blackburn told me he had no money with him then, but that he would go to Mr. Holcomb and get some, as he had Confederate funds with him. Blackburn said that when I returned he would get the money for the expedition from either Holcomb or Thompson, it did not matter which. From this, and from Holcomb and Clay both shaking hands with me and congratulating me at Hamilton upon my safe return, I thought, of course, they knew all about it. I do not know that Dr. Stewart Robinson knew of the business in which I was engaged, but he took good care of me while I was at Toronto, in the fall, and until Dr. Blackburn wrote for me in the spring; and when he gave me Dr. Blackburn's letter, he told me to borrow the money from Mr. Preston to take me to Montreal, as he said he did not want to commit an overt act against the Government of the United States himself. Mr. Preston lent me ten dollars to go to Montreal. On arriving at that place, according to the directions of Dr. Blackburn's letter, I went to Mr. Slaughter to get the means to take me to Halifax. Mr. Slaughter was short of funds, and had only twenty dollars that he could give me. He said that I had better go to Mr. Holcomb, who was staying at the Donegan Hotel, and he would give me the balance. I went to the Hotel and sent up my name, and he sent for me to come up. I told him I wanted some money to take me to Halifax; he asked me how much I wanted; I told him as much as would make up forty dollars; he said 'You had better take fifty dollars,' but as I did not want that much I only took enough to make forty dollars. When I came to Washington to dispose of my goods, which was on the 5th of August, 1864, I put up at the National Hotel, registered my name as J. W. Harris, under which name I did business with Wall & Company."

Here we have a straightforward, circumstantial account of the efforts made and the means used to spread pestilence and death amongst citizens and soldiers alike, in the capital of the nation, and in other cities and camps, a special consignment, supposed to contain the contagion of yellow fever and small-pox, being sent as "a donation to President Lincoln." This was for the purpose of taking his life, and at the risk of the lives of his household. Blackburn, Clay, Thompson, and Holcomb were the originators of the plan, and as guilty as the infamous scoundrel, Hyams, who, to gratify his desire for revenge on them for their perfidy in putting him off with a mere pittance of the promised reward for his services in the matter, comes before the Commission and reveals the whole history of their infamy. No one who reads his story will doubt that he was a conscienceless scoundrel, who, for the hope of obtaining a large sum of money, according to their promise, was willing to make himself an instrument in the wholesale and indiscriminate destruction of human life. But monster as he was, he was not more a monster than was each one of his employers. He was evidently a man well qualified for the task in which he was employed; in the first place destitute of conscience, and then a man of a good degree of intelligence, shrewdness, and knowledge of affairs. Granting that he was selected by Dr. Robinson, and recommended by him to Dr. Blackburn, he could not have made a better selection had he had full knowledge of the work cut out for him to do. And when we consider Blackburn's perfidy in his dealings with him, pledging his faith as a freemason and giving him his hand in friendship, assuring him that he would never deceive him; then building him up in the idea that he would receive one hundred thousand dollars, and perhaps ten times that amount as his reward; and then, after he had performed a service that put his own life in jeopardy, to put him off with a mere pittance of the amount promised, we cannot wonder that a man constituted as Hyams was should divulge the terrible secret in revenge for the shabby treatment he had received at their hands.

See how Clay and Holcomb meet him on his return! They understand all about the character of his mission, congratulate him on his safe return, and on the fact that from thenceforth he was not to be known as a laboring man and a mechanic, but as a gentleman.

No wonder that he, when for the pitiful sum of one hundred dollars he had signed for Thompson a receipt in full on account of Dr. Blackburn, vowed to have revenge. How true it is that there must be honor even amongst the worst of villains, in order that they may hang together. They broke faith with Hyams, and Hyams revealed circumstantially, and fully, their great crime against humanity. We have now seen these men planning to poison the water supply of New York City to the extent of fatality to its whole population, men, women, and children,--helpless age, and more helpless infancy doomed to death by the scope of their plan; and now, we have found them engaged in an effort to spread pestilence with the same purpose of the indiscriminate destruction of human life. What worse can they do? Can we after this be surprised at anything they may undertake? It will not avail to say that a man who could be hired to do such a thing as this is unworthy of credence, even under oath, and so that his testimony is not to be received. Hyams' story bears on its face the marks of a truthful narrative of the facts, just as they occurred, and it does not follow that because a man is a confessed scoundrel he is incapable of telling the truth. No adequate motive for falsehood in this case can be assigned. Had his employers kept faith with him, he would no doubt have kept their terrible secret, and it would have been buried with him. That they did not, only becomes a reason for his disclosure of the facts, not for his fabrication of falsehoods. But then his statement as to how he disposed of the goods in Washington City is fully confirmed by the testimony of Wall & Company, who produced an account of the transaction agreeing exactly, in date and amount, with that given by Hyams, and also in regard to his _alias_ of J. W. Harris. It was also corroborated by the National Hotel register of that date.

Conover testified to this as one of the schemes planned by Thompson and his gang, and Hyams gives a full account of the manner of its execution. For some reason the infection was a failure in Washington City; but not so with the goods sent by Myers, the sutler, to New Berne, N.C. It will be recollected that an epidemic of yellow fever broke out there in the latter part of the summer of 1864, that swept away large numbers of people, both citizens and soldiers. No doubt this epidemic was due to the infection carried in the clothing that Myers received from Hyams, to be sold on commission; and that in the great day of final account these men will find themselves arraigned as the murderers of all those who fell as the victims of their hellish plot, before a tribunal that is infinitely perfect in its knowledge and just in its decisions.

_Plot to Burn New York City and its Attempted Execution._

The plot to burn the city of New York was attempted to be carried out on the 25th of November, 1864. I will give the history of this attempt as narrated in his confession, by Robert C. Kennedy, one of the gang of incendiaries sent there for that purpose, who was arrested, tried, found guilty, condemned, and hanged for his crime. Before his execution he made a full confession as follows:--

"After my escape from Johnson's Island I went to Canada, where I met a number of Confederates. They asked me if I was willing to go on an expedition. I replied: 'Yes, if it is in the service of my country.' They said: 'It is all right,' but gave me no intimation of its nature, nor did I ask for any. I was then sent to New York, where I stayed some time. There were eight men of our party, of whom two fled to Canada. After we had been in New York three weeks we were told that the object of our expedition was to retaliate on the North for the atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley. It was designed to set fire to the city on the night of the Presidential election; but the phosphorus was not ready, and it was put off until the 25th of November. I was stopping at the Belmont House, but moved into Prince Street. I set fire to four places--in Barnum's Museum, Lovejoy's Hotel, Tammany Hotel, and the New England House. The others merely started fires in the house where each one was lodging, and then ran off. Had they all done as I did, we would have had thirty-two fires and played a huge joke on the fire department. I know that I am to be hung for setting fire to Barnum's Museum, but that was only a joke. I had no idea of doing it. I had been drinking and went in there with a friend, and, just to scare the people, I emptied a bottle of phosphorus on the floor. We knew it would not set fire to the wood, for we had tried it before, and at one time had concluded to give the thing up. There was no fiendishness about it. After setting fire to my four places, I walked the streets all night, and went to the Exchange Hotel early in the morning. We all met there that morning and the next night. My friend and I had rooms there, but we sat in the office nearly all the time reading the papers, while we were watched by the detectives, of whom the hotel was full. I expected to die then, and if I had it would have been all right; but now it seems rather hard. I escaped to Canada and was glad enough when I crossed the bridge in safety. I desired, however, to return to my command, and started with my friend for the Confederacy _via_ Detroit. Just before entering the city he received an intimation that the detectives were on the look-out for us, and giving me the signal he jumped from the cars. I did not notice the signal, but kept on and was arrested in the depot. I wish to say that the killing of women and children was the last thing thought of. We wanted to let the people of the North understand that there were two sides to this war, and that they could not be rolling in wealth and comfort while we at the South were bearing all the hardships and privations. In retaliation for Sheridan's atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley, we desired to destroy property; not the lives of women and children, although that would, of course, have followed in its train."

Done in the presence of LIEUT. COL. MARTIN BURKE and J. HOWARD, JR. March 24th, 1865, 10.30 P.M.

Kennedy, in the presence of death, made this free and full confession, carefully confining himself to the narration of his own and the acts of his fellow incendiaries. He does not tell who planned this enterprise of death and destruction for the great metropolis of the country, and whilst honestly confessing his own part in it, is very careful not to compromise anybody else. But we are not left without information as to who were the employers of him and his gang; and here again Thompson and his fellow agents of the rebel government in Canada are made to appear as its originators, and must be held responsible, not only for the attempt thus made to destroy New York by fire, but also for the worst consequences that could have happened had their attempt proven successful.[3] Kennedy says they did not desire to destroy the lives of women and children, although that would of course have followed in its train. Thompson, Clay, Cleary, Sanders, and any others that had any hand in setting this expedition on foot, could not fail to know what would necessarily follow in its train if successful, but were not deterred by the knowledge of the fact that it involved not merely the destruction of property, but of necessity also the destruction of women and children; for the firing of a city like New York in many places, simultaneously, if successful in its object, the destruction of the city, must necessarily result in the same kind of indiscriminate destruction of human life that resulted at New Berne, from the dissemination of pestilence sent there in the clothing that that inhuman fiend, Dr. Blackburn, had carefully infected and sent there for that very purpose. In the early ages of the world war meant the indiscriminate destruction of all that belonged to the enemy. The spirit of war then was to exterminate the foe. Prisoners of war were slaughtered after the battle was ended. Women and children were killed or carried into slavery. Men had not learned to exercise mercy in war. It meant universal destruction of life, and confiscation of the property of the enemy. It meant even the confiscation of the territory or country in which he lived. It is so yet among the savage tribes of the earth. With them the murder of a woman about to become a mother is nothing, and the dashing out of the brains of her children against a stone or a tree, before her eyes, yields to them a fiendish satisfaction. Civilized nations, however, do not so carry on war, and the laws of war do not permit this mode of warfare. The annals of no age of the world, or of the most rude and savage people of the earth, afford examples more atrocious than those planned and executed, or attempted to be executed, by these agents of Jefferson Davis in Canada, and by other agents, as we shall see, whose deeds were sanctioned and paid for by Davis and his Secretary of State Benjamin.

The prison-pen at Andersonville was evidently planned for the destruction of the lives of the prisoners of war that were sent there; and if any escaped death, it was intended that they should be so physically injured that they could never again render any service to the Union cause. In a country abounding in forest shade and pure water, there can be no excuse given for locating a prison-pen in a little intervale, wholly destitute of shade, where men without tents or shelter of any kind were huddled together by the thousands, with a very meagre supply of water, for a long time, even for quenching thirst, and none at all for the purposes of cleanliness, and what they had for the former purpose being contaminated with all the filth from the drainage of the town just above.

It is evident that this location was made with a view to the destruction of life and the ruin of health. Then, for the further carrying out of this purpose, the rations supplied were not only wholly insufficient in quantity, but most unwholesome in quality, exactly adapted to aid the effects of miasmatic exposure, and foul water, in bringing on stomach and bowel troubles and low forms of fever, which were kept up until life was literally drained out, and death from exhaustion ensued. Here, without any sympathetic medical assistance or proper medicine, men were dying daily by the fifties and the hundreds, and the survivors becoming mere ghostly spectres; whilst the inhuman monster, Wirtz, stood gloating over the scene in devilish glee, and his inhuman guards were constantly on the look-out for pretexts to shoot down their fellowmen, as though the terrible harvest of death, secured by their arrangements and management of this graveyard of the living, was too meagre, and required their bullets to enrich it. Such was Andersonville. The purpose of its location and management are too obvious to need remark; and for all this, Jefferson Davis and his Secretary of War are to be held responsible. Far be it from me to bring up this matter for the purpose of giving a fresh impulse to sectional enmity. I only do it to show the low moral status of those who were responsible for the conduct of the war on the side of the rebellion, in order that from all this we may be prepared for the evidence presented to the world through the Commission, sustaining the grave charges of the government.

There was no doubt an element, perhaps a large element of the population of the Southern States, that was in full sympathy with this policy; but such a policy could only have been abhorrent to the honorable foe who bravely confronted us on the field of conflict. It was the stay-at-home-and-fight element that sanctioned these atrocities. War is cruel when conducted on the strictest rules of civilized warfare. War is destructive; it is harsh and unrelenting. Foeman must meet foeman with his steel. It is a game in which human life is always the price of success and the cost of failure. The enemy must be met and overcome; his resources must be reached and cut off if it can be done, thus starving him into submission, as a more humane way of getting the victory over him than by taking his life. But amongst civilized people no enemy is to be deprived of life but the armed and active foe in the field, in honorable and open combat, except for crime. The lives of women, children, prisoners of war, and of non-combatants generally, must be held sacred. Thus we see how much the horrors of war have been mitigated by the more enlightened sentiments and Christian morality of the world's present state of civilization. When these shall have done their perfect work, wars will cease. The time will yet come when men shall learn war no more. May God hasten the day.

In charging Jefferson Davis, and those associated with him in the conduct of the war with an utter disregard of the laws of war, and of being guilty of atrocities that are only matched in savage life, I wish again to make a distinct disclaimer in behalf of those who fought, and of those who conducted his operations in the field. Whilst I abhor their construction of the Constitution and theory of the union of the States as destructive of the hopes of liberty and of free government, tending continually to disintegration, and making the idea of a nation an impossibility, I admire and honor the courage and bravery with which they maintained their theory, and accord to them the honor, as well as the courage of true soldiers.

To them the idea of winning success by the means we have had under consideration, and for which we have found the political leaders of the rebellion responsible, including the highest officer of the Confederacy, would have been as abhorrent as to myself. Not a word that I have written can tarnish the fame of the true soldier; and I have carefully avoided charging anything against even the politicians of the Confederacy that is not sustained by indisputable evidence. Considered morally, their methods can never be justified; yet it was by these methods, with assassination added, that the political leaders of the rebellion sought to obtain success, and because of this, must for all time in history fall under the condemnation of the enlightened Christian conscience of the world. That they were guilty of all these things has been abundantly proven; but as we shall see, the evidence has not yet been exhausted. They attempt to shield themselves under the claim of justifiable retaliation. Retaliation for what? They answer, "The atrocities committed by Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley." Let us consider this question for a moment. It was the fortune of the writer to be serving under Sheridan at the time these alleged atrocities were committed, and to be an eye-witness of them. What did Sheridan do? He burnt all the stack-yards and barns containing grain and hay, and all the mills and factories found in the valley from above Harrisonburg on down to near Winchester, or perhaps lower down than that. He also appropriated all the horses, cattle, sheep, etc., that could have been made available for the support and aid of an enemy. He dealt merely with property, and that such property alone as would have enabled General Lee again to have threatened the national capital by an invading foe by this route, as he had twice, or oftener, done before, thus making it necessary to employ a large force from our army in guarding this route. General Grant determined to render this division of his forces unnecessary, by rendering the valley impracticable to Lee by this destruction of the abundant supplies that it furnished, in order that he might have the benefit of Sheridan's forces in his investment of Richmond.

It was simply the destruction of property by which the rebellion could sustain itself, and thus prolong its existence, in order to shorten the war, and thus save the expenditure of human life. There was no property destroyed or confiscated but such as could be used for the subsistence and movements of an army. It was simply a question of shortening the war, and thus economizing human life by the destruction of property, and so was a measure fully justified by the laws and usages of war. Sheridan acted under Grant's orders in this matter, and his acts were only atrocious as war itself is atrocious, and can never serve as a justification of schemes that in every instance involved the lives of non-combatants, and even of women and children. All of this destruction of property in the Shenandoah Valley by Sheridan was done, and accounted for, strictly in accordance with the laws and usages of war, and has never been challenged by the civilized nations of the world as an unwarranted atrocity. It was harsh in the extreme; but as a military necessity it was justifiable. It included in its object mercy towards the lives of men.

As the cause of the Confederacy began to lose ground in the summer of 1864, and the signal success of our arms made it clear that it would not be able to maintain the fight to a successful close, the political leaders became desperate and reckless as to the means to which they resorted. The City Point explosion, the burning of a number of steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the burning of a soldiers', or United States, hospital at Louisville, Ky., were amongst the occurrences of that eventful summer. The following extract from the report of John Maxwell to Captain Z. McDaniel, commanding Torpedo Company, explains the City Point explosion:--

"Captain: I have the honor to report that in obedience to your order, and with the means and equipments furnished me by you, I left this city (Richmond) 26th July last for the line of the James River, to operate with the 'hozological torpedo' against the enemy's vessels navigating that river. I had with me Mr. R. K. Dillard, who was well acquainted with the localities, and whose services I engaged for the expedition.

"On arriving in Isle of Wight County, on the 2d of August, we learned of immense supplies of stores being landed at City Point; and for the purpose, by stratagem, of introducing our machine upon the vessels there discharging stores, started for that point. We reached there before day-break on the 9th of August last, having travelled mostly by night, and crawled upon our knees to pass the east picket line. Requesting my companion to remain behind about half a mile, I approached cautiously the wharf, with my machine and powder covered by a small box. Finding the captain had come ashore from a barge then at the wharf, I seized the occasion to hurry forward with my box. Being halted by one of the wharf sentinels, I succeeded in passing him by representing that the captain had ordered me to convey the box on board. Hailing a man from the barge, I put the machine in motion, and gave it in his charge. He carried it aboard. The machine contained about twelve pounds of powder. Rejoining my companion we retired to a safe distance to witness the effect of our effort.

"In about an hour the explosion took place. Its effect was communicated to another barge beyond the one operated upon, and also to a large wharf building containing their stores (enemy's), which was totally destroyed. The scene was terrific, and the effect deafened my companion to an extent from which he has not recovered. My own person was severely shocked, but I am thankful to Providence that we have both escaped without injury. We obtained and enclose slips from the enemy's newspapers, which afford their testimony of the terrible effects of the blow. The enemy estimate the loss of life at fifty-eight killed and one hundred and twenty-six wounded, but we have reason to believe it greatly exceeded that.

"The pecuniary damage we heard estimated at four millions of dollars; but of course we can give you no account of the extent of it exactly. I may be permitted, Captain, here to remark _that a party of ladies_, it seems, were killed by this explosion. It is saddening to me to realize the fact that the terrible effects of war [he should have added as thus conducted] induce such consequences; but when I remember the ordeal to which our own women have been submitted, and the barbarities of the enemy's crusade against us and them, my feelings are relieved by the reflection that whilst this catastrophe was not _intended_ by us, it amounts only, in the providence of God, to _just retribution_."

Hear the pious scoundrel salving his conscience with the old cry of "just retribution!"

The following will explain the agency by which boats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the United States Hospital at Louisville, Ky., were burned. It is the testimony of Edward Frazier before the Commission:--

"I am a steamboat man, and have been making St. Louis my home for the last nine or ten years. During 1864 I knew of the operations of Tucker, Minor Majors, Thomas L. Clark, and Colonel Barrett, of Missouri, for burning boats carrying government freight, transports, and other vessels on the Ohio and Mississippi and other rivers. These men were in the service of the Confederate Government. I knew of the following steamboats having been burned by the operations of these parties: the 'Imperial,' 'Hiawatha,' the 'Robert Campbell,' the 'Louisville,' the 'Daniel G. Taylor,' and others, besides some in New Orleans that I do not know the names of. The 'Imperial' was one of the largest and finest transports on the western waters. In the case of the burning of the 'Robert Campbell,' which was destroyed in the stream when under way, at Milikin's Bend, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg, there was a considerable loss of life. The agent who destroyed this boat was on board. These boats were all owned by private individuals. The operations of these men were to include government hospitals, store-houses, and everything appertaining to the enemy. A United States hospital at Louisville was burned in June or July of 1864. I do not know who burned it, but a man named Dillingham claimed compensation for it. I was in Richmond from the 20th to the 25th or 26th of August last, when I had an interview with the rebel Secretary of War, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Jefferson Davis. Thomas L. Clark, Dillingham, and myself, called there in connection with the boat burning, and put in claims to Mr. James A. Seddon, the rebel Secretary of War. Mr. Clark introduced me to Mr. Seddon. He told me that he had thrown up that business, that it was now in the hands of Mr. Benjamin. We went to him, and Mr. Benjamin looked at the papers we brought him, and asked me if I knew anything about them. I told him that I did, and that I believed they were all right. He asked me if I was from St. Louis. I told him I was. He then asked Mr. Clark if he knew me to be all right, and he said I had been represented to him by Mr. Majors as being all right. Mr. Benjamin told us all three to call the next day. We did so, when he said he had shown these papers to Jefferson Davis, and he (Benjamin) wanted to know if we would not take thirty thousand dollars and sign receipts in full. We told him we would not. Mr. Benjamin then said that if Dillingham was to claim this in Louisville, he wanted a statement of it. We went back to the hotel, and I wrote the statement myself. It read that Mr. Dillingham had been hired by General Polk, and that he had been sent to Louisville expressly to do that work; namely, to burn the hospital. It was then talked over with Mr. Benjamin, and we made a settlement with him for fifty thousand dollars; thirty-five thousand dollars down in gold, and fifteen thousand dollars on deposits, to be paid in four months, provided the claims proved correct. The money was paid by a draft on Columbia for thirty-four thousand, eight hundred dollars, in gold, and two hundred dollars in gold we got in Richmond. We received the gold on the draft at Columbia. Whilst in Richmond, Mr. Benjamin told me that Mr. Davis wanted to see me. I went in with Mr. Benjamin to see Mr. Davis, and we sat and talked. The conversation first was about what was called the Long Bridge, between Nashville and Chattanooga. Mr. Davis wanted to know what I thought about destroying it. He said they had been thinking of it, and of sending some one to have it done. I told him I knew of the bridge, though I did not, for I had never been there, but did not know what to think about destroying it. He said I had better study it over. Finally I told him I thought it could be done. Mr. Benjamin, I believe it was, first remarked that he would give four hundred thousand dollars if that bridge was destroyed, and asked me if I would take charge of it. I told him I would not unless the passes were taken away from those men that were now down there, and Mr. Davis said it should be done. The conversation then turned on the burning of the steamboats. I told Mr. Davis that I did not think it was any use burning steamboats, and he said no, he was going to have that stopped. The next day I saw an order taking away passes issued on or before the 23d of August. These passes were permits to do this kind of work. I presume Mr. Davis knew that the money I received was for the work that I had done; he knew that I had received money there. Mr. Davis seemed fully aware of what we had done, and he did not condemn it. Mr. Majors and Barrett belonged to an organization known as the 'O. A. K.', or 'Order of American Knights.'" The witness was asked to state, if he thought proper to do so, whether he was also a member of that order; but he declined to say. "I understood" (said the witness) "that Colonel Barrett held the position of adjutant general of this organization, of the Sons of Liberty, for the State of Illinois. I do not know that Majors and Barrett were in Chicago in July last, but Mr. Majors left St. Louis either in June or July, to go to Canada, and I presume went there by way of Chicago."

Here again, we see the moral plane on which Davis and Benjamin worked for the success of the Confederacy. We find them employing and paying agents for burning boats, midstream, regardless of the destruction of the lives of non-combatants, including, most likely, women and children amongst the passengers aboard; burning a hospital filled with sick, wounded, and dying soldiers, who, according to the laws of civilized warfare, are entitled to the sacred protection of even the enemy, whether in or out of their territory and possession. We have now found Davis and his agents in Canada planning and carrying out schemes for assassination or murder by wholesale, by spreading pestilence, poisoning of reservoirs, burning cities, hospitals, and boats on their way loaded with passengers, and by the use of explosives murdering women. Human life, under any imaginable conditions of existence, received no consideration at their hands if its sacrifice held out to them any prospect of advancing their cause.

Another foul plot to murder prisoners of war held in Libby Prison, right under the eyes of Davis and his Cabinet, is detailed as follows by Erastus W. Ross, a witness before the Commission:--

"I was in the service of the rebel government. I was conscripted and detailed as a clerk at Libby Prison, and never served in the army. In March, 1864, General Kilpatrick was making a raid in the direction of Richmond. About that time the prison was mined. I saw the place where I was told the powder was buried under the prison; it was in the middle of the building. The powder was put there secretly in the night. I never saw it, but I saw the fuse. It was put in the office. I was away at my uncle's the night that the powder was put there, and was told of it the next morning by one of the colored men at the prison. There were two sentinels near the place to prevent any person approaching it. The excavation made was about the size of a barrel head, and the earth was thrown up loosely over it. Major Turner, the commandant of the prison, had charge of the fuse. He told me that the powder was there, and that the fuse was to set it off; that it was put there for the security of the prisoners, and if the army got in it was to be set off for the purpose of blowing up the prison and the prisoners. The powder was secretly taken out in May, and the whole building was then shut up. The prisoners had all been sent to Macon, Ga. I suppose the powder was placed there by the authority of General Winder or the Secretary of War. Major Turner said he was acting under the authority of the rebel war department, though I never saw any written orders about it."

John Latouche testified as follows: "I was first lieutenant in Company B, Twenty-fifth Virginia Battalion, C. S. A. I was detailed to post duty in Richmond to regulate the details of the guards of the military prisons there, and in March, 1864, I was on duty at Libby Prison. Major Turner, the keeper of the prison, told me that he was going to see General Winder about the guard. On his return he told me that General Winder himself had been to see the Secretary of War, and that they were going to put powder under the prison. In the morning of the same day the powder was brought. There were two kegs of about twenty-five pounds each, and a box which contained about as much as the kegs. A hole was dug in the centre of the middle basement, and the powder was put down there. The box when put in just came level with the ground, and the place was covered over with gravel. I did not see any fuse to it then. I placed a sentry over this powder so that no accident might occur, and the next day Major Turner, who had charge of the fuse, showed it to us in his office; he showed it to everybody there. It was a long fuse made of gutta-percha, such a one as I had never seen before. In May, I think it was, Major Turner went South, and all of the prisoners were sent out of the Libby building proper to the south; and General Winder sent a note down to the office with directions to take up the powder as privately or as secretly as possible. I forget his exact words. The note was delivered into my hands for the inspector of the prison, to whom I either gave or sent it. I afterward heard Major Turner say that in the event of the raiders coming into Richmond he would have blown up the prison. I understood him to say those were his orders."

We are not left, however, to infer that this gunpowder plot, by which the lives of twelve hundred Union officers held as prisoners of war were to have been sacrificed in case Colonel Dahlgren should have gotten into the city for the purpose of their liberation, was authorized by the head of the rebel government.

The box turned over by General Johnson to General Schofield, containing the archives of the Confederate government, contained the proof that Jefferson Davis ordered these preparations to be made, and that his subordinates had orders to carry the plot into execution in the event of the contingency above referred to. These archives also showed that in this he was sustained by the committee of the rebel congress on the conduct of the war. Pollard, also, in his history of the "Lost Cause," attempts to justify this plot. In all this we see the debasing influence of human bondage on the moral sense of a people. Who, except under the influence of such a demoralization, could have planned for the wholesale sacrifice of their prisoners of war?

Here we have Mr. Seddon, the rebel Secretary of War, of course not on his own responsibility, but under the orders of his superior, Jefferson Davis, ordering the officer in charge of the prisoners of war in their possession to mine the building in which they were confined, and in the event of a Yankee raid entering the city, to blow up the building, and thus murder, at one fell swoop, all the prisoners in it to prevent their being rescued and taken back into the service. Need we wonder that an administration that could deliberately prepare to murder its prisoners of war rather than suffer their liberation under the fortunes of war, should have deliberately planned for the destruction of its prisoners by the starvation and cruelties of Andersonville?

It gives me no pleasure to rehearse these things, but it is due to the truth of history that they should be known. I desire to see a speedy and complete reconciliation of these two sections of our country; and I have always rejoiced that we who faced each other on the fields of deadly conflict, have, from the time of the surrender of Lee's army, been ready to meet each other as friends and brothers and fellow citizens of a common country. The sight witnessed at Appomattox of the soldiers of our army emptying their haversacks to satisfy the wants of men who but the hour before stood confronting them as foes, but who now had laid down their arms, worn out and famishing, was a glorious exhibition of the best side of our nature, and plainly said that though we had been enemies in war in peace we would be friends, and foreshadowed the speedy reconciliation that has followed our terrible strife, so far as the soldiers of the two armies are concerned. I charge none of these things on these men. I fix the responsibility for these things on the political leaders of the rebellion, and not even on them indiscriminately but only on such of them as are named in the charge and specifications under which, through the medium of the Commission, they were arraigned before the world, and the evidence of their guilt was produced. It is to show that the government in so doing completely vindicated its dignity and honor that I write.

If the acts of public men render them infamous in history, the responsibility rests in their bad exercise of that freedom of will that makes us responsible beings.[4] And in human affairs, bad examples should be held up as warnings, just as good examples should be held up for imitation and encouragement.

We shall now approach a little more closely to the consideration of the responsibility of Jefferson Davis and his Canada Cabinet for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; and will show, we think, by incontestible evidence, that they were co-conspirators with Booth and his gang, or rather, that they originated and concocted the plan, and that Booth and his followers were merely their hired assassins for the accomplishment of their purposes.