CAMP DOUGLAS CONSPIRACY
A plot formed in 1864 for the liberation of the Confederate prisoners of war at Chicago (in Camp Douglas), Rock Island, Alton and Springfield.
It was to be but a preliminary step in the execution of a design long cherished by the Confederate Government, viz. the seizing of the organized governments of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the formation of a Northwestern Confederacy through the cooperation of the "Sons of Liberty."
Three peace commissioners Jacob Thompson, C. C. Clay and J. P. Holcomb who had been sent from Richmond to Canada held fequent conferences with leaders of the treasonable organizations in the North including Clement L. Vallandigham, Bowles, of Indiana, and one Charles Walsh who was head of the movement in Chicago with a large number of allies in that city and scattered throughout the States.
The general management of the affair was entrusted to Capt. Thomas H. Hines who had been second in command to the rebel Gen. John Morgan during his raid north of the Ohio River while Col. Vincent Marmaduke, of Missouri and G. St. Leger Grenfell ( an Englishman) were selected to carry out the military program. Hines followed out his instruction with great zeal and labored indefatigably. Thompson's duty was to disseminate incendiary treasonable literature and strengthen the timorous "Sons of Liberty" by the use of argument and money, both he and his agents being lavishly supplied with the latter.
There was to be a draft in July, 1864, and it was determined to arm the "Sons of Liberty" for resistance, the date of uprising being fixed for July 20. This part of the scheme, however, was finally abandoned. Captain Hines located himself at Chicago and personally attended to the distribution of funds and the purchase of arms. The date finally fixed for the attempt to liberate the Southern prisoners was August 29, 1864 when the National Democratic Convention was to assemble in Chicago. On that date it was expected the city would be so crowded that the presence of the promised force of "Sons" would not excite comment.
The program also included an attack on the city by water for which purpose reliance was placed upon a horde of Canadian refugees, under Capt. John B. Castleman. There were some 26,500 Southern prisoners in the State at this time, of whom about 8,000 were at Chicago, 6,000 at Rock Island, 7,500 at Springfield and 5,000 at Alton. It is estimated that there were 4,000 "Sons of Liberty" in Chicago who would be largely re-enforced. With these and the Canadian refugees the prisoners at Camp Douglas were to be liberated, and the army thus formed was to march upon Rock Island, Springfield and Alton. But suspicions were aroused, and the Camp was re-enforced by a regiment of infantry and a battery. The organization of the proposed assailing force was very imperfect, and the great majority of those who were to compose it were lacking in courage. Not enough of the latter reported for service to justify and attack, and the project was postponed.
In the meantime a preliminary part of the plot at least indirectly connected with the Camp Douglas Conspiracy and which contemplated the release of the rebel officers confined on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie had been nipped in the bud by the arrest of Capt. C. H. Cole, a Confederate officer in disguise on the 19 of September just as he was on the point of putting in execution a scheme for seizing the United States steamer Michigan at Sandusky and putting on board of it a confederate crew.
November 8 was the date next selected to carry out the Chicago scheme the day of President Lincoln's second election. The same preliminaries were arranged except that no water attack was to be made. But Chicago was to be burned and flooded, and its banks pillaged. Detachments were designated to apply the torch, to open fire plugs to levy arms and to attack banks. But representatives of the United States Secret Service had been initiated into the "Sons of Liberty," and the plans of Captain Hines and his associates were well known to the authorities. An efficient body of detectives was put upon their track by Gen. B. J. Sweet, the commandant at Camp Douglas although some of the most valuable service in running down the conspiracy and capturing its agents, was rendered by Dr. T. Winslow Ayer of Chicago, a Colonel Langhorne (an ex-Confederate who had taken the oath of allegiance without the knowledge of some of the parties to the plot), and Col. J. T. Shanks a Confederate prisoner who was known as "The Texan."
Both Langhorne and Shanks were appalled at the horrible nature of the plot as it was unfolded to them, and entered with zeal into the effort to defeat it. Shanks was permitted to escape from Camp Douglas, thereby getting in communication with the leaders of the plot who assisted to conceal him, while he faithfully apprised General Sweet of their plans. On the night of November 6 or rather after midnight on the morning of the 7th General Sweet caused simultaneous arrests of the leaders to be made at their hiding-places. Capt. Hines was not captured but the following conspirators were taken into custody:
Captain Cantrill
Captain Traverse
Charles Walsh, the Brigadier General of the "Sons of Liberty" who was sheltering them and in whose barn and house was found a large quantity of arms and military stores
Col. St.Leger Grenfell
Col. W. R. Anderson
Col. J. T. Shanks
R. T. Semmes
Vincent Marmaduke
Charles T. Daniel
Buckner S. Morris the treasurer of the order
They were tried by Military Commission at Cincinnati for conspiracy.
Marmaduke and Morris were acquitted Anderson committed suicide during the trial Walsh, Semmes and Daniels were sentenced to the penitentiary and Grenfell was sentenced to be hung, although his sentence was afterward commuted to life imprisonment at the Dry Tortugas, where he mysteriously disappeared some years afterward, but whether he escaped or was drowned in the attempt to do so has never been known.
The British Government had made repeated attempts to secure his release a brother of his being a General in the British Army. Daniels managed to escape and was never recaptured while Walsh and Semmes after undergoing brief terms of imprisonment, were pardoned by President Johnson.
The subsequent history of Shanks who played so prominent a part in defeating the scheme of wholesale arson, pillage and assassination is interesting. While in prison he had been detailed for service as a clerk in one of the offices under the direction of General Sweet and while thus employed made the acquaintance of a young lady member of a loyal family, whom he afterwards married. After the exposure of the contemplated uprising, the rebel agents in Canada offered a reward of $1,000 in gold for the taking of his life, and he was bitterly persecuted. The attention of President Lincoln was called to the service rendered by him and sometime during 1865 he received a commission as Captain and engaged in fighting the Indians upon the plains.
The efficiency shown by Colonel Sweet in ferreting out the conspiracy and defeating its consummation won for him the gratitude of the people of Chicago and the whole nation, and was recognized by the Government in awarding him a commission as Brigadier-General.