“Of course, Daddy. This way, Mr. Hines.”
“I hope, miss, that I’ll have the pleasure of meeting you again.”
“Perhaps.”
“Is this lace throw your work?”
“No, sir. My sister Mary made it. Three of us make Irish lace.”
“Very skillful … . I bid you good day, Miss Letitia.”
Well, he knew what my real name was.
I watched him mount his horse and ride down Ellis Avenue towards the city.
Daddy stood beside me.
“You’re a very clever young woman, ’Titia. What do you think of young Mr. Hines?”
“Captain Hines more likely, Daddy.”
He laughed and said, “I wouldn’t be in the least surprised.”
“He’s a very handsome and polished young man, Daddy. And doubtless very brave. I’m not sure he’s very intelligent.”
“As always, you’re right ’Titia. He is not quite a fool, but his courage, I think, masks his callowness.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“He has a fool plot for freeing the prisoners at Camp Douglas.”
“We would be sympathetic to that, wouldn’t we?”
“I think so, but he has more grandiose schemes. I don’t think he can be successful at Camp Douglas. I know the bigger schemes cannot succeed and that any attempt at them will make matters much worse for everyone who favors peace.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Keep an eye on things that might happen here during the summer and let me know what you think.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Not a word to anyone, especially your sisters and your mother.”
“I promise, Daddy.”
You may well imagine that I did not sleep that night.
This was about the same time that Colonel Sweet was telling William Bross that there were 10,000 rebel guns in Chicago and that he had everything under his very close supervision. The only guns were the 200 or so in Daddy’s carts, and no one was going to storm Camp Douglas or burn the city to the ground with such a handful of weapons.
There were meetings at our house all summer. On two occasions Captain Hines ate dinner with us. He brought along a handsome and charming Englishman named Colonel George St. Leger Grenfel who told many wonderful stories about his past military adventures. He had, if one were to believe him, fought with the English in the Crimean War, with a French cavalary regiment in Algeria, with Garibaldi in South America, and in the Sepoy mutiny in India. They were captivating stories, and I didn’t believe a word of them.
However, although all the Walshes had reason for hating the English, we could not help liking him. I think Mary was for a time partly in love with him.
I judged him to be even more callow than Captain Hines, a man who was already listening to himself telling the story about the Great Conspiracy.
I would find a way to sneak into the closet to listen to their conversations. They continued to believe that Copperheads would rise to arms as soon as they struck Camp Douglas. They had no clear military plans. They still thought the Democratic convention would provide them with allies.
The Democratic convention was postponed till August 29 because rumors of the “conspiracy” had spread about the city.
Daddy persuaded Hines and his colleagues to postpone their plan till July 20, and once more to August 16, and again to August 29. New men came to the frequent meetings, Captain Castleman, Captain Cantril, Colonel Marmaduke, Mr. Thompson. They were all very fine gentlemen, but daft, completely daft.
Daddy asked often where the guns were and when the other men were coming.
“I have some guns for self-defense,” he said. “They are not enough. They are old and would be of little use, save in the hands of very experienced troops.”
Captain Hines would thank Daddy for his observations and continue as though he had not heard them.
“I have here a map of Camp Douglas,” he said one night. “I propose that we attack at night from three sides; the north, the west, and the south. As soon as we attack, the prisoners are to rush the guards and overcome them. We will cut the telegraph lines and bribe employees of the Illinois Central to transport us to Rock Island, Illinois. There is no longer a question of burning Chicago.”
Even a mere girl like me knew that the plan was daft.
“Tom, that’s a good textbook plan, but it assumes that we have experienced troops who are practiced in carrying out the plan, that the prisoners inside can coordinate perfectly with the force outside, that the guards have no hint of an attack, which with so much talk and so many stories in the Tribune strikes me as highly improbable, and that Colonel Sweet is a fool. A scoundrel looking for a general’s star, he may be, but a fool he is not.”
“I appreciate your observations,” Tom said gently.
That was his standard response to all of Daddy’s criticisms.
“You have scouted around the camp, Tom?”
“To the extent that it is judicious.”
“I notice on your map that you do not have the tower of the University of Chicago observatory. It’s right here and commands a perfect view of all the camp.”
“I see. All right I’ll mark it.”
“Do you not see the implications of the tower?”
“Tell me what they are, sir.”
“Sweet maintains several sharpshooters up there. In case of an attack, he could put a whole company in the tower. They could pick off attackers and prisoners with ease and safety.”
“We will take the tower out early then. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Among the others who came to the meetings there was a certain Mr. Shanks, whom I distrusted immediately. He had a very thick southern accent and was reputed to be an escaped prisoner of war. He was most strongly in favor of immediate action.
“We have to snuff out the fires of hell in that camp.”
Daddy did not pay any attention to him. Rather, he kept asking where the arms would come from.
That night after they had all left, I joined Daddy in his library. He looked very troubled. So, by the way, was everyone else in the house. They all knew that something serious and maybe dangerous was happening. But Daddy had told no one except me what was being planned.
“You asked me for my opinion about the men, Daddy.”
“Yes, child?” he said, taking off his glasses and looking up at me.
I sat down without being asked.
“Most of them, Daddy, are like Tom Hines. Dreamers and romantics, without an ounce of common sense.”
“We share views once more, ’Titia. If I wanted to direct a major conspiracy, I’d want your Captain Murray with me.”
“That poor man may have certain serious failings, Daddy. But he is not a fool.”
“I won’t ask you to specify what those failings might be,” he said with a laugh.
“I don’t like that Mr. Shanks. He’s an informer, Daddy, I’m sure of it.”
“I’m not particularly fond of him either, but I don’t think he’s an informer. He’s an escaped prisoner of war and intensely loyal to the Confederate cause. I know soldiers, ’Titia. He’s a good soldier.”
Daddy was wrong. Shanks was a convicted forger, fraud, bigamist, horse robber, and common thief. He was also an agent of Colonel Sweet. In Daddy’s trial, he would add perjury to his crimes.
After he was released from prison, Daddy often said to me, deep sadness in his voice, “If I had listened to you, ’Titia, the trial would never have happened; your mother and the rest of you would not have suffered so much; Mr. Anderson and Colonel St. Leger Grenfel, the twelve men who died of smallpox in prison would still be alive; and Mayor Morris and his wife would never have been separated by government edict.”
“That one,” I would reply firmly, trying to change the subject, “was no better than she had to be. She used her house recklessly for foolish Confederate plots.”
“I could never understand why Sweet need to go after Buckner Morris. He was not con
nected to any of our conversations. He knew nothing about the so-called conspiracy.”
“He needed someone to blame for helping his spy escape from prison,” I said.
“Mayor Morris’s wife gave him plenty of grounds.”
Later I would learn that Colonel Swift had written to his commanding officer asking for permission to arrest civilians, which he needed and which was illegal anyway. In this letter he said that to make the arrests “perfect,” he would have to arrest “two or three prominent citizens.” Buckner Morris, a former mayor of the city and a former judge, was the perfect target because of his wife. She was more interested in the Confederacy than in her husband.
General Hooker, who was the commanding officer of the whole region, told Sweet that he did not expect any attack on Camp Douglas.
I get ahead of myself.
The guns and the other men never appeared. On August 27, two days before the attack, they met again in Daddy’s library. Naturally, I was at my listening post.
“We have heard sad news,” Tom Hines reported, “Mr. Clement Vallandigham will not be joining us.”
Daddy said nothing.
“How many weapons do you have available, Mr. Walsh?”
“Enough for a hundred men, perhaps.”
“And how many men can you provide who will be willing to participate in the attack?”
“No more than twenty five, perhaps as few as twelve. As the father of a dozen children, I can hardly lead such a foolhardy endeavor.”
“Nor would I expect you to lead it,” Tom said crisply.
Everyone was silent.
“Would you be able to muster more men for an attack on Rock Island or Springfield? There would be no question in such a case of burning Chicago.”
“I doubt it, Tom. I warned you from the beginning that, for all the talk in Chicago, I did not think that there were many men who would be willing to risk their lives as you gentlemen have for the Confederacy.”
“Or as you have for the poor devils inside Camp Douglas.”
“I’m not sure there was that much risk.”
Though Daddy sounded enigmatic, I knew what he meant: He never thought that there was a remote chance of an attack on Camp Douglas.
They shook hands, bid each other affectionate good-byes, and promised to get together after the war.
They all bowed over my hand as I conducted them out the door. Tom Hines’s smile was very pretty indeed. But I had another captain on my mind.
“They’re gone, ’Titia,” Daddy said “We’ll not see them for a long time.”
“Thank God.”
But we would see them again two months later, with disastrous results for all of us. Fourteen innocent men lost their lives. Colonel Sweet earned his star and became General Sweet.
I’ve often wondered why Sweet did not strike that night He knew that all the “conspirators” were in one place and that the guns were in our barn. He must have had a list of the innocent men he would arrest as part of the plot. Why not move while he could?
Now I think that Shanks actually believed that there would be an attack and that Sweet therefore waited till the day of the attack. It would have made more persuasive proof that there really was a conspiracy. Maybe, in his own twisted way, he thought there might be a conspiracy. Perhaps he also realized that it was small potatoes.
Later he must have been furious at the lost opportunity.
Captain Hines and his friends provided Colonel Sweet with another opportunity in November on the day before the election. This time he did not wait for more spectacular evidence.
Daddy had heard that the Confederates were back in town. Tom Hines, as polite and respectful as ever, rode out to propose a meeting on Sunday night.
Daddy was busy with a client, and Tom had to wait a few minutes in the parlor. I remained with him, as was polite and proper.
“Would I be correct in assuming, Miss Letitia, that you have a young man in the Union Army.”
“I do, Mr. Hines; he’s either with Sherman in Georgia or Thomas in Tennessee.”
“Dangerous places.”
“War is dangerous.”
“I have a sweetheart back home in Kentucky. I love her very much. Perhaps I understand how your young man feels. Her name is Amanda, Mandy for short.”
“It’s a very pretty name in both forms.”
I had always been stiff and formal with him, not as friendly as my sisters and my mother were. Still, my heart melted for him.
“We have another problem.”
“Indeed.”
He looked so tired and discouraged that I felt even more sympathy for him.
“Kentucky, you see, is even more divided on this war than other states. My family and her family have been lifelong friends. Mine is Confederate, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Hers is Union.”
“How terrible!” I burst out.
“Yes, Miss Letitia, it truly is. We write when we can. We still love one another. I’m sure our families will not be reconciled for a long time, if ever. Yet we plan to be married when the war is over.”
“Good for you!”
Then Daddy called for him.
That little exchange saved Tom’s life.
The purpose of the Sunday night meeting was to discuss a breakout the prisoners scheduled for the following evening. The Confederates wondered if any Chicagoans would be willing to assist them.
“Gentlemen, do you know that the 196th Pennsylvania has had a station outside the Camp for the last several weeks? It would be impossible to keep a plot like that secret in a prison camp. Ben Sweet will be ready and waiting for them.”
Some of the Rebs gasped with horror.
“We did not know it, Mr. Walsh,” Tom said somberly.
“Who decided on this outbreak?”
“They did, sir. Our communications with them are very poor. I believe some hotheads led them to think that there would be an attack against Chicago on election day. They are so desperate in there that they want to break out no matter what happens.”
“You are unable to communicate with them?”
“Afraid not,” Mr. Thompson said. “We’ve already tried that.”
“They will be slaughtered,” Daddy said bluntly. “The more men fall, the greater become Sweet’s chances at brigadier rank. This is folly!”
“So I understand now,” Tom said gloomily. “I must confess you warned us that it would be.”
They talked for a few more minutes. Daddy agreed that they could come again tomorrow night in case any of the prisoners might escape and need help going home.
It was a terrible risk. I could not warn Daddy because I was not supposed to know what they were planning.
I didn’t sleep one minute that night.
I shivered often because of what Daddy had said about Sweet slaughtering them. But Sweet wasn’t there. He was out of the Camp, in command of the patrols which were preparing to round up all of us.
In fact, he was so concerned about a conspiracy that never was, that he did not know about a real—if foolish—conspiracy going on in his own camp. His vaunted spy system was not all that good where it ought to have been good.
Captain Shurly, the adjutant, was in command. Just before sunset on that blustery and fateful day, a Reb came to the Captain, terrified at the slaughter he feared would happen, and warned him. As cool under pressure as Sweet would have been wild, he lined up his troops at strategic points and waited. The Rebs knew the game was up. Still the men who had volunteered to attack the guards did so anyway. Captain Shurly’s note to William Bross is, as far as I know, an accurate account of the events.
In our house on Ellis Avenue, we heard a brief round of gunfire in the distance. We waited for more, myself in the closet.
There was no more shooting.
As Captain Shurly said in his note to Mr. Bross, the few prisoners who had escaped were recaptured. No one was killed in the gunfire.
And that was the end of the conspiracy that never was.
When the men in Dad’s library realized that the breakout had been a failure, they decided to leave. I scooted downstairs to see them out. There were the usual tedious farewells. Daddy accompanied them out of the house. Then, just as they were mounting their horses, Union troops appeared in the dark and swarmed in from all sides, led by Colonel Sweet himself. As I watched in horror, they surrounded the men with fixed bayonets.
The Colonel, a pompous little popinjay with a voice like a girl, announced that he was arresting them on charges of armed rebellion and high treason. If they did not put up their hands in surrender, he would order his men to shoot.
Naturally, they surrendered They were immediately bound and taken off to the camp. Daddy was unable to say good-bye to any of us.
Mother and the other children were wailing and crying. Union soldiers, still with fixed bayonets, advanced on our house.
Tom Hines had lingered to say good-bye to my mother and sisters, an act of foolish Southern hospitality. We later learned that Sweet wanted him more than anyone else because he was a man the Union Army could hang without the slightest doubt about injustice.
He knew it, too.
“Can you hide me, Miss Letitia? I would count it a great favor.”
All I could think of was the poor girl down in Kentucky. What could I do for her?
“Follow me quickly,” I ordered him.
I raced up to our room.
“Hide under the bed.”
“What?”
“I said hide under the bed. Do it now!”
I heard the sound of Union troops on the stairs. I blew out the candle, threw off my dress, jumped under the covers, and shut my eyes as tight as I could
At that very moment, two Union troopers threw open the door, one of them holding a lantern and the other a rifle with a bayonet on it. He pointed right at me.
“Pardon us, ma’am,” one of them said very politely. “We’re searching for Confederate spies and Copperheads.”
“In my bedroom at this hour of night?” I pulled the covers up to my neck. “You really cannot be serious.”
I could have been arrested, too. However, that thought did not occur to me. I was too young and too naïve to think that I would be dragged off to Camp Douglas.
The soldier with the lantern examined our bedroom while the other one continued to point his bayonet at my stomach.
Irish Lace Page 17