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army of General Lee, who, when that sentence was written, was expected to lead his troops victoriously to the Schuylkill, and perhaps to the Hudson, was flying from Meade's troops, to find shelter from utter destruction, beyond the Potomac.
And before the disheartening harangues of the Opposition orators were read by the gallant soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi,. that great stream was opened, and the Imperial was making her way, without impediment, from St. Louis to New Orleans.1 Such was the commentary on that speech; and the speedy response to it by the inhabitants of the city of New York; to whom it was addressed, was the sending of thousands of more troops to the field in defense of the Constitution and laws, and the life of the Republic.
But there was an immediate response in the City of New York to the utterances of leaders of the Peace Faction (of which those of Pierce and Seymour were mild specimens), appalling but logical.
The Draft was about to commence there.
Making that measure a pretext, as we have observed, leading Opposition journals were daily exciting the subjects of it to resistance; and one went so far as to counsel its readers to provide themselves with arms, and keep in every family “a good rifled-musket, a few pounds of powder, and a hundred or so of shot,” to “defend their homes and personal liberties from invasion from any quarter.”
2 On the evening of the 3d of July, a highly incendiary handbill, calculated to incite to insurrection, was circulated throughout the city; and it is believed, that an organized outbreak on the 4th had been planned, and would have been executed, had not the news of Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, and Grant's success at Vicksburg, disappointed and dismayed the leaders.
Lee's invasion, as we have observed, was a part of the programme of revolution in the Free-labor States, and so was the raid of Morgan into Indiana and Ohio, at about the same time, which we shall consider presently.
There can be no doubt that a sword, like that which startled Damocles, hung by a single hair over the heart of the Republic at Gettysburg.3 Lee failed, and the nation was saved.
The grand scheme of a counter-revolution in favor of peace and the independence of the “Confederate States,” assumed the lesser proportions of a riot in New York City and outbreaks elsewhere, but its promoters were no less active in preparations for another opportunity.
1 See page 687, volume II.
2 The World newspaper, quoted on pages 207 and 208 of the Martyr's Monument.
3 An army chaplain from New York recorded that on that day, while on the steamer Cahawba with a large number of Confederate prisoners, one of them, who seemed to be a shrewd politician, said: “Lee will not only invade Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but New York also. You will find war in the streets of your very city, carried on by those who hate your Government and love ours. You will be surprised at the number of friends we have in your very midst; friends who, when the time comes, will destroy your railroads, your telegraph wires, your government stores and property, and thus facilitate the glorious invasion now breaking you in pieces.” Compare this with note 2, page 358, volume I.
At this time the Knights of the Golden Circle, who were numerous in the West, were very active. They held a meeting at Springfield, Illinois, on the 10th of June, when it was resolved to make the Draft the pretext for a revolution, and measures were accordingly adopted. They formed alliances with active members of the Peace Faction throughout the country, and it was arranged that New York should take the initiative in the revolutionary movement. The plan was for each State to assume its “independent sovereignty.” New York and New Jersey were to do this through their Governors; the rest of the States (excepting New England, where there was no chance for success) were to be brought into the same attitude through the Knights of the Golden Circle and the armed Peace Faction. The argument to be offered was, that, the Government having failed to suppress the rebellion, the Union was dissolved into its original elements, the States, and each of these. was left at perfect liberty to enter into new combinations.--Correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, August I, 1868.
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