Nov 1863–Confederate Spies Caught in a Sting, the Illinois Legislature Suspended, and the Women of Richmond Go Hungr

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Although part of the alliance of North­ern states, Illi­nois, espe­cial­ly the south­ern por­tion of Lincoln’s home state, was a hotbed of rebel sen­ti­ment. Not only was it a place where plots against its sis­ter state Ohio orig­i­nat­ed, the polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment became so dys­func­tion­al that the Gov­er­nor sus­pend­ed the leg­is­la­ture. While Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans were feud­ing with one anoth­er in the North, the wives and fam­i­lies of sol­diers in the South scratched to survive.

Cre­at­ed by George Wash­ing­ton, the US Mar­shal Ser­vice is the old­est Fed­er­al law enforce­ment agency. Pri­or to the Civ­il War, their main duties encom­passed exe­cut­ing those con­demned by Fed­er­al Courts and fer­ret­ing out coun­ter­feit­ers. Dur­ing the 1850s, under the Fugi­tive Slave Act, they were char­tered to hunt fugi­tive slaves and return them to their masters.

Dur­ing the Civ­il War, the duties of US Mar­shals expand­ed yet again to include seiz­ing prop­er­ty used to sup­port the Con­fed­er­a­cy and track­ing down rebel spies. The fol­low­ing recounts a suc­cess­ful sting oper­a­tion which uncov­ered a plot to take down the gov­ern­ment of one of the North­ern states.

Novem­ber 7 1863, Danville North Star

Extraordinary Case of Treason

Cincin­nati, Novem­ber 1

An extra­or­di­nary case of trea­son has recent­ly come to light, impli­cat­ing sev­er­al per­sons in this city, Colum­bus, Cov­ing­ton and New­port, in con­spir­ing to release the rebel pris­on­ers at Camp Chase, and over­throw the State Gov­ern­ment. The con­spir­a­cy was brought to light by Unit­ed States detec­tives, who were sup­posed by the par­ties, impli­cat­ed to be spies from the rebel army, and were treat­ed with full confidence.

The plot, as dis­cov­ered by the detec­tives, was that an attack was made on Camp Chase to release the rebel pris­on­ers con­fined there; num­ber­ing 3500, to seize the arse­nal at Colum­bus, take pos­ses­sion of the pen­i­ten­tiary, release John Mor­gan and oth­er rebel offi­cers con­fined there and then com­mence a rebel cam­paign in Ohio.

US Mar­shall Sands and Provost Mar­shal M.J. Reamy have arrest­ed the fol­low­ing per­sons impli­cat­ed in the plot: Charles W.H. Cath­heart, of Colum­bus, for­mer­ly School Com­mis­sion­er of Ohio; and J.D. Cren­sop of Colum­bia, for­mer­ly sut­ler [a civil­ian mer­chant who pro­vi­sions sol­diers at head­quar­ters or in the field] in the 18th Reg­u­lars, who were to lead the attack on Camp Chase; James D. Pat­ton, of Cov­ing­ton, a reg­u­lar agent of the rebel gov­ern­ment, who fur­nished mon­ey to the detec­tives under the impres­sion that they were spies and accord­ing to agree­ment, were to meet Cat­heart and the oth­ers at Camp Chase and assist in mak­ing the plan of attack; Ruth McDon­ald, of Cov­ing­ton, who act­ed as mail car­ri­er through the rebel lines, and whose house was the head­quar­ters of the rebels; Samuel P. Thomas, mer­chant tai­lor, of Cincin­nati and wife Cather­ine Par­menter, of Cincin­nati. Infor­ma­tion has been obtained that the orga­ni­za­tion exists in Illi­nois, wait­ing for the out­break in Ohio. Oth­er par­tic­u­lars are known to the author­i­ties, but have not yet been made public.

****

Novem­ber 14, 1863 Danville North Star

More trou­ble is expect­ed in Illi­nois. The Gov­er­nor, it will be remem­bered, sud­den­ly broke up the leg­isla­tive ses­sion last June. The Supreme Court, it is thought, will now decide that act to be con­sti­tu­tion­al. In this event, a ses­sion will be held this com­ing win­ter. The Rad­i­cals will oppose it. The Con­ser­v­a­tives will favor it.

The Illi­nois state leg­is­la­ture was a very con­tentious place. Thanks to Demo­c­rat ger­ry­man­der­ing the south­ern part of the state sym­pa­thet­ic to the South had strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The gov­ern­men­tal body became the venue for a polit­i­cal proxy war between Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans. Due to war fatigue and south­ern sen­ti­ment, the Democ­rats wrest­ed con­trol of the House in Novem­ber 1862, chastis­ing the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for its con­duct of the war, call­ing for an armistice between North and South, and a peace con­ven­tion to be held among the state house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Repub­li­cans stormed out of the state sen­ate in protest and an exas­per­at­ed Gov­er­nor Yates sus­pend­ed the legislature.

In response, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trolled body labeled Lincoln’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion a “great usurpa­tion,” which turned the Union’s war against the South into “a cru­sade for the sud­den, vio­lent and uncon­di­tion­al lib­er­a­tion of three mil­lion slaves.” The Party’s fury was also fueled by the sup­pres­sion of rebel sen­ti­ment with­in the state; Con­fed­er­ate sup­port­ers, includ­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials, were thrown in jail and pro-South news­pa­pers were shut down by the military.

***

In some of the min­ing dis­tricts of Penn­syl­va­nia, there have been seri­ous and bloody riots on account of the draft. The enrolling offi­cers have found it impos­si­ble to serve the notices and the rule of civ­il author­i­ties has been entire­ly set at naught. Mr. G. K. Smith’s house was entered by a par­ty of riot­ers, who shot Mr. S. and he was instant­ly killed. At the lat­est date, the riot had some­what subsided.

War and General News Items

Among the offi­cers on Gen Grant’s staff is Capt Ely S. Park­er, a full blood­ed red Indi­an, being chief of the tribe known as the Six Nations.

***

The Seneca Chief from New York met and over­came many obsta­cles in his sto­ried career. He was denied admis­sion to Har­vard because of his race. At the out­break of the Civ­il War, his offer to raise a reg­i­ment of Iro­quois vol­un­teers went for naught, as did his attempt to join the Army’s Chief of Engi­neers. Gen­er­al Grant final­ly took him under his wing and installed him as Cap­tain of the Engineers.

Dur­ing the war’s lat­er years, Park­er achieved the rank of lieu­tenant colonel and assist­ed Grant as his mil­i­tary sec­re­tary. After the war, he served Pres­i­dent Grant, facil­i­tat­ing the nego­ti­a­tion of treaties with Tribes in the West and becom­ing the government’s first Com­mis­sion­er of Indi­an Affairs. His attempts to root out cor­rup­tion with­in the agency earned him many ene­mies in a Con­gress who hauled him before an inves­ti­ga­to­ry com­mit­tee which could find no wrong doing. Park­er resigned in dis­gust. He would lat­er meet finan­cial ruin in the mar­ket crash of 1870 and was forced to use his polit­i­cal friends in order to secure a job with the New York City Police Depart­ment. Park­er died in 1895.

***

The car­tel of exchange of pris­on­ers has been sus­pend­ed because the rebels will not admit the offi­cers and sol­diers of col­ored reg­i­ments to be includ­ed in it.

***

This stale­mate was prompt­ed by Con­fed­er­ate Pres­i­dent Jef­fer­son Davis’ threat to exe­cute any black POW or white offi­cer who com­mand­ed them. How­ev­er Davis did not fol­low through and pris­on­er exchanges between North and South even­tu­al­ly resumed.

Novem­ber 27, 1863 Danville North Star

Scarcity of Food at the South

All accounts received from the South show that the most press­ing exi­gency which the rebels will have to meet is the want of food…The rebel armies are quite large, and this with­draws a large num­ber of men from the cul­ti­va­tion of the land: then the num­ber of the rebel army is quite out of pro­por­tion to the num­ber from which it is drawn for so few peo­ple to sup­ply such a large num­ber: but in addi­tion to this, it is alleged that very near­ly two mil­lion slaves from Ken­tucky, Louisiana, Ten­nessee, and Mis­sis­sip­pi have been thrown into Alaba­ma, Geor­gia and South and North Car­oli­na, which has griev­ous increased the con­sump­tion of food, and no doubt embar­rassed rebel oper­a­tions in that quar­ter to an extent beyond what is known. That this is the case in the vicin­i­ty of Rich­mond, there can be no doubt. We learned this from the Rich­mond papers, which report the unsuc­cess­ful results of a com­mit­tee of cit­i­zens appoint­ed to obtain food for the sup­ply of the city, and we infer that it will be dif­fi­cult for the cit­i­zens of Rich­mond to obtain food for the com­ing win­ter. It is now quite appar­ent that this great dif­fi­cul­ty can­not be eas­i­ly over­come and will con­tribute more than the suc­cess of our arms to the sub­mis­sion of the rebels. It will be impos­si­ble for them to keep their armies with­out a sup­ply of food, although every ener­gy will be bent to do this, how­ev­er heav­i­ly it may press upon the non-fight­ing por­tion of the community.

***

Ram­pant infla­tion and food scarci­ty fell most heav­i­ly on the women of Rich­mond, who were left behind to fend for their fam­i­lies and them­selves. Many were forced to steal food in order to sur­vive. How­ev­er, tragedy was avert­ed when women massed in protest were con­front­ed in the city by Jef­fer­son Davis him­self and his sol­diers. Davis threat­ened to shoot them if they didn’t dis­burse. Faced with the President’s count­down to fire, the women peace­ful­ly retired.

The Union Suf­fer­ers in Richmond

Philadel­phia Nov 19

Every assur­ance has been giv­en to the Chris­t­ian Com­mis­sion that stores sent to our Union suf­fer­ers in Rich­mond pris­ons reach them. Gov Mered­ith, US Com­mis­sion­er for the exchange of pris­on­ers at Fortress Mon­roe, engages to receive all sup­plies sent to his care by express pre­paid, and send them under flag of truce to City Point. Com­mis­sion­er Ould gives writ­ten assur­ances that they would be received at City Point and deliv­ered to the pris­on­ers to whom they are addressed. Gen Noel Dow and oth­er reli­able men among the pris­on­ers will receive and dis­trib­ute what­ev­er is sent. The pris­on­ers write that they receive the stores sent to them.

The Chris­t­ian Com­mis­sion is mak­ing arrange­ments, which leads us to a hope that they will soon have their own del­e­gates there to attend to, receive and dis­trib­ute the stores, and do what­ev­er they can to relieve and ben­e­fit our suf­fer­ing men.

***

In 1861, the Chris­t­ian Com­mis­sion was char­tered by the Young Men’s Chris­t­ian Asso­ci­a­tion (YMCA) to pro­vide sup­plies, med­ical sup­port and reli­gious lit­er­a­ture to Union troops.