ew York
and elsewhere; they also made great plans for an uprising and for the
release of Confederate prisoners in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. But no
actual outbreak ever occurred; for when they had come close to the
danger line, these associates of mediaeval tastes and poetic
appellatives always stopped short.

The President was often urged to take decisive measures against these
devisers of ignoble treasons. Such men as Governor Morton and General
Rosecrans strove to alarm him. But he said that the "conspiracy merited
no special attention, being about an equal mixture of puerility and
malice." He had perfect information as to all the doings and plottings,
and as to the membership, of all the societies, and was able to measure
accurately their real power of hurtfulness; he never could be induced to
treat them with a severity which was abundantly deserved, but which
might not have been politic and would certainly have added to the labor,
the expense, and the complications of the government. "Nothing can make
me believe," he once charitably said, "that one hundred thousand Indiana
Democrats are disloyal!" His judgment was proved to be sound; for had
many of these men been in grim earnest in their disloyalty, they would
have achieved something. In fact these bodies were unquestionably
composed of a small infusion of genuine traitors, combined with a vastly
larger proportion of bombastic fellows who liked to talk, and foolish
people who were tickled in their shallow fancy by the element of secrecy
and the fineness of the titles.

The man whose name became unfortunately preeminent for disloyalty at
this time was Clement L. Vallandigham, a Democrat, of Ohio. General
Burnside was placed in command of the Department of the Ohio, March 25,
1863, and having for the moment no Confederates to deal with, he turned
his attention to the Copperheads, whom he regarded with even greater
animosity. His Order No. 38, issued on April 13, brought these hornets
about his ears in impetuous fury; for, having made a long schedule of
their favorite offenses, which he designed for the future severely to
proscribe, he closed it by saying that "the habit of declaring sympathy
for the enemy will not be allowed in this Department;" and he warned
persons with treasonable tongues that, unless they should keep that
little member in order, they might expect either to suffer death as
traitors, or to be sent southward within the lines of "their friends."