first practical act of emancipation, and it was hailed with delight by the coloured people.

In a special message, communicated to Congress at this same session, President Lincoln urged the adoption of a joint resolution proposing that the United States, in order to co-operate with any state that might adopt gradual emancipation, give to such state pecuniary aid to be used to make compensation for the slaves thus freed. This was a proposition to extend the same principle of emancipation to the border states as had already been applied to the District of Columbia. It was adopted by both Houses of Congress and approved by the President.

But the significant fact is that both these measures were passed by Republican votes. The Douglas Democrats that in the early months of the war had supported the Administration now viewed the field in a more questioning light. Many of them no longer regarded it as an effort to save the Union but as an 'Abolition War.' The former alignment that had supported Lincoln was being abandoned, and there was serious danger of a restoration of party lines as they existed before the war. Then the united Democratic Party was in control. And the political unrest now gave it hopes of regaining this control.

In the central states, the elections of 1862 were influenced to some extent by widespread secret organisations. These societies were known as Knights of the Golden Circle, The Order of American Knights, The Order of the Star, and Sons of Liberty. It was really one and the same organisation, but under different names. If one name used was discovered and published so as to bring the existence of the lodge to public notice, that name was discarded and a new one adopted, but the membership and purposes of the organisation continued the same. It was estimated that more than half a million belonged to the order, and that it was most powerful in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and in the border states, Missouri and Kentucky. Its constitution was purely military. The commander of a state was a major-general; of a congressional district, a brigadier-general; of a county, a colonel; and of a township, a captain. They drilled in secret, usually at night, and made large purchases of arms. It was estimated that 30,000 guns and revolvers were brought by them to Indiana alone.

The air of mystery which surrounded the organisation and the pride of power which numbers seemed to give naturally attracted Democrats of the lower class, as well as ignorant whites who could hardly be considered as belonging to any party. It had its membership mostly in the country districts where the meetings would attract little attention from the officers of the law. For the penalties against treason seemed to exert over the membership a wholesome restraint.

One of their objects was to encourage desertion from the army. Lawyers were hired to urge soldiers, at home on furlough, not to go back and to promise them a legal defence if charged with desertion. Some of the members would even volunteer so as to reach the ranks and persuade soldiers to desert, furnishing them money and citizen's clothes to aid their escape. They sometimes organised to resist squads of soldiers sent to arrest deserters. They were especially hostile

to the draft. Enrolling officers were shot in both Indiana and Illinois, and conspirators to resist the draft were tried and convicted. They kept up communication with the Confederates, sent them arms and ammunition, and in some instances recruits. They also promised them aid in case of an invasion of the North. But their primary object was to defeat the Republicans at the polls. They kept up communication with the Confederates and had lodges in the South, and thus its wishes were known and served. The organisation received much inspiration from political refugees, like Vallandigham and Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior under Buchanan, both now in Canada. And among them were fomented schemes for liberating Confederate prisoners of war, confined in military prisons at points along the shores of the Great Lakes.

Lincoln, while aware of the existence of the organisation and its really treasonable purposes, was disposed to treat it with patient good humour. But General Rosecrans, in whose department it flourished, became much excited and wished to make a crusade against it, proposing to send a special officer to Washington to communicate intelligence of it in detail. But Lincoln, already aware of its existence and its operations, and not caring to give it such importance and publicity, wisely put him aside. Governor Morton of Indiana was still more excited, and probably with more cause. For one of the members of the order who was indicted for treasonable practices in connection with it, and had concluded to turn states-evidence, detailed a scheme for forming a North-western Confederacy by seizing the state government of Indiana and holding Governor Morton as a hostage, or putting him to death. The witness also confirmed a story of a general uprising that was to have taken place on August 16, in conjunction with a rebel raid from Cumberland Gap. Governor Morton, greatly disquieted, telegraphed the President that he feared the Legislature of his state, when it met, would pass a joint resolution to acknowledge the Confederacy and urge the North-west to dissolve all constitutional relations with the New England states. But the nearest approach that was ever made to the realisation of all these magnificent schemes was when the Legislature met in January, 1863, the House of Representatives insolently returned Morton's message to him and passed a resolution accepting in its stead that of the Democratic Governor of New York. Measures were also introduced to take the military power of the state from Governor Morton, and vest it in some of the Democratic state officials. The Republicans met this movement by withdrawing in a body, thus leaving the Legislature without a quorum. And the outcome of it all was that no appropriation bills were passed and the Governor was obliged to appeal to the people of his state and the Government at Washington for aid. Some money was advanced by the former, but needing a large sum for an emergency, Secretary Stanton made the Governor his disbursing officer and placed in his hands $250,000 out of a fund which had been set aside by Act of Congress to purchase munitions of war for use in states where rebellion was threatened. The Secretary held that Indiana was so threatened. Morton, however, appreciating the irregularity of this transaction, remarked, as he took the warrant, that if the cause failed they would

probably have to answer for this with their lives. To which Stanton gruffly replied, 'If the cause fails, I do not wish to live.'

The attempt to make the draft was attended by many scenes of violence. In New York City, as soon as it was announced that the enrolment for this purpose would commence on July 13, the Democratic papers began to vie with one another in opposing it. They complained that the draft was only for the prosecution of an 'Abolition War,' that the quota required of the city was too large, and insinuated that there would be unfairness in drawing the names from the wheel. They argued strenuously that the law was unconstitutional and an outrage against the liberty of individuals and the rights of the states.

In the most northerly ward of the city, inhabited largely by labourers of foreign birth, the drawing commenced at 10 A.M. in a building at the corner of Third Avenue and 46th Street, in the presence of some three hundred persons, mostly spectators. In about half an hour, and after something like a hundred names had been drawn, while all was orderly within the building, a shot was heard in the street, where a crowd had congregated. This became the signal for a shower of bricks at the house. Then the crowd rushed in and, driving out the police and the draft officers, tore up their papers and took possession of the building. A can of turpentine was poured upon the floor and it was set on fire. In a few moments the building was in flames. And it was soon consumed. Only with difficulty was the conflagration stayed, when it had spread to other buildings.

The tidings of this initial success being carried through the city, brought many who were opposed to the draft into the streets. The rioters were increased in number by marching to the great factories and workshops and demanding that work should stop so that the operatives could be permitted to come into the street and join the procession. By afternoon the rioters had become many thousand in number. The harmless and frightened black population of the city was everywhere treated with cruelty. Their homes were burned. Coloured boys were set upon in the streets and pelted with stones and compelled to flee for their lives. In one instance a black man, charged with no offence but his colour, was caught and hung. His clothes were burned from his body. And it was then left hanging, till cut down by the police. A coloured orphan asylum, administered by philanthropic ladies, and costing, with its furnishing, some $200,000, was sacked and burned, after the children had been driven into the street. The railroads were stopped. Republican newspaper offices were attacked. Other draft-offices were destroyed. The city was in the hands of the mob. The riot extended to other cities, to Brooklyn, Troy and Jamaica in New York, to Jersey City and to Boston. At Brooklyn a new grain-elevator, costing $100,000, which was obnoxious, as raising the price of bread and reducing the demand for labour, was burned.

The absence of the troops which were usually in or about the city, and had now been called to Central Pennsylvania to repel the invasion of Lee's army, furnished the opportunity for these wild scenes in New York. They were finally checked by the return of the militia and the bringing in of some regiments from the Army of the Potomac. But

the vigorous stand of a small body of regulars, who were in the city, aided materially. On the evening of the fourth day they killed thirteen and wounded eighteen of the rioters and took some others prisoners. But the mob was not suppressed till it had destroyed property whose value was estimated at $2,000,000, and the city authorities had borrowed and appropriated money to pay bounties to volunteers, sufficient in number to make up the city's quota. This was almost a surrender to the mob.

But it was in this way that the draft was generally obviated. The Government was willing to have volunteers, even though they had to be induced to enter the service by bounties, thinking they made as good soldiers as those who were compelled to enter the service as conscripts. In drafting districts, when the number required under the draft had been fixed as the quota of a county, a township or a ward, the citizens of property liable to the draft would raise, by private subscription, money to pay bounties, to induce others to enter the service. Thus their quota was made up and their district was 'cleared of the draft.' And after all, this was their best method of meeting it. Though the constitutionality of the law was repeatedly questioned by suits in the courts, the attacks upon it were unsuccessful. The law was upheld.

CHAPTER XXXI

Morgan's Last Raid-Reaches Indiana and Ohio-Captured-Imprisoned in the Ohio Penitentiary-Escapes-His Death.

WITH these signs of disaffection in the North, it is not surprising that the Confederates thought that recruits for their service might be had there. Brigadier-General John H. Morgan, then in camp with his division of cavalry at McMinnville, Tenn., growing tired of inactivity, applied to Major-General Joe Wheeler, commanding the cavalry of Bragg's army, at Shelbyville for permission to make a raid upon Louisville, to take and destroy the transportation and shipping and public property as well as its Union defences. He stated that the taking of the garrison to fill up Rosecrans' army had left only about three hundred men for its defence. The application was referred to General Bragg, and he consented that Morgan might go. He was to take 2,000 of his Kentucky troops, those that would be most likely to attract recruits, and four guns. This was not Morgan's whole command. He was not allowed to take all, owing to the probability of an advance being made by Rosecrans. He was to return as soon as possible, and should he hear that Rosecrans was advancing for a general engagement, he was to turn back at once and fall upon the rear of the Union army. As it was hoped that he could move so rapidly that he would be on his return before Rosecrans would know that he had left for Kentucky, it was thought that much good might be accomplished and still this force not be missed. His orders were to break up the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and destroy the Union depots of supplies. But in the letters between Morgan and his superiors it is significant that there was nothing said about his crossing the Ohio River. On the contrary, he was urged, again and again, to observe the importance of a quick return.

Under these instructions, the doughty raider left his camp on June 26. And, crossing the Cumberland River at Burkesville, he marched rapidly northward. He met his first reverse at Tebb's Bend on Green River. Here Colonel O. H. Moore, with 200 men from the 25th Mich., was stationed on the north side of the river. Hearing that Morgan's advance had entered Columbia, ten miles south, he moved out a mile and a half on that side of the river, and taking up a position on the narrows entering the bend, he felled some timber in his front, so as to form an abatis, and threw up breastworks and planted a battery. Here, on the morning of July 4, Morgan found him waiting, Firing a shot which disabled two of Moore's men, Morgan sent forward, under a flag of truce, a demand for an immediate and unconditional surrender of the entire force, with the Union defences. Moore promptly answered that the Fourth of July was not the day for