Part 12

JOHN MAUGHAN, an Englishman, born in Berkshire county, and about 22 years of age. His family moved to Toronto, Canada West. He was always in Canada regarded as a young man, with fine business qualities and promise. For three years just before his connection with the rebels, and their Northern conspirators, he occupied a very responsible position as a clerk and teller, in one of the branches of the bank of Upper Canada, and was in every way worthy the confidence reposed in him. During the spring and summer of 1864, he however became acquainted with rebel soldiers in Canada, earnestly espoused their cause, and left his position to go with them to the Southern army. They, however, instead of going South, went to Chicago, where he became acquainted with the conspirators, and also gained their confidence, and on account of being an Englishman, and having his papers with him, and being able to travel without fear of detection, he was used by them to carry their correspondence and other communications, which were of too dangerous a character to trust to the mails. This man was truly a dangerous character. No one, except those who employed him, knew him, or the character in which he was acting, and he was able, frequently, to render the conspirators immense service in their desperate schemes. He was captured in Chicago in November, and finally agreed to turn State's evidence, when he saw that unless he did, his own life was forfeited. After this agreement, he was treated with great leniency by the Government, but upon being placed upon the witness stand, his old sympathies and prejudices returned, and it is believed he distinctly perjured himself, acting through the whole trial with bad faith toward the Government which had treated him so generously.

THOS.E. COURTNEY--A Son of Liberty, and a leading Democrat of Chicago, called a witness for defence, testified, among other things, as follows:

"I was on a Committee of the Democratic party to receive, at the Alton Depot, some bogus voters that were to be imported into Chicago to vote at the Presidential election; they were part and parcel of the tribe that came from Egypt, and I was one of the Committee appointed to escort them to their boarding houses."

OBADIAH JACKSON, JR., ESQ., Grand Seignior of the Temple, who had been arrested and sent to Camp Douglas, and while there had written and signed a "statement," was called for the defence, but it neither helped him or the defendants.

COL.B. M. ANDERSON--Was born, reared, and educated in Kentucky. He was a young man of education, ability, and fine personal appearance, and had he not been a rebel would have been an accomplished gentleman. He possessed many fine points of character, and was, in our opinion, a much better man than any of the Northern Copperheads who have been arrested. He had been in the Nicaraugua expedition, under the fillibuster, Walker. Col. Anderson was the dupe of others. He committed suicide at the barracks in Cincinnati, during the progress of the trial. He leaves a wife and many friends to mourn his death. His history is a sad one. In any other position than a rebel, he would have been a most useful member of society. He was not of the material of which the Sons of Liberty was made up, but aside from that deadly fanaticism which ruined him, he won warm friends wherever he went. Nature did everything for him, but the accursed doctrine of Calhoun, consigned him to a suicide's grave, "after life's fitful fever" of war upon the land of his birth.

CHARLES TRAVIS DANIELS--One of the prisoners, is a native of Harrison County, Ky. A lawyer by profession, about 26 years of age and very prepossessing in appearance. He is somewhat remarkable for a rather strange and singular expression of his eyes. Belonged to John H. Morgan's command, but never served in any other capacity than as an enlisted man. He was captured with Morgan during his raid in Ohio, and confined in Camp Douglas, from which he escaped; was captured at Charles Walsh's house, on the 7th of November, and escaped again from the military authorities in Cincinnati, Ohio, while being tried by the Commission. He has not been recaptured, but has been found guilty by the Commission.

CAPT. GEORGE CANTRILL--Is a native of Scott County, Ky. Is about the same age as Daniels. There is nothing remarkable in connection with him, and of no more than ordinary intelligence. He also belonged to Morgan's command, in which he served as Company commander; was in Morgan's last raid in Kentucky, and at his defeat at Cynthiana escaped to Canada. He was with the other rebels at Chicago during the Convention, and went with them to Southern Illinois for the purpose of drilling Copperheads. He was captured in the house of Charles Walsh, on the morning of the 7th of November last. On account of severe sickness he was not tried with the other conspirators.

RICHARD T. SEMMES--One of the prisoners, tried, convicted, and sentenced, for being one of the Chicago Conspirators, is a young man--not over 23 or 24 years of age, a Marylander by birth, and a lawyer by profession. He is a relation of the pirate Semmes (unfortunate in name,) said to be a nephew. He graduated at Yale College with distinction, and his prospects in Chicago were flattering till he connected himself with the Sons of Liberty, and listened to the teachings of older and "wiser" men.

Of the witnesses for the defence we have nothing to say, further than most of them were Sons of Liberty. Some of them so far perjured themselves, that now a common lie to them is considered as good as the truth, if not a little better. It is said of Judge H.L. Burnet, that he remarked, had he known what witnesses the defence would have introduced, he would not have called any witnesses for the Government--they would have been superfluous. Rather severe, and we will hope he did not say it.

Space will not admit of a review of the evidence, and this will be unnecessary for all who will read the sketch of the Judge Advocate's argument.

CHAP XXI.

ARGUMENT OF THE JUDGE ADVOCATE IN THE CONSPIRACY CASES--CONVICTION OF THE PRISONERS.

The evidence in the case before the military commission at Cincinnati, having closed, the counsel who represented the prisoners made their addresses--they cannot be called arguments--and the court adjourned to Tuesday, April 18. As lawyers who have no valid defence, observe it as a policy to attack the Government witnesses with great fury, so Messrs. Hervey and Wilson, true to the ethics of their profession, made a grand assault upon the principal witnesses. Counsellor Hervey, in his harangue, used the following language, which illustrates the line of "argument" for defence:

"Some two hundred years ago," said the learned counsel, "there was a man in England who swore away the lives of his fellow citizens by wholesale. His name was Dr. Titus Oates--the man who got up what was called the Popish plot, and by perjury and villainy, consigned many an innocent head to the scaffold. He was assisted by a man who has, as no other judge has, disgraced the ermine--Jeffries, who drank himself to death in the tower, when his co-worker in iniquities and evil deeds with dreadful and condign punishment followed him. The effort of nature to produce so great a monster was so terrible that it required a resting spell of two hundred years before she could produce another such monster in the shape of Dr. I. Winslow Ayer."

We forgive him, for he was obliged to seem to do or say something to earn his "fee." There being no arguments for defence, but only such pathetic appeals as only a lawyer, without the least hope, would make, feeling that his clients would expect something, we need not take our space to report their remarks.

On Tuesday April 18, Judge Advocate Burnet made his closing argument for the Government. It was truly a master-piece, complete in every part. It was such an effort as might have been expected, of one who has, during this long tedious trial, shown himself a gentleman, a profound counsellor, a true patriot and an advocate of justice, whose only aim has been to elicit truth, and be the better enabled to serve the true interests of the country. We would gladly present every argument and address he has made, during the trial, but space will not admit, and we therefore invite careful attention to the following sketch of his address:

The Judge Advocate, in referring to the accused, said:

There are two sides to this case; two sides for the manifestation of sympathy. While here is an old, white-haired man before you, whose every thing is at stake; while here is a father, a generous, open-hearted, and impulsive man, whose all is at stake; and here is a soldier, who has fought in every clime, and who has taken up his sword to destroy life in every cause, whose everything is also at stake, yet there is, on the other side, your Government at stake. If these men be guilty, justice to the nation demands of you this day that you should convict them, and you must not waver. In the consideration of this case, you must bring to your aid a power, that may be a little more than is ordinarily given to human nature. You must, for the time, sink all hatred, malice, even human sympathy; and rise, God-like, to determine the truth and adjust the punishment.

That these accused would enter upon the commission of so heinous a crime, I can scarcely permit myself to believe. They have made a strong appeal to your sympathies. Each counsel has advocated the cause of his client with an earnestness and an eloquence that does him honor; I shall always respect them, and bear them in kindly recollection.

But there seems to have been something, during these four years of the nation's trial, that has appeared to paralyze the native instincts of the American heart. This phantom, this siren of secession, with her enticing song, seems to have lulled to sleep the better part of human nature. At the sound of her voice, and the flash of her eye, men have sprung to arms, to grapple with the life of the nation, because it was free! They have followed, at the beck of the siren, over desolated homes; they have trampled over the dead corpses of murdered brothers, and innocent women and children. They have blackened the land with desolation, and made it the abode of moaning and woe. She has blinded, while she has demoralized them. Old men, forgetting their white hairs, have joined in the conspiracy at the beck of this phantom, who has taken out of the human heart its heaven-born instincts, to plant there those of vengeance, and the thirst for blood.

My tongue falters as I look over this country and see bereaved widows and orphans, the white-haired patriots that mourn for the first-born, that shall ne'er greet them, and those who sit at the desolate hearth, with hands upraised, waiting for the knock that will be but the death-knell of all their hopes; and think that the phantom of secession has caused all this!

Men who were kind fathers, kind husbands and noble patriots, have forgotten it all in a day, and have become traitors, and inculcated doctrines that have, by the hands of fiends, stricken down that patriotic and noble leader of the human race. There is something in it which no man can comprehend. The doctrines which they inculcate harden the heart, and nerve the arm to crime, enabling them to commit robbery, arson and murder, for all is in her category; and as they commit those crimes, the appeal to God for the justness of their cause. That is what has deceived these men; it is this accursed phantom of secession that has blinded their eyes; that has cooled their hearts and filled them with vengeance. It is this that has changed and perverted the human instincts, that should have ruled in their breasts.

Of this man Walsh, I have simply this to say: The evidence is as you have seen it. I have briefly sketched it; I will not dwell upon much that ought to be said; I can not. The testimony is voluminous, filling 2,000 or 2,500 pages. I have had but a few days to scan through it; I have given you only the leading points, and you must judge. I would not say one word that would take from this family their father; but if this man was guilty of this crime, or has aided and abetted this conspiracy, you have but one duty to perform. You must know no man, be influenced by no bias, betray no sympathy, but must be firm in the performance of your stern duty. There are thirty millions of suffering people in this land, and against these, one man's life, if guilty, weighs little in the scale of justice. We have, unhappily, in the history of this war, frequently seen sympathy manifested for criminals, rebels and traitors--those who have brought this great injustice upon the true and the loyal. It is not mercy to acquit those guilty of cruelty to a people who are struggling for their very existence; it would be cruelty to our brave soldiers, and to those who have been left widows and orphans.

As to Judge Morris--for his white hair and old age, I have only respect. For all that is worthy in him as a citizen, I do him reverence; but if this white-haired old man has engaged in a conspiracy against my nation and my country, I turn to the other side, and see white-haired patriots who mourn in sadness because such as he have done these evil deeds,--and I remember Justice!

As to this man Grenfel, I confess I have no sympathy with him; no sympathy for the foreigner who lands in our country when this nation is engaged in the struggle for human right and human liberty, and who takes part in the quarrel against us, and arrays himself on the side of those who are trying to establish tyranny and slavery. I have no sympathy for the man whose sword is unsheathed for hire and not for principle; for whom slavery and despotism have more charms than freedom and liberty. The motive of such a one does not rise even to the dignity of vengeance. As has been said by his counsel, his sword has gleamed in every sun, and has been employed on the side of almost every nationality, and after this he engages in our struggle, and, as testified to by Colonel Moore, desires to raise the black flag against our prisoners; and after men have yielded as prisoners of war, he rides up to one, and stabs him, coward like, in the back.

But he is not true to the cause he espouses. When in Washington he went to the Secretary of War and betrays the very people with whom he had been fighting; tells all he knows of the strength, position and designs of the Confederates. He said he proposed to leave immediately for England, but he breaks his faith, proceeds to Canada, and is found among the conspirators, and is now here, charged with these crimes to-day. There is no throb of my heart that beats in unison with such conduct as this. He was a fit instrument to be used in this enterprise. What to him would be the wail of women and little ones? What to him would be the pleadings of old men and unarmed citizens?

The delivery of Judge Burnett's argument occupied three and a half hours, after which the Commission adjourned to meet at four o'clock P.M., to deliberate on the findings and sentence. They accordingly met at the hour appointed, and, after mature deliberation, finally recorded their verdict.

General Hooker issued General Orders No. 30, April 22, in which he promulgates the finding of the military commission which, for three months past, has been engaged in the trial of the alleged Chicago conspirators. The commission have acquitted Buckner S. Morris and Vincent Marmaduke, and they are to be discharged upon their taking the oath of allegiance. They find Charles Walsh and Richard T. Semmes guilty of all the charges and specifications, and sentence the former to five years' imprisonment at hard labor from the 7th of November last, and the latter to three years' imprisonment at hard labor from the same date, at such place as the commanding general may direct. Gen. Hooker has named the State penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio.