The scheme was known to the Confederates, allusions to it
are to be found in Southern newspapers, and even the Confederate
military authorities considered it. Early in 1863, General
Beauregard thought the Confederates might "get into Ohio and call
upon the friends of Vallandigham to rise for his defense and
support; then...call upon the whole Northwest to join in the
movement, form a confederacy of their own, and join us by a
treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive." Reliance on the
support of the societies was the will-o'-the-wisp that deceived
General John Morgan in his desperate attempt to carry out
Beauregard's programme. Though brushed aside as a mere detail by
military historians, Morgan's raid, with his force of irregular
cavalry, in July, 1863, through Indiana and Ohio, was one of the
most romantic episodes of the war. But it ended in his defeat
and capture. While his gallant troopers rode to their
destruction, the men who loved to swear by Arcturus and to gabble
about the Pleiades showed the fiber to be expected of such
people, and stayed snug in their beds.
But neither their own lack of hardihood nor the disasters of
their Southern friends could dampen their peculiar ardor. Their
hero was Vallandigham. That redoubtable person had fixed his
headquarters in Canada, whence he directed his partisans in their
vain attempt to elect him Governor of Ohio.
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