BURNED--EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES--SUPREME COUNCIL IN NEW YORK--DEGREES OF THE
ORDERS.

As above intimated, early in 1862 the Richmond Government foresaw the
necessity of bringing to its aid the hitherto comparatively dormant
resources of treason in the Northern States, and the enlargement of the
arena of the Rebellion. Raids having ominously failed in their design to
arouse the lethargic spirits of Northern sympathizers and advocates, to
rush to the standard of the misguided South, it was immediately determined
to prolong the war, at least, to the date of the next Presidential
election, and then through the agencies of secret organization and
equipment, seize upon the excitement of the people in a hotly contested
election, to force a rebellion against the administration elect in the
North, as had been done in the South in 1860.

The executive part of this object was at once given into the hands of such
trustworthy men, both North and South, as were deemed suitable to the
enterprise, and the work of secret political organization was vigorously
begun in Northern Missouri and Kentucky, from thence it gradually spread,
until it was firmly rooted in the political tenets of the minority party
in the States of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and portions of
other adjoining States.

Much dissimilarity existed in the operative structure and formation of the
various organizations, from time to time thus instituted. To give the
public a full and complete description of these organizations, would be
foreign to the writer's time, space and purpose, but in order that some
record of their character may be made, a general description of each in
its order in point of time, with a reference to the features in which
radical dissimilarities appear, would seem indispensible to the poor