interest and pleasure, and thus the organization thrived.

It became known of course that secret organizations of a most dangerous
class were in existence, and their fruits were easily recognized. Our
brave boys in the army were often importuned by letters, to desert their
posts and to betray their flag. Union men were subject to annoyances that
became unendurable, soldiers wives and families were grossly insulted,
soldiers visiting their homes upon furloughs were often assaulted or
murdered, quarrels upon petty pretexts were incited, neighbors arrayed
against each other, dwellings burned by incendiaries, unoffending union
men murdered, military secrets of greatest importance betrayed, libels of
the most gross and malicious character by such papers as the Chicago
Times, and by such men as Wilbur F. Story, its editor, till at length a
voice came to us from the army in the field, which was often echoed,
begging Union citizens at home, by their love of the Union, by the love
they bore their own families, to protect the absent soldiers' wives,
mothers, sisters and firesides from the Copperheads who remained at home;
they would meet the enemy at the front, they would march fearlessly to the
cannon's belching throat, and meet death or mutilation upon the field of
battle for their Country's cause; not for themselves did they know fear or
care for danger, but when the tidings came to them from home, when after
toilsome marches, hunger and fatigue, or suffering from wounds received in
desperate engagements, when resting a brief hour, and their eyes fell upon
missives from home, from wives who bade them go and fight for freedom, and
return not with shame upon their brows, when tender thoughts of home, of
children and every "loved spot" that they had left behind, came crowding
to their minds, who shall say that they were wanting in heroism if their
faces became pale, their lips trembled and the tears dimmed their eyes, as
they read of wrongs and insults endured from Copperheads at home, or of
plots and acts by cowardly traitors to aid the common enemy; and when