nation as it does, has been ever since this war broke out, the rendezvous
of thousands upon thousands of the vagabond and criminal population of the
United States, together with the rebels and refugees, until its population
far exceeds what it had in 1860; almost every business occupation is
crowded to such an extent that it is almost impossible to obtain
employment of any kind, many persons being obliged to keep from starving
by begging, for their food, and the clothes they wear upon their backs.
Some of this refugee population have means, others are supplied by their
friends and families at home; but by far the greater number are without
any occupation or visible means of support, habitue of the gambling hells,
drinking saloons, &c., in favor of any crime or villainy to supply their
depleted purses, and furnish them with the means of living at ease and
idleness. Under such circumstances and among such a class of population,
is it anything strange, that the robbery of banks, the pillaging of the
inhabitants of the Northern border, that raids with all the necessary
plundering and so forth, found plenty of advocates and supporters, and
when the time arrived to carry them into execution, plenty of desperadoes,
fit tools for such infamous projects. The great difficulty in Canada was
not in getting enough of these men to participate in matters of this kind;
but to prevent too many of them from knowing of them, so that there would
be a smaller number among whom to divide the spoils and plunder thus
obtained, so that the chief difficulty lay in getting together just enough
of the most desperate characters to carry out an expedition. During the
Chicago Democratic Convention the efforts of the rebels were not confined
alone to Camp Douglas; but simultaneously with their efforts in Chicago,
they were to make an attempt to capture the United States Steamer
Michigan, carrying eighteen guns, stationed on Lake Erie, the steamer
permitted by the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, for
the better protection of rebel prisoners confined at Johnston's Island.