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By Root 6650 0

at Niagara. It was the week of Commissioner Clement C. Clay and James Holcombe’s peace conference with Horace Greeley; it was also the week that Grenfell was reunited with the Confederate agent Thomas Hines.31.4 27 Grenfell sent a mysterious letter from Niagara to his daughter, Mary. “There is still work to be done and I am awaiting events,” he wrote, before warning her that he was planning to disappear “for a month or so I hope, before I again get into the saddle.… It is impossible to give a safe opinion upon what may take place in the South within the next three months, but they cannot subjugate it, never, never!”28 Ross parted from Grenfell at the end of July and returned to England in the autumn, intending to write a book about his adventures in the South. He never imagined that the “mischief” had actually grown into a conspiracy involving the exiled Copperhead Clement Vallandigham and the underground group the Sons of Liberty.

Vallandigham had been living a lonely and frustrating existence in Windsor, Ontario, since his expulsion to the South in 1863 and subsequent escape on a blockade runner to Bermuda. Windsor’s chief recommendation was its location on Canada’s southern boundary, facing Detroit. Vallandigham’s suite on the second floor of the Hirons House hotel afforded him a fine view of the forbidden fruit across the river. The hotel was also situated next to the ferry landing, which made it convenient for pilgrimages by Copperheads and loyal allies in the Democratic Party.29 Desperation had driven Vallandigham to accept an offer from the Sons of Liberty to become its “Supreme Grand Commander.” The original Sons of Liberty was a revolutionary organization formed before the War of Independence to demoralize and intimidate the loyalist supporters. In its new incarnation, the Sons of Liberty combined paramilitary aims with Masonic-like rituals, complete with secret signs, elaborate initiations, and large stockpiles of weapons in several states.

Far more popular in the Northwest than anywhere else in the country, the Sons of Liberty nevertheless attracted an eccentric constituency, and its numbers fluctuated wildly from a few thousand across the country to 18,000 in Indiana alone.30 The grand commander of the organization, an Indiana printer named Harrison H. Dodd, needed Vallandigham since the Sons of Liberty was in danger of collapsing unless it could find a national figure sufficiently credible to attract more members. Vallandigham needed the Sons of Liberty almost as much; his resounding defeat in the 1863 election for governor of Ohio had been a major setback. General McClellan looked certain to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president unless Vallandigham used the organizing capabilities of the Sons of Liberty to force his way into the selection process.

Thompson and Captain Hines’s first meeting with Vallandigham took place at Windsor on June 11, 1864. “On my arrival here I heard that there was such an organization as the Order of the Sons of Liberty in the Northern States, and my first effort was to learn its strength, it principles, and its objects, and if possible to put myself in communication with its leading spirits,” Thompson reported back to Judah Benjamin. “This was effected without much difficulty or delay. I was received among them with cordiality, and the greatest confidence at once extended to me.” His investigations into the society revealed that the membership was not as large as Vallandigham had boasted to him, but

its organization was essentially military. It had its commanders of divisions, of brigades, of regiments, of companies. The belief was entertained, and freely expressed that by a bold, vigorous, and concerted movement the three great Northwestern States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio could be seized and held. This being done, the States of Kentucky and Missouri could easily be lifted from their prostrate condition and placed on their feet, and this in sixty days would end the war.31

Vallandigham was hedging his bets. He was hoping to lead the Democrats to victory