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But in the end circumstances and the confidence which his statesmanship had created combined to give Lincoln something like a walk-over. The Democratic Party got into the hands of the "Copperheads" at the very moment when facts were giving the lie to the "Copperhead" thesis.
May wrote a peremptory note announcing this fact to Cotsdean, and then returned to his own thoughts. Sir Robert had asked him to go over that morning and spend the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing of any breach between them. He thought he had better do this.
The disloyal Copperheads became more bodeful than ever before; while men who would have hanged a Copperhead as gladly as they would have shot a Secessionist felt their hearts sink before the undeniable Southern prestige.
The victory of the Union-Republican Party at this election was an amazing one, and in the words of General Grant's dispatch of congratulation to the President, the fact of its "having passed off quietly" was, in itself, "a victory worth more to the Country than a battle won," for the Copperheads had left no stone unturned in their efforts to create the utmost possible rancor, in the minds of their partisans, against the Administration and its Party.
They scorn the alliance with the Copperheads; they tell me to my face that they respect Grant, McPherson, and our brave associates who fight manfully and well for a principle, but despise the Copperheads and sneaks at the North, who profess friendship for the South and opposition to the war, as mere covers for their knavery and poltroonery.
Protesting the purest and highest patriotism, they were more evasive than the outspoken Copperheads, and as their disaffection was less conspicuous and offensive, so also it was more insidious and almost equally hurtful. They constituted the true and proper body of Democracy.
The "Copperheads," however, seem to have suffered from that amazing illusion which we have learnt in recent times to associate with the Russian Bolsheviks and their admirers in other countries the illusion that if one side leaves off fighting the other side will immediately do the same, though all the objects for which it ever wanted to fight are unachieved.
He said he knew the milling firm of Cole & Co. quite well, and that during the war they were most intense and bitter Copperheads, and had no use whatever for "Lincoln hirelings," as Union soldiers were sometimes called by the "Butternut" element. My informant was a respectable, truthful man, so it is probable that his statement was correct.
It must not be imagined that the Northern enemies of the North were all bad men; they were sometimes men of conscience, and sincerely opposed to the war against the South as unjust and hopeless. But they were called copperheads, because for a long time they lurked silently among the people, like that deadly snake which used to haunt the grass of the backwoods, and bite without warning.
Copperheads of Chicago and elsewhere, answer these questions! Prior to July 1864, the information of the public or the authorities, in respect to the aims, intents and objects of the organized bands of home traitors, was very meagre and indefinite, for it was no easy task for detectives or loyal citizens to enter the portals of the Temples.
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