The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-10-26
TIE NORTHWESTERN CONSPIRACY.
A Former Chief of the Golden Circle Tells
What lie Knows About the Order.
..rhooion. in chicago Inter Ocean.

s.phocion, in Chicago Inter Ocean.
In reference TO the Louisville dispatch in your
Issue of Saturday touching the posthumous
papers OF Jacob NJ. Thompson, Clement L. Val
landigham, one Judge Hines, aud others, allow
me paragraph or two. AS prefaced in that
dispatch, and speaking from information in my
position as an officer of the organization alluded
to. wish it to GO upon record that the proposed
sensation is lie. The publication of the alleged
startling disclosures is in the interest of some
cheap dime-magazine firm, and coming at this
day can serve but two purposes one OF levying
blackmail upon honest and iaw-abiding
citizens, the other of disturbing the lives OF
living or of Decorating the graves of dead citi-
zens. The Knights of the Golden Circle bad an
existence in the Southern States as early as
1885, and owed it's origin to that Nashville fill
buster known as the Grey eyed Man of Desti-
n.y." Nicaragua Walker. 1t never had any con-
nection with politics either North or South.
When Walker was assassinated, the young men
Of the South, and particularly the border States,
kept up the organization as social and pleas
urable pastime / joined the Knights as early
as 1857. True in 1868 man by the name of
Buckley. then living in Louisville, brought the
machinery of the organization into Indiana.
political turn. He added to the obliga-
ton an additional paragraph that its
members would resist by all lawful means the
CONSUMPTION acts Being repndiated, Buckley,
Milligan, Bowles, ex-Auditor Dodd and ex- Sena-
tor Horace Heffren, all of Indiana. sloughed off,
and using the same signs. grips and pass words
promulgated higher order. known as the Sons
of Liberty. In Ohio Valandgham and Buckley
originated another higher order, called the
Brotherhood of the Northwest. and added Val
landgham's pet theory to the obligation, that its
mem bers pledge themselves to the establishment
OF Northwestern Confederacy. Jacob Thomp-
son. nor Clement j. Valandgham, nor this
ex-Judge Hines, Of Louisville, ever land
speak by the record a superior
officer in the organization) belonged
TO the Knights of the Golden Circle. Nor were
the Knights in any of the term dsloyal.
True, they were all Democrats, because 10 Re-
publican was ever solcisud to join a castle. But
of the Democrats who belonged TO the several cas-
ties in Iowa. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michi-
gan there was never one who contemplated for
moment resorting to arms to liberate confeder-
ate prisoners. either at Chicago, Columbus, Put
ln-Bay or anywhere else, and as for John Nor
CANS raid being in any way connected with the
Knights of the Golden Circle, the Sons
the Northwest the suggestion is criminal
ly absurd. When the Supreme Council fell
into the hands of the Indiana and New York
copperheads, and when Edwin NJ Stanton drove
that council from Washington to Albany, n. Y,
/ was instructed to disbaud the Illinois castles
and did so. My last official act after traversiug
the entire State was to convene the castles of
northern Illinois at Pontiac. Henry Clay Dean
of Iowa, was the orator, and there the organize
ton was formally and officially dsbanded and
from that date to the close of the war there
were no castles of the Knights Of the Golden
Circle In Illinois. l make these statements in
the interests of war history and to protect hon
est and respectable citizens from what proposes
TO be an Infamous rehash Of the man Bickley's
imagination.