Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

248 ANECDOTES OF PUBLIC MEN.
"It came to my knowledge in the early part of I86I, first by
rumors and then by evidence which I could not doubt, that
there was a deep-laid conspiracy to capture Washington, destroy all the avenues leading to it from the North, East, and
West, and thus prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in the
Capitol of the country; and if this plot did not succeed, then to
murder him while on his way to the capital, and thus inaugurate
a revolution which should end in establishing a Southern Confederacy, uniting all the slave States, while it was imagined that
the North would be divided into separate cliques, each striving
for the destruction of the other. Early in the year I86I, Miss
Dix, the philanthropist, came into my office on a Saturday afternoon. I had known her for some years as one engaged in alleviating the sufferings of the afflicted. Her occupation had brought
her in contact with the prominent men South. In visiting hospitals she had become familiar with the structure of Southern
society, and also with the working of its political machinery.
She stated that she had an important communication to make
to me personally; and, after closing my door, I listened attentively to what she had to say for more than an hour. She put
in a tangible and reliable shape, by the facts she related, what
before I had heard in numerous and detached parcels. The
sum of it all was that there was then an extensive and organized conspiracy throughout the South to seize upon Washington, with its archives and records, and then declare the Southern conspirators de facto the Government of the United States.
The whole was to be a coup d'etat. At the same time they were
to cut off all modes of communication between Washington and
the North, East, or West, and thus prevent the transportation
of troops to wrest the capital from the hands of the insurgents.
Mr. Lincoln's inauguration was thus to be prevented, or his life
was to fall a sacrifice to the attempt at inauguration. In fact,
troops were then drilling on the line of our road, and the Washington and Annapolis line, and other lines; and they were