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belief that, under instructions from
Davis, he would attempt the seizure of
Washington City before Congress should meet there, on the 4th of July.
1 It was well known that the secessionists, then swarming in the
Capital, were in ,continual communication with
Beauregard, and it was believed that they were ready to act in concert with him in any scheme for overturning the ,Government.
The consequence was, that credence was given to the wildest rumors, and the
Government and the
General-in-chief were frequently much alarmed for the safety of the
Capital.
It was during one of these paroxysms of doubt and dread that
General Scott was constrained to telegraph to
Patterson :--“, We are pressed here.
Send the troops I have twice called for, without delay.”
The danger was, indeed, imminent.
It is now known that, at about that time, a proposition was made to L. P. Walker, the so-called Secretary of War of the conspirators, to blow up the National Capitol with gunpowder, some time between the 4th and 6th of July, at a time when both Houses of Congress should be in session therein, and when Mr. Lincoln, it was hoped, would be present.
This infernal proposition to murder several hundred men and women (for on such occasions the galleries of the halls of Congress were generally filled with spectators of both sexes) so pleased the conspirators, that directions were given for a conference between the assassin and Judah P. Benjamin, the so-called Attorney-General of the “Confederacy.”
2 Thus early in the conflict, the plotters against their Government were ready to employ agencies in their wicked work such as none but the most depraved criminals would use. The records of the war show that Jefferson Davis, and his immediate accomplices in the Great Crime of the Ages, were participants in plans and deeds of wickedness which every right-minded man and woman who was misled into an adhesion to their cause should be eager to disavow, and, by genuine loyalty to their beneficent Government, to atone for.
General Patterson was compelled to remain on the Maryland side of the Potomac until the beginning of July.
In the mean time the General-in-chief had asked him
to propose to him a plan of operations, without delay.
He did so. He proposed to fortify
Maryland Hights, and occupy them with about two thousand troops, provisioned for twenty days; to remove all of his supplies to
Frederick, and threaten with :a force to open a route through
Harper's Ferry; and to send all available forces to cross the
Potomac near the
Point of Rocks, and, uniting with
Colonel Stone at
Leesburg, be in a position to operate against the foe in the :Shenandoah Valley, or to aid
General McDowell when he should make his proposed march, with the main army near
Washington, on the insurgents at
Manassas.
This would have placed him in a better position to prevent
Johnston, at
Winchester, from joining
Beauregard at
Manassas, than if stationed between
Williamsport and
Winchester.
These suggestions were not heeded ; and a few days afterward, while
Patterson was begging earnestly for cannon and transportation, to enable him to well guard the fords of the river, and take position on the
Virginia side, he received a dispatch from the
General-in-chief,
directing him to remain “in front of the enemy, between
Winchester and the
Potomac,” and if his (
Patterson's)
