The Copperhead Conspiracy

Episode Five: Fire and Pestilence

After a planned Copperhead insurrection in Chicago is thwarted, the Confederates pivot to new methods for terrorizing Northern cities using fire, bank robberies, and biological warfare. When those fail to bring the Union to its knees, they turn their attention to kidnapping the President.

Episode Four: Oh Canada

During the Civil War, neutral Canada became a haven for both exiled Copperheads and Confederate soldiers who had escaped from Union prisons. It then became a base of operations for a planned attack on several Northern cities by a combined force of Copperheads and Confederates.

Episode Three: The Union Fights Back

The summer of 1863 was a momentous period in the Civil War with the Battle of Gettysburg and the Fall of Vicksburg. It was also a turning point in a different kind of war being fought against Copperhead insurrectionists, who were starting to be taken very seriously by Union military officials. To counteract the threat, they started to spy on their own citizens.

Episode Two: Birth of a Movement

The Copperhead movement was a coalition of several groups with varied histories and political goals, the seeds of which went back to the early years of the nation. But the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860 activated their worst fears and inspired them to come together to fight against a common foe.

Episode One: Introduction

During the Civil War, a group of Northern Democrats known as Copperheads came together to oppose the policies of Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party. As the war progressed, they became progressively more radicalized and began to consider taking violent action in a strategic alliance with the Confederates.

The Copperhead Conspiracy Trailer

A brief introduction to the new podcast series, The Copperhead Conspiracy, which tells a forgotten story from the American Civil War. A group of Northerners, angry at President Lincoln, conspired with Confederates to plan an armed insurrection intended to topple the governments of several midwestern states and free tens of thousands of Confederate prisoners from Union prisons, hoping they would force an end to the Civil War with the Confederacy intact and slavery still legal. It would have worked, except for a Union spy who was embedded in their midst.