Blood and Daring (16 page)

On December 4, Galt met with Lincoln at the White House. Ashmun was present. Galt began by telling the president that the current tension, coupled with Seward’s belligerent circulars and other actions that put troops on the Canadian border, and the bellicose tone of much of the Northern press, was disconcerting for Canadians. Lincoln replied that Galt should never think that the press accurately reflected the views of his administration. He ducked the main issue, saying that he had supported increased military preparations at the border, but had expressed concern at the time that Canadians would react negatively. There lurked a dagger within his reassuring words, however, for he added that he had been disappointed when Britain had named the rebellious states as a belligerent.
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Ashmun raised the
Trent
crisis. Lincoln told Galt that for him the issue had both domestic and international ramifications. He said that he wanted to avoid war and did not want to invade Canada but, leaving the door open, continued, “We must do something to satisfy the people.”
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Galt pressed and asked what would be done with Mason and Slidell. Lincoln replied vaguely, “That will be got along with.”
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Galt wrote to his wife that he was impressed by Lincoln: “He is very tall, thin, and with marked features, appears fond of anecdote, of which he has a fund. I liked him for his straight forward strong common sense.”
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In a memo to Macdonald, Galt indicated that Lincoln was as charming and reassuring as he was unconvincing: “The impression left on my mind is that the President has … no hostile designs upon Canada.… I cannot,
however, divest my mind of the impression that the policy of the Govt is so subject to popular impulses that no assurance can be, or ought to be relied upon under present circumstances … the idea is universal that Canada is most desirable for the north, which its unprepared state would render it an easy prize.”
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Lord Lyons and Governor General Monck were briefed on Galt’s visit with Lincoln and shared his misgivings. Lyons maintained his hope that war would not come, but he urged both Monck and Foreign Secretary Russell to prepare for it. Lyons added that preparations for war concerned more than Canada; it was to be a global mobilization involving British ships from the Pacific and the West Indies.
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Concerned, Monck wrote to Britain’s secretary of state for the colonies Newcastle, “I am afraid however this dispute may end, we will have to fight them sooner or later.”
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From Washington, Lyons set up a code with Monck. If the invasion was underway, or if he believed it to be imminent, Lyons would telegraph the following: “Is Mr. Charles Pelham still with you?” If it was received and understood, then Monck was to respond: “Mr. Charles Pelham started for England.” If a particular point on the border was under attack or menaced, Lyons would write: “Forward these letters to (the place under threat)” and Monck would respond, “Unlikely your letters were forwarded to …”
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Jefferson Davis had seen Britain and the North talking themselves into war and, of course, recognized the opportunity for the Confederacy. He fanned the embers, hoping to turn them into flames. On November 18, Davis delivered a message to the Confederate Congress and, referring to Mason and Slidell, said: “These gentlemen were as much under the jurisdiction of the British Government upon that ship and beneath its flag as if they had been on its soil; and a claim on the part of the United States to seize them in the streets of London would have been as well founded as that to apprehend them where they were taken.”
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Lincoln was balancing conflicting advice and reading the fiery newspaper editorials calling for war. He saw that the New York stock market had dropped 7 percent since the crisis began—a significant
fluctuation in nineteenth-century terms. Ohio financier Jay Cooke, who had been successfully leading efforts to raise money for the North through the sale of government bonds in Europe, urged a quick solution to the crisis if he was to have any chance of raising additional capital.
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Meanwhile, daily military reports brought no news of victories or even much activity from General McClellan, who seemed almost smug in reporting that all remained quiet along the Potomac day after infuriating day. Lincoln did not want quiet. He wanted action and victory, while his young general McClellan seemed content to prepare and then prepare some more.

On December 19, Lyons arrived at Seward’s office and summarized Queen Victoria’s letter detailing Britain’s response to the
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crisis. He wisely withheld the letter itself and explained that the clock would begin ticking once it was officially delivered. If after seven days the captives were not released and an apology offered, then he and the British legation staff would leave and war would ensue. Seward accepted an unofficial copy of the letter. Later that evening, the seemingly ubiquitous
London Times
correspondent Russell saw Seward at a dinner party and asked about the British response. Seward exploded and, as was often typical for the man, he blustered and said far more than was prudent. He shouted to Russell and his other guests: “We will wrap the whole world in flames. No power is so remote that she will not feel the fire of our battle and be burned in the conflagration.”
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Russell reported the conversation. More American troops were soon on their way to the Canadian border.

Seward spent the weekend consulting legal experts and meeting with cabinet colleagues. French minister to Washington Edouard-Henry Mercier told Seward that, although he didn’t have official instructions from Paris, the French government supported Britain and knew of British military preparations overseas and in Canada. He added that he believed Lyons would indeed break off diplomatic relations with the United States if demands were not met within the seven-day deadline.
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On December 23, Lyons was back in Seward’s office. The Queen’s letter was officially delivered, and the clock began to count the hours to war.

While families across Canada, the United States and Britain woke up on Christmas morning to celebrate the day, the latest British forces began arriving in Halifax, Saint John, St. Andrews and Quebec City from their trying journeys across a frigid north Atlantic. Eleven thousand troops arrived in eighteen ships. They were put up in makeshift quarters in warehouses, schools and church basements. Days later, their equipment arrived. There were fifty thousand new rifles with more than two million rounds of ammunition and sixteen batteries of artillery along with shells and powder. Four companies of engineers disembarked to join the eleven infantry battalions. It was an impressive display but it was doomed from the outset.

For years the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick governments had been arguing with London and themselves about the building of roads and railroads. Coincidentally, a delegation from the two colonies had arrived in London in November just as news of the
Trent
‘s fate had reached Westminster. Nova Scotia’s Joseph Howe and New Brunswick’s Leonard Tilley were there to encourage Russell to supply the money necessary to solve the transportation dilemma that was stymying economic development. In their delegation was Edward Watkin, general manager of the Grand Trunk Railway. The group met with political and business leaders and pressed the case that investment was needed to build an intercolonial railway not just joining Halifax, Fredericton and Saint John but also extending north to Quebec City and Montreal. The railway would bring benefit to Britain and the empire by bolstering New Brunswick’s wood and Halifax’s shipbuilding industries and linking them to Canada’s manufacturers.

Howe and Tilley had prepared their arguments carefully, but were quick to use the
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crisis to their advantage. In meetings with officials and the press they spoke of the possibility of war and how the railway and road work would enable Britain’s colonies to better defend themselves against American aggression now and in the future. Howe and Tilley were also unapologetic in discussing their anti-American hopes for a Confederate victory.
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The Maritime delegation was correct that the railway was needed, but it was needed that very day. The large contingent of the newly arrived
British soldiers had to get to Canada East and West, and there was simply no good or quick way for them to do so. Some of the hard-pressed British regulars and their equipment were loaded onto three ships. One hit a sandbar, while another found the sea too dangerous and turned back. Only one small ship struggled on through St. Lawrence winds and ice and finally arrived, battered and frozen, at Rivière-du-Loup. The six hundred troops were welcomed by townsfolk, who had been encouraged to do so by French-language newspapers and messages from the pulpit announcing that the young men were coming to save them from the American hordes who were prepared to visit unspeakable horrors upon the land.

Lt. General Williams undertook a number of actions to ready for the American attack that he presumed to be imminent. He believed that the most likely stratagem would be simultaneous attacks on Montreal and Prescott, with advances on Kingston and the Niagara Peninsula.
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Williams had artillery pieces stationed and reinforced at these positions. He decided that, to protect Montreal, the invaders needed to be kept on the south side of the river, and so he had ten large-calibre, rifled artillery pieces placed on St. Helen’s Island. Infantry was positioned near them and on both sides of nearby bridges.
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This aspect of the plan meant that the eastern townships would be sacrificed. Plans were also made to add artillery and infantry strength to Toronto, Hamilton, London and the Welland Canal. All territory west of London would be allowed to fall to the American invaders. Williams believed that Nova Scotia could and should be defended. He argued that Halifax, with its all-season harbour and access to the coal mines of Pictou and Sydney, should become the centre of maritime warfare, but that Americans would be allowed to take New Brunswick.
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Williams argued that the defensive plan suited the types of soldiers that would be fighting the war. Despite the large numbers of British regulars, both the American troops and the Canadian and Maritime militia would consist of untested and undertrained soldiers, and thus the advantage would go to the force with the best-prepared and thoughtfully chosen fields of battle. Williams agreed with Inspector General of Fortifications
Sir John Burgoyne that the long and largely indefensible border would give way to guerrilla warfare, with marauding parties terrorizing civilians and inflicting damage on public, private and military infrastructures. All that would be needed, Burgoyne argued, was two or three successful repulses of such raids to, as he put it, “damp their ardour.”
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Thus, according to the military men planning it, the war would be costly, deadly and ugly—and offer no guarantee of victory.

On December 28, Macdonald finally convinced cabinet colleagues that there was a need for a minister of militia affairs to lead the war preparations. As he had already been acting the part, he appointed himself to the post and continued those efforts. Macdonald asked for more funds to bolster Toronto port defences, but dissuaded Lt. General Williams from dumping boulders into the harbour to trap American ships. He also requested funds to build more and better barracks, and handed over those already prepared to the lieutenant general in command of the recently arrived British troops. Macdonald also shifted the Canadian military leadership with a re-appointment of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan McDougall to be inspecting field officer of the militia. Macdonald had little money and he needed to work through Monck. Nevertheless, he played the few cards he had well.

Meanwhile, thousands of Canada-bound troops remained shivering in Saint John. Arrangements were finally made to gather sleighs and sleds. Soldiers and equipment were loaded, and beneath heavy buffalo robes they headed north behind draught horses lumbering through deep snow in sub-zero temperatures at about three miles per hour. A number of men suffered frostbite. Some deserted when the sorry procession neared the Maine border. After days of horrendous conditions they arrived at Quebec City. They regrouped and began to deploy along the border, with most being stationed at Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Niagara and Windsor.

The British military staff who were arriving aboard the
Melbourne
had a particularly rough time when their ship encountered treacherous North Atlantic weather and nearly ran out of coal. It finally reached Halifax on January 5. Discouraged by the frozen St. Lawrence and the terrible land travel conditions, the men removed their military insignias, hid their
papers, and took a mail ship to Boston, where they purchased Grand Trunk rail tickets for Montreal.

On the same Christmas day that saw the arrival of the British troops in Canada, Lincoln called a cabinet meeting to order. He had been moving toward a decision regarding the
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crisis in the same thoughtful and deliberate manner in which he made all decisions and which his cabinet secretaries were beginning to understand and respect. The five-hour meeting began with Seward reading the Queen’s letter and other dispatches that he and Lyons had exchanged, and letters that had arrived from Thurlow Weed in Paris and Adams in London. A consensus was quickly reached that war with England would be disastrous and would favour the Confederacy. Lincoln tipped his hand only in saying that he preferred to fight one war at a time.
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As the meeting was breaking up, Lincoln asked Seward to draft an argument supporting the release of Mason and Slidell, while he would write one suggesting that they remain prisoners. On December 26, the cabinet reconvened and Seward slowly read his twenty-six page draft. It was brilliant. He argued that in taking the two men, Captain Wilkes had acted on his own as no specific orders had been given, but that he had acted appropriately. He had erred only in not impounding the
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and taking it to a Prize Court. Therefore, Seward concluded, Mason and Slidell should be released not because Wilkes had broken international law, which was largely unwritten, or that he had insulted British honour, which was irrelevant, but that the release would be consistent with American traditions, principles, and precedents. There would be no apology.