Blood and Daring (24 page)

Monck investigated the jail break rumours and found that there was a legitimate cause for concern. On November 11, he so informed British minister in Washington, Lord Lyons, who told Secretary of State Seward. Warnings went to the prison and Northern governors, and the Johnson’s Island guard was enhanced. The
Michigan
was moved closer. Canadian militia and British regulars were moved to protect the Welland Canal and major ports on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. Canadian premier John Sandfield Macdonald (no relation to Liberal-Conservative party leader John A. Macdonald), who had taken office in May 1862, went to Buffalo to consult with its mayor and Department of the East commander General John Dix about what other precautions could be taken.

When the Johnson’s Island attack failed to happen, newspapers and officials on both sides of the border speculated as to whether the preparations had unnerved the Confederate conspirators, or whether Monck had
made the whole thing up to curry favour with the Lincoln administration.
⁹
Seward sent a commissioner to Quebec to speak with Monck. The governor general insisted that the information upon which he acted was from a reliable source—but he refused to reveal that source.

Though questioned by many, Monck had already earned grudging respect from Confederate leaders. Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen Mallory had told Davis of Monck’s diligence, noting that back in July 1861 he had sent sixty-seven men to Canada to organize an expedition from Canada into the North, but that Monck had proved himself a man of strength and principle when he intervened to stop it.
¹⁰
Canadians seemed proud that Monck had prevented the Johnson’s Island raid; even the pro-South
Toronto Leader
praised his swift action.
¹¹
Much of the Northern press was similarly pleased, with the
New York Times
echoing most others in lauding Monck for what it called a “thoroughly friendly act.”
¹²
Other papers offered no quarter and criticized Canadians and Maritimers for being too soft in allowing Confederates to operate so freely in their cities in the first place.
¹³

In the days that followed, a number of newspapers fed a new and growing frenzy arising from reports of Confederates sweeping over the border and invading Northern cities.
¹⁴
A large group of armed people gathered in Buffalo to protest against the authorities who they claimed had been negligent in defending them. General Dix recommended to Seward that more troops be placed along the border and that fortifications be augmented and new ones constructed. Seward decided to wait.
¹⁵
Northern governors called up militias and demanded that Lincoln send troops to protect their ports.

Concerns about dangers from Canada were amplified by the
Chesapeake
affair. The Union steamer
Chesapeake
left New York on December 5, 1863. Two days later, off the coast of Cape Cod, her captain and crew were swarmed by seventeen young passengers who took the ship. The chief engineer was killed and the captain wounded. After brief landings at Mount Desert and Grand Manan islands, the pirates took the
Chesapeake
to Saint John, New Brunswick, for coal. Some of passengers
were allowed to row to shore and the chief engineer’s body was weighted and thrown into the bay.

News of the
Chesapeake
‘s capture spread quickly. Newspapers on both sides of the border demanded action.
¹⁶
American consuls in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Canada were alerted that Union ships had been sent orders to pursue and capture the
Chesapeake
. It was established that the pirates were led by twenty-three-year-old John Braine, who had spent time in a Union prison for activities perpetrated in the name of a secret society called the Knights of the Golden Circle. Upon his release, he had moved to New Brunswick, where he met Canadian Vernon Locke, who had a letter of marque signed by Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin. The letter had been written for a third man and for a ship called the
Retribution
, but it had been enough for Locke and Braine to concoct a plan. They would take the
Chesapeake
, rename it the
Retribution
, and then steam it to Bermuda, where it would be offered to the Confederate navy operating there.

With more and more publicity and less and less coal, the
Chesapeake
’s crew grew desperate. Braine jumped ship near Petite Rivière, Nova Scotia, and, with the help of sympathetic locals, he escaped arrest and made his way to Halifax. With a shrinking crew, the
Chesapeake
carried on, hugging the coast, to LaHave, still searching for coal. Two Union warships, the
Ella and Anna
and the
Dacotah
, were in hot pursuit. In Sambro Harbour, the
Dacotah
captured the
Chesapeake
and a Canadian ship called the
Investigator
, which had arrived to refuel her. The crew, including Nova Scotians Alexander and William Henry and John Wade, were put in irons and the
Chesapeake
was towed into Halifax’s inner harbour.

With the ships bobbing just off shore, American secretary of the navy Gideon Welles sent a telegram ordering that the
Chesapeake
be turned over to the Canadians, but he said nothing of the prisoners. Nova Scotia’s provincial secretary Charles Tupper and lieutenant-governor Doyle demanded that the ship and prisoners be immediately released, as the American captain had flagrantly violated international law and Canadian and British neutrality. Tupper advised Doyle that if the demands were not met, the Halifax batteries should fire upon the
Dacotah
.
¹⁷
Meanwhile, a crowd of
about one hundred and fifty gathered on Queen’s Wharf became irate when word spread that the Henry brothers and Wade were being held in irons.

American vice-consul at Halifax, Nathaniel Gunnison, had obtained a warrant for John Wade’s arrest and stood on the pier with a Halifax police officer ready to serve it. They watched with trepidation, surrounded by roiling Haligonians, as Wade was rowed to shore. As the little boat neared, the crowd surged forward. Guns were drawn. In the melée that ensued, the officer and diplomat were surrounded and threatened, and Wade was helped to escape in another boat. In the confusion, the Henrys escaped as well.

The
New York Herald
reported on the “Halifax Riot” and called the city’s people and officials “Blue Noses—men with the cold blood and feeble circulation of reptiles.”
¹⁸
Gunnison sent a telegram to Seward explaining that Nova Scotia officials had done little to stop the people of Halifax from helping Wade and the Henry brothers to escape, and that Braine was being hailed as a hero in the city’s pubs, with nothing being done to arrest him.

Seward sought to defuse the affair by reporting that the
Dacotah
’s captain had acted without orders. He claimed Lincoln had promised that the captain would be reprimanded for entering foreign waters and for his treatment of the prisoners.
¹⁹
The incident soon faded from the headlines.

The trials of those involved dragged on for over a year. It was discovered that Alexander Keith
^*
of Halifax, who had played a lead role in helping Wade to escape, had been acting for some time as a Confederate agent. Papers were produced which proved he had been involved in purchasing twelve thousand muskets to be shipped to the South. It would be three months before the
Chesapeake
was returned to Portland.

The Johnson’s Island and
Chesapeake
incidents demonstrated both the degree to which Canadian, Maritime, British and American officials understood how quickly a small incident could explode into a new
Trent
crisis, with potentially catastrophic consequences, and how adroit they had become at the diplomacy needed to address them. Suspicion, distrust
and rancour remained nonetheless. American consul James Howard, in a dispatch to Seward, described Canadians as “stupidly bad,” “rotten rubbish” and “the dregs of society.” And worse: “Any notorious offender may murder the Governor … of Massachusetts, may take the steamer to this province, and walk the streets of St. John … with impunity, there being no power to arrest him for an offense within the Extradition Treaty.”
²⁰

In London, American minister Adams met with Foreign Secretary Russell to express disappointment with the British and Canadian governments for allowing Confederate activity in Canadian cities. Russell explained that with the British proclamation of neutrality, its colonies were open to both Americans and Confederates.
²¹
Adams reported the conversation to Seward, adding—perhaps unnecessarily—that he saw Confederate activity in Canada as a Southern tactic meant to disrupt relations between the North and Britain in the hope of dragging Britain into the war.
²²

Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham was a Copperhead. The loosely organized group’s name was taken from the venomous snake, known for striking without warning. Copperheads believed that neither the hope of reuniting the Union nor the freeing of slaves was worth the Civil War’s expenditure of blood and treasure, and so negotiations with the Confederacy should be undertaken to end it. Many Copperheads were also motivated by a desire to rebuild the shattered Democratic Party and nominate a candidate who could defeat Lincoln in November 1864. The movement also attracted those in the Midwest who believed national economic policies were geared to eastern needs and felt themselves beyond the pale of Richmond’s passions and Washington’s power. If peace could not be quickly negotiated, or their outlier ideas respectfully considered, the Copperheads would seek the establishment of a new, independent republic made up of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Lincoln said he feared the Copperhead movement, the “fire in the rear,” as he called it, more than military failure.
²³

Vallandigham became one of the most effective leaders of the Copperhead movement. He had entered Congress in 1858 opposed to the
march to war. When war began, he delivered fiery anti-war speeches at home and from the House floor. By 1862, he had been defeated when his district was gerrymandered away, but he continued to speak his mind at well-attended peace rallies throughout the North. His speeches became increasingly popular and radical—and, to some, treasonous.

On May 1, 1863, after an especially passionate speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio, Vallandigham returned to his home in Dayton. That night, with orders from Union general Ambrose Burnside, soldiers pounded on his front door. He jumped from his bed to a window and fired two pistol shots over the soldiers’ heads. Men burst through a side door and, amid his wife’s screams, he was dragged out and to jail. Vallandigham was charged with treason and there was talk of execution. Lincoln became involved and decided that the political costs and constitutional questions involved in proceeding were not worth the noose, so he arranged to have Vallandigham escorted under a flag of truce to Murfreesboro, where he was released to Confederate general Braxton Bragg. Lincoln quipped that Vallandigham’s head could go where his heart already was.
²⁴

Not really needing this new problem, Bragg arranged papers and transport for Vallandigham, who made his way to Wilmington, North Carolina, boarded a blockade runner to Bermuda, and then took a transport to Nova Scotia. Word had leaked of his arrival, and a crowd welcomed him to the Halifax docks with three cheers to Jefferson Davis and another round to the Confederacy.
²⁵

Vallandigham received an equally kind reception at Quebec City. At a dinner in his honour at the prestigious Stadacona Club, he was introduced to Canada’s political and business elite, including John A. Macdonald. On July 15, Vallandigham arrived in Niagara Falls and checked into a two-room suite at Clifton House, just blocks from the town’s natural wonder. The hotel had become the centre of Confederate activity in the lively border town. The next day he met with several Americans, including Joseph Warren of the
Buffalo Courier
, well-known Illinois Copperhead Richard Merrick and Indiana congressman Daniel Voorhees.
²⁶
Vallandigham gave them copies of a speech in which he accepted his nomination as the
Democratic Party’s candidate for the governor of Ohio. He would run his campaign from Canada and use it to promote the Copperhead agenda.

Over the next few weeks, hundreds of American politicians and Copperhead leaders, as well as American and Canadian newspaper reporters, sat with America’s most notorious candidate. His presence in Canada and his incendiary views split public opinion. The
Toronto Leader
spoke highly of Vallandigham and his Copperhead goals, calling him “intelligent, amiable and a martyr to his cause.”
²⁷
George Brown, on the other hand, set out in his
Globe
to insult and vilify Vallandigham for a project designed to hurt the United States. Brown argued that his presence and actions in Canada threatened to bring American troops across the border. Vallandigham wrote harsh letters in response, and the ensuing duel of words lasted for weeks.
²⁸

Among the Canadians who visited Vallandigham was influential Montreal member of the legislature Thomas D’Arcy McGee. The short, stocky, hard-drinking and charismatic McGee, who had a brother serving in the Union army, was on a speaking tour of the Maritimes and Canada, promoting the idea of unifying Britain’s colonies into a single union in order to build railways and offer greater protection from aggressive American expansionism.
²⁹
At McGee’s invitation, Vallandigham travelled to Drummondville, Canada East, where on August 16 he addressed a crowd of about two thousand. A few days later, McGee introduced him from the floor of the Canadian legislature. The next day, Vallandigham took a chair to the speaker’s left, an honour rarely bestowed, to hear passionate speeches relating to Canada’s position on America and the Civil War. Most notably, he heard McGee warn about United States’s preparations to send one hundred thousand troops to invade Canada, with the goal of splitting Canada East and West as the first step to annexation.
³⁰