Blood and Daring (44 page)

Denison protested through political channels, and then the courts, with the unconvincing claim that the ship had not been purchased for Thompson and that the modifications had nothing to do with preparations for armaments. Long after Appomattox, Godfrey Hyams, the agent who had infiltrated Thompson’s inner circle and warned Canadian and American authorities of many Confederate activities, was called to testify at a hearing intended to settle Denison’s monetary claims. He explained that the ship was indeed being outfitted for use as a Confederate privateer. He told of grenades, guns, Greek fire, and other weapons being gathered for the ship at the time it was seized. He also identified the
Toronto arms manufacturer that Thompson had regularly used. Hyams took police to the Agnes Street house that had served as Thompson’s arms factory. He showed them the secret rooms and doorways, the twenty-six shells still on shelves awaiting delivery, and the secret compartments on wagons still parked outside.
²

The case dragged on through a number of frustrating appeals. It was finally resolved in November 1867. As part of the settlement, Denison was required to pay Thompson thirteen thousand dollars for it had been established that, despite his claims to the contrary, it was his promissory note that had allowed the ship to be purchased in the first place.
³
The case ended up proving in court what many suspected and others knew: Canada had supplied arms to the South.

When Robert E. Lee and then other Southern generals offered their swords in the spring of 1865, they were faced with the conundrum of remaining in the shattered South or fleeing the land that would be ruled by their enemies. Many fled, and a number came to Canada. Their arrival bolstered the already substantial Confederate communities in the towns where they settled. The stories of three prominent refugees tell the tale.

Jubal Early was a celebrated general, having led troops in several major battles, and offered punsters the chance to quip that Gettysburg was lost because Early arrived late. He was later accused of allowing a mass hanging of deserters and he was relieved of duty in late March 1865 for his failure in the Valley Campaign. At the war’s end, Early fled to Mexico but, finding conditions there inhospitable, he moved on to Cuba and then, in the spring of 1866, to Toronto. He happened to arrive on the same day that Union general William Tecumseh Sherman was being welcomed with great pomp and afforded the honour of conducting an inspection of the city’s militia. Early was miffed at being ignored, but accepted the hospitality offered at George Denison’s grand home.
⁴

When Early was in Mexico, Lee had written explaining that he was
preparing a history of the war but needed documents relating to its final years. Early promised to help.
⁵
Instead, he gathered papers and began a book of his own, writing the bulk of it in Toronto. It was released by Toronto publisher Lovell and Gibson and became a sensation in Canada and the United States. The book was like Early himself—unrepentant, stubborn and proud. Along with Southern journalist Edward Pollard’s work, Early’s book established the idea of the “Lost Cause” as the lens through which generations of Southerners interpreted the war.

Early enjoyed life in Toronto, lived for a time in Niagara Falls and then in Drummondville, in Quebec’s idyllic eastern townships. When President Johnson declared a general amnesty for all former Confederates on Christmas Day 1868, Early packed up and went home to Virginia.

General George Pickett revealed himself the master of the understatement when, asked why his famous Gettysburg charge had failed, he laconically responded, “The Yankees had something to do with it.”
⁶
Pickett and his wife, Lasalle, moved to Montreal in early 1866. They stayed at a fine house owned by a gentleman on an extended stay in England, and then at the comfortable St. Laurent Hotel. He cut off his famous ringlets and settled into civilian life, accepting salutes every day from the city’s many Southerners and Southern sympathizers. Pickett soon found, however, that one cannot eat notoriety. Lasalle was eventually forced to sell her jewelry and they moved to Sherbrooke, where they lived quite modestly, while she gave French, Latin and piano lessons. They, too, left Canada with the news of the Johnson amnesty.

The most important Confederate refugee in Canada was Jefferson Davis. He was a devoted family man with a sincere and boundless love for his wife, Varina, and their seven children. Davis was a skilled military tactician and dedicated public servant who worked tirelessly for the advancement of the public good, as he saw it, through a long career untainted by even a whisper of scandal. Davis had received word from Lee that Petersburg had fallen on April 2, 1865, and hours later he left Richmond. On May 10, he was recognized and arrested by a passing group of Union soldiers near Irwinville, in south Georgia. Twelve days
later, the worn and bedraggled ex-president was taken to a cold, damp cell in Fort Monroe, where he was shackled and humiliated.

Varina had sent their children north to Montreal, where they lived with her mother and sister, who had been there for some time. They attended school and settled into a quiet life in their new home. Varina worked tirelessly to secure the release of her husband, and was eventually allowed to live nearby to visit him. In June 1867, President Johnson approved Davis’s parole. Varina gathered the haggard and ill ex-president and left the next day to join their children in Montreal.

They arrived to a hero’s welcome. Former Confederate consul to Havana Colonel C.J. Helen and Confederate minister to Britain James Mason, who had been living for over two years in Niagara Falls, had organized the welcome. A large and boisterous crowd cheered, clapped and sang.

After a brief time with their children, the two set off on a tour of Canada. At the harbour in Kingston, a cheering crowd greeted them on arrival and mobbed them as they stretched their legs on shore. Denison helped organize their reception in Toronto and it was magnificent. Six to seven thousand people applauded as the steamer docked. A
New York Times
reporter was there and noted that at a luncheon in Davis’s honour, “all the Confederates in the City, besides large numbers of Canadians, paid their respects.”
⁷
Davis smiled and shook hands, but was obviously not well. Denison observed, “I was so astonished at the emaciation and weakness of Mr. Davis who looked like a dying man, that I said to a friend near me, ‘They have killed him.’ ”
⁸

It was then on to Niagara Falls and another large crowd. A band welcomed them with “Dixie” and “Bonnie Blue Flag,” followed by a rousing three cheers for Davis and another three for Mason. Not sure of Davis’s plans in Canada, the
New York Times
article concluded, “If he remains in Canada he may spend it at this little town of Niagara where a pleasant Confederate society is springing up.”
⁹

Davis returned to Montreal, where Varina’s entire family soon joined them. Toronto publisher John Lovell arranged for them all to move from their rather run-down boarding house to a Mountain Street mansion,
paid for by Canadian supporters. It was there that Davis concerned himself with personal finances, which were abysmal, and with efforts to regain his health, which was awful.

Just before the fall of Richmond, boxes of official Confederate government documents had been gathered and shipped through Halifax to Montreal, where they were stored at the Bank of Montreal. Varina arranged for some of the boxes to be brought to them so that Davis could begin work on a history of the Confederacy that he had said he wanted to write. After only a short time, however, it proved too much for him: one afternoon, Davis stood and walked away saying, “Let us put them by for awhile, I cannot speak of the dead so soon.”
¹⁰

When September came, the family moved to Lennoxville to be near Jeff junior, who was enrolled in Bishop’s College. He was welcomed at the school by a number of other children of Confederate refugees.
¹¹
The family stayed at the modest Clark’s Hotel and continued to welcome a steady stream of visitors. Finance Minister Alexander Galt was among those who called on Davis and fussed over gifts for the children.
¹²
Autumn among the riotous colours of Quebec’s hardwoods promised tranquil beauty for recuperation, but Davis could not really rest, as his trial for treason was set for late November. On November 19, the Davis family left Montreal to face his accusers in an America still struggling to reconcile the horror it had inflicted upon itself.
^*

From the outset of the Civil War, Canadians had worried about what would happen when it ended. Two days after Lee’s surrender, Macdonald had written to George Brown, predicting that the Union, “flushed with success,” would turn its armies and fleets northward to take Canada. He spoke of Seward’s goal of seeing the United States “overspread the continent.”
¹³

By late 1868, however, the mighty American military had been largely demobilized. There were only about fifty thousand men left in uniform, and most were deployed in the south and west. The threat of armed intervention in Canada was consequently greatly reduced. Nonetheless, the expansionist goals of many American policy makers remained. If Canada could not be won through invasion, perhaps it could be bought or traded for. Both potential tactics stemmed from the unresolved wartime issue of the
Alabama
claims.

The claims arose from one of Lincoln’s first aggressive acts—the blockade of Southern ports. Lincoln had hoped to suffocate the South by stopping shipments of armaments and supplies in and cotton out. Davis had already issued letters of marque in an attempt to create a privateer navy and sent agents to Britain to have ships bought or built.
¹⁴
Thirteen ships were eventually obtained—among them was the
Enrica
. Working from offices in Liverpool, Confederate agent James Dunwoody Bulloch arranged financing and then placed the order for the
Enrica
with Birkenhead’s Laird Brothers in October 1861.
^15
*
Code-named “290,” the 900-ton, iron-clad steamer was, according to the paper work, a freighter to be sold to a Spanish company. Its design, however, clearly indicated that it was to be a battleship. The
Enrica
was launched in May 1862.

American minister to Britain, Charles Adams knew of the secret Confederate shipbuilding operations and specifically about the
Enrica
. He asked Foreign Secretary Earl Russell to have it inspected and seized as tangible proof that Britain had violated its declaration of neutrality. While a bureaucratic shuffle ensued, the wives and children of the crew and some of the shipbuilders boarded the
Enrica
for what was to be a short test run on the Mersey out of Liverpool. It all looked innocent enough. Around the first bend, though, the passengers were put ashore and the
Enrica
put to sea. She steamed to the Azores, where armaments were installed and ammunition loaded. On August 25, the
Enrica
was re-commissioned as the CSS
Alabama
and joined the growing British-made Confederate navy.
The
Alabama
became a predator, sinking sixty-four American commercial vessels and an American warship. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells ordered the USS
Kearsarge
to find and sink the
Alabama
, and a global hunt began.

With the
Alabama
and others wreaking havoc on American trade, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick helping to make a mockery of Lincoln’s blockade, Seward and Adams became increasingly agitated with the British government’s willful blind eye toward its role in Confederate naval operations, a blindness they claimed was making the war longer and harsher. Adams’s protests increased in intensity and frequency. After the turning of the tide with Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the Palmerston government finally put a stop to the building of Confederate ships. In September 1863, Palmerston ordered that two large iron-clads, known as the Laird Rams, be seized and purchased for the Royal Navy. Meanwhile, Confederate ships already made possible through the winks and nods of British law makers continued to do their work.

A few weeks later, Adams petitioned the British government to consider an arbitration process to determine the amount of compensation owed the United States in respect of Britain’s illegal support of the building of the Confederate navy. The suit involving all British-made and procured ships, but was named after the most notorious and so became known as the
Alabama
claims. Palmerston refused to acknowledge the suit.

In July 1864, after months of prowling the world’s seas, the
Kearsarge
waited near Cherbourg, France, where its prey was being repaired. A challenge was issued. The two slowly emerged from the harbour and engaged in a spectacular and fiery battle. The
Alabama
whirled and brawled, but was outgunned and sunk.

With the war’s end, neither country had forgotten the
Alabama
claims suit, but neither brought it to the top of their agendas. Britain was dealing with increasingly troublesome events in Europe and its government was changing at an unprecedented rate. The United States needed to mourn a president and heal a nation under the chaotic rule of a federal government battling itself. Into this vacuum stepped William Seward.

Seward was not the man he had been before or during the war. The assassination attempt had rendered one arm useless and sapped his vigour. His wife’s premature passing had broken his heart. He had lost political capital because of his support for the embattled President Johnson. As before the war, though, he was passionate about American expansionism, and winning Canada remained a key goal.
¹⁶
Seward saw the settlement of the
Alabama
claims as a tactic in that pursuit.