by John Boyko
The bogus Niagara Falls peace initiative and then the Philo Parsons escapade led Union general John Dix to maintain an even closer eye on Thompson and his men. Shortly after the botched Philo Parsons incident, Dix wrote to Stanton, “That it is one of the chief purposes of the insurgents to advance their own cause by bringing about a rupture between the two countries through their agents and officers in Canada there can be no doubt.”65
Lyons was in Quebec City visiting Governor General Monck when informed of the latest border troubles and was shaken by the thought that Thompson’s actions might unravel years of his best efforts to maintain peace. He collapsed in bed for twenty-four hours.66 Lyons was justifiably perturbed, for the Philo Parsons incident had ramifications far wider than merely military. American generals and Lincoln’s cabinet questioned Canada’s sincerity and its ability to patrol its border. British acting-minister to Washington Joseph Burnley, stepping up during Lyons’s absence and subsequent illness, assured Seward and Russell that Monck was doing all he could to arrest the men responsible and to avoid future incidents. 67 The Americans were unconvinced. Seward called the Philo Parsons episode “hostile and piratical” and promised consequences. 68
In September 1864, the number of American ships on the Great Lakes was increased. From Sandusky, Major General Hiscock wrote to Stanton, praising the fleet’s growing numbers as well as the improved quality and armaments of individual ships. He noted the purpose of the action and who was to blame: “to prevent the rebels who find security in Canada from seizing steamers engaged in commerce and converting them into war vessels, with a few of which they may, if not prevented, do us incalculable mischief.… Ex-Secretary Thompson is employed in Canada in setting on foot expeditions of the most dangerous character.”69
By early October, General Hooker had ordered another regiment to move north to guard Buffalo and Detroit. Dix ordered guns installed on five tug boats and sent them to guard critical ports, while extra funds were sent to expedite the construction of an armed revenue cutter fleet.* The additional ships were in plain violation of the 1817 Rush-Bagot Agreement. Burnley reminded Seward of the agreement and the importance to British-Canadian-American relations of abiding by it, but Seward was unmoved. He dryly replied to one of Burnley’s letters of protest: “Any excess … which may thus be occasioned in the armament of United States vessels in that quarter over the limits fixed by the Arrangement of April 1817, will be temporary only, and as it has been made necessary by an emergency probably not then foreseen, may not be regarded as contrary to the spirit of the stipulations of that instrument.”70
Thompson must have smiled as he read of each Union soldier, gun, ship and dollar deployed north rather than south. His individual operations may have been failing, but he was successfully distracting the enemy. His undertakings on the lakes were not finished, nor were a number of other initiatives that would soon come to fruition.
CHICAGO
The American peace movement, spearheaded by the anti-Lincoln machinations of Thompson and the Copperheads, had sputtered as the Union made successful military advances in 1863, but it was revived in the late spring of 1864, not by Union defeats but by the enormous prices paid for its victories. Lincoln had appointed Ulysses S. Grant his general-in-chief. Grant summoned the same determination that had earned his reputation in the west, and in May and early June fought important battles in his Overland Campaign: The Battle of the Wilderness, and battles at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. They were unprecedented in their ferocity and cost the Union 55,000 casualties. With increasing numbers of Northerners questioning the price of victory and the profits of peace, hope for the Confederacy rose.
The Copperhead movement crept back into the headlines and brought Vallandigham, still in Canada, back to public attention. In February 1864, peace movement agitators Dr. Thomas Massey from Ohio and Harrison Dodd from Indiana had visited him in Windsor and brought news of the growing strength of secret organizations that were dedicated to ending the war. Secret societies had long been part of American life. The Order of American Knights had grown in the Midwest and recently changed its name to the Sons of Liberty, to claim a spiritual connection with the courageous activities of the American Revolution. Massey and Dodd told Vallandigham that the Sons of Liberty had three hundred thousand passionate members in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. They were organizing themselves into county-based military units, each swearing their lives to defeating Lincoln in November in order to end the war. Vallandigham was further told that he had been elected to lead the Sons of Liberty as its Supreme Grand Commander, from his exile in Canada. He accepted, and there were soon rumours of his beginning a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.71
A few weeks later, Kentucky captain Thomas Hines met with Jefferson Davis. Hines was well respected for his cavalry exploits with Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan’s brave and free-ranging regiment. Hines was a rather small, effeminate man but he showed great strength in the saddle, fortitude when captured and determined grit in working with Morgan and five other officers who tunnelled their way out of the Ohio Penitentiary. Hines had an idea. He told Davis he would work with Thompson and Vallandigham to coordinate Sons of Liberty regiments and Canadian-based Confederates to perpetrate prison breaks at Chicago’s Camp Douglas and Johnson’s Island. The new army would initiate a popular revolution to realize the Copperhead dream of ending the war and establishing a Midwest republic, with Chicago as its capital.
Davis approved the idea and Hines left for Toronto. Secretary of War James Sedden’s written orders to Hines stated that he was “to proceed to Canada through the U.S.… collecting any members of Morgan’s command … in Canada and to employ them in any hostile operation against the United States consistent with neutral obligations in the British Provinces.”72 Hines was given access to two hundred bales of cotton, which he sold to finance his activities.
Hines met Thompson at the Queen’s Hotel and they developed his idea into a plan. On June 9, Thompson sent Hines to Windsor to meet with Vallandigham, and two days later he joined them. Vallandigham bragged about his growing popularity among the people in Ohio and throughout the Northern states, and invited Thompson to join the Sons of Liberty. 73 Thompson accepted. Now that he was a member, Vallandigham was able to tell him of the 300,000 fellow members who were waiting for a signal to rise up and overthrow state governments in Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and replace them with provisional governments dedicated to peace. Thompson came onside and forwarded $500,000 from his Canadian account to bankroll the endeavour.74
Vallandigham left Windsor for Ohio to deliver a number of inflammatory speeches meant to build interest in the Copperhead cause and the Sons of Liberty plots. He also hoped to earn publicity by being arrested again. General Ambrose Burnside, head of the military’s Ohio Department, had arrested him the first time and now refused to offer him the compliment of attention. Vallandigham was soon back in Canada.
Thompson reported to Davis on July 1 that the uprising would begin as scheduled in mid-July. He wrote: “Though intending this as a Western confederacy and demanding peace, if peace be not granted, then it shall be war. There are some choice spirits enlisted in this enterprise, and all that is needed for success is unflinching nerve.… In short, nothing but violence can terminate the war.”75 Hines reported to Davis that he expected success in simultaneous prison breaks at Chicago, Rock Island, Columbus, Indianapolis and Johnson’s Island, and in the attack on Chicago that he would personally lead. Hines expected that he and Thompson would soon command fifty thousand men.76
Thompson began coordinating the purchase of rifles and ammunition through James Holcombe. Holcombe arranged for weapons to be secured in New York and sent to him in Montreal. On July 27, Holcombe assured Thompson that things were going well but that that he needed more money to close arms deals. His letter indicated the growing Confederate links between Canada and the North: “Our friends are here and urge the promptest measures, as the time is very brief
. They have contracted for five thousand; these will cost thirty thousand in gold. No payment until they are received. Bill Canada Bank of England, payable to their order, can be cased, and should be sent in small denominations at once to New York.”77
On July 22, Thompson met with Confederate captain John Castleman and colonel Hines in St. Catharines. They sat with a number of men who had arranged to become delegates at the Democratic Party’s national convention in Chicago, which had been scheduled for July 1 but had been postponed when news of possible rebel trouble from Canada had leaked. Thompson was asked to forward more money and more guns.
They met in St. Catharines again on August 7. Excuses were made and more money requested. Thompson sent a coded message to Davis asking him to organize a military diversion in Kentucky for mid-August to draw Union troops south. Thompson issued a warning and prediction: “The rank and file are weary of the war, but the violent abolitionists, preachers, contractors, and political press are clamorous for its continuance. If Lee can hold his own in front of Richmond, and Johnston defeat Sherman in Georgia prior to the election, it seems probable that Lincoln will be defeated.”78
Thompson seemed unaware of the fact that anything he said or did was soon reported to Seward. And the efficiency of Seward’s spies meant that Lincoln was kept fully aware of the ideas and activities swirling in the interconnected worlds of the Copperheads, secret societies and what was becoming known as the Confederates’ Canadian Cabinet. Lincoln and his advisors were divided as to the legitimacy of the threats posed, but Lincoln took them seriously and so actions were taken to address them.79* Shortly after the St. Catharines meeting, more soldiers were sent to Chicago to increase security at the convention and more troops were sent to the state houses in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.
With delays and additional troops sapping the enthusiasm of their followers, Sons of Liberty leaders continued to try to rally their people. Sixty Canadian-based Confederates met at the Queen’s, and Hines gave them instructions, a hundred dollars each and train tickets for Chicago. They arrived on August 28, the day before the convention was scheduled to begin at the Amphitheatre. They waited for the thousands of armed and determined men that Illinois Sons of Liberty leader Amos Green had promised. None arrived. Green and the twelve thousand dollars that Thompson had sent him were gone. Many of Thompson’s men exercised the better part of valour and quietly slipped away.
From Toronto, Thompson hastily concocted a revised plan. He ordered Castleman and Hines to gather as many men as they could and to commandeer a train, cut telegraph lines and liberate Confederates at the Rock Island and Springfield prisons. The rebel force was then to burn bridges and cut remaining telegraph wires except for one, through which messages could be sent to Washington and elsewhere explaining what had happened. The plan was set but, as in Chicago, it fizzled. They were betrayed and Castleman was arrested. The others fled back to Canada.
The failed disruption at Chicago and the prison break fiascos, coupled with the Philo Parsons episode, drew even more attention to Thompson’s Canadian operations. Stanton and Seward began to receive more regular and alarming reports. On September 30, for instance, General Dix telegraphed Stanton that Thompson had been seen in Sandwich, Canada West, with known Confederate colonel William Steele and that they were planning some kind of “piratical expedition” on the lakes. The next day, Detroit’s provost marshal reported, “As the case now stands, the rebel agent in Canada residing in Sandwich, Col. Jacob Thompson, has organized an expedition in Canada to seize American trains.”80
Nothing seemed to be working for Thompson as planned, but with the actions he was taking and the reports and rumours piling up on Washington desks, he continued to exact a price in Union men, money and attention. His quiet activities were often the most effective. For example, Thompson worked in Toronto with Confederate agent Beverley Tucker, who arranged for cotton to be shipped to Canada and traded for bacon on a pound-for-pound basis, then secreted back to the hungry South. Other work was done to try to disrupt and devalue the American currency. Meanwhile, Clement Clay, from his Montreal office, and without Thompson’s knowledge, approved a scheme that was far from quiet. It promised to lead to the invasion and the war that Thompson had been sent to Canada to precipitate.
THE ST. ALBANS RAID
By October 1864, Lord Lyons, whose health had been questionable for some time, had been diagnosed with neuralgia and was feeling the effects of three years of intense stress. He had spent a couple of enjoyable weeks with Governor General Monck and his family at Monck’s official residence, the idyllic Spencer Wood. He developed a cloying friendship with Monck’s effervescent adult daughter Feo and, uncharacteristically, enjoyed himself. With Monck and his family, Lyons visited parts of Canada, seeing Shawinigan Falls, Montreal, and Toronto. He toured the American side of Niagara Falls to avoid contact with the Clifton Hill Confederates.
Duty soon had Lyons back in the United States, and on October 20 he was in tails at a New York City dinner party attended by several dignitaries, including General Dix. During cocktails, Lyons saw Dix receive a telegram and rush from the room. A half an hour later he was back and, before the startled guests, began berating Lyons: Confederates had swarmed across the Canadian border and taken St. Albans, Vermont.
The raid had been led by Thompson’s experienced Confederate agent and courier Bennett Young. Young was a handsome twenty-one-year-old from Jessamine County, Kentucky. He had ridden with General Morgan in Ohio and been captured and imprisoned, but escaped to Montreal in early 1864. He met Clement Clay, who encouraged him to return to Richmond via Halifax and Bermuda. With a letter and instructions from Clay, Young met with Secretary of War James Sedden, who commissioned him as a first lieutenant and ordered him back to Canada.
Thompson had involved Young in a number of missions, including the peace negotiations with Horace Greeley and the attempted disruption of the Democratic Party’s National Convention in Chicago. From his hotel in St. Catharines, Young had helped plan a prison uprising in Columbus, Ohio’s Camp Chase. He made it to Ohio with about thirty men but nearly all lost their nerve at the last minute, so Young was soon back in St. Catharines, and still seeking his first success.
Young met with Clay in Montreal and the two hatched the plan for the St. Albans raid. Clay gave Young two thousand dollars to cover expenses. Working through Clay’s contacts at St. Lawrence Hall, Young carefully gathered twenty fit, experienced young Southern men who shared his passion and willingness to die for the cause.
They left Montreal on different trains and arrived in St. Albans over several days. Claiming to be members of a Canadian hunting and fishing club, they booked into different hotels and Young and another man scouted the town. On October 19, at three o’clock in the afternoon, they gathered at the town’s main intersection. With a silent signal they threw their greatcoats to the ground, revealing Confederate uniforms with intimidating twin navy sixes strapped across their chests. Young bellowed from his hotel’s front porch that the town was theirs in the name of the Confederacy. With much shouting and brandishing of weapons, the townsfolk were shepherded into the public square. When a couple of men put up a fight, shots were fired and one resister was hit in the leg.
Amid the crying and quaking, several of Young’s raiders entered and robbed the town’s three banks of about two hundred thousand dollars. From satchels came fifty four-ounce bottles of Greek fire that exploded buildings into flames.* For forty-five minutes the rampage continued; and then it got worse.
The raiders hadn’t noticed that a Union captain named George Conger, who happened to be there on leave, had slipped out of the crowd. He quickly assembled men to retake the town. As the raiders were gathering horses to make their escape, shots rang from second-storey windows. Men in the crowd pulled weapons from beneath jackets and joined the fray. The raiders threw their remaining bottles of Greek fire against the houses from which the shots were coming, and returned fire from horseback as they fled. Three raiders were h
it and a civillian was killed.
Eight miles outside town, with Conger’s posse giving chase, Young and few breathless men reined their sweating horses near a bridge. They took control of a farmer’s load of hay and waited. When the posse galloped into sight, the raiders set the bridge and hay alight and opened fire. By nine o’clock, all twenty raiders were back in Canada. They changed into civilian clothes, got rid of the horses and split up. Young finally had his success.
He set off on foot to report to Clay in Montreal, but stopped at a farmhouse to ask for food and drink. A woman allowed him in and he settled before the fire to rest. Within minutes, about twenty-five members of the posse burst into the small room, threw him to the floor and beat him. Bloodied and stunned, Young was tossed into the back of a wagon with men on either side holding weapons to his head. He shouted that his captors had violated British neutrality. The men yelled back and hit him again. Young suddenly rose, knocked both men out of the wagon, grabbed the reins and shouted to the horses. The two men recovered quickly though and pounced on Young, one beating him with the flat side of a sword. From out of nowhere appeared a British officer, who stopped the beating and demanded to know what was going on.
The red-coated soldier heard the shouted story from both sides. Thinking quickly, he assured the vigilantes that many of Young’s compatriots were already under arrest and talked them into releasing him. In exchange, he promised he would take charge of Young and that he and the other Confederates would be returned to St. Albans to face trial. The promise worked and Young was taken to jail.