Blood and Daring Read online

  Copyright © 2013 John Boyko

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited and in the United States by Random House Inc.

  www.randomhouse.ca

  Knopf Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Boyko, John, 1957–

  Blood and daring : How Canada fought the American Civil War and forged a nation / John Boyko.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-36145-5

  1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Participation, Canadian. 2. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Influence. 3. Canada—History—1841–1867. 4. Canada—History—Confederation, 1867. 5. Canada—Politics and government—1841–1867. 6. Canada—Relations—United States—History.

  7. United States—Relations—Canada—History. I. Title.

  E540.C25B69 2013 973.70971 C2012-905614-6

  Cover design by CS Richardson

  Cover images: Abraham Lincoln, three-quarter length portrait by Anthony Berger, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-19305; Battle of Nashville by Howard Pyle © Minnesota Historical Society / CORBIS; Hon. Sir John A. MacDonald from the Brady-Handy Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpbh-00412

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to Kenzie McIntyre, in the perhaps naive but still worthwhile hope that when she grows up, wars will have become merely sad stories of human failing, known only in dusty old books.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Introduction: Bad Neighbours in a Dangerous Neighbourhood

  1 John Anderson and the Railroad to Freedom and War

  2 William Seward and the Power of Divided Loyalties

  3 Sarah Emma Edmonds: Donning the Blue and Grey

  4 Jacob Thompson and the Confederates in the Attic

  5 George Brown and the Improbable Nation

  6 John A. Macdonald: The Indispensable Man

  Epilogue: Danger in the War’s Shadow

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PHOTO CREDITS

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  BAD NEIGHBOURS IN

  A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOURHOOD

  THE GHOSTS REMAIN ACTIVE. Even after the passage of more than a century and a half, the American Civil War’s ideas, promise and pain still resonate. An understanding of the war is crucial to all who wish to comprehend America’s civic conversation—to comprehend America itself. Similarly, no one can fully understand Canada without appreciating that the war was an essential factor in the country’s birth, when and how it came about, as well as shaping the fundamental ideas upon which it is based. While saving itself by creating itself, Canada was intricately involved in the war’s cause and course. Despite the efforts of America’s wartime leaders, Canada’s actions during and after the conflict kept Canada from becoming American. We owe it to ourselves to understand the Civil War—to heed its whispering ghosts.

  Before embarking on our journey of understanding, we must know and accept a few things. First, throughout the Civil War and the years shouldering it, the vast and ruggedly beautiful land north of the American border was home to members of proud First Nations and communities of British, French and other Europeans, some of whom were recent arrivals while others had roots going back several generations. Britain had claimed jurisdiction over it all, except for a broad swath surrounding James and Hudson Bays called Rupert’s Land, which was owned and governed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. There were small British communities gathered around Victoria and Vancouver, hugging Newfoundland’s craggy shore and on Prince Edward Island. The Maritime colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were more populous and prosperous. Bigger and richer still was Canada, united under a single government but composed of Canada East and West and occupying what is now the southern portions of Ontario and Quebec.

  We must accept a world where the air was empty and the sky silent. The trans-Atlantic cable had been laid but did not yet work, and the marvel of the telegraph was new but unreliable. Messages often took weeks to bounce back across the Atlantic and days even within North America. A momentous battle such as Gettysburg could have been won by Confederate General Lee, not with a thousand more troops, but rather if he’d had a couple of cell phones. While railways were used to great effect, Lee’s army got to Gettysburg largely by walking from Virginia to Pennsylvania—it was not quick. Canadian political leaders could meet with British authorities only after a long ocean journey and were often gone for months at a time, grinding political progress to a halt.

  We must also disenthrall ourselves of current myths, including that of the undefended border. Those struggling through the Civil War years bore memories not of Canadian-American friendship and economic and cultural integration but of more than a century of suspicion, hatred and bloodshed. Canada and the United States were bad neighbours in a dangerous neighbourhood.

  At the outset of the Civil War, collective memories remained alive of the French and Indian War when, in the late 1750s and early 1760s, New York State, the Ohio Valley, Nova Scotia, Montreal and Quebec City were battlefields.* Britain’s myopic handling of the war’s aftermath bred resentments and misunderstandings that grew to rebellion. In an attempt to keep Quebec loyal, Britain instituted the 1774 Quebec Act. Quebecers saw it as protecting their French/Catholic rights within a system of government they understood. American rebels, on the other hand, considered the Quebec Act as among what they called the Coercive or Intolerable Acts, because it was yet another example of Britain denying democracy to its colonies and, consequently, another precursor to revolution. Quebecers were invited to send delegates to join those representing the thirteen colonies who were defining the new America at the First and Second Continental Congresses in Philadelphia. Both invitations were ignored. With those rebuffs, patriot and later America’s second president, John Adams, explained to his fellow delegates that, in order to defend the northern flank, Quebec would need to be attacked and liberated Quebecers should be persuaded to join the revolution.1 In November 1775, Montreal fell to American troops, and Benedict Arnold’s men tried but could not take Quebec City.

  Congress dispatched three delegates, one of whom was Benjamin Franklin, to woo Quebecers to the rebel cause. They failed. The Québécois had little interest in joining a ragtag group of rebellious colonies, only two of which allowed the practice of their religion, and whose army mistreated civilians, and stole property and food.2 Spring brought a British fleet to the St. Lawrence and the Americans scurried away. Adams, undaunted by the military and diplomatic failures, proclaimed, “The Unanimous Voice of the Continent is ‘Canada must be ours.’ ”3

  The Declaration of Independence made direct mention of the Quebec Act as one of the grievances levelled against the British king. As the Revolutionary War progressed, the Articles of Confederation were developed to serve as a constitution for the Continental Congress, which had become a government. Article 16 made it easy for Canada to join: “Canada acceding to this Confederation, and entirely joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into and entitled to all the advantages of t
his Union.”4 The document was translated into French and sent north. Three years later, Congress passed a resolution stating, “Every favorable incident [will] be embraced with alacrity to facilitate and hasten the freedom and independence of Canada and her union with these states.”5 Despite the appeal, neither the Quebecers, the Quebec government nor the Catholic Church, which was enormously powerful in the colony, had any interest in becoming American.

  The Revolution was America’s first civil war. About a third of the American colonists wanted nothing to do with what Adams, Jefferson and the others were selling. With every British military defeat, more of those loyal to the Crown left or were driven out. Some fled to Britain while others went south, but most escaped to what remained of British North America. Eventually, about thirty thousand moved to Nova Scotia and ten thousand to Quebec.6 A number of freed Blacks emigrated.

  Britain had lost thirteen of its North American colonies and did not fancy losing the others. Wary of allowing demographic and economic growth to create a new powerhouse such as wealthy and populous Virginia, it split Nova Scotia to create New Brunswick. It divided Quebec into Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec). A new political system was installed that afforded a semblance of self-rule with British-appointed governors in charge. A border was loosely drawn, and American fishers were granted inland rights. Those long established in the suddenly growing British colonies shared with the revolution’s refugees and the newcomers from the British Isles a deep respect for British political values and an abhorrence of the ideals and aspirations upon which the American Revolution had been based. They were determined to remain separate from the United States.

  That determination was tested a generation later in the War of 1812. Relentless American expansion had led to Native resistance and then to uprisings inspired and led by Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, and his brother, known as the Prophet. So-called War Hawks in Congress convinced themselves that Britain was behind the Native unrest and was supporting piracy and the impressment of Americans into British naval service. The United States could only be safe and prosperous, they argued, if Britain was pushed out of North America.7

  Americans saw the struggle as a war of liberation; Canadians believed it was a war of survival. It was a cousins’ war—and it was horrible. The battles were savagely fought. Cities and towns on both sides of the border were burned and civilians were killed. Toronto, called York at the time, was taken by Americans and torched. Washington was captured and the president fled. The capitol was ransacked and the White House set on fire.

  When the war finally ended, Britain’s flag was still there—Canada remained. Border tensions eased as the 1817 Rush-Bagot Agreement led to the demilitarization of the Great Lakes. The war had given Americans a national anthem and the symbol of Uncle Sam. It afforded Canadians the pride born of having defended their land and the un-American ideals in which they believed. A new, unifying and unique nationalism was taking root.8

  In 1837, rebellions erupted in Upper and Lower Canada. Gunfire echoed and blood stained the streets of Toronto and French Canadian towns. Britain sent Lord Durham to see what the fuss had been about, and his recommendations led to the creation of a more responsible and representative government in a unified colony called Canada. He hoped that Canada East (Quebec) would soon be subsumed by Canada West (Ontario). Nova Scotia and New Brunswick remained separate. Britain appointed a governor general to oversee all of its North American colonies. The Canadian government was ostensibly subservient to him, as were the Maritime governments to their lieutenant-governors who reported to him. It was with this political structure and its deep-seated suspicion of the United States that Canada and the Maritimes faced an increasingly belligerent America that was tearing itself apart.

  THE CIVIL WAR

  The tensions that led to the Civil War were complex and are still hotly debated. One point of view emphasizes the growing differences in outlook and needs between the urban, industrial North and the rural, agrarian South. This thinking examines banking, tax and tariff policies as significant points of conflict. Another argument paints Confederate leaders as either patriotic heroes or misguided villains attempting to protect the South’s economic and social fabric and slavery, which was inextricably woven into it. Yet another school of thought contends that the Constitution was a compact created by the states and based on the Jeffersonian-Lockean premise that a government exists to protect rights, and that when it fails to do so, people have the duty to replace it; states’ rights and property rights were seen to be under attack by Northern lawmakers and abolitionists, and so a new government needed to be created. Still others contend that the war was about right and wrong, morality versus wickedness and constitutionality versus lawlessness. To them, slavery was the cause and its abolition the justifiable value of the war.

  Each point of view offers persuasive arguments and claims enthusiastic adherents. In the end, though, they all end up arguing over the degree to which slavery was a factor in causing the war. While other viewpoints exist and variants within these schools can be teased out, one always returns to slavery. It was a cancer present within the United States before there was a United States and was not removed by the wise men who wrote the Constitution. Racial bondage was allowed to grow and eventually it nearly ended the young country’s life.

  Shortly after the war began in April 1861, Britain declared itself neutral. The Canadian and Maritime governments dutifully echoed that official line and informed their citizens that it was against the law to support North or South, and for individuals to join in the fight. One would expect that Canadians and Maritimers would abide by their government’s wishes and that public opinion would overwhelmingly support the North. After all, they were by and large law-abiding folks, loyal to Britain and nearly unanimous in their abhorrence of slavery, which had been banned in British North America a generation earlier. Further, Canadians and Maritimers were geographically closer to the North and for years thousands more had travelled to those Northern states for work than to the distant South. Business people enjoyed more commerce with Northern than Southern industry. Canadians travelling to Britain often went by way of New York and Boston. Despite such familiarity, however, public and popular opinion of the North and South was divided, volatile and multi-dimensional. It was coloured by class, ethnicity, religion, ideology and region.

  Many factors led Canadians to sympathize with the Confederacy. In Canada East, the Catholic Church enjoyed enormous power, but considered itself under attack by popular democratic ideas on the separation of church and state.9 In this fight, American republicanism was anathema. Montreal’s Gazette called America the most “immoral” country in the world.10 The destruction of the United States through civil war and the Confederacy itself was, consequently, seen as a good thing by the Church hierarchy. Priests often equated Southerners with the Québécois—a beleaguered minority, fighting to preserve a unique way of life threatened by a more politically and economically powerful enemy with no shared cultural values.

  In New Brunswick, Fredericton was home to a Protestant majority that was unmoved by anti-Catholic threats. Its physical location in the centre of the province left it somewhat isolated. That it was the capital perhaps made its people more sympathetic to the exhortations of the government and the lieutenant-governor, who were resolutely neutral. The city’s New Brunswick Reporter was staunchly pro-North throughout the war.

  However, a few miles southeast, on the Fundy Bay, lay the much different Saint John. It was a blatantly pro-South city that recognized the potential of winning business for its port if the United States permanently split. Its Irish-Catholic majority empathized with Southern nationalism and with fighting a distant government. Confederate ships were encouraged to use its harbour, and its spies and recruiters made to feel at home in the city’s hotels and bars. Many rich Southerners who had for years summered nearby moved their families to the fine cottages to escape the ravages of war. They were openly welcomed in the city. In June 1862,
hundreds of folks gathered to enjoy a large and boisterous parade celebrating a Confederate victory. Confederate flags flew and a band played “Dixie.” A Maine sea captain was roughed up by the crowd as police watched but did nothing. A similar parade was held in the border town of St. Andrews.

  Halifax, Nova Scotia, was a garrison town that served as Britain’s primary North American port for its enormous and peerless navy. An entrepreneurial spirit pulsed throughout the colony, with its ship manufacturers creating internationally respected wooden vessels and Halifax’s magnificent natural harbour bustling with international trade. The city’s business people enjoyed the profit earned by magnanimously welcoming both Northern ships seeking Confederate blockade runners and the elusive Southerners themselves. In allowing Southern ships free access to Halifax, the city served as an important link in the communication network between the Confederacy and European capitals.

  A major factor that shaped, shifted and divided Canadian and Maritime public opinion was Lincoln’s attitude toward that most irrepressible subject: slavery. Abolitionist Canadians and Maritimers suffered widespread disappointment when Lincoln said in his 1861 inaugural address that he would not immediately emancipate American slaves.11 Even Toronto’s pro-North Globe reflected disillusion in an editorial: “At first the sympathies of the British people were unmistakably with the North. They imagined that Mr. Lincoln had determined to wage a war against slavery, and in heart and soul they were with him.”12 The Emancipation Proclamation that followed in September 1862 came after the opinions of many had hardened against the president.

  Another factor that gave rise to Confederate sympathies was the unmistakable anti-Canadian and anti-British sentiment that swept up from the North. Lincoln had appointed notorious anglophobe and enemy of Canada, William Seward, to his cabinet. Seward had issued numerous threats of annexation before and during the war, and then a crisis involving the taking of Confederate agents from a British ship called the Trent nearly brought war. Many Northern newspapers published damning stories and editorials that openly promoted a hatred of Canada and Canadians, while frequently advocating invasion.13 Many of the anti-Canadian rants were reprinted in Canadian papers. The barrage of threats and disparagement led to worries that perhaps the Civil War would afford Americans such as Seward, who had for so long dreamt of taking Canada, an opportunity to turn dreams into plans.