_American newspapers had a “grim satisfaction” at seeing Canada
“scared.” Assertion that Canadians, as a people, during the
American civil war sympathised warmly with the legitimate
government and loyal citizens of the United States. Extracts from
“Canada a Battle Ground,” published 1862. And, “Where is Canada
Drifting?” 1863._
Though this chapter may seem to interrupt the story of Canadian
operations of defence, its matter forms an integral part of the
larger field of circumstances which gave character to those
operations. The Fenian invasion only became possible by sufferance of
American popular opinion; and that was widely, deeply distempered, as
regarded the British American Provinces and Great Britain, A full,
true account of the Fenian invasion, cannot be given without the
writer adverting to that distemper, speaking, as he believes he is
about to do, for five-sixths of the whole people of Canada, and for
the true national opinion of the British Islands.
The two following paragraphs are from a journal of New York called
the _Citizen_. The first purports to be the conclusion of a statement
made by an officer of the United States army.
“The mistake of the Fenians was, that they allowed too much talking
and writing about their contemplated movements. They should have
collected all their men and material along the frontier—their
equipments were plentiful and good—without allowing one word to
leak out of what they were doing. This, taught by experience,
they promise to do next Fall; and if so their success cannot be
doubtful.”
The next is the comment of the Editor of the _Citizen_, who is styled
General Halpine, reprinted in Canadian papers, August 3rd, 1866, with
the italics as given here.
“The foregoing remarks we commend to the attention of all American
citizens who are not enamored with the course of England and Canada
toward the United States during the late rebellion. Here was an
opportunity to have avenged the wrongs of the British pirate
vessels without costing the American Government one dollar. Here
the Canadians might have been allowed to realize the scoundrelism
of their conduct in sheltering the raiders of St. Albans, and the
yellow fever and assassination conspirators. What Mr. Seward may
think about it, we do not know; but _are well satisfied a majority
of the American people regret that the Fenian flag is not to-day
floating over the steeples of a captured Montreal_.”
The next two paragraph’s are reprinted from the Buffalo _Courier_ of
June 1st, but written on the previous day. Both of them are texts:
“It will be seen by reference to an advertisement, that the
collector of this port has issued instructions, forbidding any
vessel to clear between the hours of 9 a. m. and 4 p. m., without
inspection of her cargo by officers of the custom house, and
peremptorily interdicting the departure of vessels at all between
the hours of 4 p. m. and 9 a. m., until instructions have been
received from the Secretary of the Treasury. It is more than
probable that the Fenians are endeavoring to obtain transportation
to some point, audit is quite certain that they will be very
closely watched, and find it very difficult to leave without
discovery.
“Our neighbours over the border may be pardoned for indulging in
a little excitement under the circumstances; but they claim to be
prepared for the worst, and ready to welcome the invaders. There
will be no violation of the neutrality laws if our authorities can
prevent it; but, looking back two or three years, to the time when
Buffalonians were in hourly expectation of Confederate soldiers
from Canada, we can ‘phancy the phelinks’ of Victoria’s loyal
subjects. We don’t wish them any ill; but a little healthy scaring
won’t do them any harm. So soon does time make all things even.”
I permit the last paragraph to be reprinted to remark, that it
was in the month of the invasion, but one of hundreds, published
in the United States expressing, what the writers termed a “grim
satisfaction” that Canadians were now experiencing a return of the
evil wishes they gave American citizens during the war of 1861-65.
This allegation, was not true. It was the opposite of truth. The
widest circulated journals in both the Canadas, and a largely
predominating majority of the male adult population of Canada West,
who held any political opinions, were throughout the war sympathizers
with the legitimate national government of the United States, and
were by rational opinion and natural instinct, abhorrent of the
Southern insurgents, who, though enjoying co-equal rights with their
fellow citizens of the North, and enjoying the privilege of a free
press and freedom of speech to discuss public questions, had plunged
the great American nation into the horrible calamities of civil war.
And added to this numerical majority of political male adults, were
the non-political, and all the women and children of the Province,
who were guiltless of evil thoughts towards Americans, yet whose
risk of life, alarm, terror and plundered homesteads, while fleeing
to the woods, the wilderness, to escape the Fenians, were a “grim
satisfaction” to some portion of the American newspaper mind.
But this is not all the denial. It is not true that any inhabitants
of Canada, political or non-political, sympathizers with the national
integrity and lawful authority of the United States or with the
rebellion of the slave-owners, were parties to Confederate warfare
based in Canada against the Federal States. The Canadian government
and people at much cost and inconvenience in 1864 and 1865, posted
forces of Militia Volunteers along the frontier to prevent American
rebel refugees, resident in Canada, from making raids across the
boundary line.
I might be more explicit and elaborate on this matter, which so
intimately affects the two great nationalities who in common speak
the English language in North America, but for the present refer to
a book entitled “CANADA A BATTLE GROUND, by Alexander Somerville”
(present writer) published early in 1862. In that publication the
sympathy of Canadians, for the lawful government of the United
States was asserted, and the estrangement which painfully occurred,
foreshadowed. Mr. Seward, in reference to Canada being annexed to the
States, writing in 1856, before he was Secretary of State had said
“All Southern stars must set though many times they rise again with
diminished lustre. But those which illuminate the pole remain for
ever shining, for ever increasing in splendour.” To which the author
of “Canada a Battle Ground” rejoined in 1862, page 24.
“Remark. It is belief in that bright destiny of Northern free
nations which binds Britain, Canada, and other Colonies together.
They will not separate. For Britain to willfully pluck her Empire
in pieces to set up new nations in conformity to some theory of
magnanimity, is an offence to the simplest principles of political
philosophy. Were Canada to demand separation, and obtain it; or
were she cut adrift, the inevitable fate of absorption, by her
more powerful neighbour, and extinction of political existence,
would follow. The integrity and perennial vigour of the British
empire should be the lofty political faith of all Conservatives and
rational Reformers whether at home or in the colonies. And they who
desire the permanence of British stability, or deserve the personal
safety and freedom guaranteed by imperial laws, and by institutions
at once venerable, and youthfully elastic in their adaptability to
new circumstances, must by a logical necessity—if they hold any
settled conservative principle—cherish a sympathy for other free
nations, and hold in abhorrence a rebellious appeal to arms to
overturn constitutional government.
* * * * *
“New complications may occur between Britain and France, as well as
between Canada and America. A recurrence of excitement about French
invasion may any day arise with still deeper perplexities than at
any time before. The Legislative Chamber at Paris has just been
told by a noble member, a legitimist, not a Napoleonist, and so
much the worse, that the thirteen hundred millions of francs, spent
on the Crimean war would have carried the French army to London.
The British uneasiness of 1858 ripened public sentiment in favour
of an auxiliary army of volunteers. Other ‘tyrannicide’ pamphlets,
as atrocious as that of 1858, may issue from London and inflame
France. Again, the ‘French Colonels’ may demand permission of the
Emperor, as in that year, to ‘hunt conspirators in their London
dens.’
“In that hypothesis of complex difficulties, the Engineers and
Guards, the Royal Artillery and regiments of the British Line,
grandly efficient in quality, but inadequate in number even now,
may be recalled to save the venerated soil of Britain from the
track of invasion. But should they remain, as pray Heaven they
may have no cause to go away nor any employment here; a mass levy
of the male population will be an instant necessity in the event
of war. The mass levy will be only a mob, yet indispensable, as a
source from whence to draft selected levies, and to form working
brigades to construct defences; to build Forts, for instance,
beyond Toronto on the Yorkville side, and on the heights near
Hamilton city, should Huron Lake and Georgian Bay be occupied by
gun-boats and floating batteries from the arsenals at Chicago, and
Green Bay; and Erie Lake, from docks and arsenals at Toledo and
Buffalo. The sooner those Forts are raised after the enemy is at
Georgian Bay, at Suspension Bridge, at Port Dover, Port Colborne
and Port Dalhousie, the sounder may Toronto and Hamilton sleep in
bed, if they can sleep at all.
“Concentrated on one point, or distributed to distant places in
obedience to the exigencies of strategy, the rural aggregations of
the mass levy, and the rural regiments of militia, while defending
towns and cities from hostile occupation and ravage, may be told
of their own undefended homesteads laid in ashes; barns plundered
and pastures cleared of cattle; women and children fleeing to the
wilderness distracted, or dying on the cinders of the homes, in
which they live happily this day, believing that none dare make
them afraid.
* * * * *
“And those aggregations of militia and volunteers, and the mass
levy, _in this newspaper-made war_, may be told of such atrocities,
when absent on the frontier service, or may see them after the
occurrence. If they do, the fiercest spirits in Canada, not few in
number, will volunteer with all the vehemence of revenge; or they
may, in desperate frenzy, form expeditions on their own account,
to make reprisal on the towns and country opposite. Offended
humanity there, which is now as innocent of political feuds or evil
intention to Canada, as any non-political farmer and his wife and
baby on this side, will in turn cry for a reciprocity of vengeance.
Patriotism on that side will be crime on this: the patriotism
of Canada will be crime beyond the frontier. They who are least
successful in devastation and in victory, will on their Fast days,
pray to have a due sense of sin, and better success. The side which
enjoys the highest satisfaction for defeats avoided, and battles
won, will proclaim a day for thanksgiving and sky-rockets. And what
wonder if Eternal Justice should leave them all to the consummation
of their own wrath? The only warrant for hope, that they may not be
utterly forsaken of merciful Heaven, rests on this; that they who
are exposed the most to suffer such calamities are the least guilty
in provoking war.
“On the frontier homes of Canada, two thousand miles of war-track.
One thousand miles open to attack on the frontier of the States.
On the one side and the other, three thousand miles of war, among
cities, towns, hamlets, homesteads; tracks of plunder in the
mansions of the wealthy; houses of the poor; iron safes of the
merchants; strong vaults of the banks. Tracks of battle and of
marching armies on fields of summer greenness; on harvests of ripe
wheat. Tracks of blood on three thousand miles of death-bed snow.
“War-tracks of wreck, vessels and canals all a wreck, on lake,
river and canal navigation. Mutual destruction along the frontier
lines of railway, American and Canadian—populated Canada nearly all
a frontier as yet.
“Locomotive engines, offspring of genius more godlike than human,
now carrying civilization through the primeval forests, dispensing
the elements of social happiness as they go, these, compelled to be
their own executioners.
“The wheels of Human Progress are reversed. Viaducts broken
down on this side the frontier and on that. Flying bridges
of international amity now spanning the torrent at Niagara;
or leviathans of the ferries, breasting the rivers in calm or
storm or floods of crashing ice, at Sarnia, Windsor, Erie Ferry,
Kingston, Prescott, and other passages of friendly traffic and
social courtesies—all a wreck. And noblest victory of science, the
monumental bridge at Montreal, each of its four-and-twenty pillars
a monument, that overthrown; or besieged and defended as a bulwark
of the fair city which with good reason, dreads to be captured.
“Barrenness on the fields; emptiness in the granaries of Canada;
much of the soil untilled, little sown; husbandmen in the war;
wives and families scattered; and a pitiful harvest to reap.
The peopled country being nearly all frontier, in Upper Canada,
the farmers in those days, or months, for years, happily all a
hypothesis as yet, are defending not ploughing.—They march to the
battle which was expected yesterday; or counter-march to that
which is expected to-day; or they are harassed by sleepless nights
on picket and forced marches to meet a fresh invasion expected
next week, or next month, yet which may come this night. Canada
_clems_ with hunger while her enemy is abundantly supplied from the
interior of the Union and the prolific North-western States.
“Granaries which supplemented deficient harvests in Britain and
France are now devastated or blockaded on the seaboard. Britain
is in peril of domestic convulsion by insufficiency of food and
material for manufactures and external commerce. Continental Europe
sharing the disorder. _Austria, weakened by revolted provinces
is strength to France. France, stronger, is nearer danger to
the English coast, and that is new weakness and greater peril
to Canada._ Our regular troops, as already said, may be called
suddenly home. The gun-boats expected may never come. France scorns
neutrality and blockades, most probably. Her steam rams-of-war
make grim fraternity with the iron rams of America, possibly.
The commerce of two oceans and of all the seas and gulfs is
plundered, burned or sunk by privateers. Electric telegraphs, ‘our
own correspondents’ and unofficial army reports, by facilitating
wreck and ruin, and keeping enemies well informed, are curses,
no longer utilities. The fire-brand or revolutionary section of
the Canada press, _happily a very small and misguided minority of
the whole_, which in mockery of common sense retains the name of
‘conservative,’ or ‘moderate,’ yet has outraged moderation, and
put rational conservatism to shame by spreading along and across
the peaceful frontier the elements of discord and convulsion—takes
its turn of ‘sentry go’ on dark and stormy nights, in sleet, or
snow, or rain, or sultry summer heat; the provost-martial keeping
the office, types and ink. And ‘special correspondents,’ sent from
England are considerably abridged of the liberty which they used
so indiscreetly in the United States, while lawful authority there
struggled in all the majesty of national conservatism to suppress
a rebellion less excusable than any ever known in the history of
the world. And so the war of invasion, which in the incongruities
of party servitude the ‘moderate’ newspapers of Canada have done
so much to realize as a fact of horrible proportions, goes on; the
roar of ocean storms deafened by the roar of naval battles; Great
Britain with hands full, yet grand even in that day of extremity,
while Canada sweeps up the ashes of her homesteads and wipes her
widowed eyes.
“Such may that war be which political lunacy, less or more apparent
on both sides the boundary line, is now hastening to a hideous
birth. Why are two nations of kindred race and language preparing
for the world this great agony? The event advances to its fullness
of time primarily and chiefly, because they are of kindred race and
language.
“To describe the cities, towns, hamlets, and happy homesteads
on both sides of the boundary line; the social and commercial
intercourse of the two countries. To depict, as far as an
uninspired pen may, their measureless resources of natural
wealth—all pleading for peace. To foreshadow as far as a
non-prophetic writer may presume, the nature of the differences
from which they may drift into a conflict of mutual devastation.
To illustrate the practical elements of military discipline
and strength by reference to changed circumstances of social
and political life in new communities. To relate incidents of
British campaigns, victories, defeats, retreats, army panics,
and the difficulties of the greatest generals in all wars, as
a study indispensable in Canada, where the new militia of this
year, 1862—fifty thousand undisciplined men not yet obtained, are
proposed to do what fifty thousand veteran troops continuously in
the field, might fail to do—defend Canada against an army of the
United States, now trained or being trained, to arms, should it
be directed at once against all accessible landing places on her
vastly extended frontier.
“To ask by the logic of political affinities, that all loyal
subjects who can appreciate the freedom and stability of Britain,
should extend a lively sympathy to the United States, now
struggling in the majesty of a grand conservatism to consolidate
civil and religious liberty with an enduring nationality; a
result, which only Britain, of all other nations in the world,
has practically achieved. To treat of those things; to contribute
to the safety of Canada, and like a drop added to the mighty
St. Lawrence, river of the life of North America, to contribute
my driblet to the well-being of the British empire, and to the
happiness of peaceful nations. That is the object of the work now
in the reader’s hand.”
BATTLE OF BULL’S RUN. That was still a topic of popular conversation
when “Canada a Battle Ground” was written. Of that, it was remarked;
p. 59,
“It would have been to the advantage of international amity if Mr.
Russell of the _Times_ had seen and described the actual battle of
Manassas _alias_ Bull’s Run, which, while it lasted, was a valiant
conflict, carried on by troops, on the Government side, _famishing
for want of water and food, and unsupported by the necessary
adjuncts of a campaign, all difficulties caused by a too early
advance without the means of transport, and all aggravated by the
battle occurring in a thickly wooded country_. Killed and wounded
at Bull Run, 18 per cent of all engaged, in five hours. Killed and
wounded at Waterloo, in the year 1815, 24 per cent of all engaged
of British and Allies, in twelve hours. The defeated veterans ran
six times farther from Waterloo, than the defeated troops at Bull
Run.”
“TRUTHS ABOUT BATTLES—WELLINGTON AND WATERLOO. Even Generals in
command can only make a guess at the incidents of battle. Civilian
correspondents, viewing the smoke from afar, can tell nothing
but by hearsay. Nor do Generals find it desirable to publish all
occurrences in their dispatches. A historian having applied to
Wellington for a full account of Waterloo, that he might exactly
describe it, the great General replied as follows:—“You cannot
write a true history of the battle without including the faults and
misbehavior of part of those who were engaged, _and whose faults
and misbehaviour were the cause of material losses. Believe me,
that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero_; and
that although in the account given of a general action, such as
that of Waterloo, many instances of individual heroism must be
passed over unrelated, it is better for the general interests to
leave those parts of the story untold than to tell the whole truth.
WELLINGTON.”
“Victory is not always a certainty even with the ablest Generals
in command of the best troops. Many unreflective admirers of
Wellington, military men as well as civilians, have asserted that
he never engaged in battle but with the certainty of success. He
has himself affirmed the contrary, and what he said should be
treasured as words of caution to over confident officers in command
of armies or detachments. Writing to Sir Charles Stuart, British
Envoy at Lisbon, in March, 1811, previous to a new campaign, he
said:—“I have but little doubt of success; but as I have fought a
sufficient number of battles _to know that the result of any one
of them was not certain_, even with the best arrangements, I am
anxious that the Government should adopt preparatory arrangements
and take out of the enemy’s way those persons and their families
who would suffer if they were to fall into the enemy’s hands.”
WHERE WAS CANADA DRIFTING IN 1863?—The following passage from the
CANADIAN ILLUSTRATED NEWS of May, 16, 1863, was widely reprinted
in British newspapers, its sentiments meeting the popular British
opinion of that time, as it expressed the opinions of the press and
people of Canada with but few exceptions. It is given here that
Americans who peruse this Book of the Fenian invasion, may see that
sympathy for the people who were loyal to the legitimate authority
in the United States was in Canada a fact in the years of the war,
not an after-thought in this year of the Fenian trouble, 1866,
as some of them now allege. One of the exceptions just noted, a
Brantford paper, had jeered at the American army then on the Potomac;
and spoke lightly of a rupture which it said, “might occur between
England and the Federal States at any time.” A rejoinder of rebuke by
the present writer, which accorded with the popular voice of Canada,
was in these terms, necessarily now abbreviated:
“‘May lead at any time to an open rupture.’ And what might that be
to Brantford? Read the selections from the report of the committee
of Congress on page 4 of this journal. ‘An open rupture’ means the
probable sequences of war; the stoppage of all through traffic
on the Buffalo and Lake Huron railroad, whose central works are
at Brantford. It means the enemy’s occupation or bombardment of
Goderich town from Lake Huron. It means the approach of an army
of invasion from Buffalo and Port Dover, and all the ports on the
north shore of Lake Erie towards Brantford and Hamilton; and a
battle perhaps the bloodiest in the annals of time, the Thermopylæ
of Canada fought on the banks of the Grand River near the village
of Caledonia, or between that village and the lake shore, but
more probably in and around Brantford town. Then will every brick
of that place be battered to rubbish heaps, in the battle which
decides which army shall hold the key-ground of Canada West. The
key-ground of Canada West extends from the Grand River below
Caledonia, by way of Brantford to Paris, and northerly to Guelph;
from thence to Toronto eastward, and to London westward. The three
railways, Buffalo and Lake Huron, Great Western, and Grand Trunk,
will be kept open to the last extremity, for though we may be
terribly tried, Canada will submit willingly,—never.
“I will not describe in these columns the probable disposition of
forces. I direct the reader’s eye through the curtain of the future
to take that one glimpse, because of the fervency of a terrible
apprehension that the wilful negligence of the Government of Canada
to organize, or provide means for organizing a defensive force, may
leave the Province to the appalling hazard of seeing a time of war
with insufficiency of means to resist the invasion at the beginning.
“What, to Great Britain, are the aspects of the contingency of
an ‘open rupture’ or Roebuck’s ‘declaration of war?’ War with
the United States, the Southern blockade broken, and secession
achieved, involves either the defence of Canada by all the might
of the Mother country or abandonment. Abandonment means, the
confiscation of every man’s estate, every child’s heritage.
* * * * *
“Then we may see Alabamas playing havoc on the wrong side. The
sordid traitors to their Queen and country who, in 1862 and 1863,
have built them on the Mersey and the Clyde, in breach of British
neutrality, standing accursed in the presence of the British
Empire immersed in the three-fold baptism of convulsion famine and
pestilence, weird offspring of havoc and of war.
“Such, Mr. Roebuck, of Sheffield, would be the probable result of
your crazy counsels. Such, Mr. Laird, of Birkenhead, will possibly
be the early convulsion of nations in which your sordid iniquity is
preparing to plunge the British Empire.
“And you, the suicidal section of the newspaper press of Canada,
happily a minority of the whole, mocking common sense by retaining
the otherwise respectable name of ‘conservative,’ outraging all
moderation in blindly, prodigally goading to implacable anger our
next-door national neighbour, struggling as that great nation
has been during the last two years, in the noblest efforts that
could engage the sympathy of conservatives—the conservation of
nationality, the repression of internal rebellion—what of you in
that day which I have depicted; in that conflagration which you
will have contributed to kindle? you will stand, not as Cassandra
stood, in frantic joy at the havoc of your torch, but you will
be whiffed out, extinguished in the dread convulsion of this
distracted Province, your types and presses in the custody of the
provost-martial. That is where Canada is drifting to.”—ALEXANDER
SOMERVILLE, ‘Whistler at the Plough.’
American journalists—orators—statesmen. Such were the sentiments of
Canadians towards the United States, with only the small exceptions
indicated in the years of the war. Some of you now enjoy, what you
term a “grim satisfaction” at the thought of the women and children
of Canada being exposed to ravage, plunder, murder, who in no way
offended you. And the large majority of men who felt your cause to be
theirs—the cause of constitutional freedom, national stability, true
conservatism, you are grimly satisfied because they are now, or but
lately were, exposed to the contingencies of invasion. History will
judge that you cruelly wrong this Province. And Almighty God whom you
worship, is witness, that the people of Canada, as a people never did
you wrong, never spoke of you but in friendliness.
NOTE FOR TO-DAY—While this sheet is passing through the press
intelligence from Britain informs Canada that the new conservative
government comprehends and will act on a just conception of
conservative philosophy towards the United States. In society
the first characteristic of a gentleman is courtesy towards
his neighbors. In international policy the first duty of true
conservatism is promotion of friendship with other nations. August,
1866.