Interesting article:
http://www.midlandfreepress.com/Article ... ?e=3074108
Huronia's contribution to the U.S. civil war
By TOM VILLEMAIRE
Posted 1 day ago
While our neighbours to the south are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War -which began this week, April 12,1861 -it's a memorable anniversary for Canadians, too.
In a way, the formation of Canada was a result of that war. The war wasn't even a year old when things came to a boil between Washington and England because Americans had stopped and boarded the British mail ship "Trent" and grabbed two Confederate diplomats.
(Oddly, this sort of action is what started the War of 1812, except back then, it was the British stopping American ships and rounding up British subjects -especially deserting Naval seaman.)
When the Americans grabbed the two English representatives, the British demanded their return and an apology. To indicate they were serious, Britain sent 14,000 troops to Canada. Things cooled a bit when Lincoln returned the diplomats.
But the incident caused the Brits to step up the process of colonial union in Canada so it could defend itself. So, indirectly, out of the bloodshed, Canada was born.
Even aside from that, the effect of the war on Canada was monumental. Raw materials were in great demand and the provinces that would form Canada experienced one of their greatest trade booms of all time. Horses were also in great demand and Canadian farmers were soon searching high and low for them.
And given their proximity and commercial relationships, it was inevitable that the war would have connections with Canada and Canadians.
Between 33,000 and 55,000 men from British North America joined the Union forces, including Edward Paul Doherty. He was the Canadian-born Union officer who formed and led the detachment of soldiers that cap-t ured and killed John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of United States President Abraham Lincoln, in a Virginia barn on April 26, 1865, twelve days after Lincoln was fatally shot.
There were also a large number of Canadians who symp at h i z e d with the southern rebels. Great Britain sided with the rebels in an unofficial manner, as a matter of expediency. While John Graves Simcoe, then the British Lieutenant Governor of the colony, had outlawed slavery in Upper Canada in the 1700s, Great Britain - which needed the cotton for its huge textile industry -was not so choosy about who worked the cotton fields of the southern states. With such support in the "mother country" the sympathy in Upper Canada was predictable.
Colonel Jacob Thompson, for example, had many friends in Canada. Born May 15, 1810 in Leasburg, North Carolina, Thompson had plans to become a Confederate pirate on Georgian Bay, on a boat built in Port McNicoll. His career eventually came to an end in Collingwood.
It was in part Thompson's reputation that caused the failure of his quest to plunder American Unionist ships and then retreat safely into the shall ow island-and rock-filled waters of Georgian Bay. Even so, Thompson almost pulled it off.
He was the third child of Nicholas and Lucretia Van Hook Thompson. Studious and bright, he was valedictorian of his class at the University of North Carolina in 1831. He was appointed a tutor at the University but resigned to study law and later practised in North Carolina. His brother convinced him to move to Mississippi and after distinguishing himself in that state, he joined the Confederate army at the beginning of the war.
In 1863, he returned home to run for office in the state legislature. After being re-elected, he agreed to the request by the president of the Confederacy to work for the army as a fifth columnist, to covertly undermine the Union.
Thompson's ambitious and grand plans of piracy on the Great Lakes don't seem so out of place in the midst of the fifth columnists -the source of a great many wild plans.
For example, Lieutenant William H. Murdaugh, Confederate States Navy, had already proposed a daring plan for a raiding expedition on the Great Lakes in a letter to Confederate Secretary Mallory. Four naval officers would make their way to Canada and purchase a small steamer, man her with Canadians, and reveal the object of the cruise only when underway. The crew was to be armed with revolvers and cutlasses. The steamer was to carry torpedoes, explosives, and incendiary materials. At Erie, Pennsylvania, they would board the USS Michigan (a Union revenue cutter that policed the waters against smugglers and, during the war, Confederate supporters) and then advance on Lake Ontario through the Welland Canal to destroy locks and shipping.
The scheme was to then pass through Lake Huron into Lake Michigan, "and make for the great city of Chicago. At Chicago burn the shipping and destroy the locks of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, connecting Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Then turn northward, and, touching at Milwaukee and other places, pass again into Lake Huron, go through the Sault St. Marie, and destroy the lock of the Canal of that name. Then the vessel could be run into Georgian Bay, at the bottom of which is a railway connecting with the main Canadian lines, and be run ashore and destroyed."
The bold venture was approved by the Confederate Navy Department, but, as Lieutenant Murdaugh wrote, President Davis believed that "it would raise such a storm about the violation of the neutrality laws that England would be forced to stop the building of some ironclads and take rigid action against us everywhere. So the thing fell through and with it my great chance."
There had already been a plan to take the Michigan while it was protecting an island on Lake Erie that the Union side had converted into a prisoner of war camp, but it failed when 17 of the 20 Confederate commandoes chickened out.
And so another plan was hatched, involving Thompson. Thompson had run a number of raids into the states from Canada before setting up shop in Toronto. It was easy for him to buy a boat in Toronto from Dr. James Bates, of Louisville, Kentucky, at one time a captain of the steamer Magnolia on the Mississippi River.
Thompson's Confederate fifth column took delivery of the boat, the Georgian, at Port Colborne, Upper Canada (Ont.), November 1, 1864. The price paid was about $16,000 to A.M. Smith & Co., who had shown themselves as Southern sympathizers two years earlier by selling a ship for blockade running.
U.S. Vice Consul Gen. Thurston Montreal described the Georgian as "a new vessel, built some year and a half since on the Georgian Bay, by [George] H. Wyatt and others, and has, I believe, made one trip across the Atlantic. She is a splendid vessel, built with great care, a fast sailer, and would be capable of doing immense injury to the shipping on the Lakes." He noted the Confederate agents "claim that she is particularly adapted to the lumber trade, as she carries heavy loads with light draft and intend to strengthen her beams for towing."
As it turns out, that may have been an exaggeration.
But Thompson had his boat. And a daring and simple plan. By the time he took possession of the Georgian, the smokestack had been cut down, giving it a "rakish appearance, like that of a fast raider." This modification had been done for looks only apparently. But Thompson had the Georgian further modified with a bow reinforced for ramming commercial shipping. The plan was to take the Georgian into the upper lakes and capture or destroy ships by ramming them, then quickly retreat to hide out in Georgian Bay. Thompson, himself, would lead this pirate expedition.
Now this was the first problem, as Thompson had a quite a reputation on both sides of the border. He barely concealed his Confederate Army profession and openly used the lobby of the Queen's Hotel in Toronto to run his operations. (The Queen's since burned down, but it is where the Royal York Hotel stands today.)
When Thompson bought the boat, everyone knew it. When the boat left for Lake Erie from Lake Ontario, everyone knew it.
It was a bit odd that Thompson told the captain to make for Buffalo. While there, it appears Thompson barely escaped capture when the mayor of Buffalo recognized him and the ship. The Northern States government responded to the mayor's request for help by sending the Michigan and two tugboats equipped with guns (or revenue cutters) to protect the city and the east end of Lake Erie. The Georgian slipped out of the Buffalo dock, but was boarded by the crew of the Michigan when they caught up with the Georgian in Lake Erie.
No contraband was found and no Confederate soldiers were aboard, so the Georgian was allowed to continue on its way, with the Michigan following close behind. It wasn't difficult - the Georgian had developed a wobbly propeller, so it merely poked along.
The commander of the Michigan, John Carter, received a telegraph the Georgian was about to be armed on the Canadian side to attack the Michigan and "for piratical and predatory pur-poses."
Carter, who had foiled the Confederate plot to take over the prison island in Lake Erie, was unimpressed by the threat of the Georgian. He wrote to the Union Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, suggesting the whole affair of the Georgian was "gotten up for the purpose of alarming the citizens on these lakes."
Welles replied: "This may be so, but the past experience teaches us to be on our guard," and told Carter to board the Georgian on any pretext.
By December 6, Lt. Commander F.A. Roe, took over the Michigan and its mission of following the Georgian. Again, it wasn't difficult -the Georgian stopped at Port Stanley to repair the loose prop and again at Sarnia, when the prop became loose again.
When the Georgian made its way past Detroit, it caused a stir with papers there demanding the Michigan and the two revenue cutters protect them.
Lt. Colonel Bennett Hill, who now had the two tugs from Buffalo under his command, was on the watch from his post in Detroit. Hill seized the Georgian again. Again, nothing was found to justify holding the boat and it was allowed to continue.
In Lake Huron, the Georgian was still in trouble. The propeller was not functioning properly and a new one was ordered and was shipped to Collingwood for installation.
Again, the Georgian was boarded in Lake Huron, near Port Elgin. Again, no contraband, weapons or Confederate spies were found.
She put in to Collingwood for the propeller repair and again was searched. Canadian authorities threatened to condemn the boat as a navigational hazard because of the wonky propeller, but the ship's captain promised it would be good as new with the new prop and the boat was allowed to leave. The captain said the Georgian was going into the lumber trade, moving logs from Georgian Bay to Saginaw Bay.
Before the end of the shipping season, she made a run for Bruce Mines and then returned to winter in Collingwood. At the start of the shipping season of 1865, the civil war was almost over. Canadian authorities noted the Georgian was being outfitted with a new mast.
Finally, on April 7, 1865, a raid on the boat turned up the evidence the authorities needed -a letter from October, 1864, to the captain of the Georgian to modify the boat so it could "employ greek fire", which was burning material hurled by catapult onto a target, like, oh, say a boat, and another letter instructing the Georgian captain to procure the "finest waterproof caps for the troops". Given that the boat was supposed to be a commercial logging craft with no troops, the Canadian government seized it. And that was it for the Georgian and its pirating days.
It's doubtful that the plan would have succeeded. The fastest the Georgian ever made was about eight knots and that was before it was weighed down with a reinforced "ramming deck".
Still, just the news of the Georgian limping along in the waters of the upper lakes under the command of Thompson and the ship's captain, Dr. James Bates, was enough to cause the Union side to send four regiments to protect the upper lakes.
And it didn't deter Colonel Thompson, whose confidential reports on the boat disclosed that he had been hoping to build a fleet of pirate ships to carry out raids from Georgian Bay.
As it turns out, the Georgian's sailing days weren't over. After the war, the 130 foot, 377 ton passenger freighter was sold to G.T. Denison of Ontario and went on to a career of 20 years of legitimate business. But the Detroit Free Press had a bit of fun when, on November 14, 1882, the Georgian docked at the Windsor port. The Free Press called on the American cutter, George Bibb, to protect the American city from attack by the Port McNicoll boat.
On May 9, 1888, the Georgian was stranded off Cape Rich (now a part of the old Meaford Tank Range, northwest of Meaford) and was sunk by ice.
It now rests on the bottom of the bay in about 100 metres of water.
And that was the end of that.