Claire Hoy

Interesting but uneven. Author Claire Hoy is a journalist, not a historian, and Canadians in the Civil War reads a lot like a series of newspaper or magazine articles patched together rather than an integrated history. Hoy repeats the same information in several chapters – for example, that Canadians initially favored the North but became more sympathetic to the Confederacy after Northern saber-rattling over the Trent affair and repeated “recruiting”, sometimes including kidnapping, on Canadian territory.


Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here. It’s often said that Americans are cheerfully ignorant of other country’s history and politics, while foreigners are often sadly well-informed about ours. This turns out to be true – in addition to the putative topic, there were a lot of peripheral things I should have known about Canada but didn’t (the negotiations leading up to the Canadian federation, for example). Thus –


Hoy’s first few chapters discuss Canadians serving in the Federal (and a few in the Confederate) armies during the war. There’s a Web factoid that “50,000 Canadians served in the Union army”, which I believe I’ve quoted myself; Hoy thinks that is exaggerated and the correct figure is closer to 20,000 or 30,000. The main problems in determining a “correct” count are:

There wasn’t really any such thing as a “Canadian” prior to 1867; the folks up there were British North Americans. At the time of the Civil War, “Canada West” was more or less what is now Ontario, and “Canada East” was more or less Quebec (to further confuse things, earlier terms still in use were “Upper Canada” – more or less southern Ontario, and “Lower Canada” – more or less southern Quebec, and “Upper Quebec”, more or less northern Quebec). Everybody else was from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia or PEI, with the Newfies off grumbling about the “Canadian Wolf”. And there was Hudson Bay Territory, although Saskatchewan and Columbia and Selkirk (I assume Alberta?) were also in use. This probably lead to some confusion in recording enlistments.


Further, the border was pretty fluid with people moving back and forth as the mood struck them without worrying much about citizenship niceties. Hoy mentions four “Canadian” Civil War generals:


*John McNeil, born in Halifax but moved to the U.S. at “an early age”, eventually becoming a Missouri legislator and president of a St. Louis insurance company.

*Henry Washington Benham, born in Quebec City while his Connecticut father was there on business.

*Jacob Dolson Cox, born in Montreal but again moving to New York while young. Cox is probably the most famous of the Canadian-born generals, being instrumental in the battles of Franklin and Nashville.

*John Franklin Farnsworth, born in Compton, Quebec but moving to Michigan when he was 14. (To illustrate the border fluidity, Farnsworth’s father had moved from Maine to Quebec).


(Hoy also notes that the most famous French-Canadian Union officer, Major Edward Mallet, had lived in New York since he was five and didn’t speak French).

Nevertheless, despite the somewhat dubious provenance of “Canadian” Union generals, there were plenty of well-documented people who were most definitely Canadians. Hoy uses the Wolverton family of Wolverton, Canada West, as a typical example. Four brothers served in the Union Army – Jasper, a teamster in the 50th New York, died of typhoid fever in Washington in 1861; Newton, also a teamster with the 50th New York, returned to Canada in 1863; Alfred, another teamster, was promoted to the Quartermaster Corps and died of smallpox in St. Louis while supervising a wagon train going from there to Rolla; and Alonzo, initially also a teamster but later working his way up from a private the 20th Ohio Light Artillery (where in fought in the Battle of Nashville) to a 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th US Colored Heavy Artillery. Alonzo eventually received a US pension until his death in 1925 and his widow continued to collect until 1932.


More anecdotes follow – Solomon Secord, grandnephew of Canadian heroine Laura Secord (who was born in Massachusetts), served as a surgeon in the Army of Northern Virginia. Emma Edmonds, of Fredericton, enlisted as “Frank Thomas” in the 2nd Michigan Volunteer Infantry and fought at 1st Bull Run, 2nd Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Antietam. She then volunteered to serve as a spy, disguised herself as a black, and wandered around Richmond making sketches of the fortifications. She somehow (Hoy isn’t clear) made her way to Kentucky where she again served as a spy, sneaking across the Confederate lines disguised as a woman (which wasn’t difficult, I presume). After further adventures, including being drafted into the Confederate army while on a spying mission disguised as a man; going AWOL while ill (to avoid being identified as a woman while in the hospital); reappearing as a nurse; and, after the war, identifying her true identity to former comrades, she received a US pension. Well, maybe. She was eventually inducted into the US Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, and the New Brunswick Hall of Fame.


Calixa Lavallée was born in Verchères, Quebec, but moved to Rhode Island and joined the 4th Rhode Island as a trumpeter. He was wounded and discharged after Antietam. Some years later (despite a professed belief that the United States should annex Canada) he composed the music to O Canada.


The next sections of the book are more concerned with Canadian-American diplomatic relations, which became rather strained. Everybody’s heard of the Trent affair, which almost precipitated war (supposedly because Prince Albert got up from his deathbed and toned down an angry message from Lord Palmerston); however, I hadn’t heard of the similar Chesapeake (perhaps because it gets confused with the War of 1812 Chesapeake. At any rate, the Civil War Chesapeake was a coastal steamer bound from New York to Portland, Maine in 1863. The passengers included Lieutenant John C. Braine, a disguised Confederate naval officer with a letter of marque, and a prize crew of 15 – all of whom were Canadians. Off Cape Cod the “passengers” produced weapons, shot and killed the Chesapeake’s second engineer, and directed the crew to steam to Saint John. After bouncing around the Nova Scotia coast trying to buy enough coal to sail to Wilmington, the Chesapeake was boarded and seized – in Nova Scotia waters – by the chartered Federal warship Ella and Annie. Only one of the originally privateers, George Wade of New Brunswick, was still on board. Eventually, a higher ranking US officer showed up and, after conferring by telegraph with Gideon Welles, towed the Chesapeake to Halifax where she would be turned over to authorities and the international complications ironed out – with Wade to be set free and then immediately rearrested by the Haligonians. Halifax was – according to Hoy – strongly pro-Confederacy at the time, to the extent that Confederate money was accepted by merchants. What actually happened was that while Wade was being transferred Confederate sympathizers jumped the constables and Wade escaped in a waiting rowboat. Needless to say, the Americans were not amused. Despite an eventual decision by the provincial court that the seizure of the Chesapeake was piracy and murder, none of the perpetrators were ever punished by either Canada or the US; several were arrested in Canada but some legal technicality always freed them before transfer to the US.


Hoy goes on to describe several other events where Confederates based in Canada raided across the border without any noticeable interference by Canadian officials – the attempted seizure of the USS Michigan on Lake Erie, the bank robberies in St. Albans, Vermont, and an incendiary attack on New York City. There’s also some evidence that at the Lincoln assassination was planned in Toronto. This last was a little much even for Canadians sympathetic to the Confederacy and Canadian militia was stationed at the border to seize any of the conspirators if they attempted to escape that way. They didn’t. (Hoy does comment, without much explanation, that the US later got “revenge” through the Fenian Raids of the 1860s and 1870s).


Hoy’s final point claims that the Canadian Federation, with a strong Federal and weak Provincial governments, was inspired by the State’s Rights issues in the American Civil War and the need to be united against the obstreperous Yankees to the south. In particular, Hoy noted that the Maritimes were initially quite resistant to being “swallowed up by the Canadians” but American saber-rattling persuaded them to join up. Perhaps.


Worth reading, despite the disorganization – a good editor could have made the book perhaps a third shorter. I’ve got another book on Canada and the Civil War waiting to be read; we’ll see how that compares.… (meer)