The band of marauders that landed on Indian Island in the dead of night to terrorize the provincial customs officer and his family were members of the Fenian Brotherhood, intent on freeing Ireland from Great Britain. The British flag flying over the customs house was clearly visible from Eastport, Maine, and stood for everything the Brotherhood abhorred. Although the incident at the Dixon home had the appearance of comic opera, to the Fenians it was a blow for justice and liberty against an uncompromising tyrant.
The Fenian Brotherhood was one of many revolutionary groups found on the long and difficult road to Irish independence. The idea of an independent Ireland which was rooted in the Potato Famine, had had a profound effect on the people of Ireland and was instrumental in inspiring revolutionary nationalism. An ill-conceived insurrection in 1848 by a group called Young Ireland was quickly crushed by British authorities. James Stephen, a member of the defeated Young Ireland movement, fled to Paris, where he dedicated himself to enhancing his conspiratorial skills. A decade later, Stephen was back in Dublin organizing a secret revolutionary society called the Irish Republican Brotherhood, better known as the Fenians. Under Stephen’s leadership, the movement spread rapidly throughout Ireland amongst labourers, shopkeepers, and others hit hard by the depression of the early 1860s.
John O’Mahony, another member of the Young Ireland movement, fled to New York. In concert with Stephen, O’Mahony began organizing Irish immigrants in the United States to support Stephen’s proposed insurrection with money, munitions and volunteers. O’Mahony named his group the Fenian Brotherhood, after a legendary band of Irish warriors called Fianna.
Irish immigrants flooded into the United States during and after the Potato Famine. By 1860, there were more Irish citizens living in New York City than in any city in Ireland; more than a quarter of the city’s population of 800,000 was Irish-born. Most of these immigrants were fiercely patriotic to Ireland and had bitter memories of perceived injustices inflicted by Britain. The Fenian leadership appealed to the American Irish by using familiar slogans, such as “for liberty” and “free speech.” The Fenian Brotherhood grew quickly, and by 1863 its leaders claimed 10,000 enrolled members in America. Drilling became a popular social activity, the participants motivated by the goal of Irish emancipation. A quarter of a million dollars and large quantities of war material were readily raised to support Fenian activities.
The end of the American Civil War presented the Fenian Brotherhood with a golden opportunity. In May 1865, there had been more than one million soldiers in the Union Army, and six months later, eighty percent of the army had been disbanded, leaving many unemployed, battle-hardened soldiers seeking new pursuits. Thousands of them were Irish by birth or descent; thus the pool of restless veterans provided a ready source of fighting men for the Fenian cause. Recruiting agents spoke of military glory, the eternal gratitude of the Irish and a promise of a substantial bounty upon enrolling. The front pages of major American newspapers provided glowing and, for the most part, grossly exaggerated accounts of the Fenian organization, its leaders, their objectives and activities. The anti-British bias displayed in most of these newspapers found general approval with the American public, both because of the long-standing hostility towards Britain and because Britain had been sympathetic to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Taking advantage of this popularity, particularly in areas with large Irish populations, local politicians voiced support for the Fenian cause. The Fenian leadership exploited both the media attention and its political power.
The growth of the Fenian movement in both Ireland and America did not go unnoticed by British authorities. An insurrection appeared imminent in Ireland. Membership in the Brotherhood was reported as several hundred thousand, and rumours abounded concerning large sums of money arriving from the United States to support its activities. Tension increased when an American sailing ship called Erin’s Hope, loaded with rifles, ammunition, assorted war materials and a party of volunteers, was intercepted off a secluded Irish cove by the Royal Navy. On September 14, 1865, working on information provided by a double agent, the British authorities took decisive action. The Brotherhood’s newspaper, the Irish People, was raided, its staff arrested and further publication suppressed. Incriminating documents seized in the raid identified the Brotherhood’s leadership, which led to further arrests and the dismantling of the secret organization. James Stephen was taken into custody, but he soon managed to escape, fleeing first to France and then to the United States. The insurrection was crushed before it began, and the Brotherhood in Ireland ceased to exist. The winning of Ireland’s freedom now rested squarely on the American wing of the Fenian Brotherhood.
The Fenian Brotherhood held its third national convention in October 1865 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With the dramatic events in Ireland as a backdrop, more than six hundred delegates gathered from all over North America. After a stirring address by the fugitive James Stephen, the assembly set about tackling the crisis facing the Fenian movement. John O’Mahony’s leadership was challenged as too cautious by a group of militants calling themselves “men of action.” They were particularly critical of O’Mahony’s apparent reluctance to commence hostilities against Britain. The militants orchestrated major changes to the Brotherhood’s organization and constitution. O’Mahony was forced to accept an elected presidency and was shorn of much of his power, and found himself immediately in conflict with William Randall Roberts, the president of a newly created senate. The constitutional changes made Roberts the rallying point for the anti-O’Mahony faction.
Given the existing circumstances, the “men of action” under Roberts believed that an insurrection in Ireland was unlikely to succeed and a more effective course of action would be to invade and seize British North America. They argued that the Province of Canada, the area now known as Ontario and Quebec, could be captured with ease, and, once Canada was occupied, the Canadians could be easily convinced of the justice of the Fenian cause. Then, using Canada as a base, attacks could be launched against Britain and its seaborne commerce. If this scheme was not totally successful, the Fenians hoped they could create sufficient friction to spark a conflict between the United States and Great Britain. An Anglo-American war could only benefit the cause of Ireland’s independence. At the Philadelphia convention, Brigadier General Thomas Sweeny, a distinguished veteran of the Union Army, was elected secretary of war and appointed commander-in-chief. He was charged by the Roberts faction with developing an invasion plan for the province of Canada.
The Philadelphia convention ended with a fundamental split within the Fenian Brotherhood. The “men of action” under Roberts planned to raise a large army and invade Canada, while those under O’Mahony’s leadership clung to the original concept of sponsoring an insurrection within Ireland. In late 1865, to raise money to support the uprising in Ireland, O’Mahony issued bonds, calling the series “Bonds of the Irish Republic.” He was accused of violating the Brotherhood’s constitution and the Roberts faction attempted to depose him, but he retaliated by expelling them from the Fenian headquarters. The break was complete and final, and the Fenian Brotherhood was torn into two bitterly hostile factions.
On January 2, 1866, O’Mahony called a meeting of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York City. His supporters packed the convention, reinstated the pre-Philadelphia constitution and reaffirmed the goal of supporting insurrection in Ireland. The Roberts faction responded by holding a meeting in Pittsburgh in February 1866. There, they unveiled and approved General “Fighting Tom” Sweeny’s master plan for the invasion of Canada. Sweeny immediately began to gather a staff and prepare for a spring campaign.
British authorities carefully watched these developments and took the threat from both factions seriously. On February 19, 1866, a special session of the British parliament suspended the right to habeas corpus in Ireland. By this curtailment of basic civil rights, parliament hoped to avoid further domestic unrest and violence. More arrests in Ireland followed, including 150 Irish Americans. The reaction in America was immediate. The tales of Americans languishing in British prisons facing an uncertain fate galvanized both factions of the Fenian Brotherhood into action. They held mass rallies throughout the United States. O’Mahony, addressing a large rally in New York City, called the British “the foul tyrants of our race” and pleaded for more money “to put munitions of war in the hands of the Irish army … [and] to put Irish ships upon the sea.”
The strong reaction to the British suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland had a direct impact on the O’Mahony faction of the Fenian Brotherhood. In order to maintain its leadership role, the Brotherhood could no longer be content with fomenting rebellion in Ireland; it needed to take some form of overt action against Britain. The secretary of the treasury, Bernard Doran Killian, as part of a Fenian delegation, asked both President Andrew Jackson and Secretary of State William H. Seward what position the United States would take if the Fenians seized British territory north of the American border in support of an insurrection in Ireland. The response from both was sufficiently vague to encourage Killian to formulate a plan of attack. On St. Patrick’s Day in 1866, he proposed capturing Campobello Island in New Brunswick, an isolated island in the western approaches of Passamaquoddy Bay within easy reach of Maine. The Fenians would use the island as a base for privateering attacks on British shipping in the North Atlantic, for organizing an invasion of Ireland, and for conducting offensive operations against British interests. There was reason to believe that New Brunswick, with its substantial Irish population, would welcome Fenian intervention and the opportunity to shed British domination.
Although not as ambitious as the invasion of Canada proposed by the Roberts and Sweeny faction, Killian argued, a military success was absolutely necessary; only “by striking a blow and making a fight” could the Brotherhood’s reputation be sustained. A deciding factor was Killian’s assertion that the United States would take a neutral stance and not interfere with the Brotherhood’s activities along the Maine border. Against his better judgment, O’Mahony reluctantly approved Killian’s plan. Without delay, they collected funds, gathered arms, recruited men and purchased a steamer. The New York Herald excitedly reported on April 5, 1866, that a Fenian expedition consisting of three steamboats with three thousand experienced soldiers had sailed to capture Bermuda. The next day the Herald reported that a second expedition had sailed under Killian’s command, consisting of two steamships with twenty-five hundred men onboard. At the time, no one realized that these reports were wildly exaggerated.
Fenian handbill issued by Bernard Doran Killian at Eastport, Maine, on 10 April 1866. PANB RS558D
Arthur Hamilton Gordon, first Lord Stanmore, the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick during the Fenian crisis. PANB P515-84
