In early 1866, with the collapse of the revolutionary movement in Ireland, the struggle for Irish independence devolved on the Fenian Brotherhood in North America. In order to retain a position of leadership and maintain its essential public support, the Brotherhood had to take direct overt action in support of its goal against Great Britain. Both rival factions of the Fenian Brotherhood opted to attack British North America: the group led by Roberts was determined to invade the Province of Canada, and the O’Mahony party elected to seize Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Before developing their counter measures, authorities in both Britain and British North America sought reliable intelligence on Fenian plans and capabilities, which required them to separate fact from the many fanciful newspaper and public reports. They also had to determine what support the Fenian Brotherhood could expect from within New Brunswick and Maine. Strong public reaction to the perceived threat posed by the Fenians forced the New Brunswick government to finally act.
Maintaining security and the secrecy of their plans were not the Fenian Brotherhood’s strong points. Public discussion, heated debates in open conventions and bombastic bragging generated considerable public interest and attracted extensive newspaper coverage. Beginning as early as the fall of 1864, sensational news concerning the Fenian movement spread throughout British North America, particularly in the Province of Canada. George Brown, politician and owner of the Toronto Globe, strongly believed that the Fenians would shortly embark on a wave of violence and announced in an editorial that “It is certain we have in our midst an armed, secret organization.” The powerful Orange Order went further, claiming that all Roman Catholics and everyone of Irish descent were either Fenians or potential Fenians. Credence was provided when delegates from Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Hamilton attended the Fenian convention in Chicago. Tension in Toronto increased when a group called the Hibernian Benevolent Society was formed under the leadership of Michael Murphy, with a reported strength of six hundred members. The Society’s stated purpose was to protect Catholics from Orangemen, but it received Fenian support and its real purpose was in question. Conflict seemed inevitable when the Roberts faction of the Brotherhood advocated an armed invasion of Canada and General Sweeny formally presented his plan of attack. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, the popular politician from Montreal, attempted to ease the tension and separate Fenians from the majority of Irish Canadians. As a teenager, McGee had been part of the unsuccessful Young Ireland movement. Later in life, he became an influential politician and owned a Montreal newspaper called New Era, in which he advocated a “new nationality” for British North America that would provide justice and freedom for all. He loudly denounced the Fenians as “a seditious Irish society” and referred to the movement as a “foreign disease” and “political leprosy.”
More balanced and factual reports about the Fenian’s activities were routinely prepared by British diplomatic and consular officials in the United States. They monitored events and were alert to changes within the Fenian movement. They were assisted by a multitude of spies and informers, some paid and some not, who permeated the Fenian organization. British-paid informers included such high profile Fenians as “Red” Jim McDermott, a close confidant of O’Mahony, and Rudolph Fitzpatrick, the Brotherhood’s assistant secretary. As a result, British officials were aware of the most intimate details of Fenian decisions and activities. They knew, for example, that the Fenian leadership had influential friends at the highest level of the United States government and that they were lobbying for covert American support by stressing the debt owed the Irish people for their major contribution to the Union during the Civil War. Sir Frederick Bruce, the British ambassador in Washington, attempted to meet with American government officials to discuss the Fenian Brotherhood and their anti-British activities. He had little success because he could not get government officials to agree that Fenian activities were either illegal or inappropriate. Secretary of State Seward, who was well known for his pro-Irish sympathies, informed Bruce that reports of Fenian activities were exaggerated and unworthy of discussion. In mid-November 1865, Bruce formally protested to the American government about “the Fenian agitators in the United States.” With an upcoming congressional election, American politicians found themselves in the uncomfortable position of needing the Irish American vote, even at the expense of British goodwill.
In mid-September 1865, Edward Archibald, the British consul general in New York City, sent an urgent message to Governor General Charles Stanley Monck in Ottawa warning of possible Fenian incursions. John A. Macdonald, the minister of militia, had at his disposal a small “detective force” to monitor Fenian activities south of the border, and, in response to this warning, both the force and the budget were increased. The Canadian government was sufficiently concerned that on November 9, 1865, it called out nine companies of volunteer militia for several months to protect vital points along the frontier. At the same time, based on reports from Washington, the colonial secretary, Edward Cardwell, warned the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, Arthur Hamilton Gordon, of possible Fenian attacks across the Maine border. The editor of St. Stephen’s St. Croix Courier, noting the threat of a Fenian invasion to Canada, concluded that New Brunswick faced an identical risk. He urged defensive measures be taken immediately to secure the border. Unlike the Canadian government, the government of New Brunswick opted to bide its time.
It is difficult to gauge how much support the Fenian Brotherhood had in New Brunswick. On November 3, 1865, the Saint John Morning News reported that a delegate from the city had attended a Fenian convention and “a Fenian organization, no doubts, exists in this Province.” The article suggested that an “organized invasion” was unlikely, but that some form of a raid could be expected during the winter, and that “banks may be robbed, and other injuries inflicted.” It went on to complain that it was “unaccountable that no measures had been taken to avert such dangers.” An editorial in the Carleton Sentinel of Woodstock stated, “We believe that in the Province there are Fenians, or at all events, what is equally bad, Fenian sympathizers, and therefore believe it to be the duty of our Government to take the necessary steps” to protect the province. The Burning Bush, an Orange Order newspaper, warned its readers that twelve-thousand Fenians were prepared to rise on a moment’s notice. The threat renewed anti-Catholic feeling in the province and strengthened the Orange Order. In a speech in Woodstock, Lieutenant-Governor Gordon acknowledged the threat posed by the Fenians, but he said he was more concerned with the threat from within. He feared that the Fenian crisis could divide New Brunswickers “into two hostile camps, viewing each other with suspicion or hatred,” a circumstance that would take a very long time to heal. He was troubled by those who linked Fenianism with Catholicism. He found ridiculous the idea that, since some Fenians were Catholics, all Catholics were Fenians. He was quick to point out that many Fenians were Protestants and many more professed to no religion whatsoever. As Gordon travelled the province, this became his constant theme, and he emphasized the loyalty displayed by Roman Catholics in the past. Gordon received support from members of the clergy. Father E. J. Dunphy of St. Stephen branded Fenianism a delusion and strongly denounced revolution in all its forms. He urged his parishioners to be worthy of Gordon’s confidence in them. On St. Patrick’s Day in 1866, Archbishop Thomas Connolly of Halifax, whose jurisdiction included New Brunswick, made a public address denouncing Fenianism in the strongest of terms:
Their scheme as now appears to me, is simply this, let us under the green flag of Erin, invade the territory of our unoffending neighbors. In the name of liberty and emancipation of Ireland, with the scum of disbanded soldiers of the north, let us invade the British Provinces, and rob their homesteads, and trample down their liberties … let us cut the throats of four million, if needed, of a people against whom we have no cause of offence.
He followed this address with a letter to the Saint John Globe urging Catholics not to encourage Fenian violence. Connolly argued that the Roman Catholic Irish of British North America possessed a social and political freedom that they could find nowhere else and that the United States had nothing better to offer. The effect of these appeals is difficult to assess, but during the crisis that followed, the Fenian Brotherhood found little support in New Brunswick.
The Fenians had also hoped to take advantage of the strained relations that had developed between New Brunswick and Maine during the American Civil War. The situation had deteriorated as a result of the pro-Confederate sympathy displayed within New Brunswick, the Trent affair, which had brought Britain and the United States to the brink of war, and the disruption of routine trade. Americans were also incensed by the Chesapeake affair, during which an enterprising self-proclaimed Southerner and a gang of “Confederates,” composed almost entirely of New Brunswickers, captured an American steamer, then escaped justice, thanks to the intervention of Maritimers. Then, in 1864, four Confederate soldiers under the command of Captain William Collins crossed the St. Croix River at St. Stephen and attempted to rob a Calais bank. The raiders walked into a trap and were promptly captured. After being sent to the state prison for attempted armed robbery, Collins escaped and, to the great annoyance of Maine authorities, found sanctuary in New Brunswick. The people of Maine were exasperated with their neighbours, and the Calais Advertiser complained bitterly about pro-Southern sympathies across the border. When the Fenians posed a threat to New Brunswick, this bitterness still lingered, and the Eastport Sentinel recounted the days during the Civil War when the province harboured pirates and robbers. The Machias Republican went further, stating “The Provincials are terribly frightened, which is pleasant for us to contemplate. They are now reaping what they sowed a little time ago.”
Despite these feelings, the Fenians found little support in Maine. The majority of Mainers were curious onlookers and chose to maintain an attitude of friendly neutrality; a neutrality that was monitored by British consuls in Portland, Bath, Eastport and Bangor. During his visit to the frontier, Lieutenant-Governor Gordon was pleased to find a cooperative spirit prevailing across the border. The mayor of Calais received a unanimous vote of thanks from the St. Stephen magistrates when he assured the governor that he would keep his neighbours across the border informed of any Fenian activities in his community. In early December 1865, a British secret agent toured Maine and reported that he found no evidence of dangerous Fenian activity in Portland, Lewiston, Eastport, Calais or Bangor.
Nevertheless, disturbing news from further south continued and panic gripped the port city of Saint John on Wednesday, December 6, 1865. The newspapers in both the United States and New Brunswick had been following events within the Fenian Brotherhood for months. The coverage, a sensational and confusing mixture of fact, opinion and exaggeration, intensified when Sweeny’s plan to invade Canada and Killian’s proposal to seize Campobello Island were unveiled. Accounts provided by supposed eye-witnesses and self-proclaimed experts added to the excitement. The lieutenant-governor had obtained considerable intelligence on the Fenians, but it was not until he received an encoded message from Sir Frederick Bruce in Washington on Tuesday, December 5, that he decided the time had come to act. Not wishing to increase public unease, he opted to visit the frontier communities and brief their leaders personally on the situation. Before leaving Fredericton, he sent a telegram to the Honourable Albert James Smith, leader of the New Brunswick government, who was at home in Dorchester preparing for the Christmas holidays, requesting Smith join him immediately in St. Stephen. Word circulated rapidly that Gordon had received a ciphered message from Washington.
Speculation quickly spread that a Fenian attack on New Brunswick was imminent, a view enhanced by Gordon’s sudden and unannounced trip to the frontier. The urgency of the situation was further heightened when Smith was seen hurriedly passing through Saint John during the night, having been unceremoniously summoned from the comforts of his home in inclement weather. Saint John officials immediately concluded that if the frontier communities were under threat so was the City of Saint John, which was vulnerable to all forms of seaborne attack. Not burdened by modesty, city officials decided that there was little of value to plunder in the frontier communities and that any discriminating Fenian freebooter would select Saint John as the preferred target. Its many banks would prove particularly lucrative, the local banks and military authorities both agreed. There was a run on the banks, and officials took steps to secure their assets. Lieutenant Colonel Grierson, the garrison commander at Saint John, placed his men on high alert and telegraphed Halifax requesting a British warship be sent immediately to protect the harbour. They mounted cannons overlooking the harbour, and the local militia prepared to guard vital points and patrol around the city. Lieutenant Colonels John Thurgar and John Robertson, militia commanders in Saint John, telegraphed Gordon asking, “Is the danger sufficiently imminent to require officers commanding Battalions to call out the militia under Section forty-nine militia act. If so, please send orders for arms and ammunition.” The recently installed telegraph network helped spread the panic to Fredericton, Woodstock, and other New Brunswick communities. Even the Boston Pilot reported the excitement in Saint John under the heading “Expected Fenian Raid into New Brunswick.” Anticipating a Fenian raid, the Carleton Sentinel in Woodstock advised its readers to “keep the powder dry.”
The New Brunswick and Maine Border Region, 1865-1866. Mike Bechthold
Gordon’s attempt to restrain public reaction to a potential Fenian raid had failed miserably. Thanks to the excitement in Saint John, New Brunswickers across the province were thoroughly alarmed. Gordon’s annoyance is clear in a letter he sent to the mayor of Saint John dated December 7, 1865: “I am sorry to perceive from the newspapers that general alarm appears to prevail at St. John in consequence of its being imagined there that I have received intelligence … of the intention on the part of the so-called Fenian Association to invade the Province and attack St. John. I have received no such information, and I do not believe that any ground exists for such an apprehension.” He went on to explain how unlikely he thought such an attack was. In summary, he said had there been the slightest reason to believe that Saint John was threatened, “that it is to Saint John and not to the frontier that I should have at once repaired. I trust that you will take every means in your power to abate the excitement, which has been, in my opinion, too needlessly created.”
Despite Gordon’s assurances to the contrary, there was now no doubt in the public’s mind that the Fenian Brotherhood posed an imminent threat to the peace and security of New Brunswick. The government could no longer delay taking protective measures. The responsibility for the defence of the province lay squarely with Lieutenant-Governor Gordon, the commander-in-chief.
Lieutenant-Governor Gordon and his staff on the steps of Old Government House, Fredericton. PANB P5-897
