Boston, Massachusetts
October 1863
Sitting in a chair in his tailor shop, which was also his home, John Patrick Lane awoke with a start for the third or fourth time in the last half hour. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. As this happened to him frequently, he quickly went through his protocol, starting with the windows. Right, two small-framed windows on either side of the door, and another to the side. That means I’m at home in Boston. The process took less than a second and he was at ease.
The sense of not knowing where he was had started in the army. He would wake up multiple times a night confused and lost. He always hoped that he was home in Kilcrumper, near Fermoy in County Cork, sleeping on the floor in front of the fire with his brothers. But his protocol would kick in, and in an instant he’d know that he was in fact in a tent, or sleeping on the ground, and that he was in the Union Army. And his heart would sink.
His guest was late. Lane took the watch from his pocket, flipped it open, and saw that it was almost ten at night. The note had told him to expect his visitor at seven. But he was coming from New York, and it was raining, and he was in a line of work in which punctuality and predictability were not virtues.
Lane started to doze again, the rhythm of the rain on the roof better than any pill to lull him to sleep. It was a cold rain, too cold for the time of year, and Lane smiled as he drifted off. I’m glad I didn’t leave Cork in search of better weather.
Lane had rehearsed his pitch a hundred times. He was more certain now that his proposed course of action was the correct one, but as the hour grew late he was less certain that his visitor would see it that way. The plan had come to him the instant that he’d learned that Great Britain had decided to support the Confederacy and had declared war on the United States.
Pounding on the door woke him with a start, and this time he knew exactly where he was. He rose, flattened the creases in his pants and jacket, and took three steps to the door.
Will I recognize him?
Sure, he’d seen the face, woodcuts of course, on the pages of The Nation and The Boston Pilot. The most famous Irishman in America, and the most notorious.
He opened the door and stared for an instant. No, he wouldn’t have recognized him. No matter.
“Mr. O’Mahony, you’re most welcome, come in out of the rain.”
“God save all here.”
The head of the Fenian Brotherhood in America strode in, clothes dripping, small pools of water following him, and he seemed to fill the small room. He doffed his coat and hat, handed them to Lane, and took a chair—Lane’s chair—in front of the fire.
“Will you be having tea?” The question was asked in Irish.
O’Mahony’s eyebrows lifted, and a slight smile curved on a rugged face not accustomed to an upward arch.
“I will, sure,” he answered in Irish. “So, you have the old language?”
Lane recognized the accent as his own, the sweet cadence of Cork, the visitor’s Irish pure and fluent with a trifle of the scholar.
“I do. And now that tailoring is a challenge,” he gestured with the stump of his left arm, “I teach Irish to the likely lads in the neighborhood. It keeps the devil from the door.”
“Hmph. Long waiting list is there? But I assume sedition also helps pay the bills.”
Lane smiled, handed his visitor the tea, and took a seat facing him. A good start. Common ground. A short pause as tea was sipped, the warmth of the fire absorbed, and a quick but professional sizing up ensued.
O’Mahony broke the silence, and when he spoke, it was in English this time. “You’ve heard the news. Britain has finally come into the war on the side of the south. We’ve an opportunity to strike a blow. There are 200,000 Irishmen in the Union Army. And now they’ll have their chance to kill the Saxon bastards as well as Johnny Reb. Burgoyne may have already crossed over from Canada.”
Lane said nothing. Let the man speak his mind first.
O’Mahony went on. “And when the war is over, there will be 200,000 Irishmen, minus the poor bastards who are killed along the way, trained, armed, and ready to fight for Irish freedom. This chance will never come again. We’ve got to do better at signing the lads up to the Brotherhood and get ready for the day. That’s where you can be helpful. A wounded veteran. An Irishman. A Gaelic scholar forsooth! You’ve credibility lad.”
Now, thought Lane. He slipped back into Irish. “Sure, it’s a grand opportunity. Win the war, save the Union, kill some Englishmen, and hope that when it’s over we can muster a Fenian Army to cross the ocean and fight for our freedom. But what if there’s a better way? What if we can seize this moment and secure Irish independence now, without firing a shot in Ireland?”
Lane expected an argument at best, derisive laughter and a wave of the hand at worst.
Instead, O’Mahony finished his tea and moved his chair a foot away from the fire. He was dry, warm, and comfortable. “So one-armed Union corporals are grand strategists, is it? Sure, it’s a wonderful country.”
Lane stiffened. Here it comes, he thought. He assumed O’Mahony was suspicious enough of a twenty-four-year-old corporal’s ability to organize large scale-rebellion, and completely unprepared to be lectured on the organization’s—his organization’s—aims and strategy.
“Is there more tea at all? And is there something a wee bit stronger, seeing how we may be here awhile?”
Lane went to the cupboard and removed a bottle. Not normally a drinking man, now he wished he’d thought ahead and bought a bottle of the good stuff. He half-filled two glasses and handed one to his guest.
O’Mahony eyed the brown bottle. “Protestant whiskey, is it? No matter. All in the name of Irish unity. Slainte.”
Ten minutes passed. The whiskey, Protestant or not, slowly put them at ease, and there was nothing awkward about the silence. Lane took the measure of the older man. Not as young as the woodcuts suggested, and a bit thicker about the middle. Not handsome, certainly. But something about him projected great strength, resilience, and stability, and Lane couldn’t help but feel the fellow was reading his thoughts. The eyes were a penetrating blue, and his hair long and swept back. Like a character in a Russian novel. All in all, probably a fair choice to lead a secret society of revolutionaries. At the very least, he looked the part.
Lane knew it was up to O’Mahony to break the silence, and he did.
“John, after you refill the glasses, why don’t you tell me, in great detail, your grand plan for Irish freedom?”