Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
May 1864
John Lane had alternated walking and riding in an ambulance as the British Army marched north. His red coat with the empty sleeve meant he attracted no undue attention. His Irish accent similarly seemed perfectly normal in an army that counted thousands of Irish soldiers among its ranks.
After Burgoyne’s surrender, Lane had briefly contemplated heading south, crossing the Potomac into Confederate territory where he’d be safe. But he knew no one there, and now that the British defeat had ruled out Irish Home Rule, he had no plan. He figured it best to stay with the British Army as they made their slow but steady way back to Canada.
It had been a close call. Following the surrender, Pinkerton men, accompanied by hard men from the provost marshal, had gone through the British camp and removed Irish officers from the regiments that had turned coat. They were easy to find, with their blue uniforms and sullen, guilty-as-charged faces. There was no place to hide. Kelly of the Irish Brigade was among the first arrested, marched out of camp, and shot. Lane heard that a couple dozen officers had been dispatched in summary executions. The enlisted soldiers had been left alone. Shrewd, thought Lane. Witnesses who could testify to the futility and deadly consequences of treason.
Lane was sure they were looking for him, the one-armed merchant, but his split-second decision to don the British red coat had apparently saved him. No one gave him a second look.
Lane found it odd that the British Army was marching back to Canada, weapons and supplies in hand and leadership intact. Lane had imagined that surrender meant humiliation. At the very least he expected that the British fleet would come for them, in Baltimore or Philadelphia. Hadn’t Cornwallis’ men boarded ship for home after Yorktown? But rumor was that Lincoln himself had decided that the British would walk.
Lane wondered about the future of a one-armed fugitive tailor cum Gaelic scholar in Canada. Sure, there were Irish immigrants by the thousands there. He had relatives of his own, cousins, who lived south of Montreal in the so-called Eastern Townships. One thing was clear. The triumphant return to a free Ireland—the man who had brokered the deal for Home Rule with the Crown—would not happen in this lifetime. He wondered how many Canadian Irish would be willing to pay for their sons to learn the old language. Not enough, he mused.