The
spring of 1864 was an active time for Confederate planners wanting to
exploit Northern weariness of the war and its death toll, and influence
the November presidential election. A primary figure in the secret
operations was Captain Thomas Henry Hines, a former officer under
General John Hunt Morgan. A favorite route of Southern agents travelling
to Canada was a Wilmington blockade-runner to Bermuda, then a British
mail packet to Halifax, rail car to Montreal, Toronto and finally
Niagara Falls – then slip quietly across the Suspension Bridge into New
York.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Putting Maine to the Torch
“[When
Hines] was planning the Chicago uprising….Confederate prospects for a
[Northern] revolution looked good. The Copperheads were promising a
great deal. [Confederate Commissioner in Canada, Jacob] Thompson,
believing them, was spending huge sums, and gun-runners were crossing
into Indiana with large shipments of rifles and revolvers.
Someone
in Toronto….decided that a major diversionary move was needed to keep
the attention of the Federals away from Hines in Chicago at the time he
was to set off the revolt in the Northwest. It was decided to organize
another expedition, sent against Maine and the Northeast coast.
Couriers
slipped south with messages for President Davis. He gave his approval
of an eastern facet of the Northwest Conspiracy. An army of 5,000 men,
with a large number of field artillery, commanded by officers of
[General John Hunt] Morgan’s, Mosby’s and Stuart’s commands, who had
been summoned to Richmond from the field by Secretary of the War [J.A.]
Seddon, were to be brought to Canada by eight fast blockade-runners. The
troops were to be disembarked on the coast of Maine at night.
Detachments were to be sent out first to gather up [railroad] rolling
stock, pack horses, cattle and food.
The
stock and food were to be brought to a rendezvous in northern
Maine…[and] from that point the army was to be split into five columns
to fan out, “but within supporting distance of each other” to put Maine
to the torch. As [partisan veteran Francis] Jones said, “The troops were
to sack and destroy public and corporative property of the United
States government.” Local Sons of Liberty were to be used as guides.
The
expedition was to be a combined operation. In April, 1864, Secretary of
the Navy [Stephen] Mallory, in Richmond, sent 1,500 seamen and
privateersmen “on special duty” to report to Thompson at Toronto. They
were to man the armed steamers Tallahassee and Florida, which were to
sail out of New Brunswick to shell and burn Maine’s coastal cities.
In
the Northwest, the date of the uprising…[was to be] August 29, 1864,
the day the Democratic Convention opened in Chicago. There would be
large crowds; half the delegates would be Peace Democrats, members of
the Sons of Liberty and Knights of the Golden Circle. Chicago would be a
powder keg; one spark was all that was needed to touch it off.”
(Confederate Agent, A Discovery in History, James D. Horan, Crown Publishers, pp. 113-115)
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