Chapter 122: Green Banner Blues
Chapter 122: Green Banner Blues
“The Fenian movement in North America had been born, like the strong German labor tradition, from the mass migration of Irish immigrants after the Great Famine and then failed Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Millions of Irish had fled the famine and tens of thousands had chosen to go into exile as Britain cracked down on the rebels in the aftermath. The two most prominent organizers of the Fenian Brotherhood in North America were John O’Mahoney and Michael Dahoney.
O’Mahoney was an emigrant who had fled to Paris and then America after 1848, and had taken pride in writing many works of Gaelic studies while abroad, advocating the Irish identity. As one of the more militant founding members of the Fenian Brotherhood he had served with the 69th Regiment of New York Militia and then in the Irish Brigade in 1862 where he saw combat against the British on the Richelieu. However, he was wounded in late 1862 and resigned to encourage Irish recruitment in the war.
O'Mahoney in 1865
…Doheny’s untimely death in 1862[1] placed the future of the Fenian movement firmly in the hands of radicalized militants. Men like Sweeney, Meagher and Corcoran all egged the movement in the militant direction, seeking another confrontation with Britain. O’Mahoney was particularly vocal in his condemnation of the Republican Party’s ‘capitulation’ to the British, and picked up on a popular strain of Anglophobic feeling after the war in 1865. This caused the ranks of the Fenians to swell, partially with embittered veterans, but also immigrants who felt that they had something to gain by supporting the independence of their homeland from abroad.
However, not all members of the Fenians were equally as gung ho. William B. Roberts, an Irish dry goods merchant closely allied with the Democratic Party machine in New York, saw any effort to strike Britain head on as lunacy. He wanted to work with the United States to pressure the British government into Irish concessions, not start a war which they had no chance of winning. Many sympathized with Roberts view as, after all, if the United States engaged in a direct conflict on its doorstep had not defeated Britain, how could they hope to assist in a conflict across the Atlantic?
In this he had the support of James Stephens, the chief organizer who resided in alternatively in Paris and New York. Broadly respected by the Irish community on both sides of the Atlantic, he was a proponent of an “Ireland First” strategy, believing that a spontaneous rising in Ireland could throw off the British yoke, and had no reason to wish war with America and Britain again. Indeed, he believed the United States must be a neutral arbiter in the conflict, which would allow a secessionist Ireland to go the way of the Confederacy and proclaim independence if enough pressure could be brought to bear on London from the Continent and across the Atlantic.
To that end he used the newspaper The Irish People as a mouthpiece for both the Fenian Brotherhood and to support the cause of Irish independence in general…
In 1866 real anger existed in the Fenian leadership as a schism between the wing which supported Roberts and Stephens wished to focus on Ireland itself and the O’Mahoney wing wished to bring about a conflict with the United States. The Roberts faction wanted any funds and weapons collected to be discretely shipped to Ireland itself to facilitate another rising. O’Mahoney believed that a new war in North America would sufficiently weaken Britain to the point that the Irish garrison could be drawn down which would allow the rebels to succeed. Debates in New York that summer would focus on bringing some unity, but both sides would find their hand forced by issues neither had anticipated.
Discontent with the ceding of Aroostook and other portions of Maine had become a rallying cry for the Democratic Party in that state, but one also taken up by proponents of the Radical Democracy Party looking to win influence in the senate. Running for the State Senate in New York was former commander Michael Corcoran, which made his decision to “go stumping” for his fellow Democrats in Maine an odd decision. However, he came among over two thousand other “seasonal workers, lumbermen, and sightseers” from other parts of New England that year, and in an astonishing coincidence, all these men were of Irish heritage and most had fought in an Irish unit of one extraction or another in the late war. Some would, correctly, suspect that this was less an accident and more a vague plan.
If anything the mooted Aroostook invasion of 1866 organized by Sweeney and Corcoran was merely a test run for later events to gage the strength of any call out of militant Fenians, while also seeing how far they could get under the nose of American politicians. Maine itself was then gripped in a struggle between the Radical Democrat leaning Fessenden family and the Democratic Party under Eben Pilsbury, and Corcoran believed he could use a raid at “Occupied Aroostook” to increase the Democrats standing. Certainly the local Democratic machine had no reason to expose his activities, and indeed hundreds of sympathetic Mainemen would eventually rally to the Green banner in August of 1866…
Unlike along the northern frontier in Quebec and Ontario, the Kingdom of Canada did not have a robust intelligence network along the forested Maine - New Brunswick border. The reasons for this can be attributed to bot negligence on the part of Ottawa, but also an overreliance on the British military for the safety of that part of the frontier. Major General Hastings Doyle had been in command for close to six years, and in 1866 was expecting to rotate out to Malta for a new posting after his service during the war. As such he’d largely come to believe the frontier was a settled matter, and with a regiment of British cavalry (in reality only four troops on the frontier proper) two regiments of infantry in New Brunswick itself, with the 1/17th along the immediate border, and a battery of artillery ready for action in Fredericton, he believed he had little to worry about with over 2,000 men at his disposal.
This was further backed up by the presence of the New Brunswick militia. On the border companies were rotated in during the summer months, usually understrength and primarily to act as a backup to the regular provosts patrolling the various camps. This meant that unlike their regular counterparts, they rarely numbered above 400 along the frontier itself. They were led by Col. William T. Baird[2], who acted as a jack of all trades for the regulars as a staff officer and leading the local militia companies. He had served in the region all through the War of 1862, acting largely in a staff and local command capacity. With an extensive series of connections and experience along the border, Baird was probably the best man to confront the coming troubles.
Baird in 1870
On August 3rd, Baird began receiving reports of large “hunting parties” along the frontier, many men in mismatched blue uniforms and other accouterments apparently cast off from the US Army. Baird reported this to his immediate superior who did not take the news with any sense of alarm. Doyle, himself in Halifax at the time, received the news with detachment, merely instructing his local commanders to “be alert” for any potential trouble, but clearly expecting little. As news of the buildup of progressively larger parties between the 3rd and 7th reached Baird’s headquarters, he did what he could by calling up local companies with permission and sounding an alarm all along the frontier.
On August 8th, large bands of armed men approached the British stockades along the border as it now existed. Though there was no fighting, this all proved to be a feint for the larger of the Fenian plans.
Five boats, bearing some 400 armed Fenians, landed on the night of August 9th on Grand Manan Island. The island itself had only a customs house and a single Royal Navy officer acting as a lighthouse inspector. The facilities were immediately captured without bloodshed and the Green Banner bearing a golden harp was unfurled and the assembled men proclaimed that the island had "liberated" from British rule and annexed to the Free Irish Republic.
Once the news was broadcast to Halifax later that day, Doyle dispatched three warships and 700 men to drive the Fenians off. On August 10th, the Fenians beat a hasty retreat, destroying the lighthouse and burning the customs houses and other government property. On the Aroostook border itself there was a brief exchange of gunfire that day, but the appearance of Federal troops later that day restored order. Men faded back to their homes, and no charges were ever laid against any suspected leaders. Despite not being officially identified as the leader at Grand Manan, Michael Corcoran would be lauded in Irish friendly press for the “brief but heroic annexation” in solidarity with the oppressed people of the United States under the British yoke.
The immediate consequences were pointed questions between London and Washington, with Secretary of State Seymour denying any knowledge of the Fenian plot. London, outraged at the violation of their new territory, demanded an investigation. Inevitably a sluggish inquiry began, but not in time to preempt the events of 1867…
In the respective national presses, the event was more regarded as a debacle than a true invasion. The Toronto Globe lampooned the character of the “ignorant Irish” on a crusade against the new Kingdom based purely on “Yankee demagoguery” while praising the work of the Canadian militia who in truth played a very small role. The New Brunswick Reporter was equally anxious to praise the brave volunteers. In Ottawa, Macdonald quickly praised the brave men who had abandoned home and hearth to once again protect their homes. Privately of course, he would cease to take the threat quite so seriously as a political problem.
For all the derring do, Corcoran’s political scheme did not pay off. James D. Fessenden would win the gubernatorial election that year, and in 1867, pushing the Radical Democracy Party into national politics through their influence.
At the Fenian meetings in New York, the news of the invasion stoked a national furor. There were demands from partisans of both wings that some sort of invasion should be mounted into Canada. News from Ireland itself showed that most Fenians there were publicly sympathetic, and rumours that more soldiers were being dispatched from Britain itself to address the potential problem seemed to confirm all the views of the O’Mahoney wing. Reluctantly Roberts and Stephens would back the plans for a Canadian invasion, but only so long as enough arms and ammunition could be delivered to Ireland itself to sustain a rising. O’Mahoney, whose militants were already well armed, readily agreed. A rising in Ireland, complemented by an emergency in North America, was sure to split British attention and increase the chances of a free Ireland…” - The Emergency of 1867, Howard Senior, 1986
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1] He died suddenly OTL too, and probably a good thing for the Fenians. Was a bit too fond of settling disputes with his fists.
2] A guy who I did want to give more attention to in WiF. He was an unsung hero of early Canadian military prepardness, and it was quite a shame he never got to shine! He did similar in the Fenian raids OTL, but here he gets a bit more action and will get some acclaim.
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