Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Fenian Brotherhood and the Irish Invasions of Canada

Victims of the 1845-1852
Potato Famine.  Those who
could emigrated from Ireland,
often to America.
During the an Gorta Mor of 1845-1852, the population of Ireland fell by as much as 25%.  Thousands of poor, starving Irishmen fled the country, some going no further than Britain or Continental Europe, while thousands of others fled across the Atlantic.  The result was an enormous influx of the Irish presence in the United States, particularly in the North as well as the major coastal cities of the South.

These Irishmen brought their distinctive culture - including their staunch Roman Catholicism, and their sometimes crude grasping of the English language - and were common victims of native xenophobia.  But despite the stereotypes of the Irish immmigrants being a race of bumbling, lazy drinkers and thugs, they proved to be an industrious and colorful addition to the American family.  Many fought in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, and many others were caught up in the Western gold rushes.  Far more found less glamorous employment in the factories of the northeast.

In addition to newly-liberated slaves, many immigrant populations sought to prove their value to their new nation by going to war.  Germans, Italians, Jews, and most conspicuously Irishmen flocked to the Union banner, sometimes forming volunteer regiments of freshly-arrived Gaelic immigrants who were still learning English.  No less than 200,000 Irishmen served in the Union Army 1861-1865, many marching in 'ethnic' companies or regiments; some units, like New York's famous Irish Brigade, were regarded as nothing less than shock troops - and soaked up glory and casualties accordingly.

This is not to say Irishmen could not be found in the Confederate Army.  Possibly close to 200,000 sons of the Emerald Isle also fought for the South, whether due to coincidence of location or due to sympathy with the secessionist cause.  Foremost of the Gaelic Rebels was undoubtedly General Patrick Cleburne; a veteran of the British Army who had seen decorated service during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1858, he had immigrated to the American South just in time to find himself on the other side in a new rebellion.

But even as the carnage and tragedy of war overtook the nation, the Irish serving in both armies never forgot who their real enemy was.  Many Irishmen nursed a dream of returning to Ireland and freeing her from the hated British rulers, who were widely blamed for the Potato Famine.  Over the course of the 1850s, as conditions in Ireland became more desperate and as war looked more and more inevitable in America, many Irish-Americans imagined they would gain military experience from the coming conflict that they would then use to overwhelm the British in the motherland.

Many guilds and organizations were formed by the Irish-American community; most militant of these was the Fenian Brotherhood, founded in 1858.  Over the course of the War, officers and soldiers with Fenian sympathies actively recruited more men for the organization, even fraternizing with enemy combatants and POW's.  The differences between Johnny Reb and Billy Yank were of scant importance to the Fenians, whose Brotherhood established chapters in every major city in the continental US, and who had representatives in every army fighting under either flag.

Late in 1864, General Cleburne received an invitation to join the militant Fenians from a Union officer, but he declined, stating that both of them would have seen enough fighting to last a lifetime when the Civil War ended.  It did end, only half a year later, but Cleburne was one of the tens of thousands of Irish Americans who went to an early grave because of it.

It was almost exactly a year after the Civil War ended, in May of 1866, that the Fenian Brotherhood launched their first attack on the British Empire.  But curiously, the attack had nothing to do with Ireland directly - their target was Ontario.  Their precise motive remains a mystery.  Were they attempting to create an independent Irish enclave in western Canada?  Or were they trying to provoke a war between America and Britain - who had been viewing each other with mutual suspicion during and immediately after the Civil War?


Fenians trade shots with British
regulars at the Battle of Ridgway,
June 2nd, 1866.  Note the Harp of
Erin battle-flags based on those used
by Irish-American regiments in the
Civil War.
 The Fenians planned a three-pronged assault on Canada, though only two of the three attacks took place.  They must have made a bizarre sight - a contemporary lithograph shows them dressed in blue uniforms and carrying a green Harp of Erin flag, while contemporary photographs show a combination of military and civilian dress.  Most carried rifles and bayonets retained from their Civil War service, and were apparently expecting to engage in combat similar to that they had experienced in the War Between the States.

Over the night of May 31st/June 1st of 1866, John O’Neill, who had attained the rank of colonel in the Union Army, led a column of 800 Fenians across the Niagara River at Buffalo, and then occupied the town of Fort Erie.  The Fenians, despite making the crossing at night had been clumsy in their attempts at masking their presence, and the Canadian government immediately raised a force of 1700 local militia.  On June 2nd, at Ridgway, the Fenians had their first clash with elements of this militia, killing 47 of them and driving the rest back.

O’Neill, finding that the expected reinforcements had not arrived, pulled his men back into Fort Erie.  More militiamen followed the Fenians as they retreated, and the two forces fought a running battle through the streets of the town.  Around 23 Fenians were killed or severely wounded, and the rest fled across the River.  During this flight, many of them were intercepted and arrested by the USS Michigan, including O’Neill himself.  O’Neill was later ransomed by sympathetic Irish citizens of Nashville, Tennessee, in a typical display of the unity common Irish identity could birth even between the Civil War-era North and South.  The first Fenian raid, however, was a clumsy and poorly coordinated attack, and an embarrassment for their cause.

The second raid was longer but only slightly more successful.  Samuel Spiers, a ‘brigadier general’ of the Fenians, guided a force of slightly less than 1000 Fenians into Canada via Lake Champlain.  He fought two small battles not only with Canadian militia but also with British regulars on the 9th and 22nd of June, before running out of ammunition and surrendering.  Why Spier neglected to support O’Neill’s initial assault, as had apparently been the original plan, is a mystery.

Prince Arthur (1850-1942).
The seventh child of Queen
Victoria, he was pesent at the
Battle of Eccle's Hill at the age
of twenty.  He is seen here
in Highlander costume.
In the late 1860s, O’Neill settled in Vermont, where he styled himself the ‘general’ of the Fenian Brotherhood and prepared for another raid.  In 1870 he launched his newest assault, this time targeting Quebec.  He had under his command Spiers and around 400 Fenians as well as a solitary cannon; he was unaware, however, that his command had been infiltrated by the British and included the double agent William Billis Beach.

O’Neill was arrested by American police at the Canadian border, but Spiers led the Fenians into Canada, where they were almost immediately confronted by a mixed force of regulars and militia – partly commanded by Prince Arthur, son of Queen Victoria.  The result was the Battle of Eccle’s Hill on May 25th.  Beach disabled the Fenians’ only gun while the Fenians themselves were scattered by the Canadian forces, which included cavalry.  Five Fenians were killed and 18 were wounded – not a single Canadian was wounded or killed.

The relentless O’Neill attempted another, even more comical raid in October of 1871; his plot to invade Canada via Minnesota and join forces with the French-Indian Metis under Louis Riel (at that time, a more serious threat to Canadian security) resulted in himself and his 35 loyal followers being arrested by American soldiers.  This was to be the last of O’Neill’s schemes – he died in 1878.

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