Confederate Operations from Canada

[NFB22]

I've been trying to find examples of CS Army and Navy operations based out of Canada and so far this is all i've been able to find.

St. Albans Raid - On Oct 19, 1864 21 Confederate calvary led by Lt. Bennett Young raided the town of St. Albans, Vermont. The calvarymen robbed the 3 banks in town and made off with over $200,000 and then attempted to burn the town but failed. 1 town citizen was killed during the raid and another wounded. 1 raider was also wounded during the raid and apparently died a short time afterwards.

USS Michigan/Johnson's Island Raid - In late 1864 CS Navy sailors and privateers under the command of John Yates Beall captured the steamers Philo Parsons and Island Queen. After scuttling the Island Queen Beall sailed for Johnson's Island in Lake Erie off the coast of Ohio. Johnson's Island housed a POW camp and the gunboat USS Michigan was anchored off the island to help guard the prisoners. Bealls plan was along with a POW camp uprising to capture the Union guards at the camp and the Michigan. However the Confederate plans were discovered and the raid was abandoned. Beall then sailed back to Canada and scuttled the Philo Parsons.

These are the only 2 examples I managed to find for actual military operations. Any other operations were usually staged by Southern "agents" and involved robbing banks, attempting to incite riots in major urban centers in the north, or trying to sabatoge or set fire to cities and military targets in Union states along the east coast.

 

[16thVA]

You might try a book called "Confederate Agent, A Discovery in History" by James D. Horan, it concerns Confederate operations in Canada, raids in Vermont and Maine, the plan to burn New York, Beall's raid on Lake Erie, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-Agent-James-D-Horan/dp/B001Q91J4K/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343539339&sr=1-1&keywords=confederate agent

Also John W. Headley's "Confederate Operations in Canada and New York".

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...ywords=confederate+operations+canada+new+york

 

[Sid J.]

By some means, I know not how, information was received in the prison that certain agents of the Confederate government in Canada would come to the island in steamboats captured on Lake Erie to release the prisoners. It was agreed that when they approached and blew a horn the prisoners would storm the walls and overpower the guards. We, therefore, organized ourselves into companies and regiments and waited anxiously for the sight of the boats and the sound of the horn. Though we had no arms, except such as the rage of the moment might supply, and did not doubt that some of us would be killed, we were ready to fulfil our part of the desperate contract; and we felt no doubt of success, for the Hoffman Battalion that composed our guard had never been in battle nor heard the rebel yell. The expected rescuers never came. There must have been some real foundation for the proposed movement, for very soon the guard was reinforced by a veteran brigade, and the gunboat Michigan came and anchored near the island and showed her threatening portholes.

Dunaway, Wayland Fuller. Reminiscences of a Rebel (Kindle Locations 809-817). . Kindle Edition.

 

[Sid J.]

On the 9th of November the humdrum routine at my district headquarters was interrupted by a dispatch from the officer commanding at Detroit, Michigan, giving warning of what was more explicitly reported in one of the 10th, saying that he was positively informed that within forty-eight hours two armed steamers would attack Johnson's Island and release the prisoners held there. [Footnote: Official Records, series ii. vol. vi. pp. 491, 495, 635.] The military prison at Johnson's Island was built for the confinement of Confederate officers who had been captured in battle, and their number was so large that to release them would be an enterprise of no little importance, if successful. The island lay in Sandusky Bay, within a few hours' sail of several Canadian ports. Its garrison consisted of a single regiment which had all the employment it needed to furnish the ordinary prison guards, and would be entirely too weak to oppose any considerable force attacking from without, especially as it would be prudent to assume that such an attack would be accompanied by an outbreak of the prisoners within. I immediately communicated with Governor Tod and with the Commissary of Prisoners at Washington, Colonel Hoffman, and on the same day sent a battery of three-inch rifled cannon and 500 newly raised recruits to Sandusky. I telegraphed the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, our consul-general at Montreal, asking what he could learn in Canada as to the threatened expedition. He thought it was the mere "bombast" of Confederate emissaries and refugees in the Canadian provinces, and made light of it. On the 12th, however, the Secretary of War telegraphed me that Lord Lyons, the British ambassador, confirmed the report, and directed me to take energetic action to defeat the expected raid. The dispatch reached me at nine o'clock in the morning, and as it would be necessary to consult with the governor and get him to call out a force of State militia, I telegraphed him that I would go to Columbus on the half-past-ten train from Cincinnati, and asked him to be ready to call out the militia as soon as I could see him. I then sent messages to the commandants of militia regiments near the railway line, requesting them to call out their men at once in anticipation of an order from the governor to proceed to Sandusky. I also communicated with my subordinates in command at Detroit, Sandusky, and Columbus, giving a hint of my purposes.

Under the terms of the treaty with Great Britain, our navy was represented by a single vessel of war on Lake Erie, the steamer "Michigan," which carried a battery of eight or ten guns. She was ordered to Sandusky to co-operate with me at the same time that I was directed to go there.
Cox, Jacob Dolson. Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2 November 1863-June 1865 (72- 75). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.