Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

[EnglishCanuck]

Chapter 135: The Blood of Erin​

“The now joined British and Canadian force, absent the 13th Battalion, began marching on the Fenian position at Black Creek.

O’Neill had not been idle with his force. Fences had been torn down, shallow rifle pits dug, and his small pair of guns had been mounted at their most advantageous position. As George Denison III would write after the battle “It was clear by their preparations and dispositions this was no band of brigands, but a well trained veteran force.” He had roughly two dozen mounted men acting as scouts, and another 3,000 armed men who held the line. Facing him would be just over 4,000 Anglo-Canadians rapidly transported to the frontier by the night of June 4th.

Peacocke was unaware of the size of the Fenian force. Reports had laboriously filtered back and forth through the Fenian lines from civilians, detectives, and newspaper men who had traveled between the opposing camps between June 2nd and 4th. Some reports indicated as many as 10,000 Fenians, while others claimed as few as 1,500. By the morning of the 4th, the Fenians had at least stopped receiving reinforcements as the USS Michigan had finally interposed herself between Buffalo and Fort Erie. However, the Fenians had managed to bring over 4,000 across, and estimates held a further 2,000 had gathered in Buffalo, and were agitating to be allowed over to “get at the hated redcoats again” which caused considerable chagrin to local officials.

For all that the Anglo-Canadian force had gathered to strike the Fenians, with secure supplies in their rear and militia guarding the major points, O’Neill had failed to do the same. Roughly one thousand men were roaming the countryside seeking out the main body, and only some 400 men remained ‘on duty’ in Fort Erie, haphazardly guarding the river as the US Navy impotently looked on. It was going to depend on the day of battle itself to see the immediate outcome…

By this point almost every other Fenian assault had failed. Some 800 men had finally grown tired of Tevis’s inaction and crossed the Frontier at Sandwich, running straight into an equal number of Canadian militia. A paltry firefight had ensued, sending the Fenians fleeing across the border again in under fifteen minutes as neither side pressed their advantage.

Only near Prescott had the Fenians experience anything like success. Roughly 1,000 men had crossed the St. Lawrence River, landing near the old windmill that had served as the sight of the 1838 battle between the Patriot raiders and Canadian militia, capturing a small militia detachment after a short fight. They immediately marched towards Fort Wellington, with the militia and a company of regulars marching to meet them.

In the initial engagement near Chrysler’s Farm, the Fenians succeeded in driving the Canadians back. Their attempts to follow on June 3rd were hampered by their lack of logistics, the descent of Canadian gunboats and reinforcements, and the news that the United States Army had arrived on the other side of the river. Promptly a quarter of the force deserted, while the remainder kept on the path, coming up against the now much stronger Canadian force near Prescott.

Seeing that discretion was the better part of valor, and with no real way home, the Fenians surrendered and were taken into captivity…

June 4th opened with an artillery barrage on the Fenian position, with the Fenian guns firing back sporadically before being silenced by British field pieces. O’Neill’s men were not dug in deep enough to resist artillery, but the British barrage was aimed at the Fenian guns, and in a manner that it was hoped would demoralize the Fenians rather than destroy them. The Fenians though, were veterans from many battlefields, and it would take more than artillery to dislodge them.

Peacocke, believing the time had come, ordered his men to form up and advance…” - The Emergency of 1867, Howard Senior, 1986

“I cannot fault the tactical knowledge of Colonel Peacocke, he was a veteran of the War of 1862 and he had commanded his own men quite ably. We had no reason to believe this was anything less than a well armed band of freebooters. The way into the Fenian position had been, so it was reported, suppressed by artillery. Thus he ordered the advance.

In the next two hours, we would make two charges at the Fenians, and the combat was fierce. British and Canadian soldiers came to grapple with their foes. In many instances, I can verify, the fighting came down to hand to hand. These were not simple bandits, ready to flee at the first sign of resistance, this was a well motivated command under an able commander. Though the cavalry would not play a part that day, we were witnesses to the ordeal.

Without reservation I can say that the men of Canada and England fought well. We exchanged fire and blows with the enemy, but the enemy had chosen his position well. In time though, our advantage in firepower would tell. The Fenians began falling back in disciplined withdrawal, firing as they went. This was no route as the rebels had found at Tallaght Hill across the sea or a sullen withdrawal as at Eccles Hill only days earlier. It was a vicious repulse. But withdraw the enemy did.

It is merely to be regretted that it cost the lives of three hundred brave men with another four hundred casualties in such assaults!” - Soldiering In Canada, Recollections and Experiences of Brigadier General George T. Denison III, Toronto Press 1900

“...advance into Fort Erie almost uncontested. Skinner’s 800 men found Fenian guard parties, and in a brief skirmish of only an hour, had captured them. The short sharp fight to seize the town led to roughly 100 Fenian prisoners taken, with three dead for only two Canadian wounded. Skinner had carried out a difficult operation, one even against orders, and firmly cut the Fenians off from their retreat.

He now ordered the town defended, with small redoubts established along the rode, and tried to make contact with the column he knew would be proceeding from Thorold. Men were sent back to Port Colborne to summon reinforcements. He knew that there were more Fenians somewhere, but not where they were.

Little did he know that in his own short skirmish, hundreds of men were killing and dying but a few miles distant.

O’Neill’s retreat, while orderly, was handled under pressure. He knew now his only hope was to make it back to Fort Erie and, hopefully, extricate his forces so he could withdraw to Buffalo and then disperse his men. The great invasion of Canada had manifestly failed, and he had lost one hundred men already, minus the wounded an captured. A ragged column of 2,500 men marched back to Fort Erie, doggedly pursued by vengeful Anglo-Canadian forces. His last duty now was to withdraw and bring the brave men home, he felt.

To the great surprise of the Fenian forces, they encountered firing from Fort Erie. The British flag again flew over the settlement and men in red coats stood guard, waiting behind barricades as they watched the Fenian forces arrive. Skinner’s men were disheartened by the appearance of better than twice their number, but Skinner bravely walked the line and encouraged his boys calling them to “Take heart lads! We’ve whipped Yankees before!”

At the last, the exhausted Fenians hesitated. Many of them hanging back, while others moved to skirmish with the Canadians.

O’Neill now dreamt of one final stand to either break through, or to fight and die to distract the British in Canada as much as possible. Hynes however, managed to talk his commander out of a brazen last stand and convinced him that their men were exhausted. Most of their ammunition had been used up at the Battle of Black Creek, and they were now sandwiched between two forces. One smaller British force at the water’s edge, and finally the larger pursuing British column.

Relenting, O’Neill would instead choose to surrender his command, and his sword, to a slightly bewildered Skinner. O’Neill’s pride would not allow him to surrender to a proper British officer…

The Canadians now had nearly 4,000 prisoners, all of them American citizens. The question of what to do with them loomed large[1]…

Erin had been plying the coasts of the Bay of Fundy seizing fishing vessels for four days by the time she came upon the HMS Pylades. The ship had been patrolling the coasts since the year prior, tasked by Halifax with watching for more Fenian raids. The failure of the second cross border attack had only heightened the sudden awareness of the navy and Pylades was on alert.

She was sailing just along the international waters with Canada and the United States when it happened. Though we will never know what the Erin and her small crew were thinking, they approached the Pylades under the American flag. The presence of an American flagged vessel was not unusual, and Pylades merely moved along, signalling the crew of the Erin to be watchful. The Erin responded by pulling closer, which was deemed odd, but not startling.

Secret gunports snapped open and the Erin fired, shortly thereafter lowering the Stars and Stripes and raising the flag of the Irish Republic, the Fenian sunburst banner. Pylades crew, shocked, hesitated briefly until her captain bellowed them to battle stations. Men ran to their guns and the decks were cleared as Erin fired on. The sudden sea battle had broken out with intensity.

So far as we know the two ships were roughly evenly matched, but even with surprise, the Erin could not overcome the professionalism of the Pylades crew. In the hour long engagement, the Erin was less seaworthy, and Pylandes eventually outmanoeuvred the other vessel and began to pound her to splinters. The exact fate of the Erin is unknown, with her sinking being either the result of action, or the crew scuttling her to prevent her capture. In any event, no survivors were picked up, only half dead men fished from the water where they soon succumbed to their wounds.

As soon as Pylades made port, she telegraphed word of her battle to both Ottawa and London…

Despite some risings, the fighting in the Irish countryside had petered out by June 10th.​

The Shannon arrived off Cork under John Kavanagh on June 18th, intending to drop arms to the rebels and act as the basis for the new Fenian navy. Instead, she found the port bustling with British warships, and the Union Jack still flying high. Kavanagh, waiting offshore to see if fighting was still raging, did not wish to send men ashore. Lest the Royal Navy become suspicious, he waited for the next day to follow a fishing boat. Capturing the tiny vessel, he took the crew hostage and demanded news. They informed him the fighting had, largely, petered out.

Some fighting still erupted in the countryside, but the Fenians had largely been defeated. This news seemed to enrage Kavanagh, and he declared they would return to America, but first they would burn a British ship. The unfortunate fishermen were kept as hostages and their vessel sunk, while Kavanagh prowled the waters around Ireland.

The steamer Keogh was transiting across to Cardiff when Shannon encountered her. The Fenian crew proclaimed her a prize of the Irish Navy before setting the crew adrift and sinking the Keogh. The Irish owned vessel and mostly Irish crew, naturally, took a dim view of their supposed liberators and as soon as they were back to shore immediately reported the incident to the navy. Incidentally, the ships off Cork had been looking for the lost fishermen and when they turned up with the crew of the Keogh, sortied and gave chase to the “Irish pirates” as the press dubbed them.

The pursuit was swift, and despite able sailing, the Shannon was soon sighted and captured when the crew realized they could not outrun the pursuing British frigates. Seized and sailed back to Cork, Kavanagh and his men were interned, but soon learned that they would not be so lucky as the crew of the St. Patrick. They had seized British shipping in British waters and carried destruction to her shores, all while not being protected as combatants. They would be charged as pirates, a sentence that carried the death penalty[2]…” - The Emergency of 1867, Howard Senior, 1986

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1] Indeed the now looming question of what to do with a few thousand filibusters?

2] This would have been the fate of American or Confederate privateers OTL. The agreement of European nations to ban the practice of privateering effectively made anyone who participated in the practice a pirate. Some Confederates were interned in Capetown OTL because they tried this, but were ultimately let go because their officers were commissioned belligerents. They just didn't have a ship anymore. Kavanagh and his men won't be so lucky...

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Chapter 136: We’re All Americans​

“The general emerged from the train at Buffalo in a cloud of cigar smoke. With a regiment of infantry and a company of cavalry at his back, one of the greatest unsung heroes of the Great American War had stepped foot along the frontier to finally settle accounts. Ulysses S. Grant had come to put an end to the Fenian disturbances along the border.

This was but a part of his whirlwind tour which had begun on the 2nd of June with a rapid transit to the new Aroostook border, up to the steadily rising Fort Montgomery on the Quebec border, a jaunt to Ogdensburg, and now Buffalo. At each stop he had proclaimed that the Federal government demanded peace on the frontier. With the stick of Federal troops and arrest warrants in one hand, and the bread of offers of free transit home and no questions asked to any Fenian who desired it in the other, he was dispersing the Fenian army with little difficulty. Some truculent individuals refused to leave and were gently taken into custody, while the vast majority of the Fenians, now seeing the fighting as essentially over, took the general up on his offer. Thousands of men began streaming home with little more than a promise not to take up arms against Canada again.

Buffalo though, was where the chief concentration of militant Fenians remained. It was estimated 2,000 were still congregating in the town, hopeful for a chance to attack Britain and relieve their fellows so recently captured by the British. The fact that a barge load of Fenians sat imprisoned on the Niagara River under the watchful eye of American gunboats seemed to deter them little. In fact, some seemed emboldened, with many rescues having been undertaken with Fenians being picked up in ones and twos by boaters under the watchful eye of the navy, whose main concern was ensuring they didn’t cross the border.

Grant had, ironically, come to town amidst cheers from many Fenians. They were soldiers who had fought with him across the West from 1862-64, and even many in Buffalo that day had fought against him. The old rivalries had been put aside in favor of striking at the true enemy, the British[1]. Grant though, had little time for this trans-Atlantic rivalry. He had been ordered to disperse the Fenians and he would disperse them.

In a speech to men, not only of Fenian extraction, but soldiers called up from the interior to provide security, Grant reminded them all that they were soldiers. Or had been. He congratulated brave men “willing to fight and die for a noble cause” but cautioned “men must not bring the quarrels of Europe to our doorstep.” He implored men not to risk lives and livelihood for a cause that was not, inevitably, doomed. This was confirmed by the reports of the failure of the rising in Ireland, and by reports all along the frontier that the invasion had failed. Nowhere had Fenian forces successfully taken Canadian territory, and everywhere the Fenians were disbanding or being taken into custody.

General O’Neill himself was a prisoner across the border, and Sweeney was facing comfortable incarceration at Albany. Grant said “the game is up” and the remaining Fenians took him at his word. Especially as he promised the government would do all it could to free those imprisoned in Canada…” - The Emergency of 1867, Howard Senior, 1986

“It was a difficult situation. Thousands of Americans were now prisoners in Canada, and all of them had been engaged in unprovoked violence against the Canadian people. Unlike after 1864 when the thousands of American prisoners had been released, these were not soldiers engaged and protected under the rules of war, but fillibusters coming to annex Canada in a mad scheme to liberate Ireland. With some 400 Canadians dead, the public cried for blood.

Macdonald now faced another international crisis a mere year into the creation of Canada. When Fenian prisoners were marched through Toronto, mobs swore, struck and hurled garbage at the captured men. The military escort had to do more to keep the Fenians from being torn apart rather than prevent their escape.. They were dispatched across the new country, from Toronto, to London, Kingston, Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa. Housing them proved a problem, and it was hoped to parole as many as possible before trying the ring leaders.

Unfortunately, Macdonald’s hope for a simple solution, was at odds with public opinion. Worse, his old adversary, George Brown, had returned at precisely the wrong moment.

Brown had been enjoying his honeymoon in Europe, but had returned just at the tail end of the 1867 crisis. From the Globe, fiery articles had been running daily regarding the “Fenian Menace” which was on the minds of every Canadian in the waning days of June. Brown, still not agreeing with the centralizing direction he saw Macdonald embarking on, immediately took to the presses to demand justice for Canadians, which meant death to Fenians.

“It must be the policy of this government to mete out to the Fenians a hard justice. Once and for all we must make it known that a crime against Canada shall be faced with stern force and unyielding might. Those piratical bands which have in past weeks preyed on the Canadian population must be treated as the enemies of all humanity, and met with the noose.”

What the public desired in the dangerous days of 1867 was for each Fenian to get a long drop with a short rope. Macdonald however, rejected any such notion with show trials, and ordered that fair trials would be undertaken. However, even he realized that the process of trying over 4,000 Fenian prisoners would be an arduous one and some expediency would have to be offered. Thus, military tribunals were established. Macdonald’s familiarity with them, both from the war and in the aftermath of the 1837-38 Patriot Rebellions, meant he realized that they could be both remarkably lenient and also unflinchingly cruel.

This required partnering with Governor General Monck, who, acting on orders from Whitehall, leaned on his officers and officials not to use the death penalty. Men who were captured without arms were simply ordered deported, at a stroke sending 500 Fenians home. Men captured under arms were divided into two categories, those who had surrendered after a battle, and those who had largely surrendered without a fight. The latter were again deported, sending a further 1,200 Fenians home.

It was that former category, some 2,000 men, who would prove more troublesome. Most of those had been caught fighting, and many had undoubtedly killed or wounded Canadians. This was a more sensitive matter. Almost all of them were American citizens, so executing them would provoke a response. However, some had undoubtedly committed crimes worthy of the death penalty.

Fenian generals were now celebrities in captivity. Most had been moved to the Kingston Penitentiary where they could be watched not just by the civil authorities, but under close scrutiny from the garrison in Kingston, strengthened against any further attempts by the Fenians to cross the frontier. However, the biggest nuisance would be the hordes of reporters practically besieging the jail begging for interviews with the Fenian officers.

O’Neill in particular was famous. He had occupied parts of Canada longer than any other force, and led his men in the first independent Irish formation against Britain in centuries. Praised by the presses in America, he was called an Irish national hero, while the now virulent turning Anglophobic press praised his ability to “show John Bull what was what” with an American spirit.

Even Macdonald expressed a desire to hang him, but held off, hoping that the public passions would cool down. He wouldn’t even schedule a trial. For the other Fenians though, that was expectation.

The first large trial of Fenian officers, a gaggle of fifty captains, was held on June 20th. They were led under heavy guard to the courthouse, a packed in with curious onlookers and reporters, a ring of bayonet wielding redcoats keeping the crowd at bay. In the opening remarks they were all charged with breaking the peace, theft, arson of public property, and manslaughter[2]. The judge, alongside his military fellows, declared that they were not properly protected by any rules of war, and so the military tribunal was out to determine their culpability in the invasion.

When asked for any words in their defence, one Fenian sprang up and declared “We are all Americans here! We have no need to recognize this mistrial of justice! If you wish, hang us and be done!” This prompted cheers from the other Fenian officers, shouts of “Down with the Queen” and other patriotic American slogans. The courtroom became uncontrollable thereafter and the days proceedings were suspended.

Leaning hard on this tribunal, Macdonald encouraged the militia officers and civil officials to press for hard labor. Even if there was unequivocal evidence the men had ordered murder. This was issued in the strictest secrecy as Brown, and now other emerging liberals, banged the drum of vengeance loud. So loud that even Macdonald’s own supporters were inquiring why some of the worst offenders were not simply hanged. Kingston was the perfect place for it, some reasoned.

The Fenian’s outburst revealed a basic truth though. The Fenians were American citizens. Their fates would be inextricably linked to an American response, and there was no saying that the United States would not take exception to the execution, however justified, of her citizens…” – Nation Maker: The Life of John A. Macdonald, Richard Chartrand, Queens University Publishing, 2005

“The Fenian trials were a divisive headache. Some Americans, McClellan included, believed that they ‘deserved whatever they got’ but they were so popular amongst Irish-American circles, a group that had come out for McClellan in 1864, that it would be political suicide to ignore their demands that the Fenians be freed at once.

Such a demand was, of course, impossible to accede to, but McClellan had competing priorities. Britain had responded to the crisis by sending more warships to North America, and the navy had already been forced to step up its own patrols along the coast. There were now almost 20,000 soldiers on the frontier with Canada to keep the peace, and it might require more. Even with the Fenians dispersing, there were many who feared they would return.

Seymour had already taken two direct and terse meetings with the British ambassador, Edward Thornton. Thankfully for McClellan, Thornton was not a war hawk. He had a skill for defusing situations, and had been appointed to the United States after smoothing over relations with the Empire of Brazil who had cut diplomatic ties with the British in 1863[3]. Now, he sought to avert a second war in a decade with the United States.

Matters had not been helped by his first instructions from London. There had been a, for Palmerston, characteristically blunt demand, bordering on order, for the United States to disperse the Fenians operating along the border. Even Seymour’s ability for compromise was strained by such a demand, and only a softer intervention a few days later with a diplomatic request had saved relations. However, it had come with a stern warning that Britain was not afraid to risk war with the United States should they continue to “materially and politically support the Fenian Brotherhood in the invasion of British territory.”

McClellan of course balked at such demands. Incorrectly he assumed that Thornton was pushing a hard line. The truth was far different, but McClellan could not see it as he could not simply sit down with Thornton and had to relay all information through Seymour. But with the crisis looming, this would never do, and Seymour and the President crafted a somewhat clever plan to both bypass protocol and public opinion.

Thornton was invited by Ellen to the White House to have a luncheon with the ladies as a show of good faith alongside his wife. At the luncheon, McClellan appeared to visit his wife, and as if by accident, ran into Thornton. He suggested a walk through the grounds so the ladies would not bore him with trivial talk. Walking then as gentlemen, they could discuss matters face to face.

Here McClellan learned Thornton was not a warhawk, and Thornton learned that McClellan had no desire to materially support the Fenians. However, Thornton reiterated that some justice had to be meted out to men who had invaded Canada. McClellan pressed on whether the men would be executed, and Thornton assured the president that the Fenian prisoners in Canada would not face the death penalty. At worst, life imprisonment, but he assured him that the Fenians were instead being sentenced to years of hard labor.

Finally, the most difficult matter. The crew of the Shannon. They were to a man American citizens. McClellan implored Thornton to push the British government not to execute the men as pirates. Thornton reminded McClellan that the men had used the American flag as camouflage for acts of indisputable piracy in British waters. “We could expect no less from your government were the flag a Union Jack fluttering over a Confederate pirate,” Thornton would say.

This would not satisfy the American public who, McCllelan said, would demand war. Thornton reiterated that neither he or his government wanted war, but if compelled as they had been in 1862[4], they would fight again. McClellan said he could not flout the will of the American people. But beyond the posturing, both men reiterated their commitment to peace and bringing a practical conclusion to the current crisis.

McClellan left the meeting with some hope, but now fretting over a trial an ocean away. He would soon have cause to fret about trials much closer to home. The level of his government’s involvement in the ongoing crisis was about to be revealed…” - I Can Do It All: The Trials of George B. McClellan, Alfred White, 1992, Aurora Publishing

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1] True. The Fenians were an all over group of veterans with many from the South coming north to fight for Ireland, and taking up arms alongside men they had been shooting at, in some cases, merely a year earlier in 1865 during the OTL 1866 invasion.

2] A crime that was on the books. Considering the mass scale of the accused and the near impossibility of figuring out who fired the fatal shots, very few Fenians would be charged with murder. The historical prisoners were mostly charged with lesser crimes for this reason.

3] True to OTL. Britain is doing some foreign damage control with relations after the war here too. Even with how high handed they might be, they do not desire another war with America.

4] This is an American author saying what a British person in 1867 believes. Most Americans blame Britain on her own, but some blame Lincoln for causing Britain’s entry into the war. It’s a complicated topic to say the least.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Chapter 137: Baltimore Blues​

“The collusion of members of the United States Army in offering material help to the Fenians was not difficult to foresee. Men in the army had tried to alert Washington about the ties between Fenians and officers hostile to Britain, but it was seen as a minor problem or brushed aside. British agents had reported to their superiors, who had then reported covertly to the United States, that there was pipeline of weapons to the Fenian cause. This too was ignored. Despite the efforts of well meaning officers, all efforts to stop any work by the Fenians to infiltrate or profit from the army were ignored.

This was because the Secretary of War wished it so. Benjamin Butler earnestly believed that a ‘plan of action’ was needed to keep the substantial Irish vote on side. He was also Anglophobic by nature, which made supporting an Irish attack on the British an added bonus in his eyes. While historians have never found a ‘smoking gun’ showing Butler had ordered the support of the Fenians, but as his contemporaries discovered, an unusual volume of evidence showed many of his decisions in the lead up to the Crisis of 1867 to be more than a coincidence.

Seymour, dealing directly with many of the irate demands from Britain, felt compelled to use his power as Secretary of State in a way he had often decried his predecessor Seward for, investigating American citizens. He hired detectives, swore in agents to monitor Fenian agitators on American soil, and most importantly of all, monitored army officers with known Fenian sympathies.

It had been his willingness to shadow General Sweeney which revealed some of the other Fenian agents, and allowed him to trace a number of arms dealers who had supplied the Fenian caches. The help of a Fenian double agent, Colonel Le Caron, also lent Seymour’s agents significant aide in tracking down weapons meant for the invasion and seizing them before they could be collected. This was how the large cache in Baltimore was discovered…

In what can only be described as a black comedy, the investigation by Pinkerton agents into the Fenian arms smuggling ring then ended with a shoot out between Pinkertons and War Department agents who were guarding a warehouse full of rifles that had unofficially been sold to the Fenians. Two War Department agents were shot and killed with a third wounded, while a single Pinkerton was wounded in the exchange. The whole fiasco was then broken up with the six Pinkertons and four surviving War Department agents apprehended by the Baltimore Police and imprisoned. Upon receiving the news, both Seymour and Butler would send men racing to Baltimore to try and take custody of the men in question. Seymour’s men arrived first, but had to argue with a company of United States infantry that they had jurisdiction to detain the men, and only an order from the President himself cleared up any confusion and packed the offenders off to prison in Washington.

Under interrogation it was determined that only two of the men were actually from the army, while the remainder were Boston detectives associated with Butler and protecting his brother’s trading interests. The particularly dire threats leveled against the detectives soon wrung out a whole scandal of smuggling and efforts to dodge the tariffs on British goods in a particularly lucrative scheme to undercut domestic competitors for New England railroad companies that Andrew Butler had invested in. When the story broke in October, it sent shock waves through the domestic political scene and immediate inquiries were demanded into the conduct of the Minister of War.

While the investigation into the Fenians was underway in a separate Congressional investigation, the uncovering of the Boston Ring would prove an enormous headache for the President and his allies…” - The Era of Hard Feelings, William Avery, Random House, 1989

“McClellan, naturally, had no clue how deep Butler’s duplicitous dealings went outside the War Department. While historians still debate whether it was a willful ignorance or complete ignorance, this author leans towards the latter belief. The evidence seems clear that McClellan was completely taken aback by the news his Secretary of War had known about the large Fenian arms shipments and sales, but had done almost everything in his power to aid them rather than stop them.

Immediately he demanded Butler’s resignation, which after several days of resistance, Butler delivered to the White House and stepped down. The damage was already done however. A firestorm erupted on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Can it be doubted that the United States is a fallen nation willing to export its own chaos and demagoguery to every corner of the globe?” The Times would thunder. Other newspapers were no less outraged in their condemnation once the extent to which the American involvement became public. There were few in London who believed that McClellan, despite his honest dealings with Thornton. The British press pilloried him almost as much as the domestic press.

Horace Greeley, long an implacable foe of the President, used the New York Tribune to splash all reported developments (no matter how inaccurate) onto the front page of his newspapers. John Hay, Lincoln’s former secretary turned editorial writer, haunted the halls of Washington seeking any details he could to sell copy and discredit the president. Any newspapers hostile to the administration followed suit. Soon Washington was "practically besieged by reporters,” Barlow would grumble. Indeed, many prominent men would have to leave their offices while continuously hounded by newspapermen, often fleeing under cover of night to avoid them.

McClellan would not make matters better. A week after accepting Butler’s resignation, he took his wife and infant son to Cape May, pleading the need to watch for his wife’s ill health. The opposition press crowed that McClellan had again led another ‘masterful retreat’ in the face of his enemies. Though he maintained constant correspondence with his supporters and cabinet through Barlow, and Seymour would go to the Columbia House where McClellan camped out with his wife. There the two men would coordinate the investigation into Butler’s misdeeds, perform damage control on both the foreign and domestic front, and McClellan would issue a sweeping arrest order for any of the Fenian leadership.

This would not go far enough for some, and in the House, the Senate became furious…” - I Can Do It All: The Trials of George B. McClellan, Alfred White, 1992, Aurora Publishing

“The Special Tribunal for the Handling of Military Affairs, as the long winded title for the committee would be officially known, but the press simply dubbed the Fenian Commission, met on July 5th 1867, and began using the information obtained by Seymour, and calling special witnesses to testify before the Commission. It began to show a long string of damning evidence against Butler and select members of the United States Army.

…little written evidence could be produced, but enough was circumstantial enough to be damning. A dozen officers were implicated in, at the very least, the unlawful sales of weapons, military supplies, and munitions to unknown sources. Corruption was rooted out in the Department of New England, and several clerks in the War Office were implicated in filing false reports regarding the storage of military supplies. The Commission’s efforts to fully pin Butler, and especially McClellan, as willing dupes of the Fenians, proved more difficult.

Prominent officers with known Fenian sympathies were hauled before the Commission, and under questioning revealed that they were indeed granted ‘generous’ leave by the War Office. Only in Sweeney’s case could the personal hand of Butler be felt however, as he had been granted an extended leave which seemed to serve little purpose beyond cover for organizing the Fenian invasion of Canada. But Sweeney would not elaborate, and even Butler himself when compelled to testify simply said he was acknowledging the request of a war hero.

Despite the most intensive effort at prosecution, the Republican opposition could not find any concrete evidence on the President, and even Butler was merely found to be ‘derelict in his duty’ which was a judgement that, while satisfying, carried little legal precedent for charges. From the perspective of Butler’s enemies, the investigations had turned up many corrupt dealings by his brother Andrew, becoming known as the “Baltimore Ring” where a large cartel of corrupt customs officials and local agents had turned a massive profit both during and after the war. That would lead to separate federal investigations.

Even without concrete evidence, the Republicans and Radicals in the House moved to attempt to impeach the president that winter. Though blasted by some moderates as “as waste of resources” it was the one bright spot in cooperation between the two factions since the end of the war…

…touring New York in the winter of 1867. At a meeting of local prominent veterans and officers, including his old friend Daniel Sickles, Hooker was asked to give a speech. Hooker declared he was not one for public speaking but spoke of the ‘dark times’ that the republic was facing. He addressed a very small crowd, no more than one hundred men, but when he spoke a chord was struck. Though his speech was recorded in full, this excerpt was the most reprinted “We must now act to conserve what has made this great republic a beacon of liberty and democracy against tyranny for nearly a century. It is in the interests of all that our leaders in Washington work to form a working consensus for the nation.” Which while mild, would cement the formation of a new political movement on the American stage…” - The Era of Hard Feelings, William Avery, Random House, 1989