Montreal's Confederate past revealed, from conspirators to sympathizers
The city was a hotbed of conspirators, sympathizers and raiders in the early 1860s
*Originally published on Sept. 12, 2023.
When investigative journalist Julian Sher was studying Canadian history at McGill University in Montreal, he found a plaque at the Hudson Bay flagship building that surprised him. The plaque honoured Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865, when nearly four million people were enslaved.
"I remember thinking two things. Why is there a plaque to the leader of the slave South in my city? And what's it still doing here?" Sher told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed as they toured Montreal streets together.
The plaque was mounted in 1957 and removed in 2017. It prompted Sher to dig deeper into Canada's history, specifically around Montreal. He shares what he discovered in his latest book, The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln.
The award-winning journalist spoke to Nahlah Ayed about Canada's forgotten history and how Montreal was a hotbed for Southern sympathizers who laundered money, Confederate raiders were treated like kings, and Lincoln's assassin was plotted.
Here are excerpts from Julian Sher's conversation, starting with the subject of the plaque for Confederate President Jefferson Davis. For the full discussion, listen and follow the IDEAS podcast, on your favourite podcast player.
Jefferson Davis' time in Montreal
JS: It's 1867. The war has been over for two years. Jefferson Davis, as the disgraced deposed leader of the slave South, has been in jail. And the very moment he gets bail, where does he go? He doesn't go to Memphis. He doesn't go to Mississippi. He doesn't go to Mobile, Alabama. He goes straight to Montreal. And why does he come to Montreal? Well, he says it in a speech.
He'll at one point say, "May peace and prosperity be the blessing of Canada, for she has been an asylum to many of my friends and now she is an asylum for myself." He knows it has been an asylum for many years for his Confederate agents who were terrorists and financiers and supporters of the South and blockade runners and scoundrels and spies.
One night he goes just a few blocks from here to a theatre. He's quite frail. So he's trying to keep somewhat of a low profile. He walks into the theatre late and the crowd recognizes him. And suddenly the place stops. The band breaks out into Dixie Cheers and applauds. Applause goes on for about half an hour. There's a cry: "May the South rise again!" This is Montreal, 1867.
Jefferson Davis would never get that reception in Boston, in New York or Philadelphia. He'll go on to Toronto, St. Catharines, Niagara, where there are thousands of cheering crowds and newspapers that treat him as kind of — not a defeated disgraced slave owner — but a hero.
John Wilkes Booth visits the St. Lawrence Hall
JS: We're on the corner of Notre Dame and Saint Francois Xavier. And [this] was where the most illustrious famous hotel in Canada at the time, the St. Lawrence Hall stood. This hotel would advertise as being a comfortable place for the rich and famous to come. You know, kings and princes and leaders of the army would come here.
But this was also the headquarters for the Confederates who hung out in Canada.
Confederates would occupy entire suites and floors. And then Lincoln would send Union spies to hang out at the hotel and watch the Confederates. The owner of the hotel, Henry Hogan, had a peephole in his office so he could watch the goings on. And if you go to Ottawa and look at our National archives, they have the hotel registry, and you could see the names of famous Confederates.
NA: Did you see that?
Yes. So you have Jacob Thomson, who was the head of the Confederate Secret Service in Canada. Sarah Slater, one of the main spies and couriers. And John Wilkes Booth himself stays here.
NA: That's incredible. What was he doing here? John Wilkes Booth.
It's the fall of 1864. The war is going very badly for the Confederates. John Wilkes Booth is kind of the Brad Pitt of North America at the time. He was a famous, dashing young actor, a committed supporter of the Southern Confederacy. A man who despised Lincoln. He begins to plot to kidnap Lincoln, in order to bargain Lincoln's life for the exchange of the tens of thousands of Confederate prisoners who are in prisons all along the Canadian border.
So he has this plot and where does he go? He goes to Montreal. He knows this is where some of the leading Confederate agents are. He knows this is where they're getting their money and their support. He checks in at the St. Lawrence Hall. The owner who admires Booth, makes sure he gets one of the best rooms. Booth settles in. He's playing cards with some of the leading Confederate agents and spies. And one night he plays pool in Dooley's bar at the St Lawrence Hall. I like to say that if Montreal was the Casablanca during the Civil War, Dooley's bar was Rick's Cafe.
John Wilkes Booth comes in and probably the only person who was more famous than John Wilkes Booth, he would have been recognized by everybody, was the man playing pool, a man named Joseph Dion, who was the Quebec billiards champion. The two start playing pool. And according to John, as the night goes on and as Booth consumes more and more alcohol, he starts bragging and the elections are coming up in a few weeks. Lincoln is up for re-election in November 1864, and Booth, as they are shooting pool will boast, it doesn't matter what happens in the election. He says heads or tails, a contract is up, his goose is cooked. Those are scary words when you realize a few months later Booth will put a bullet in the back of the head of Abraham Lincoln. So he already had that notion when he's visiting Montreal that he was going to eliminate Abraham Lincoln one way or the other.
Confederate raiders treated like heroes
NA: It wasn't only spies and exiles here in Canada, it was Raiders themselves attacking the new union from Canada. Can you talk about the St Albans raid?
JS: So it's the fall of 1864 and the Confederates are determined to give the North a taste of their own medicine. Bennet Young is a young cavalry leader. The Confederates had already tried several unsuccessful raids from Canada into the northern states, hoping to break out the many Confederate prisoners who were being held in northern prisons. Young said, why don't we attack these unprotected northern towns?
He picks a small town in Vermont called St Albans, just across the border, largely unprotected, but big enough to have several banks. And in October, he will lead a small band of 20 men who arrive dressed as Canadian tourists. They announce they are taking over the town in the name of the Confederacy. They rob three banks in the space of a few minutes of $200,000. Kill an innocent bystander. Try to burn down the town. Gallop away on horseback and make it to the Canadian border. They make it to the Canadian side, but they're quickly arrested and they will be put on trial. Now, the Americans expect that these terrorists who committed, you know, a war crime and bank theft and murdered an innocent citizen would be duly prosecuted and extradited.
NA: And there was a lot of outrage about how the Raiders were treated in prison.
Yes, you'd think that in the midst of a civil war, we would treat prisoners accused of a heinous crime, even if we were neutral, with a certain amount of rigour. Instead, they got wonderful wine and food served on white linen tablecloths. Montreal's elite would come from downtown and mingle with these famous heroes. Young would have an affair with the daughter of the judge who would later acquit him. The New York Times talks about how the fine ladies of Montreal come down to see the Confederate prisoners. It's shocking. And it goes to everything that these stone buildings can't hide, that Confederate scoundrels, spies, mercenaries, the Confederate agents were not hiding in Canada. Even when they were in jail, they were heralded as heroes and feted.
Canada born in the wake of the war
NA: In Canada, 1867 was the Year of Confederation. So stories about Davis and support for the defeated South were being printed on the same page as the stories about the new country of Canada. Where did those two events meet?
JS: I think where they met is in the myths we started telling ourselves. Canada was born in the midst of the Civil War, 1867. This is the birth of Canada. The war was only over in 1865. I think we would argue we had the blood of the Civil War on our hands on both sides. Many Canadians fought on the union side, but of course, we supported the terror attacks by the king, by the Confederates. So our hands are all over the Civil War whether we like it or not.
And I think just as the Americans are trying to grapple now with their past and the legacy of slavery, I think we in Canada can't be so complacent and say, 'Oh, that's America's problems, that's their mess.' No, it's our mess. We have ownership of that, too. Abraham Lincoln famously said: "history is not history if it's not the truth." Why run away from our history when it has so much to teach us?
*Q&A edited for clarity and length. This episode was produced by Matthew Lazin-Ryder.
