Ideas - Montreal's hidden Confederate history

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Montreal was a hotbed of spies and conspirators during the U.S. Civil War. IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed and investigative journalist Julian Sher, author of The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln, tour Montreal’s past and present, tracing the city’s hidden Confederate past.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. John Wilkes Booth, like so many Confederates before and after him, will come to this corner to stay at the biggest, most famous hotel in Canada at the time, the St. Lawrence Hall. And one night, he plays pool in Dooley's Bar at the St. Lawrence Hall. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. I like to say that if Montreal was Casablanca during the Civil War,

Dooley's Bar was Rick's Cafe. Julian Scher and I are walking through old Montreal. He's an award-winning journalist. He was an investigative reporter for the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and a long-time producer with the CBC's Fifth Estate, where we first met and worked on an investigation together. But before all that, when he was just a student, he came across a simple plaque.

I'm studying Canadian history and I'm walking just a few blocks down from the campus, which is up there. And I come to the bay, Hudson Bay flagship building in Montreal. And there on the wall here is a plaque to Jefferson Davis, the leader, the deposed, defeated president of the Slave South, you know, where 3.5 million people were kept in bondage. And 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? in my city? And what's it still doing here? In his new book, The North Star, he answers those questions and more. In this episode, Julian Scher and I take a tour through Montreal, visiting sites where Confederates laundered money, where Confederate raiders were treated

like kings, and Lincoln's assassin prepared and plotted. The plaque was right here on one of the main streets in Montreal, St. Catherine and Union. It was downtown Montreal and back in the 1860s this was the center of a bustling town. Montreal had about a hundred thousand people. It was one of the biggest cities in British North America. This was the center of high life. So why was Jefferson Davis's plaque here? Because 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. He gets bail after two years.

And the very moment he gets bail, where does he go? He doesn't go to Memphis, doesn't go to Mississippi, doesn't go to Mobile, Alabama. He goes straight to Montreal. Literally gets on a train, goes to New York, and then comes 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.

Jefferson Davis, the slave leader, praises Canada because 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, and then to himself. He settles into Montreal. Right away, he gets to live in a comfortable mansion. Right away, he gets to live in a comfortable mansion. He will eventually move to other homes and also find a comfortable place in Montreal's eastern townships. And so he's welcomed here as a hero. Who else would have been living around here? We're only a few blocks from the river. And the banks and the fancy stores and hotels all along the street, I was looking at advertisements, right? And there were advertisements, of course, for fancy men's hats and European jewelry and fine foods.

And for people from the south, for the rich elites from the south, their cities were being destroyed by war. There was a blockade. the south. Their cities were being destroyed by war. There was a blockade. So they would flee and have the comforts of a rich town that welcomed them. So he would go out with the local bankers and leading politicians. One night, he goes just a few blocks from here to a theater. he goes just a few blocks from here to a theater. He's quite frail. He's a little, you know, shaken. So he's trying to keep somewhat of a low profile. He walks into the theater late and the crowd recognizes him.

And suddenly the play stops. The band breaks out into Dixie. Cheers and applause go 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, in Philadelphia. Hard to believe it happened in Canada. He gets that hero's welcome in Montreal, and it will continue.

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. Can you kind of situate where on the wall it would have been? It was a dark browns plaque high up on this wall. The wall's about, you know, 15, 20 feet high, and you could touch it if you reached up with your hands. Now, it was put here by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Canadians? No, this was an openly pro-Confederate group

that exists to this day. They were born right after the war and they became one of the pinnacles of what became the Lost Cause. The Civil War is the only war I know where the losers got to write the history. Usually it's the victors. The United Daughters of the Confederacy were devoted to kind of portraying the Confederates and the South as the good guys in the battle.

They were the ones who first said, we have to be sure, and this was back like in the 19th century, we have to be sure the history books don't paint the Confederacy in a bad way. We have to watch what they say about slavery and racism. They started the rewriting of history. They put up this plaque to put their stamp on the history of the Confederacy in Montreal. And what happened to the plaque in the end? 2017, I'm sitting at my CBC office in Montreal. And what happened to the plaque in the end? 2017, I'm sitting at my CBC office in Montreal. Confederate statues are going down across the United States because of Black Lives Matter, because of the controversy, the need for the U.S. to reconcile its past. And I call up my daughter, who at the time is working at CBC Montreal.

I remember this plaque that I had seen 50 years ago, and I told my daughter, I said, Miriam, you should check at the bay. I think the plaque is still there. Sure enough, CBC goes down, the bay removes it that day, and you could see the video and the picture on the web of two workers taking off the plaque. Now, the problem is, is that you can't just remove a plaque and that's erasing our history again. But I don't think you can just sweep away the past like that.

We need to keep digging. Benefit at the Theatre Royale, Montreal. Jefferson Davis Present. A Southerner's account of his enthusiastic reception. Hats were tossed in the air. Ladies waved their handkerchiefs. The name of our illustrious fellow countrymen rang loud and long from pit to dome. Then the cry, Dixie, Dixie, Dixie, echoed and echoed and re-echoed until the orchestra sounded forth that air so sacred to Southerners. Such a display of enthusiasm I never witnessed.

The sympathy of these people is strongly with the South. The New York Times, August 4th, 1867. Julian Sher joins me back in our studio. Julian, the plaque, of course, speaks to a picture that's completely out of step with what we tell ourselves about Canada's history, specifically where slavery is concerned. What do you think the modern day perception is of Canada's role during the war? Well, you know, it's captured in books and movies. There's a heritage minute that kind of tells the typical and quite accurate story, the moving story

that the minute an escaped slave stepped foot in Canada, they were free. The Underground Railway. The Underground Railroad. We were the end of the Underground Railroad. It's estimated that as many as 30,000 escaped enslaved people made their way to Canada, settled in Canada, became citizens in Canada and contributed to our country. So we're very proud of that. Martin Luther King comes to Canada in 1967, a year before he will be assassinated, and

he calls Canada a North Star, that Canada will always be that beacon of freedom. So that's true, and it's something we should be proud of. But it does hide the uglier truth that while common people and a few members of our elites, a few outspoken church and newspaper editors spoke out for abolition and harbored the slaves, the vast majority of our businessmen, politicians, newspaper editors, church leaders were on the wrong side of the war. We supported the South. What was the official position where Canada was concerned or the British empires on the war going on in the States? That's where the problem started. The war starts, right?

Now, think about it. This is a civil war. This is an illegal secession by a bunch of states who are breaking away from the recognized legitimate government of the United States, the elected president, Abraham Lincoln. And Washington is expecting, hoping that the British Empire, Britain, will kind of side with the legitimate government. Well, what Britain does, and therefore Canada, because we were a colony at the time, Britain says we were neutral. We're going to be neutral.

So think about that. What does being neutral mean? It means like, oh, between this secessionist movement to preserve slavery and the legitimate recognized democratically elected government, we're not going to pick sides. And what that meant, though, concretely, is it meant the South, which was besieged by the North in a bloody war. Its cities at times were burning, were certainly under blockade. There was a lot of misery. What could the elite, the aristocrats, not to mention the mercenaries and the soldiers do? If they were in Montreal and Toronto, they were spies, they were scoundrels, but they didn't have to hide. Canada was neutral.

They openly campaigned. They would give, you know, conferences. They would organize money. They would bank in our city. They would enjoy all the luxuries of our city. So that's what neutrality meant. We became a haven for the South. Could you draw a picture of where the support was and what it was like across the province of Canada at the time? It was widespread and mainly in the elites. The elites in Canada supported the South. Why? Well, for several reasons. There were economic

reasons. Eighty percent of Britain's cotton came from the South. Britain and Halifax and parts of Canada were doing a brisk trade to support the South, running the blockade illegally. You could make a fortune doing that. There was an economic reason to support the South. Secondly, there was a class and aristocratic reason. There was a natural sympathy for the aristocrats and the elites of the South compared to Lincoln's populism and the fact that he seemed to be way too much in favor of the people. Finally, it is true that the Lincoln government was annexationist. There were members of his cabinet who were always calling to annex Canada. So the leaders of our

country felt a certain hostility towards that. But whatever the reasons were, what was Canada in the midst of this civil war? You start at the very top. You start at our political leaders. John A. Macdonald will be our first prime minister by the time the civil war is over in 1867. It's 1864, and Canadian politicians are gathering in Charlottetown and one of the many confederation conferences to set up our country. What does John A. McDonald say? He talks about the brave soldiers of the South.

He talks about how even though they're outnumbered, they are putting up a brave battle. Other fathers of confederation, John Abbott will be a lawyer who will defend some of the mercenaries charged with raiding and engaging in terrorism. Our top politicians are backing the South, but among many common people, there was support for the Union and a few brave elite members, the most notable being George Brown. George Brown was the founder of the Globe newspaper, eventually became the Globe and Mail, a staunch abolitionist. His newspaper was openly pro-Lincoln and he was a lone voice. He would battle the other Toronto leaders, but he helps found the Canadian anti-slavery society. There are

mass meetings in Toronto. Thousands of people turn up. Thousands of people turn up in Montreal. And most importantly, ordinary Canadians sign up en masse in tens of thousands to go fight for the Union Army. So you see this real gap. Who are those people who decide to sign up and fight in this civil war happening in the South? It's a really important question because when I've been talking around the country about the book, sometimes people say, well, wait a minute. Should we impose our standards today, presentism as it's called, right, to criticize our ancestors because our values are different and times were different.

And I think that's a valid point. The point is, though, is that in the Civil War, the choice was there. It's not like you didn't know that slavery was bad. People made their choices. So one of the wonderful characters, I think think who illustrates that is a woman, right? Emma Edmonds is a farm girl from New Brunswick who's already chafing at the restrictions imposed on women and the lack of adventure, not to mention a steady income and independence. The war starts and she has this wonderful line in her memoirs where she says, what am I to do? And I think that's the question we all have to pose today.

What do you do in a moment of crisis, in a moment of conflict, in an existential threat to your values? And she says, it's not my war, it's not my country, but she signs up disguised as a man and will serve for two years in the Union Army. She signs up disguised as a man and will serve for two years in the Union Army. And when she eventually reveals herself, she will become one of the most famous women ever to have served in the army. But not a typical case. Not a typical case. Much more typical were the ordinary men.

Edward Doherty was a Montrealer working in New York. Remember, hundreds of thousands of Canadians had moved to the US for economic and other reasons. He signs up mainly for adventure and for the cause. Edward Dougherty will rise through the ranks. Right after Lincoln is assassinated, Lincoln is assassinated on Friday night, dies Saturday morning. Monday morning, Edward Doherty, Montrealer, Canadian, is sitting literally in Lafayette Park right outside the White House. He gets a message from a courier to report to the War Department. He will be assigned to lead the military regiment that will track down in 12 days Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and eventually kill him.

So that's another ordinary Canadian who makes a dramatic choice. Perhaps most important, of course, were the black Canadians. Many black Canadians who were born here, others who were descendants of escaped slaves all through southern Ontario signed up. Many of them died and perished in the Civil War. The most famous is Anderson Abbott, the first black doctor, native born in Canada, who will write to the Lincoln administration and get accepted as a doctor and will end up shaking Lincoln's hand in the White House at a party. It's incredible because looking back at it now, you realize these were choices,

right? A farm girl disguises herself to fight in the Union Army. A black Canadian doctor will meet Lincoln and fight in the Union Army. And at the same time, most newspaper editors, many church leaders, bankers, businessmen, leading politicians will express disgust with Lincoln and side with the South. An American in Canada. The New York Times, July 20th, 1864. The frontier towns and watering places in Canada are pretty well filled with celebrated conspirators, busy as bees at the present day, hatching up mischief, plotting treason, poisoning the minds of the Canadian people, perverting the truth, telegraphing falsehoods throughout the length and breadth of this land. There is now more talk, excitement, and feeling about the war in United Canada than there is in the United States.

A strange infatuation is seizing the minds of many people. For only a few days ago, one of our prominent citizens asserted very violently that any Canadian who was hostile to the South was an enemy of Canada. We're on the corner of Notre Dame and Saint-Francois-Xavier, and these buildings was where the most illustrious, famous hotel in Canada at the time, British North America, the St. Lawrence Hall. And you could see it's still imposing, right? The ornate architecture, the pillars, the moldings around the windows. 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. They had a huge ballroom, gas-lit chandeliers.

Orchestra would play every night. They would advertise delicious meals with lobster and fine delicacies imported from Europe. But this was also the headquarters for the Confederates who hung out in Canada. Henry Hogan, who was the owner of this hotel, boasted that during the Civil War, this was an exciting time because my hotel was the headquarters for what he called the Confederate Junta. 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 a copy. They have the original hotel registry. And you could see the names of famous Confederates. Did you see that? Yes. You're touching the names. So you have Jacob Thompson, who was the head of the Confederate Secret Service in Canada.

Sarah Slater, one of the main spies and couriers. John Surratt, the main accomplice, accused accomplice of Booth. And John Wilkes Booth himself stays here. And you see all their names. That's incredible. What was he doing here, John 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, well-known, adored by his fans, but a committed supporter of the Southern Confederacy, a man who despised Lincoln. He begins to plot to kidnap Lincoln. He originally wants to kidnap Lincoln, possibly leading to his death, but he wants 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 on the northern side. So he has this plot, and where does he go?

He goes to Montreal. Why not? 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 where? Of course, 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. And the two start playing pool. And according to Dion, 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 he's shooting Poole, will boast. He says, it doesn't matter what happens in the election, he says, heads or tail, Abe's contract is up.

His goose is cooked. Those are scary words when you realize, you know, 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. He wants to make it back to the United States. He does two important things. He will meet with Confederate agents in one of these buildings, one of these fine restaurants that used to line these cobblestone streets, and get the names of two Confederate sympathizers who are part of the network in Maryland and Virginia, and he'll use that

information for his escape the night he kills Abraham Lincoln. You're listening to Ideas and a conversation and tour with Julian Scher, author of the book The North Star, Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln. We're a podcast and a broadcast heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. Find us on the CBC Listen app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayyad.

My name is Graham Isidore. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. ShortSighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see about hidden disabilities.

ShortSighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. Julian Scherer's book, The North Star, reveals a forgotten part of Canada's history. Throughout the early 19th century, Canada had been a refuge for tens of thousands of escaped slaves. But during the U.S. Civil War, Canada was also a haven for Confederate spies, agents, and raiders, including Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. assassin, John Wilkes Booth. In this episode, Julian and I go on tour, visiting sites where Confederates laundered money, escaped union justice, and plotted against the president. Right in the middle of old Montreal now, but right in the middle of old Montreal now, but right in the middle of Montreal in the 1860s, at this main square near the Basilica, near the hotel, was the Ontario Bank.

In February 1864, the embattled Confederacy sets aside $1 million. Back then, which is something like $60 million today, Jefferson Davis signs a secret order for $1 million to be set aside in foreign currency for secret service operations. Most of that money will go to Canada. He will get two of his close political allies, Jacob Thompson and Clement Clay. He will officially designate them to go to Canada. They arrive by secret boat to Halifax and then come to Montreal. And upon arrival, they walk right through these cobblestone streets we see in front of us into that bank, the Ontario Bank, and will deposit over the next couple of years something like $649,000.

And we have the bank ledger, and you see the money moving in and out. And the Ontario Bank was run by Henry Starnes, who was former mayor of Montreal and a very influential politician. Montreal and a very influential politician, it becomes clear that this bank, yes, they did banking in Toronto, in St. Catharines, in Niagara, and we see receipts in their personal ledgers, but this was the central place where they did their banking. They financed, and what were they financing? Yes, they were financing fancy rooms in the hotel just over there, but they were financing terror raids, what we would now call terrorism. They financed the attempts to burn down New York. They financed the robbery and pillage of a Vermont town

that led to the death of an innocent civilian. They financed a devious plot by a famous doctor who stayed in that hotel just a couple of blocks away to engage in bioterrorism and try to poison thousands of people in the north with yellow fever. So that's what this money was being used for. And at one point they were asked, like, did you ask about what they were doing? And they said, we never can tell. We never ask a man anything about that. A man doing business with us deposits what he likes, and we never ask any questions.

Unbelievable. That's what was going on just a few feet from us. The financing of terror. The Rebels in Vermont The New York Times, October 20, 1864 The Rebels are making Canada their base of operations for both land and naval raids. It is only a few weeks since a body of Confederates from the Canadian side made their rush upon our vessels in Lake Erie and captured a couple of small steamboats, which they burned. And this morning we are startled with a telegraphic account of an invasion and raid upon St. Albans, Vermont, yesterday by a band of a score or more of armed rebel desperados from Canada.

score more of armed rebel desperados from Canada. This is a very serious matter and demands immediate and decisive action on the part of the British authorities in Canada. It wasn't only spies and exiles here in Canada. It was raiders themselves attacking the Union from Canada. Can you talk about the St. Albans Raid? So it's the fall of 1864, and the Confederates are determined to give the North a taste of their own medicine. the North a taste of their own medicine. Bennett Young is a young cavalry leader, quite experienced, even though he's barely in his early 20s. And he comes up with the idea. 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. He 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 of 1864, he will lead a small band of 20 men who arrive dressed as Canadian tourists. And Bennett Young is such a charmer. He actually visits the governor and his wife. He was a divinity student, so he charms the governor's wife with his elegance and his knowledge of the Bible. Then suddenly they announced to the town, we are taking over the town in the name of the Confederacy. They robbed three banks in the space of a few minutes of $200,000, that's the equivalent

of several million today, 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. Americans expect that these terrorists who committed a war crime and bank theft and murdered an innocent citizen would be duly prosecuted and extradited. The Montreal police chief in collaboration with the judge and with Confederate agents and with Henry Starnes, remember Henry Starnes, the banker at the Ontario Bank, the Montreal police chief and Henry Starnes and a leading Confederate agent will arrange for the money that was stolen and then retrieved to be held literally in a carpet bag in the bank. So the minute the judge frees these accused bank robbers, they flee to the bank, take

the money, basically stealing it a second time. You can imagine. Imagine if this took place today and we were talking about terrorists from the Middle East, right? Well, I mean, there was political fallout from this. I mean, the New York Times ran an article suggesting the U.S. invade Canada in response. Absolutely. One of the other papers said that Canada should be throttled like a poodle, you know? And then President Lincoln, in his last State of the Union address in December 1864, nobody

knows it's going to be his last, but he will be assassinated a few months later. He makes a rare public criticism of Canada. He will denounce these terror attacks, these assaults from the North, and he will impose, of all things, passports. And he makes other threats. from the northern press because it wasn't that, you know, these raids, these bioterrorism attacks, these attempts at murder and these political attacks were happening in secret by unknown cells that were operating unknown by the Canadian authorities. These were things that were happening in the open and being organized in one of some of Canada's fanciest hotels, our most famous banks, openly talked about in the newspapers.

So of course there was outrage, in effect the hypocrisy of the Canadian elite. And there was a lot of outrage about how the raiders were treated in prison. Can you talk about that? So 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 rigor. Instead, they got wonderful wine and food served on white linen tablecloths. There's a famous photo of the raiders and they're standing outside the door and you could still see that door. It's right at the foot of the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal. This is where I have to, you know, I'll hold the picture closer to the microphone.

Fine. So they can see it better. But it's, you can see from this old picture here how it hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. The same green doors and the cement framing, the windows. And here on the steps, right where we're standing, were the accused terrorists. There's no other word for them.

These were Confederates. The jail was run by Louis Payet, but the Confederates call it Payet's Hotel. They're standing outside, well-dressed. They were served wine and fine food on tablecloths and tables. Montreal's elite would come from downtown and mingle with these famous heroes. The leader, Bennett Young, would have an affair with the daughter of the judge who would later acquit him. The newspapers at the time talk, the New York Times talks about how the fine ladies of Montreal come down to see the confederate prisoners. It's shocking. It is shocking. And it goes to everything that these stone buildings can't hide, that the Confederate scoundrels, spies, mercenaries,

the Confederate agents were not hiding in Canada. They were, even when they were in jail, they were heralded as heroes. And fetid. I wonder what the other prisoners would have made of all of that. They undoubtedly would have been jealous of the fine food. Anybody in Montreal would have been jealous of the fine food. Anybody in Montreal would have been jealous of the fine food, fine wines. Their lawyer was John Abbott, the Dean of McGill's Law School, a future

Prime Minister of Canada. He will help get them off. The prisoners openly said, yes, we robbed the bank and we attacked it, but we didn't do it as robbers. We were Confederate soldiers fighting for a just cause. And the courts in Canada will acquit them and it causes a huge scandal. But it goes to everything about what the civil war is about, how well they're treated in prison, how they collaborate with the Montreal police chief, with the judge, with the bankers who are storing their money. It says everything about the sordid history that we have when it comes to the American Civil War. The Tragedy in Washington. The Globe newspaper, April 17th, 1865

The circumstances of Mr. Lincoln's assassination are very fully detailed. John Wilkes Booth is supposed to be the assassin of the president. According to the Montreal Telegraph, he was in that city some time since, looking for theatrical employment. While there, he professed to be a southern sympathizer. It is pretty certain that the plot included other conspirators and that the murder of other public men was also contemplated. It is sensed there is a likelihood the assassins will endeavor to escape to Canada. The distance from Washington to Canada, however, is great, and we deem it next to impossible for the assassins to travel far without being caught.

Could you speak to John Wilkes Booth's motivations? What was he aiming at? Before the assassination, if you had asked somebody in America and frankly in Canada, John Wilkes Booth, they would have oohed and aahed the way we do now about Hollywood stars, right? devoted confederate. And he made no bones and that's what's so important when today many people in the US are trying to rewrite history and the Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about white supremacy. And Booth never hid his values. You know, he famously proclaimed, he said, this country was formed for the white man, not for the black man. He said that slavery was one of the greatest blessings that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. That's quite clear. That's right. So think about this most famous actor who had crowds,

you know, following him. And he openly, this wasn't secret, he openly proclaimed his support for the South and he despised, he feared Lincoln. In a famous moment, he's at a speech that Lincoln is making in April 1865. This will be shortly before he will kill Lincoln. Lincoln hints at the possibility, he's already freed the slaves. And Lincoln hints at the possibility that there might even be the voting rights for blacks. And Booth turns to his fellow conspirator in the crowd and he says, angrily, he says, this means citizenship for the blacks. He doesn't use the word blacks, as you can imagine. And he says, this will be the last speech he will ever make.

He did assassinate him, of course, in 1865. What did Booth do afterwards? Booth never hides his political feelings and he never hides his act. He shoots Lincoln in the back of the head at the presidential box at Ford's Theatre, leaps onto the stage, and keep in mind, that's like Brad Pitt leaping onto the stage. Everybody knew who he was, right? And he reportedly says, sic temper tyrannis, which means like, thus be to tyrants, dashes across the stage, jumps on a horse that he had waiting, and with one of his accomplices, David Harold, will dash away in the night. Now...

It's dramatic. Everybody knows, not only has the president been assassinated, but they know who did it, right? One of the most famous actors in America. So immediately, a hunt takes place. Edward Dougherty, the Montrealer who is rising through the ranks in the army, is tasked with helping lead the hunt for Booth. Booth is hiding in the south.

Now when he was in Montreal, he gets two letters of introduction to Confederate agents all through Maryland and Virginia because he knows he needs an escape route, either for the kidnapping or the killing plot. He will use those contacts. He will hide out all through Virginia and Maryland as he makes his escape. He ferries across a river. Now, his leg has been damaged. Some say it's because he jumped on the stage.

Others say because his horse fell on him. He's in pain, badly injured. He makes his way across a river in a ferry. Edward Doherty and the rest of the Army regiment are just hours behind them. They come up to the river and they talk to witnesses who say, they show him the picture of Booth and they say, yes, he just crossed the river. So the horses gallop on the ferry, continue to pursue Booth. Booth finds refuge at a farm owned by Richard Garrett, a confederate, but he doesn't know this is John Wilkes Booth who has killed Lincoln. Booth invents another name and says he's just a wandering soldier trying to make his way home. another name and says he's just a wandering soldier trying to make his way home. Booth hides out in the barn with David Harold. Edward Doherty and the rest of the army regiment

will find him there. They surround the barn. At one point, David Harold is willing to come out. Edward Doherty negotiates that. He leaves. Edward Doherty and the others are now confronting Booth, telling him to come out. He says he will never come out. They set fire to the barn, hoping to flush him out. A shot rings out. Edward Doherty thinks that maybe Booth has killed himself. He will later find out one of his own soldiers had shot Booth just as Booth was lifting up his gun, possibly to kill Doherty or one of the other soldiers. He's dying on the porch at Garrett's farm, murmuring words. They offer him water. He can't drink.

He passes away, and as Edward Doherty, the Montrealer, is going through his clothing and pockets, what does he find? That bank draft signed by Henry Starnes of Montreal, the Ontario bank, the money that John Wilkes Booth had taken with him from Montreal. And what was the fallout of that discovery, that piece of paper, that pricey piece of paper sitting in his pocket? It's raised. As you can imagine, the assassination of a president causes a huge furor. And there are conspiracy trials, they're called, that go on for weeks in May and June of 1865, where they're trying to prove who was behind it. Was it just Booth? What's interesting is that right after the assassination, the US administration issues

basically an indictment about the conspirators and they name six people and all of them except Jefferson Davis are in Montreal or Toronto at the time. It's remarkable. Now, they were trying to make a case that some of the Confederate leaders that had been sent to Montreal or Toronto were behind the assassination. There is no real proof that they met or ordered Booth to do any of this, but it just shows how tight Canada was. The headline in the New York Times when that indictment was issued for the assassins of Lincoln said that they were, and I'm quoting the words, were harbored in Canada. So the assassination conspiracy trial, Canada is all over in the testimony.

conspiracy trial, Canada is all over in the testimony. It was bad enough when Canada in the Northern Papers was being seen as the place that was behind the St. Albans Bank Raid, the New York fires, the yellow fever plot. Now Canada's name was being dragged through the mud for the assassination of Lincoln. A speech by Jefferson Davis, The New York Times. The speech Jefferson Davis made in Canada was delivered in Niagaraagara during his visit to that place when he was serenaded by the band of the town and a large number of the townspeople the speech was this gentlemen i thank you sincerely for the honor you have this evening shown to me it shows that true british manhood to which misfortune is always attractive. May peace and prosperity forever be

the blessing of Canada. I hope that Canada may forever remain a part of the British Empire. May God bless you all, and the British flag never cease to wave over you. The New York Times, June 12, 1867. In Canada itself, 1867 was also the year of Confederation. So stories about Davis and support for the defeated South were being printed on the same pages of stories about the new country of Canada. Where did those two events meet? I think where they met is in the myths we started telling ourselves. Canada was born in the midst of the Civil War.

1867 is the birth of Canada. The war was only over in 1865. 1867 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 Confederates. If you go through the list of those fathers of confederation, I think I counted as many of six of them had various ties to supporting the South, whether it was John A. McDonald, you know, who talked about the gallant defense being made by the Southern Republic. George A. Tancartier was the man behind La Menard, which was his paper and a staunch supporter of the South.

Alexander Galt, the first minister of finance in the new dominion of Canada, would bring gifts to the Davis children when they were in Quebec. We talked about John Abbott, who would be the first minister of finance and would become the third prime minister. He's the leading lawyer who will get the St. Albans raiders off. Our hands are all over the Civil War. Whether we like it or not, we were born, our country was born and led by leaders who were on the wrong side of the war.

It's important that we recognize that as our past. 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, well, that's America's problems. That's their mess. No, it's our mess. We have ownership of that too. So if we go back to where you and I started at that plaque at the Bay in downtown Montreal, as we saw when we were there, it is gone, but there's nothing to replace it. And so what do you think is the right way to treat this mostly forgotten part of Canada's history? mostly forgotten part of Canada's history. I got asked a lot of questions about that when I was speaking about the book.

And some people said, well, taking away the plaque just hides the history even more. And I agree. I think the point is not to hide these dark truths, but to figure out a way to explain them and to talk about them and realize our past and not try to just thinking by taking away a plaque and hiding it in some basement that we can forget the dark part of our history. But given the last thing, Julian, is given that parts of this history is repeating itself and that people are trying to rewrite parts of our history. What can we as Canadians learn from this experience of a war reaching into our own country? You know, Abraham Lincoln famously said that history is not history if it's not the truth.

the truth. I think the point of my book and the point of debates like this is that we, just like the Americans, it's very easy for us to point to the craziness that's going on in the states and the attempt to whitewash history and say, whoa, they seem to be really crazed and going in the wrong direction. Well, are we any better? Yes, we have a track record that can be a bit better on many issues, but we have to grapple with these issues in an exciting and fun way. You know, this is not a dark and sad story.

This is a heroic story about a woman who disguises herself as a man so she can fight in Lincoln's army, about black Canadians who go down to Washington and serve in Lincoln's army, about black Canadians who go down to Washington and serve in Lincoln's army, about brave abolitionists who campaign against the elites in Canada who are supporting the South. So that's what's so flourishing and so important. These debates were raging in the Civil War. And it's important that we continue to have these debates and look on with admiration at the boldness, the openness at which people try to tackle these very difficult and disturbing topics.

Why run away from our history when it has so, so much to teach us? Jillian, thank you so much for reminding us about this part of our history. Thank you. That was Julian Cher, author of The North Star, Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln. Ideas is a podcast and a broadcast.

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