by John Boyko
CRIMPING
As the war progressed and the need for recruits increased, the issue of Canadians and Maritimers being forced into service became a more serious problem. For instance, in January 1863, Ebenezer Tyler was asleep in his house on Wolfe Island, not far from Kingston, when a group of armed American soldiers led by Captain Haddock arrived by boat, pulled Tyler from his bed, and ferried him to New York.79 Haddock claimed Tyler was an American deserter. Tyler insisted he was a native Canadian who had never left his homeland. He was nonetheless pressed into uniform and shipped away.
Tyler managed to contact a British consul and Lord Lyons was soon in Seward’s office. Monck and Lyons were at that moment dealing with a number of cases of Canadians being either mistaken for American deserters or flagrantly kidnapped and forced into military service. The Tyler case seemed cut and dried, and Lyons demanded action.
Seward reluctantly agreed. He issued a statement that referred to the Tyler case as a “violation of the sovereignty of a friendly state.”80 He understood the enthusiasm that had led to the soldiers doing what they did, but chastised them for having done it. Seward took the matter to Lincoln, who personally promised that Haddock would be dishonourably discharged and Tyler would be allowed to leave his regiment and return home to Canada.81 Tyler was soon home with his family.
The Tyler case was unique only for its happy ending for, like him, many Canadians and Maritimers came to know the process of crimping. Crimping is not immoral or illegal, as it refers simply to encouraging and helping someone to enter military service. The word assumes a menacing and pejorative turn, however, when implying that men are unwillingly enlisted through trickery, force, or the threat or actual use of violence. That form of crimping became common practice.
Lincoln’s 1862 Militia Act had fuelled crimping in Canada and the Maritimes, but his Enrollment Act in March 1863 made it increasingly common, open and aggressive. The law established new quotas for Northern congressional districts and provided greater cash incentives for enlistment. The federal government offered $100 for each and every man between the ages of twenty and forty-five. When local and state governments chipped in, the total bounty often became $300, and in some places as high as $500. The sums were quite generous, as they equalled most men’s annual income. The new law continued the allowance of a $300 commutation or substitution fee for those whose means outpaced their patriotism. With the news of battlefield carnage and Matthew Brady’s stunning photographs making it all so real for those at home, the market for young men willing to serve as substitutes rose—and with it the ruthlessness of unscrupulous crimpers filling their pockets by filling demand.
Initial attempts to implement the draft had met with protests, and riots broke out in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin. The worst riots tore up New York City streets for five days and nights. Poor New Yorkers attacked the homes and businesses of the rich who could afford commutation fees. African-Americans were beaten up and some lynched. The city’s large Irish community acted against other ethnic minorities and African-Americans who were seen as economic competitors. The violence subsided only with the arrival of five regiments of soldiers rushed in from Gettysburg.
Despite the riots and simmering opposition, by the fall of 1863 enlistments began to trend up. Meanwhile, many young men recognized a chance to turn a profit and began to shop around and offer themselves to provost marshals offering the highest reward.82 Others began bounty jumping; that is, they enlisted in one community, collected the bounty, deserted, enlisted in another, and then started all over again.
Many entrepreneurially minded men offered themselves as brokers. For a cut of the bounty, brokers would help connect recruits with recruiters. Many bounty brokers were honest, but plenty of others duped young men into believing that they could not enlist without a broker and that the exorbitant percentages demanded for brokerage services were common practice. By the fall of 1863, bounty brokers had grown so numerous and powerful that it became difficult for anyone to enlist without one.83
As the wealth and influence of brokers increased, many began openly advertising their services in newspapers and on posters hung in bars, post offices and other public places. They offered competitive rates to recruits and not only good value but a list of available substitutes for those with the means and desire to avoid service. Many opened offices near recruiting stations. By the end of 1863, most provost marshals had stopped advertising for recruits and simply sub-contracted the job out to brokers. Men approaching marshals on their own were often referred to brokers, and when enlistment was complete, the provost marshal paid the appropriate broker, who then paid the recruit, minus the brokering fee. A provost marshal in Utica, New York, signed a $750,000 contract with broker Aaron Richardson to fill the town’s quota.84
Some bounty brokers became quite wealthy by intimidating or buying out competitors. In order to meet their obligations to the provost marshals, increasingly rapacious brokers hired staff to do administrative work and to be runners, venturing out in search of more recruits. Like the brokers themselves, runners worked on commission.
Government pressure on provost marshals to meet quotas was passed on to brokers, who pressed their runners for more men. This hierarchy of demands led many runners to employ ruthless and illegal means to meet their personal quotas. In New York and Boston, for instance, many immigrants walking down ships’ gangplanks were directed to runners’ stations where, without explanation, they were signed up, suited up and marched onto a troop train before they understood what had happened. Many brokers and runners made deals with captains which allowed them to enter immigrant ships before any had disembarked and offer men more money than they had seen in their lives to enlist or, alternatively, to con them into believing that enlisting was simply a part of entering the country.85
When the pool of young men began drying up, in many states, runners began employing even more vicious tactics. Runners went to bars and made young men drunk, or drugged them, and then shipped them off. The new “recruits” awoke hung-over and in uniform. Many runners simply snatched victims from the streets. Young men down on their luck or those afflicted with mental disabilities were especially easy prey.
Authorities were aware that the brokers were engaging in such practices, and legal action was taken in the most egregious cases. As Commander of Military District of the East, responsible for the Canadian border, Major General John Dix hated brokers. While conceding that they were providing a valuable service to the Union, he sought to end their illegal and immoral actions.86 As the need for men continued to increase, however, even Dix relented and, except for a few cases where brokers were fined or jailed, he and most other authorities turned a blind eye.
In April 1864, a runner named Holley brought two Canadian boys to a broker named A.B. Pratt, who had two principals in need of substitutes. One of the two boys was rejected by the provost marshal at Albany’s 14th District, but Joshua Long was accepted. After having seen so many young men cheated, the provost marshal suddenly felt a rush of guilt, and asked Long how much he was being paid. When Long replied that he was promised $150, he was told he could be getting the entire $300. Long said nothing. At that point a clerk named Eliakim Chase pounced on the broker and knocked him down several stairs. Chase was convicted of assault. Pratt went back to his broker business and Long entered the army.
The incident was widely reported, but the lesson learned seemed to be that a deal struck between a broker and a potential recruit was fair game. It was up to the recruit if he wished to offer himself up for service and be swindled while doing it. No one seemed concerned that Long was a Canadian, or that British neutrality was being compromised by the recruitment of a British subject.87 The New York Times called the entire situation “a necessary evil.”88
With crimping happening so openly in the United States, American authorities showed little interest in stopping similar activities in Canada. The necessary evil of American runners filling their demand by sourcing the Canadian
and Maritime supply had, in fact, been going on for some time. The number of American crimpers in Canada grew with the demand for fresh troops and the potential for profit. In December 1863, the British consul in Boston reported two cases of American men coming to his office asking for advice regarding Canadian crimping laws. Both men were open about their plans to advertise jobs in the United States—one on a farm and the other in a quarry—with the notion of forcing everyone they hired into the military and then claiming their bounties. 89
American crimpers scoured Canadian and Maritime streets, bars and schools, attempting to meet their quotas by tricking, conning, or drugging and kidnapping young men and boys just as others were doing in America. Prostitutes were hired to seduce men into signing bogus contracts. As warnings of their tricks were publicized, the crimpers just thought up new ruses.
Monck was told of crimpers posing as Canadian police officers. The most well-known case involved William Fisher and Thomas Miller. In July 1864, they were arrested by Canadian police in Windsor and then spirited across the river to Detroit. They appeared before a magistrate, who offered to drop all charges if the two joined a Michigan regiment. Fisher and Miller were pressed into military service. Their case was brought to Seward, whose inquires revealed that the police officers and magistrate were all frauds.90 Months later, Miller was found and offered a discharge. Fisher had already deserted.
In January 1863, an order was given to all British regulars to beware of being tricked into desertion by American agents. In October, a $50 reward was offered to anyone offering information about men involved in crimping British soldiers. Despite the warnings, a group of British merchant sailors had been hoodwinked. They wrote to Boston’s British consul in September 1864, and reported their story. They spoke of drinking in a bar in Quebec City and then waking up in the United States. After being sold in Lebanon, New York, they were transported further south. Each man was given $200 and their kidnapper was paid $1,000. The kidnappers had bragged of the lucrative deals they had done in stealing British and Canadian sailors. 91
Many of the British soldiers stationed along the American border had come from Ireland, and crimpers encouraged desertion by exploiting anti-British, Irish nationalism. Sergeant James Campbell was stationed in Montreal. He told of being harassed by well-known American crimper Edward Kelly while walking along Notre-Dame Street. Kelly tried to convince the unwavering sergeant that there were over a quarter of a million loyal Irish fighting in Union ranks, and once the war was over they would be organized and turned against Canada, where they would hang every British soldier they could find.92
Crimpers paid special attention to the many Black communities in Canada and the Maritimes. In August 1862, Secretary of War Stanton authorized the raising of what were then called coloured regiments. The decision was a clarion call for the thousands of racial refugees who had made their homes in Canada and the Maritimes, and many left to enlist. The 1st Michigan Coloured Regiment was augmented by many from Canada West’s Elgin county, and a number of Black men from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick left to join the famed Massachusetts 54th. The number of African-Canadians who crossed the border to join the 200,000 African-Americans who served in Union ranks cannot be reliably estimated, but it is certain that crimpers found their job easy when dealing with young men eager to fight for a cause so close to their hearts. One such recruit was Henry Jackson, who left Guelph to join the 17th Michigan. He wrote, “I wish to impress upon your mind that the war is a trial between freedom and slavery not only here but all over the world.”93 Jackson was killed in November 1863 at the Battle of Campbell’s Station, in Tennessee.
Some young people sealed their fates by trying to out-trick the tricksters. Canadian Peter Daly, for instance, had the temerity to write to Monck complaining that he had voluntarily enlisted in the Confederate army but then, after having completed his enlistment, moved north on news of larger bounties. He had enlisted as a substitute. He wrote: “I took a Drafted mans Place and He gave me 25 Dollars and said He would send me more when I was in the army but my Lord He Has Not Done as he said He would, and I have been in the service of the United States nine months.”94 Daly seemed oblivious to the law he had broken in enlisting in two foreign armies. There is no evidence of Monck offering him assistance.
Many parents falsely claimed that their sons had been coerced. The father of James Cunningham, for example, wrote to the governor general with a detailed description of how his son had been drugged and torn from his home in Toronto to serve in the Union army. Monck discovered that not only had young James negotiated a bounty with a runner but then once in the United States and enlisted, he had mailed part of his earnings home. Monck refused to intervene and Cunningham remained in the army.95
Monck and Lyons also refused to help bounty jumpers. In April 1865, the Nova Scotian reported that two men from Saint John were found to have been bounty jumping. They were taking enlistment money and then deserting and re-enlisting again and again. Both were caught and executed.
Lord Lyons asked Seward to investigate 235 cases of young people being coerced into service against their will.96 Monck grew increasingly frustrated with his inability to stop the crimping. In January 1864, he reported to the British Colonial Office that, despite his best efforts, crimping was a growing problem, and he asked for help.97 He wrote several more times; by May his letters were taking a tone of utter despondency. The financial reward of the increasingly lucrative bounties overwhelmed the risk of being caught.98 Monck told Lyons that as long as the Americans offered so much money in bounties, it would be impossible to end crimping.99 Monck was told by both Lyons and Russell that continuing to negotiate with Seward and the Americans was a waste of time.100
In 1862 and 1863 Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick all enacted legislation making it easier to arrest and convict crimpers, and they raised fines and jail terms. The Canadian government also announced that crimpers would be charged under the Foreign Enlistment Act, and subject to a possible six months of imprisonment and fine of $450. Further, in January 1864, it declared that willing deserters would be charged under the Mutiny Act, which carried a maximum penalty of six months’ hard labour.
The Canadian Committee of the Executive Council tabled a report in the legislature on May 10, 1864, praising the use of members of the British military for apprehending crimpers. It said that in Brockville the previous January, members of the 4th Regiment had apprehended two Americans who had drugged a young Canadian and were carrying him off to be enlisted in the United States army. Two others were found engaged in the same activity and were also arrested. Two of the group were convicted, and one sentenced to four, and the other to five, years in prison.101 In support of the Committee’s recommendations, the paltry $10 reward offered for soldiers or civilians offering information leading to conviction was raised to a more enticing $200. Kingston and Montreal offered an additional $50. Special constables were hired and placed in cities known to be favourites for crimping activities. Additional border guards were hired.
In August, 1864, Monck approved the death sentence for two deserters, but the decision was commuted and they instead spent six months in prison. In the spring of 1865, the Canadian legislature passed a new law making it easier to convict crimpers by allowing police magistrates to hear cases and allowing convictions to stand even on the testimony of a single witness. Despite all the concern and all the efforts to put a stop to it, crimping continued. In 1864 and 1865, only ninety-one people were convicted of crimping in Canada.
The saddest cases involved crimpers visiting schools and enticing boys with offers of money, drink and girls. Michael Boyle, for instance, wrote to the governor general in early July 1864 of an American agent who had visited his son at his Toronto school and absconded with him. Alfred Broissoit, was only fifteen when snatched from his Montreal school.102 Neither boy was heard from again.
When Sarah Emma Edmonds regained her health, she rejoined the army as a nurse; this time as herself. She served in
Virginia hospitals far from front-line action. At Harper’s Ferry, quite by chance, she was reunited with Linus Seelye—the young New Brunswick man who had helped her to escape her father so many years before. He had come to the United States and found work as a carpenter. They renewed their friendship and it soon turned to romance.
Not all who fought by choice or by force were so lucky. Until the guns fell silent, Canadians and Maritimers continued to fight, to volunteer to fight, or to dodge crimpers to keep from fighting. Deserters and skedaddlers crossed the border in both directions. All the while, Canadian and Maritime political leaders struggled within their malfunctioning political systems to exert what control they could. Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, was in precisely the same situation. A perfect storm of military, political, economic and diplomatic disappointments was turning desperate measures into viable options. Davis decided to save the South by looking north—and he had just the man he needed to make it happen. Davis decided that Canada would help turn the tide toward victory and redemption.
* Much of what we know of Edmonds’s story comes from her bestselling memoir, first released in 1864. Some scholars have questioned the book’s veracity. In his 1995 Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, for instance, Ervin L. Jordan noted some errors and exaggerations, but he nonetheless supported her story’s fundamental accuracy. In the introduction to its 1999 reprinting, Elizabeth Leonard accepted much of what Edmonds wrote, but again questioned some facts and tales. Cross-referencing her regiment’s history, other accounts, and the words of her compatriots written later, leads one to agree with Jordan and Leonard and accept Edmonds account as perhaps fanciful in spots, but largely historically sound.
* Laura Secord was Canada’s Paul Revere, celebrated for braving the night in June 1813 and weaving a nineteen-mile path through dark woods and around American sentries to warn a British garrison that invaders were on their way.
