by John Boyko
The tall, gangly young man with the wild and wiry black hair, prominent nose and dancing, bright eyes, married the cheerful and lively Isabella Clark, his first cousin, in 1843. Within two years she was beset with a mysterious illness from which she never recovered. She became addicted to the opium prescribed for her undiagnosed condition. Macdonald took her to a number of Canadian and American doctors, and on one occasion they endured a horrendous journey to supposedly medicinal hot springs in Savannah, Georgia. Nothing helped. The home of the jovial and fun-loving Macdonald was, ironically, nearly always dark and silent. After an exceptionally difficult birth, they mourned the death of a son. A second, named Hugh, survived, but would be brought up mainly by relatives.
An unhappy domestic life was not the only reason that Macdonald found the bottle. It was, after all, a time when heavy drinking was the norm and, as notoriously hard-drinking Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew Johnson proved, drunkenness by public figures was excused. Macdonald’s drinking became even worse when Isabella died, after twelve pain-filled years, in December 1857. One of his favourite drinking buddies was D’Arcy McGee, who was found one morning curled up under the editor’s desk at the Ottawa Citizen. Macdonald admonished his colleague and friend saying, “Look here McGee, this Cabinet can’t afford two drunkards, and I’m not quitting.”14
The blinding light of Macdonald’s strengths, seen at their best during the Confederation conferences, more than made up for the shadows of his dark side. The momentous spring of 1865 called on his strengths again: the Civil War had ended, the president was slain, Britain was impatient, the Maritimes were losing faith and the border was again in peril. Macdonald reluctantly packed his bags to pull Canada through it all.
The British government’s support and recognition of Confederation was already assured. In January, Prime Minister Palmerston had written a letter advising Queen Victoria that: “whenever the Civil War in America shall be ended, the Northern states will make demands upon England which cannot be complied with, and will either make war against England or make inroads into your majesty’s North American possessions which would lead to war; and it is felt by the majority of the Cabinet that the best security against a conflict with the United States will be found in an adequate defensive force.”15 Her majesty recorded in her journal that her prime minister had spoken with her about the danger of war with the United States “and of the impossibility of our being able to hold Canada, but,” she added, “we must struggle for it.”16
Cardwell had already written several directives in which his government’s position could not have been made clearer. In April, he had penned his sternest letter yet to New Brunswick’s recalcitrant lieutenant-governor, Arthur Gordon, who never seemed to like or even fully understand his job and did not support Confederation. Cardwell bluntly required him to convince members of the New Brunswick government to see the connection between Confederation and the province’s survival as a British entity. He added a not-so-veiled threat: “New Brunswick, as a separate Province, appears to be able to make no adequate provision for its own defence, and to rest in a very great degree upon the defence which may be provided for that by this Country. It will, consequently, be likely to appear to your Advisors reasonable and wise that, in examining the question of the proposed Union they should attach great weight to the views and wishes of this Country, and to the reasons on which those views and wishes have been based.”17 When Nova Scotia’s lieutenant-governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell, publicly expressed doubts about Confederation, Cardwell had him transferred to Hong Kong and replaced by loyal military man Sir William Fenwick Williams.
Even if assured, Britain’s support had been expressed almost exclusively in private. Macdonald was in London to encourage a more public demonstration of British policy. That weapon could be wielded to caution Americans still keen on annexation and to turn opinion among Maritimers and reluctant Canadians: if they did not want to become American, then they would have to become Canadian.
Brown and Macdonald joined George Cartier and Alexander Galt at London’s luxurious Westminster Palace Hotel on April 30. They were taken on rounds to meet political and business leaders, all of whom gave private guarantees of support for Confederation but, in matters of defence, only promises of further discussions. On May 18 they met Queen Victoria. All were dressed for the occasion, with a delighted and nervous Galt terrified that his ill-fitting breeches would split with a deep bow.18 Her majesty was courteous but limited herself to small talk, and impressed Cartier with her fluent French. It was not the conversation but the effect that mattered. When she left the room, they could boast of what amounted to royal support for the Quebec resolutions. Cardwell followed this substantial if symbolic victory with a letter to Monck and his lieutenant-governors, ordering them to do all they could to see that Confederation came about according to the Quebec plan.19
This was all good news, but the issue of defence persisted. In meetings with British cabinet members, the Canadians spoke of their displeasure with the current preparations and with plans that would see the surrender of nearly all of Canada West and New Brunswick, should an American invasion occur. They reported on the Canadian legislature’s promise of an annual million-dollar expenditure to equip and train militia and bolster fortifications in Montreal and improve canals if the British government would pledge to back Canadian loans and supply Great Lakes naval defences. Palmerston’s government was stymied, however, by its shaky majority in the House, Bismarck’s power in Europe, fear of provoking the United States, and the growing strength of Little Englanders—especially Gladstone, Richard Cobden and John Bright. Palmerston and Cardwell could still make only private assurances.
Galt expressed the frustration of the Canadian delegates in a letter to his wife:
I am more than ever disappointed at the tone of feeling here as to the Colonies. I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that they want to get rid of us. They have a servile fear of the Unites States and would rather give us up than defend us, or incur the risk of war with that country.… I doubt much whether Confederation will save us from Annexation. Even Macdonald is rapidly feeling as I do … meantime a war might arise between England & the U.S. in which our country would grievously suffer.20
Upon their return, Macdonald, Cartier, Brown and Galt prepared a nine-page report to Monck that detailed their negotiations in London and analysed how the issues that were raised related directly to their simultaneous fear of and need for the United States. They had asked for British help in saving the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States and, at the same time, in negotiating with the Hudson’s Bay Company to keep the vast northwest territory out of American hands. They told Monck of their arguments regarding defence and their vision of Confederation as an essential step in bolstering military strength. The report made clear that the Civil War and its outcome brought the defence issues that had been debated for years to a critical point.21
Events would soon bolster their argument, for as they were striving to save a country as yet unborn, a rebellious group of angry Civil War veterans was about to inadvertently change the game by delivering a genuine threat to British North America, a threat that could finally push the already tense situation to its breaking point.
CANADA AND THE LINCOLN CONSPIRACY TRIAL
Gas lamps hissed in the newly built courtroom on the third floor of Washington’s Old Arsenal Penitentiary. The dazed defendants entered in chains, their heads covered with thick canvas hoods; only Mary Surratt, in deference to her gender, was spared the indignity. The men’s haggard appearance bespoke the foul conditions in which they had been held; in solitary confinement, hooded, manacled, and with steel bars immobilizing their hands. Around a large table sat a military commission made up of eight generals and a colonel, and led by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt. In a glaring but ignored conflict of interest, Holt acted as both chief prosecutor and the commission’s legal advisor—in effect, the judge. There had been a debate over the establishment of a commission rather t
han the use of a civilian court for the trial, but Stanton had insisted, the attorney general had vouched for its legality and President Johnson had approved.
The prosecution set out not just to prove the guilt of those in the docket but also to demonstrate the complicity of Jefferson Davis and his Confederate secret service in Canada. Charged with an “illegal and traitorous conspiracy” to murder Lincoln, Seward, Johnson and Grant in aid of the rebellion against the Union, were John Wilkes Booth, John Surratt, Jefferson Davis and “Canadian Cabinet” members Jacob Thompson, Clement Clay, George Sanders, Beverly Tucker and William Cleary.22
The prosecution’s first witness, called on May 12, was a War Department spy named Richard Montgomery, who had infiltrated the inner circle of the Canadian-based Confederates. The first words heard in evidence at the Lincoln conspiracy trial were his: “I visited Canada in the summer of 1864, and excepting the time I have been going backward and forward have remained there for two years.”23 He detailed many meetings with Thompson, Clay and others in Montreal, Toronto, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines. Montgomery claimed that Thompson told him in the fall of 1864 that Lincoln could be “put out of the way” at any time. He was told at a Montreal meeting in January 1865 that a plan to “take care of Lincoln” was in place and only needed Richmond’s approval to be implemented. Montgomery spoke of Thompson having met with Booth in Montreal. After the assassination, Montgomery claimed, Thompson expressed disappointment that Seward and Johnson had not also been killed as planned, as the decapitation of the government had been left incomplete.24
Montgomery was recalled on June 12 to add to the testimony since heard from others regarding Thompson’s clandestine activities. He testified to Thompson’s either directing or having knowledge of all Canadian-based Confederate terrorist activities, including the attempted burning of New York and the St. Albans Raid. He told of Thompson’s supporting a Dr. Blackburn, who gathered clothing from yellow fever victims in Bermuda and had them sent through Halifax into the United States with the hope of spreading the disease among northerners. He told of plans hatched in Montreal to poison New York drinking water. Montgomery also testified that Canadians were in support of these and other Confederate activities. With direct reference to the St. Albans Raid, he claimed, “The sympathies of nine-tenths of the Canadians are with Young and his men; and the majority of all the newspapers justify or excuse his act as merely retaliatory, and they desire only the authority of the Confederate States Government for it to refuse their extradition.”25
Tales of Canada’s role in the conspiracy were heard over and over again from the 370 witnesses called. Sanford Conover, for instance, testified on May 20 that he was a Union spy and New York Tribune journalist who infiltrated the Confederacy’s secret Canadian operation. He claimed to have moved to Montreal in October 1864, under the assumed name of James Watson Wallace and to have worked with Thompson, Clay, Sanders and others. He testified to having met John Surratt several times in Canada and to have seen Booth once, in late October, at St. Lawrence Hall. He swore that Thompson told him of a dispatch that Surratt had delivered from Jefferson Davis authorizing the assassination of Lincoln and other top officials, and that Thompson had invited him to join in the enterprise. Conover testified that he had submitted an article to the Tribune warning of the plot against Lincoln being hatched in Canada, but that publisher Horace Greeley had neither printed it nor warned the government, as Conover had hoped he would.26
Conover went on to testify that, after the assassination, he had been sent back to Montreal to investigate the Canadian-Confederate connection and that he had encountered John Surratt again. He also said that on May 22, after the commission had begun its work, he met with Tucker, Cleary and Sanders, who showed no remorse for the president’s death. Cleary, he testified, had been especially upset that Lincoln had not pardoned John Beall for his involvement in the Georgian incident and had “considered the killing of the President as an act of retributive justice.”27
Another important witness was Louis Weichmann. He had been a regular at the Surratt house and a friend of John Surratt, Lewis Powell and Booth. He corroborated the testimony of others that the plot against Lincoln had begun with a meeting between John Surratt and Jefferson Davis in Richmond. According to Weichmann, Davis supported the plan to kidnap Lincoln, and he had Surratt take a dispatch with his authorization to Thompson in Montreal. Thompson then withdrew $184,000 from his Canadian bank account to finance the operation. This is where, according to Weichmann and a number of other witnesses, Booth had entered the picture.
Their testimony established that by late 1864, John Wilkes Booth was spending more time and energy on political matters than on the stage. Born in Baltimore, an ardent racist and a strong supporter of states’ rights and the Confederate cause, he had come to hate Lincoln and everything for which he stood. Through David Herold and John Surratt, Booth had ingratiated himself among Confederate spies with charm, boasts, manipulation and lies.
While many conflicting stories were told at the trial, investigators later established that in the second week of October Booth had indeed arrived in Montreal and taken a room at St. Lawrence Hall. He spoke with a number of Confederates, including notorious blockade runner Patrick C. Martin. On October 27, Booth and Martin visited the Bank of Ontario and exchanged $300 in gold coins for £60 gold sterling. After ten days in Montreal, dealing with spies, money and a mysterious trunk he claimed contained theatrical costumes but needed to be moved through Canada, Booth returned to the United States.
While these facts were noted at the trial, they were lost in the fog of witnesses embellishing or confusing them. Most conflated the plot to kidnap the president in March with plans to execute multiple assassinations in April. Some witnesses simply lied. Richard Montgomery and Sanford Conover, for instance, both claimed to have spoken with Thompson in Montreal after he had already left the city. On June 8, two weeks after Conover’s testimony, the Montreal Evening Telegraph published an affidavit that was read into the trial record. A gentleman from Montreal argued that the man calling himself Sanford Conover was impersonating him.28 The accusation was true: the false Conover’s real name was established as Charles Durham. But his testimony was allowed to stand.
After the trial, it was proven that Judge Holt had arranged for Durham—as Conover—and other witnesses to tell the stories that he and Stanton wanted told. Money was paid to ensure that they stuck to the tales they had agreed to tell.29 A year later, Montgomery would appear before the House Judiciary Committee investigating the trial and the commission and admit that he had perjured himself.30 The committee also found that Durham/Conover had not only lied on the stand but had also instructed others to do the same, and paid them for their efforts. In November 1866, he would be arrested for committing perjury before the House committee, found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison.31
Never mentioned throughout the trial was that Confederate president Jefferson Davis had been captured on May 10, and that “Canadian Cabinet” member Clement Clay had surrendered the next day. Throughout the trial, both languished in horrid conditions at Virginia’s Fort Monroe, and Stanton and Holt elected to leave them—and the truth—behind bars.
At the time, of course, the trial’s findings were all that mattered, and its conclusions were unequivocal. Special judge advocate John Bingham said it best in his summation: “Surely no word further need be spoken to show that John Wilkes Booth was in this conspiracy; that John Surratt was in this conspiracy; and that Jefferson Davis and his several agents named, in Canada, were in this conspiracy.”32
On June 29, the long trail of witnesses finally came to an end. The commission had decided beforehand that only a majority was needed to convict and only two-thirds to sentence death. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt and David Herold were to be hanged. Sam Arnold and Mike O’Laughlen, childhood friends of Booth’s, and Dr. Samuel Mudd were sentenced to hard labour for life, and Edman Spangler for six years. President Johnson sig
ned off and then stopped an attempt to appeal Surratt’s sentence. On an overcast July 7 afternoon, a large crowd gathered in the courtyard outside the makeshift courtroom to witness the multiple hanging, and America’s first hanging of a woman. The spectators fell silent as the four prisoners were led past rough-hewn coffins that lay beside the red brick wall, and then up the stairs of the newly constructed gallows. At 1:26, soldiers pushed supports away and a trap door opened. With gasps from the crowd, the convicted conspirators dropped six feet to their deaths.
Few mourned their fate or questioned the commission’s conclusions. An article in July’s Atlantic Magazine summarized the consensus opinion:
We have the authority of a high Government official for the statement that “the President’s murder was organized in Canada and approved at Richmond”; but the evidence in support of this extraordinary announcement is, doubtless for the best of reasons, withheld at the time we write. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that the assassination plot was formed in Canada, as some of the vilest miscreants of the Secession side have been allowed to live in that country.… But it is not probable that British subjects had anything to do with any conspiracy of this kind. The Canadian error was in allowing the scum of the Secession to abuse the “right of hospitality” through the pursuit of hostile action against us from the territory of a neutral.33
