138 years ago

[First of two parts]. Many of these men were veterans of the Union army that had only recently won the Civil War and all were Fenians, members of a fiery nationalist movement committed to freeing Ireland from English colonial rule at any cost. An armed invasion of Canada, then a British colony, might spark an Anglo-American war and thus open the way for a successful uprising in Ireland.
The Fenian Brotherhood was the first major nationalist organization to emerge after the Famine. It was founded in New York City in 1854 by exiled nationalists, among them John O’Mahoney and Michael Doheny. They chose the name “Fenian” to make clear the character of their movement. Irish nationalism had long been divided by two antagonistic philosophies. Some, like Theobold Wolfe Tone, advocated armed insurrection as the only means to achieve Irish independence from Britain. Others, like Daniel O’Connell, insisted that only peaceful and constitutional methods would prevail. The Fenians represented the former tradition and so named themselves in honor of Finn MacCool and his band of warriors from the ancient Celtic myth of the Fionna.
To avoid detection by British authorities and condemnation by the Catholic church (ever leery of radicalism), the Fenians created a cover organization known as the Emmet Monument Association. Its ostensible purpose was to raise money for a monument to honor the martyred United Irishman Robert Emmet. In reality, the funds collected were intended to finance an armed insurrection in Ireland. The scheme enjoyed incredible success, bringing in $500,000 from the U.S. and Canada between 1858 and 1866.
By that time, the Fenian Brotherhood had established a full-blown government-in-exile, centered in Philadelphia and consisting of a Senate, House of Delegates, and President.
As the Fenian’s took form in the United States, James Stephens, a participant in the failed Young Ireland uprising of 1848, founded in Dublin the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood (later renamed Irish Republican Brotherhood) on March 17, 1858. Working in tandem with the Fenians in America (in fact, all involved called themselves Fenians), the IRB planned for an armed uprising that would expel the British and lead to the establishment of a democratic republic of Ireland.
The only question was when? For a while, the American Civil War seemed to promise a unique opportunity. An openly pro-Confederate attitude on the part of British officials in the early phases of the conflict led to a series of diplomatic flare-ups between the Union and British governments. On several occasions the two sides nearly went to war — a development eagerly hoped for by Irish nationalists. “England’s difficulty,” nationalist John Mitchel asserted, “is Ireland’s opportunity.” In other words, England at war with the U.S. would be unable to put down a massive uprising in Ireland. But these hopes dimmed as tensions between the U.S. and Britain subsided.
Still, the end of the Civil War presented another attractive possibility. Might the Fenians in America fashion a force to invade Ireland out of Irish and Irish American Union army veterans? More than 144,000 men of Irish birth (and at least as many Irish Americans) served in the Union Army and many leading Fenians had dreams of enlisting them to invade Ireland as an army of liberation.
In October 1865, General Thomas W. Sweeny (still on active duty in the U.S. Army) was appointed Fenian Secretary of War and he immediately began drawing up plans for an armed invasion of Canada. Not everyone in the movement supported the idea. Indeed, John O’Mahoney opposed it as impractical and reckless. But he was powerless to stop it.
In February 1866, Fenians met in Pittsburgh to discuss plans for the coming invasion. The contrast to the nationalist scene in Ireland could not have been greater. There British officials were in the midst of a sweeping crackdown on the IRB that put much of its leadership in jail. In Pittsburgh and elsewhere in the U.S., Fenians openly organized for an invasion of Canada, but drew only a raised eyebrow from the federal government. Several factors account for this lax attitude. First, anti-British sentiment was still hot in the North given England’s pro-Confederate stance during the Civil War. Second, the administration of President Andrew Johnson feared that a crackdown on the Fenians would alienate Irish American voters. Finally, many in the administration viewed the rumored scheme as ridiculous and unworthy of serious attention. This last point may explain why the U.S. government actually sold thousands of guns (U.S. Army surplus) to Fenian agents.
While the permissive attitude on the part of the American government benefited the planners of the Fenian invasion, it also undermined their chances of success. With no fear of suppression, Fenian officials spoke freely about their plans. Major newspapers like the New York Herald carried frequent stories about the alleged invasion effort. Thus, even if the American government showed no interest in the plot, officials in London and Montreal certainly did. The latter sent agents who successfully infiltrated the Fenian movement. The former took steps to fortify the border between the U.S. and Canada and cancelled Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and festivities for 1866 out fear that they would be used as cover for the invasion.
By April 1866 the Fenian invasion plot encountered the first indication that things might not go as planned. John O’Mahoney, the Fenian leader who initially opposed the invasion idea, subsequently decided to raise his own Fenian army independent of Sweeny’s and stage his own invasion. On April 15, 1866 several hundred Fenians encamped near Portland, Maine seized a small Canadian island. Their exhilaration was short-lived, however, as they evacuated the island upon learning that the U.S. government had dispatched a force under Gen. George Meade (of Gettysburg fame).
Gen. Sweeny and his faction of the Fenian movement took great pleasure in O’Mahoney’s embarrassment, but they also recognized that if the real invasion of Canada was to succeed, it would have to take place very soon. Accordingly, Sweeny was ordered to accelerate his plans. As a trained and experienced professional soldier, he knew the odds of fashioning an effective army out of a haphazard collection of volunteers drawn from almost two-dozen states were slim. Yet, he had his orders to launch an invasion by early June.

HIBERNIAN HISTORY WEEK
May 27, 1852: Exiled Irish rebel Thomas Francis Meagher arrives in New York City and receives a hero’s welcome.
May 29, 1896: James Connolly establishes the Irish Socialist Republican Party.
May 30, 1806: Future president Andrew Jackson kills fellow lawyer Charles Dickinson in a duel.

HIBERNIAN BIRTHDATES
May 29, 1917: President John F. Kennedy is born in Brookline, Mass.
May 31, 1920: Lawyer Edward Bennett Williams is born in Hartford, Conn.
May 31, 1894: Radio and TV host Fred Allen is born in Cambridge, Mass.