Arms purchased.
Two small nine-pounders were quietly purchased,
Colt furnished us with 100 navy revolvers, with an ample supply of pistol ammunition—of course, through several indirect channels; dumb-bells were substituted for cannon-balls, as it would have excited suspicion to have asked for such an article in
Montreal; powder, bullets, slugs, butcher-knives, in lieu of cutlasses, and grapnels were obtained, and all preparations made to arm the escaped Confederate officers and soldiers who, to the number of 180, we were promised, could be induced to act with us in any way to benefit our cause; but when the time came for them to come forward, only thirty-two volunteered, and, with our party thus augmented to fifty-four, we determined to make the attempt on the
Michigan on the following plan: From
Ogdensburg, in New York, there is a line of screw steamers plying to
Chicago, in the grain and provision trade, and as they return nearly empty to
Chicago, and sometimes carry the Adams Express Company's safe, we decided to take deck-passage on board one of them, as mechanics and laborers bound to
Chicago to work on the city water-works there, and with this view one of our clever privates, named
Connelly, was sent over to
Ogdensburg, who paid the passage-money for twenty-five of us in advance, to be taken on board at some point on the Well and canal, and, while doing so, he made an agreement to take as many more laborers as he could obtain, their passage being fixed at the same price, to which the New Yorker consented, and gave him the ticket to show to the captain of the boat.
We were then to assemble at
St. Catharines, on the canal, go on board the steamer (one of our men, apparently entirely unconnected with us, having charge of the guns, powder, pistols, etc., boxed up in casks, boxes, etc., and marked ‘Machinery,
Chicago,’ going on board the same steamer with us), and when fairly out in
Lake Erie, and well clear of British jurisdiction, we were to rise on the officers and crew, overpower them, seize the steamer, mount our two nine-pounders, arm the men, secure the prisoners, and push on for
Sandusky, timing our arrival so as to reach the
Michigan about daylight, collide with her as if by accident, board and carry her by the cutlass and pistol, and then,
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with her guns, loaded with grape and canister, trained on the prison headquarters, send a boat on shore to demand an unconditional surrender of the island, with its prisoners, garrison, material of war, etc., upon penalty of being fired into and the prisoners being released without restraint upon their actions.
Major (W. S.)
Pierson, the
commanding officer, is said to be a humane man, and seeing the disadvantage at which we would have him, with the prisoners by this time clamorous for their release, he would have been compelled to surrender, and, with the half-dozen steamers at the wharf in
Sandusky, we could have speedily landed the whole 2,000 prisoners on the
Canada shore, distant only some forty miles; and then, with the
Michigan under our command, and she the only man-of-war on the lakes, with a crew composed of our fifty-four and some fifty others of such men as the Berkeleys, Randolphs, Paynes, and others among the prisoners, we would have had the lake shore from
Sandusky to
Buffalo at our mercy, with all the vast commerce of
Lake Erie as our just and lawful prey.
So confident were we of success and so admirable were our arrangements, that we had all assembled at
St. Catharines, on the canal, waiting in hourly anticipation the arrival of the steamer, when the storm burst upon us in the shape of
Mr. Stanton's telegram to the mayors of the lake cities to be on their guard against a Confederate raid, which he had been notified by the
Governor-General of
Canada (Lord Monck) had been organized in
Canada for operations on
Lake Erie.
Thus, my dear admiral, with victory, and such a victory, within our grasp, we were foiled; and so anxious were the
British authorities to keep on good terms with their detested neighbors (for they do detest them) that the troops who were about to be removed from
Port Colborne, the
Lake Erie terminus of the canal, were ordered to remain at that place, with instructions to arrest any vessel passing through the canal with a suspicious number of passengers on board.
With our plan thus foiled, and with the lake cities in a fever of fear and excitement, and with the rapid advance of reinforcements, both naval and military, to re-inforce the garrison at
Johnson's Island against our compact little band of fifty-two Confederates, we had, as a matter of course, to abandon the design, and leave
Canada as soon as possible, but to do so in a dignified and proper manner.
Wilkinson,
Loyall, and I (
Coleman,
Kelly, and
Brest) remained in
Montreal from five to ten days, giving to the
Canadian authorities every opportunity to arrest us, if it was thought proper to do so; but Lord Monck was satisfied with having frustrated
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our plans, and did not care to complicate the matter or show his zeal for the
Yankees in any other shape than the very decisive one of informing on us. And thus we came away, leaving our poor fellows to bear the increased hardships of their dreary prison life for months to come.
