On the 30th of May 1867 Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America, arrived in Toronto following his imprisonment after the Civil War. In a speech to a crowd of Canadian onlookers he said, “I thank you for the honour you have shown me, May peace and prosperity be forever the blessing of Canada, for she has been the asylum of many of my friends, as she is now an asylum for myself, may god bless you all.” What did he mean by an asylum for himself and many of his friends? When looking back on the Civil War it is difficult to sympathize with anyone who served on behalf of a political institution that sought to keep hundreds of thousands of people brutally enslaved. Yet, the reality is that back in the 1860s certain parts of Canada, and sizeable groups of Canadians and Maritimers, were indeed sympathetic to the southern cause, if not outright supportive. Various parts of British North America were used by Confederate spies, agents and saboteurs to conduct operations against Abraham Lincoln’s Union. In certain quarters of some cities and towns Confederates and their supporters could be found drinking, socializing, drumming up support, raising money, planning miliary operations and even dreaming of murder.

BOOK RECO: The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots against Lincoln by Julian Sher, published by Alfred E. Knopf Canada in 2023

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