The Chesapeake Affair was an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War. On December 7, 1863, Confederate sympathizers from the British colonies Nova Scotia and New Brunswick captured the American steamer Chesapeake off the coast of Cape Cod. The expedition was planned and led by Vernon Guyon Locke (1827–1890) of Nova Scotia and John Clibbon Brain (1840–1906).Locke was born in Sandy Point, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, in 1827. At the advent of the rebellion, Locke offered his services to the South. He secured his ship Retribution letter of marque. His alias was John Parker to cover his privateering activities (See Marquis, p.136). When George Wade of New Brunswick killed one of the American crew, the Confederacy claimed its first fatality in New England waters.Marquis, p. 143
The Confederate sympathizers had planned to re-coal at Saint John, New Brunswick, and head south to Wilmington, North Carolina.Hoy, p. 180 Instead, the captors had difficulties at Saint John; so they sailed further east and re-coaled in Halifax, Nova Scotia. U.S. forces responded to the attack, violating British sovereignty by trying to arrest the captors in Nova Scotian waters. International tensions rose. Wade and others were able to escape through the assistance of William Johnston Almon, a prominent Nova Scotian and Confederate sympathizer.
The Chesapeake Affair was one of the most sensational international incidents that occurred during the American Civil War.Hoy, p. 179 The incident briefly threatened to bring the British Empire into the war against the North.Hoy, p. 182
Historical context While slavery had effectively ended in Nova Scotia at the beginning of the 19th century, the British ended the practice of slave-owning throughout its Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.Hoy, p. 204 When the Civil War began, most Canadians and Maritimers were overtly sympathetic to the North, which had abolished slavery after the Revolution and which had trading ties.Hoy, p. vi At the beginning of the war, approximately 20,000 men from British North America, almost half of them Maritimers, crossed the border to fight, primarily for the North.Hoy, p. 130 Many families had strong kinship ties across the border with people in New England, New York and some of the Midwest.
As the war went on, relations between Britain and the North became strained for numerous reasons, and sympathy turned toward the South. Britain declared itself neutral during the war. Increased trade went through Halifax to both Northern and Southern ports. Nova Scotia's economy thrived throughout the war. This trade created strong ties between Halifax and merchants from both the North and South. In Halifax the main commercial agent for the Confederacy was Benjamin Wier and Co. – a company that flew the Confederate flag outside its office and accepted Confederate currency.Hoy, p. 185; Marquis, p. 169 The informal headquarters for the Confederates was located at the Waverley Hotel, 1266 Barrington Street (present-day Waverley Inn).Hoy, p. 257 At the same time, Halifax became the leading supplier of coal and fish to the North.Hoy, p. 256; The Waverley Hotel used to be at the corner of Barrington and Blowers streets.
While trade with the South was flourishing, the North created a naval blockade to prevent supplies getting to the South. Hundreds of blockade runners loaded with British arms and supplies would use the port of Halifax to ship their goods between Britain and the Confederate States.Hoy, p. 254 Much of the coal and other fuels used to run Confederate steamers went through Halifax.Hoy, p.255 Halifax's role in arms trafficking for the South was so noticeable that the Acadian Recorder in 1864 described the city's effort as a "mercenary aid to a fratricidal war, which, without outside intervention, would have long ago ended." U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward complained on March 14, 1865:
Halifax has been for more than one year, and yet is, a naval station for vessels which, running the blockade, furnish supplies and munitions of war to our enemy, and it has been made a rendezvous for those piratical cruisers which come out from Liverpool and Glasgow, to destroy our commerce on the high seas, and even to carry war into the ports of the United States. Halifax is a postal and despatch station in the correspondence between the rebels at Richmond and their emissaries in Europe. Halifax merchants are known to have surreptitiously imported provisions, arms, and ammunition from our seaports, and then transshipped them to the rebels. The governor of Nova Scotia has been neutral, just, and friendly; so were the judges of the province who presided on the trial of the Chesapeake. But then it is understood that, on the other hand, merchant shippers of Halifax, and many of the people of Halifax, are willing agents and abettors of the enemies of the United States, and their hostility has proved not merely offensive but deeply injurious.
Immediately following the 1863 Chesapeake Affair, Seward notified the Canadian government that:
The recent shipment of one thousand rifles [by pro-Confederate British sympathizers] from New York to Halifax in violation of military regulations, the recently discovered plans of Confederate 'pirates' at Halifax to capture other American steamers between New York and Halifax, the plans of 'neutral passengers' to carry forbidden and treasonable mails to the insurgents and the plans of 'neutral merchants' to carry war supplies.
Canadians and Maritimers became fearful of the power that the North demonstrated in defeating the South, and worried that it might want to annex British North America next. Toronto, Montreal, St. Catharines, and Halifax were centers of a well-financed network of Confederate spies, escaped prisoners, and soldiers of fortune who were trying to influence government opinion in the war.Hoy, p.vii The Confederates arranged various attacks on the Union from Canada, such as the raid on St. Albans, Vermont. The plan to kill President Abraham Lincoln was made in the St. Lawrence Hall hotel in Montreal.Hoy, p.viii The Chesapeake Affair was the result of a plan created in Saint John, New Brunswick, by Confederate sympathizers: they intended to capture an American ship and use it as a blockade runner for the South.Marquis, p. 147
Capture
Locke had arranged for John C. Braine and sixteen Confederate sympathizers from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to board the Chesapeake as normal passengers in New York.(Hoy, p.179, Marquis, p. 144) The Chesapeake's Captain Willett later testified he remembered Braine as well as a man called H.C. Brooks, First Lieutenant Henry A. Parr, navigator Robert Osbourne and sailing master George Robinson, but did not recognize the name Robert Clifford when put to him.https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_08052_10_8/236 Sessional papers of the Dominion of Canada : volume 8, fourth session of the third Parliament, session 1877 : 1877 Daniel Henderson further testified the attackers included James McKinney and David Collins. Engineer James Johnstone further identified George Wade, Treadwell, two men named Moore and Galbraith Cox and Robert Cox, and elaborated that Lieutenant Parr informed him he had been in the Confederate Army and captured as a prisoner of war but been released, and that he had accompanied Braine on a scouting mission aboard the Chesapeake a month earlier in preparation. A Saint John resident named Charles Watters testified that he knew Linus Seely from Carleton County, New Brunswick, as well as knowing McKinney, and saw them with Braine and the two Coxes meeting at a workshop on Main Street near Charlotte Street and understood them to have met with Captain Parker and Robinson as well on the subject of such an attack. Captain Parker did not partake in the initial attack, but took control of the ship at Saint John and took it to Dipper Harbour and onward to Halifax. Captain Parker's actual name was Vernon G. Locke, a native of Nova Scotia who moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, when young and began calling himself Captain John Parker. Others named include George Sears, George Moore, Robert Moore, William Harris, James Kenny and George Wade.
John Ring and James Trecartin, also of Carleton County, testified they were at the meeting with Watters, McKinney and Seely and also saw Braine producing the letter of marque from Jefferson Davis authorizing them to capture US merchant ships.
While en route to Maine, on the night of 7 December, just off the coast of Cape Cod, Braine and his men seized control of the vessel. The crew resisted; in the exchange of gunfire that took place, the ship's second engineer Orin Schaffer,was killed, and three crewmen were wounded.Hoy, p. 181 After seizing the vessel, Locke took command at Grand Manan Island.
Neutrality regulations forbade the bringing of prizes into British waters.Marquis, p. 153 Locke sailed Chesapeake to Saint John, New Brunswick, as planned but was unable to load coal for the voyage south. He next took Chesapeake to Nova Scotia. Chesapeake stopped at Shelburne (10 December) and at Conquerall Bank, Nova Scotia, on the LaHave River (14 December), where they loaded some coal. During the next two days, they sold some of the stolen cargo for supplies.Marquis, p. 154
In the meantime, two Union warships were closing in: the fast side-wheeler , moving south from Halifax, and the , coming north from Shelburne.Hoy, p. 184
Chesapeake was nearly caught by Malvern on the LaHave River. Under the cover of night, Chesapeake turned all lights out and slipped behind Spectacle Island and out on the LaHave without being detected.Hoy, 185; Marquis, p.157 Chesapeake again avoided capture at Lunenburg and traveled on to Halifax.Hoy, p. 185 The vessel moved through Mahone Bay. At St. Margarets Bay, some crew left the ship. By 16 December, the ship arrived at Mud Cove harbour at Sambro. Once there Locke went to Halifax overland. There he arranged for a schooner come to Sambro with coal. While Chesapeake was being loaded with coal, Malvern and Dacotah arrived.Hoy, p. 186, Marquis, p. 162
Arrest Upon the arrival of the American warships, most of the rebel prize crew on Chesapeake fled. Lieutenant Nickels of Malvern violated British sovereignty and international laws by arresting the three men who remained: one from New Brunswick and two from Nova Scotia. George Wade, who had killed a crew member during the raid, was among the prisoners. The Americans took Chesapeake to Halifax to get clearance for their actions from the British authorities.Hoy, p. 187 Chesapeake arrived in Halifax on 17 December, escorted by the two American warships. Three other warships followed, which had also pursued Chesapeake: , , and .Marquis, pp. 164, 166
News of the capture and the fact that Maritimers were the assailants resulted in widespread anger in the North. The New York Herald condemned the attack as the "most daring and atrocious on record" and the assailants for showing "cold blood and feeble circulation of reptiles." Another paper derided the citizens of Saint John as "mere pimps" of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and "his fellow traitors."
Seward informed Britain that the U.S. wanted Chesapeake returned immediately, and the hijackers arrested and extradited to the U.S. in accordance with Article 10 of the 1842 Webster–Ashburton Treaty, which provided the extradition of "all persons who, being charged with the crime of murder ... or Piracy".
Escape