THE FENIAN MOVEMENT 



199 



Aid would be received from the people and government of the United 

 States, and indeed a war would be forced between this country and Great 

 Britain. Even if this war did not ensue the United States government 

 would recognize the belligerency of the Irish Republic, once that it 

 had soil that it could claim as its own, and then the republic could send 

 out privateers against English commerce. 1 Thus harrassed on the 

 sea and with a revolution in Ireland, England, in time, would be forced 

 to submit. 



Nor was the plan so chimerical as it may at first thought appear. 

 Many men very close to the officials at Washington were at this time 

 evolving plans for a war with Great Britain. Senator Stewart, of Nevada, 

 tells of a plan for such a purpose suggested by Senator Zach Chandler, 

 of Michigan. 2 It was that the United States should send 200,000 

 trained veterans into Canada, 100,000 to be picked from the Federal, 

 and 100,000 from the Confederate Army. This plan was much more 

 visionary that the Fenian plan; yet thirty of the best minds of the Senate 

 were won over to the proposition. Add to this probability of war the 

 confidence among the Irish, born of long years of catering to the Irish 

 vote, that they could get from the government all the assistance they 

 wished, and one can see that the Fenian plan was, to the Fenian mind, 

 well founded. 



With the advent of spring, steps were taken toward the culmination 

 of the invasion. The places of rendezvous 3 were Malone and Potsdam 

 in New York, St. Albans in Vermont, and, chief of all, Buffalo. Des- 

 patches from all over the country told of the departure of Irish troops. 

 From Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Nashville, Louis- 

 ville, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, and other large cities, Fenians in 

 companies 4 varying in size, started northward. The Cleveland Fenians 



1 "Who will say," said General Sweeney at one of the war meetings, "that Andrew Johnson will not recog- 

 nize the Irish Republic, even if it should be only in name, as long as we have soil that we can claim as our 

 own ? It is necessary to have some base, from which we can send out privateers against English commerce; 

 and by that means, I think, we can take enough to maintain a government for fifty years very respectably. - '— 

 Geneva Arbitration, Vol. II, p. 255. 



' For details see the account in the Saturday Evening Post, February 29, 1908. 



s Diplomatic Correspondence, 1866, Vol. I, p. 126. 



* Three companies from Philadelphia; four from Baltimore; three hundred men from Cincinnati; seven 

 hundred men from Indianapolis; one hundred and fifty men from Washington; a regiment and a half from 

 Chicago; "a large body" from Louisville; three hundred and forty-two from Cincinnati, are examples of the 

 umbers the despatches gave. 



