Category Archives: States

St. Albans Raid

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The Civil War And Vermont

October 19, 1864

While Vermont’s contribution to the Union during the Civil War is significant, Civil War events in Vermont are not significant. Nevertheless, there is an interesting Vermont Civil War event.

Vermont Was The First State To Abolish Slavery

In 1777, Vermont proclaims itself as an independent state. The second article of the Vermont Constitution abolishes slavery, making Vermont the first state to abolish slavery. In the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln won a decisive victory in Vermont with voting results as follows:

  • Abraham Lincoln – 33,808
  • Stephen Douglas – 8,649
  • John C. Breckenridge – 1,866
  • John Bell – 217

“Vermont Will Do Its Full Duty.”

Vermont had three governors during the Civil War, they were Erastus Fairbanks (1860-1861), Frederick Holbrook (1861-1863), and J. Gregory Smith (1863-1865). All were Republicans.

When the Federal Government called for troops, Governor Fairbanks stated “Vermont will do its Full Duty” and Vermont did so by providing the Union with six infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, two light artillery batteries, and three sharpshooter companies. Vermont also built three military hospitals.

During the Civil War Vermont Provided The Union:

  • Over 28,100 men who served in volunteer units
  • 17 infantry regiments
  • 1 cavalry regiment
  • 3 light artillery batteries
  • 1 heavy artillery company
  • 3 sharpshooter companies
  • 2 frontier cavalry companies

Green Mountain State Casualties In The Civil War

  • During battle, 1,832 were killed or mortally wounded
  • Disease claimed 3,362 men, either in prison or otherwise
  • Over 2,200 Vermont men were taken prisoner
  • Vermont men who died while prisoners of war totaled 615

Vermont provided the Union with men who carried with them to Civil War battlefields the reputation and pride of the Revolutionary War Green Mountain Boys. During the Civil War, the youngest to ever to win the Medal of Honor was Vermonter Willie Johnston. Sixty-three other men from Vermont also won the Medal of Honor.

St. Albans Raid

Despite the fury and carnage of the Civil War occurring in other parts of the country, the people of Vermont led a peaceful life during the war years. St. Albans Raid however, muddied the water somewhat for the quiet village of St. Albans. St. Albans is located on the shore of Lake Champlain, only fifteen miles from the Canadian Border.

On October 10, 1864 three young men check in at a hotel in St. Albans. They explain they are from St. John’s Canada (Canada at this time, was the Province of Canada, and part of the British Empire) and are on a sporting vacation. Their leader signs the hotel register as Bennet Young, another signs in as George Sanders. More men from St. John’s regularly arrive at the hotel in groups of two or three every day or so, their sporting vacation in the small St. Albans village is shaping up to be a big affair. Finally, a total of twenty-one young men (they averaged 23 years of age), arrived over nine days. They seemed to be a friendly bunch of young men.

At 3:00 P.M. on October 19, 1864 the Canadian sporting vacation to St. Albans gives way to the real reason and mission for the young men gathering in St. Albans. The friendly young men are actually Confederate cavalrymen who were taken prisoner by Union troops, but had escaped to Canada. They were at St. Albans on authority of the Confederate government to steal money for the Confederate Treasury and to distract Federal troops away from their lines. They were not friendly.

St. Albans Raid

St. Albans Raid

The raiding Confederates divide into three groups and simultaneously enter the three banks of St. Albans. Confederate agent George Sanders has drawn his gun as he climbs the steps of the hotel and shouts: “This city is now in the possession of the Confederate States of America!” The Civil War has come to St. Albans, Vermont with Confederates soldiers taking over the town, galloping about and threatening the Vermont Yankees with guns.

The Confederates rob the St. Albans banks of $208,000. While the bank robbing is going on, eight or nine other Confederates gather townspeople to the town common, threatening them with drawn guns and stealing their horses. Confederate Lieutenant Bennett Young orders his men to set St. Albans aflame using bottles of “Greek Fire,” an incendiary chemical that would burst to flame when exposed to air. Fortunately for St. Albans, the bottles of Greek Fire turn out to be duds. Only a woodshed was set afire.

The citizens of St. Albans fight back and one townsman is killed, while another is injured. A lone raider is wounded and he dies afterwards. Confusion and mayhem control the scene for both the townspeople and the Confederate raiders. During their escape to Canada, the Confederates clumsily drop some of the bank money in the town, but still make off with over $200,000. Canadian authorities arrest them in Montreal after the raiders have crossed back into Canada.

The St. Albans Raiders are tried In Montreal. The United States government considers the Confederates to be criminals and requests their extradition. Canada however, has a trick up her sleeve, saying the Confederates are soldiers under military orders. With this stance, and desiring to remain neutral in the American Civil War, Canada does not convict the Confederate raiders of a crime and sets them free. Canada returns to the St. Albans banks $88,000 that was found with the raiders.

It has been interpreted that the ruling of the Canadian court in the St. Albans Raid was in fact recognition of the Confederate States of America by the British, since Canada was then the Province of Canada and part of the British Empire. This is debatable.

The raider Lieutenant Bennett Young, later becomes a Confederate general.

Clara Barton – The Angel Of The Battlefield

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Clara Barton Spent Her Life Helping And Serving Others

A young lad is badly injured when he falls from the rafters of a barn at North Oxford, Massachusetts in 1832. His name is David, and the fall makes him an invalid. Young David will spend the next two years recovering from his injuries and during this time his eleven-year-old sister stays by his bedside nursing him back to health. The sister’s name was Clara, and this was the beginning of Clara Barton’s life of caring for and helping others.

Civil War Nurse Clara Barton

Civil War Nurse Clara Barton

Clara Barton was born on Christmas day in 1821 and like her four older siblings, Clara’s schooling was at home. At age fifteen she becomes a schoolteacher and then later she starts a free public school in Bordentown, New Jersey. Clara Barton would spend her life aiding and serving others. During the Civil War, Clara Barton becomes known as “The Angel of the Battlefield.”

When the Civil War began in 1861, Clara Barton was working for the United States Patent Office and living in Washington, D.C. The women working at the Patent Office before the Civil War were known as “government girls” as they were part of the growing Federal government. These women had jobs that were previously held only by men. When the Civil War began, these “government girls” lost their jobs.

The Baltimore Riot occurs on April 19, 1861 when Massachusetts and Pennsylvania militia making their way to Washington are attacked by secessionists in Baltimore. Four militiamen and twelve citizens are killed. Clara Barton starts a relief program for the 6th Massachusetts Regiment when it arrives at Washington.

Barton advertised in the Worcester, Massachusetts, Spy newspaper for donations when she learned after First Bull Run that the injured men did not have adequate medical supplies for their needs. Clara started an independent organization to distribute the collected supplies. Her efforts were successful, and the next year Clara Barton was granted a general pass by United States Surgeon General William A. Hammond to travel along with the army ambulances. Hammond’s pass said Barton’s presence with the ambulances was: “for the purpose of distributing comforts for the sick and wounded, and nursing them.” Clara accepted this pass, but she was somewhat reluctant to do so, she was afraid she might be confused as one of the women who made it a habit of following the army – but not for the good, and higher purposes like her’s.

After Second Bull Run, Clara Barton was part of the volunteer nurses United States Secretary Edwin M. Stanton called for to help the troops spread along the defeated Union line of retreat. She gathered and solicited wagonloads of food and needed medical supplies, taking them to the troops on the front lines. Barton would aid the injured and sick, and make soup and coffee.

“The men were brought down from the field till they covered acres. By midnight there must have been three thousand helpless men lying in that hay…. All night we made compresses and slings – and bound up and wet wounds, when we could get water, fed what we could, traveled miles in that dark over to those poor helpless wretches, in terror lest some one’s candle fall into the hay and consume them all.”

— Clara Barton writing of her experiences tending to the injured men after Second Bull Run. Barton had helped spread bales of hay onto the ground for the men to lay on.

Washington, D.C. Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital

Washington, D.C. Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital

Clara Barton was almost killed during the Antietam Campaign in September, 1862. While she is attending to an injured soldier a bullet passes through a sleeve of her dress. The bullet misses Clara, but strikes and kills the injured soldier. Clara also dug a bullet out the cheek of another soldier using only her pocketknife. A few days after Antietam, Barton becomes ill with typhoid fever.

Clara Barton was working in field hospitals of General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James in June, 1864. Also in 1864, Barton was part of a petition along with other notables such as Horace Greeley, P. T. Barnum, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, for the establishment of veteran’s homes. By 1933, fifteen such homes were built.

In February 1865, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Clara Barton to attend to correspondence to help reunite missing soldiers with their families. That July, she was at the infamous Andersonville prison in Georgia to manage the identification of unmarked graves. From hospital and burial records, Clara was able to create a list of missing prisoners.

In 1877, Clara Barton organized the American National Committee and three years later it became the American Red Cross. Clara served as the first president of the American Red Cross and she published a book in 1882, titled: History of the Red Cross.

Clara Barton retired from the Red Cross to her home at Glen Echo outside of Washington, D.C. in 1904. “The Angel of the Battlefield died on April 12, 1912.

“If I were to speak of war, it would not be to show you the glories of conquering armies but the mischief and misery they strew in their tracks; and how, while they marched on with tread of iron and plumes proudly tossing in the breeze, some one must follow closely in their steps, crouching to the earth, toiling in the rain and darkness, shelterless themselves, with no thought of pride or glory, fame or praise, or reward; hearts breaking with pity, faces bathed in tears and hands in blood. This is the side which history never shows.”

— Clara Barton

Clara Barton: The Beginnings of the American Red Cross