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Authors: Marie Jakober

The Halifax Connection

BOOK: The Halifax Connection
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To the memory of my father, who could never understand why his teenaged daughter kept bringing home all those books about dead generals from another country. He would be intrigued now, I think, to see where it all led.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Cast of Characters

A Historical Note to the Reader

A Note on the Terminology of the Period

Prologue

Book One - Halifax, February 1862

Chapter 1 - The Review

Chapter 2 - The Old Man is Looking for Some Spies

Book Two - The North Atlantic, Summer 1863

Chapter 3 - The Osprey

Chapter 4 - The Raiders

Book Three - Montreal, October 1863

Chapter 5 - Little Richmond

Chapter 6 - Brownie

Chapter 7 - The Irish Stone

Chapter 8 - Morrison’s Party

Chapter 9 - At the Sailors’ Church

Chapter 10 - The Grand Conspiracy

Chapter 11 - The Rainstorm

Chapter 12 - Departure

Chapter 13 - On the Saguenay

Chapter 14 - Not Death but Love

Book Four - Halifax, October–December 1863

Chapter 15 - Spirit Creatures

Chapter 16 - The Den

Chapter 17 - Mac Nab

Chapter 18 - Muffinry

Chapter 19 - Queen’s Wharf

Chapter 20 - After the Chesapeake

Book Five - Halifax, 1864

Chapter 21 - Spies at the Den

Chapter 22 - To Love or Not to Love

Chapter 23 - At the Waverley

Chapter 24 - Best Mates

Chapter 25 - At the Halifax Club

Chapter 26 - Separation

Chapter 27 - The Return

Chapter 28 - The Letter

Chapter 29 - The Rising Storm

Chapter 30 - Maury Janes

Chapter 31 - Setting the Snare

Chapter 32 - The Vessel of Retribution

Chapter 33 - The Nature of the Game

Epilogue

Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Historical Persons Mentioned or Appearing in the Text

Canadian and British

John Bright
, British manufacturer, member of Parliament for Birmingham

George Brown
, editor of the Toronto
Globe;
Liberal politician and subsequently a Father of Confederation

William Gladstone
, British Chancellor of the Exchequer

Joseph Howe
, popular Nova Scotia politician, leader of the movement for responsible government

Lord Lyons
(Richard Bickerton Pemell), British ambassador to Washington

John A. Macdonald
, Conservative politician, subsequently a Father of Confederation and first prime minister of the Dominion of Canada

Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Milne
, commander of the British fleet in North America

Lord Monck
(Charles Stanley, Fourth Viscount Monck), governor general of British North America and subsequently of the Dominion of Canada, 1861–68

Lord Palmerston
(Henry John Temple), prime minister of England

George Wade
, a Nova Scotian recruited by the Confederates under John Braine

Sir Fenwick Williams
, commander of all British military forces in North America

American (Union and Confederate)

John Braine
, British-born Kentuckian adventurer and petty criminal, hijacker of the ship
Chesapeake

Clement Clay
, Confederate commissioner to Canada

Jefferson Davis
, president of the Confederate States of America
Mortimer Jackson
, United States consul in Halifax

George Kane
, former police marshal of Baltimore; Confederate agent in Canada

Robert E. Lee
, Confederate general

Abraham Lincoln
, president of the United States

General John Hunt Morgan
, Confederate cavalry commander and leader of raid into northwestern states in 1863

Captain Raphael Semmes
, captain of the Confederate raiding ship
Alabama

Jacob Thompson
, Confederate commissioner to Canada

Captain John Wilkinson
, Confederate naval officer

Important Fictional Characters Appearing in the Novel

Bryce Amberson
, English naval officer, related by marriage to Erryn Shaw

Sylvie Bowen
, English mill worker and immigrant to Canada

Aggie Breault
, housemaid at Den, a Halifax boarding house

Jonathan Bryce
, Montreal police constable and spymater

Matt Calverley
, Halifax police constable

Daniel Carroll
, Montreal businessman, Confederate supporter

Susan Danner
, mistress of the Den

Harry Dobbs
, manservant at the Den

François Dufours
, Halifax police constable

Jackson Follett
, chief Confederate agent in Montreal

Nathaniel Foxe
, captain of the U.S. merchant ship
Osprey

Frances Harris
, aunt of Sylvie Bowen

James Fitzroy Hawkins
, commander of the Halifax militia

Maury Janes
, Confederate agent

Latour
, Canadian undercover agent in Montreal

Annie MacKay
, scullion at the Den

Alexander MacNab
, Halifax businessman, Confederate supporter

Louise Mallette (“Madame”)
, Halifax widow

Edmund Morrison
, Montreal businessman, Confederate supporter

Jack Murray
, friend of Erryn Shaw

Isabel Orton
, daughter of James Orton

James Orton
, Halifax lawyer, Confederate supporter

Jabin Romney
, chief Union agent in Halifax

“Captain William Ross,”
alias of blockade-running English naval officer Bryce Amberson

Emma Sanders
, cook at the Den

Erryn Shaw
, exiled English aristocrat

David Strange
, friend of James Orton, Confederate supporter

Brad Taylor
, Confederate courier killed in Halifax

Zeb Taylor
, Brad Taylor’s brother

Gideon Winslow
, Erryn Shaw’s landlord

A Historical Note to the Reader

I
N
1860, A
BRAHAM
L
INCOLN
was elected president of the United States on a platform that would have prohibited the further expansion of slavery into the nation’s western territories. Within months of this election, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Civil war broke out between the sections in April 1861, and four more border states joined the Confederacy. Its capital was established in Richmond, Virginia.

From the very beginning, the main objective of Confederate foreign policy was to obtain European support, especially from England. Considerable hostility already existed between Britain and the United States, carried over from the American Revolution and the War of 1812. A new war between the two powers would have thrown the full weight of the British Empire into the camp of the Confederates.

The best place to provoke such a war was Canada. It had a long, unwatched border with the United States, allowing for the
possibility of Confederate raids—raids that might be followed by American retaliation and the outbreak of war. Although England was officially neutral, many Englishmen, mostly of the wealthier classes, sympathized with and aided the Confederates, both in Britain and in Canada.

Since the Confederacy was not recognized as a nation, it did not have official diplomatic status in any country. However, many Southerners came to Canada to further the interests of the Confederacy in various ways, and the Union sent a number of intelligence operatives north to try to keep track of their activities.

At the time, Canada was not yet a nation state. In official documents and usage, all of the British territories on the continent were collectively known as British North America. The region that was actually called Canada comprised only small parts of what today are Ontario and Quebec. Colloquially, however, on both sides of the border, the terms “Canada” and “Canadians” were used more indiscriminately, to refer to the entire region and its inhabitants. I have chosen to follow this usage much of the time, partly in the interests of clarity and simplicity, and partly because I believe we were a nationality before we were a nation state; this was one of the reasons Confederation was possible.

BOOK: The Halifax Connection
2.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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