Memorial Day is not only a time to honor those who died to defend the country, but also a good time to learn about our history. I found a couple of episodes about which relatively little has been written, but which you might find interesting.
•The Confederacy had quite an operation going in Canada during the Civil War. Jefferson Davis appointed an ex-Congressman, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi to head up operations in Toronto.
In 1864, Toronto was a hub of spy activity for both sides. Not only was Confederate communication with Britain directed through this area, former “Copperhead” Congressman C.L. Vallandingham (Ill.), had fled to the city in 1863. You may recognize his name as a Southern sympathizer who argued heavily in favor of appeasing the South prior to the start of the Civil War.
Vallandingham was trying to start a movement whereby Illinois, Indiana and Ohio would secede from the Union and form a Northwestern Confederacy, breaking the United States into three parts and forcing the Union to pursue peace.
Fortunately for the Union, the operation proved to be a true government project — a lot of rhetoric, but no real action.
However, it is interesting that several operations were run out of Toronto, such as Confederate agents mapping the coast of Maine for a possible invasion; Democrat James Robinson’s campaign for Governor of Illinois was funded by Confederates who believed he would turn the state militia and arsenal over to the Copperheads (he lost); a bank in St. Albans, Vermont was robbed of $200,000 in gold and currency in 1864 by Confederates who escaped back to Canada; and, it was revealed that an effort to use “pestilence warfare” on Washington, D.C., was attempted by the delivery of Yellow Fever infected blankets and clothing to the city in an attempt to infect President Lincoln and his cabinet.
(Source: Spies and Spymasters of the Civil War by Donald Markle.)
•World War I was raging across Europe in 1916 and President Woodrow Wilson was trying his best to keep the United States out of the war. As a matter of fact, he ran and won his campaign largely on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of the War” (Does this sound oddly familiar to modern times?)
However, Wilson was soon to find out what many in politics still do not understand to this day — the world’s problems really can’t be avoided by the U.S.
In January of 1917, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman sent a telegram to his counterpart in Mexico to urge Mexico to join the German cause. In return, Zimmerman promised to return territory won by the U.S. in the Mexican War of 1846 — namely Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
The British intercepted and deciphered the telegram. It was published in American newspapers on March 1 and one month later, we entered the war against Germany and its allies.
For the record, Mexico declined the invitation when it realized that it could neither get arms nor other financial support from German and that such a deal would mean a war they could not win.
(Source: U.S. archives; The Zimmerman Telegram by Barbara Tuchman.)
•Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is a peculiar place and part of history. It is a U.S. Naval base in a country with which the U.S. not only doesn’t have diplomatic relations, but would be considered hostile (see Embargo).
The Bay is often called “Gitmo” and is also the location of a detention camp for terrorists. The whole situation of how we came to acquire the Bay and keep t for over 100 years bears a closer look.
The U.S. technically won Cuba in the Spanish-American War which ended in 1898. However, the country was granted its own sovereignty, with the U.S. retaining control of Gitmo and paying an annual lease fee.
A couple of treaties addressed this, including the Cuban-American Treaty and the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution. When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, he objected to the U.S. presence remaining, but President Eisenhower insisted that the terms of the lease remain.
It is widely believed that Cuba has only cashed one of the rent checks from the U.S. since 1959 and that the remaining ones are stuffed in a desk in Castro’s office. Cuba says the treaties that allow the base to remain are not valid under international law, which the U.S. disputes … and of course, cashing of the checks would indicate acceptance by Cuba. Interestingly enough, the law which Cuba says invalidates the treaties (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) clearly states that it cannot be retroactively applied.