Cooler heads prevented armed gunboats on Great Lakes

Phil Egan

In the years immediately prior to Confederation arms control was a key issue between the United States and British North America, or what we know today as Canada.

In 1864 as the Fathers of Confederation were meeting in Charlottetown, an action by U.S. congressional committee caused worry among Canadian politicians and military men alike.

The Civil War was raging in the United States and President Lincoln had just begun his second term. The Rush-Bagot Treaty had been in effect since 1817. Concluded after the War of 1812, it limited naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

The treaty’s purpose was the de-militarization of the Great Lakes international boundary. Lakes Ontario and Champlain, particularly had been severely restricted to one gunboat of under 100 tons each. Both parties to the treaty were obligated to provide six months notice of any intent to discontinue the arrangement.

In June, the U.S. House Naval Committee submitted a resolution to the Congress to do just that, and the 47-year old treaty hung in the balance. It was this treaty that had created the longest undefended international border in the world, and now it was in danger.

Just as tensions can quickly escalate today in international relations, they did so then after the House committee’s actions were published in the New York Times and became known in Canada.

If the U.S. Congress adopted the resolution and began dispatching armed gunboats to the Great Lakes, it was assumed the British government would likely send British gunboats in greater force.

Three years earlier, war between the United States and Great Britain had almost erupted over the Trent Affair, when a U.S. naval officer had taken control of a British mail ship and removed two Confederate diplomats. The Americans were also unhappy about the fact the Confederate warship CSS Alabama had been constructed in a British shipyard.

The Confederates had wanted to strike at the North from the Great Lakes since the Civil War had begun, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis feared the reaction of the British and Canadians if the Great Lakes became militarized.

In the end, no action was taken by Congress. But tensions along the border would erupt again two years later in 1866 with the Fenian scare, when 4,000 troops were briefly garrisoned in Sarnia.

Fortunately, that scare also passed and the border has remained tranquil for 150 years.