Letter by Andrew C[aughey] to D.B. McCreary, November 25-26, 1863
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Cameron, ChantalKeyword
Andrew CaugheyDavid McCreary
USS Michigan
Johnson's Island
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865
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A letter by Andrew C[aughey] to Lieut. Col. D.B. McCreary, 145th Regt., Army of the Potomac, Washington, D.C. The letter is dated at Erie, PA, November 25-26, 1863 and contains 18 pages. The envelope the letter was mailed in is included. The letter was written during the American Civil War and mentions plans of a rebel attack from Canada. On page 5 Caughey writes “you have doubtless been told by some of your other correspondents of our great military preparations against a rebel attack by way of Canada and the Lake [Erie]. For about a fortnight our ‘streets re-echoed to the tread of armed men’, and our citizens took up the shovel and the pick-ax, and they did dig a ditch, and did throw up an embankment towards the North, even by way of the Block House bank, as thou goest to the Light House. And many people did work thus, both the young and the old and the middle-aged—the priests and chief men of the city, as well as the laboring man and the colored person. But the fortifications are finished, the soldiers are gone and we are at peace”. Caughey continues on page 6 “There was no doubt a plot concocted in Canada, originating at Richmond, to seize vessels on Lake Erie and then make a descent on Johnson’s Island and release the Rebels there confined; but the plot never took very formidable proportions, and perhaps would have amounted to nothing had the rebel force even attacked Johnson’s Island. But the alarm has had at least one good effect—it has given the Government an opportunity to put the Lake cities in a state of defence, so that they may be able to resist if not a Rebel, a British and Canadian attack, which will doubtless sometime be made”.Collections
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