Chesapeake Affair

Chesapeake Affair
Part of the American Civil War
The steamer Chesapeake, illustration from Harper's Weekly, December 26, 1863.
Date December 7, 1863 Location Off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts Result Sympathizer assault successfully carried out. Union diplomatic victory
Belligerents
Nova Scotia New Brunswick	United States
Commanders and leaders
John A. Macdonald (Minister of Colonial Defence) William J. Almon Vernon G. Locke George Wade	Abraham Lincoln (President of the United States) Edwin M. Stanton William H. Seward Gideon Welles
Units involved
Maritime pirates	U.S. Navy
Casualties and losses
None	1 killed 3 wounded

The Chesapeake Affair was an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War. On December 7, 1863 Confederate sympathizers from Canada’s Maritime Provinces captured the American steamer Chesapeake off the coast of Cape Cod. The expedition was planned and led by Vernon Guyon Locke (1827-1890) of Nova Scotia and John Clibbon Brain (1840-1906). George Wade of New Brunswick killed one of the American crew. The Confederacy had claimed its first fatal casualty in New England waters. The Confederate sympathisers had planned to re-coal at Saint John, New Brunswick and then head south to Wilmington, North Carolina. Instead, the captors experienced difficulties at Saint John, which required them to move further east and re-coal in Halifax, Nova Scotia. American forces violated British sovereignty by trying to arrest the captors in Nova Scotian waters, which further escalated the affair. Wade and others were able to escape through the assistance of prominent Nova Scotian and Confederate sympathiser William Johnston Almon.

The Chesapeake Affair was one of the most sensational international incidents that occurred during the American Civil War. The incident briefly threatened to bring Great Britain into the war against the North.

The practice of slave-owning was outlawed in Nova Scotia (and all of the British Empire) by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. When the war began most Canadians were overtly sympathetic to the North. At the beginning of the American Civil War approximately 20,000 Canadians, almost half of them Maritimers, went to fight, primarily for the North. There were also strong family ties across the border.

As the war went on, relations between Britain and the North became strained for numerous reasons and sympathy turned toward the South. Britain declared itself neutral during the war, which led to increased trade that went through Halifax to both Northern and Southern ports. Nova Scotia’s economy thrived throughout the war. This trade created strong ties between Halifax and merchants from both the North and South. In Halifax the main commercial agent for the Confederacy was Benjamin Wier and Co. – a company that flew the Confederate flag outside its office and accepted Confederate money. The informal headquarters for the Confederates was located at Waverley Hotel, 1266 Barrington Street (present day Waverley Inn). At the same time, Halifax became the leading supplier of coal and fish to the North.

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