Burn the Town and Sack the Banks: Confederates Attack Vermont
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Author's Summary
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On a dreary October afternoon, bands of Confederate raiders held up the three banks in St. Albans. With guns drawn, they herded the townspeople out into the common, sending the people of the North into panic. Operating out of a Confederate stronghold in Canada, the raiders were young men, mostly escapees from Union prison camps, who had been recruited to inaugurate a new kind of guerilla war along the Yankees' unprotected border. The raid, though bungling at times, was successful ând the consequent pursuit of the rebels into Canada. The celebrity-like trial it sparked in Montreal and resulting diplomatic tensions that arose between the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain, left the Southern dream of a second-front diversion in ruins. What survived, however, is a fascinating tale of the South's desperate attempt to reverse the course of the war. Burn the Town and Sack the Banks is a tale filled with dashing soldiers, spies, posses, bumbling plans, smitten locals, lawyers, diplomats, and an idyllic Vermont town, set against the backdrop of the great battles far from the Northern border that were bringing the Civil War to its bloody conclusion. |
MWSA Review
Burn the Town and Sack the Banks is the account of a little-known event in the American War Between the States. Although many of us are taught that Gettysburg was one of the few incursions of the Confederates into the North, few of us know that Confederate plots existed to ransack and burn towns along our border with Canada. Cathryn J. Prince tells of the only raid actually carried out in the fall of 1864. A band of 21 Confederate soldiers spied on and then raided the quiet town of Saint Albans, Vermont, located 15 miles south of the Canadian border. After robbing the three banks and shooting several townsmen, the raiders escaped back into Canada.
This book details the winds of war that led to this raid, the thoughts and actions of the principal characters of the time, the plotting and carrying out of the raid, and the flight, pursuit, capture, and trial of the Rebel raiders.
Prince amassed an impressive bibliography and was able to weave a tale of intrigue and alarm using the principals’ own words. Drawing from newspaper accounts, magazine articles and letters, both published and unpublished, the author pulls us into the action and makes us feel that we are among the eyewitnesses to this remarkable side note to history. Those interested in American history will find this a fascinating read. I am already contemplating a road trip to Vermont to visit the small town and see the buildings that once housed the banks and the school from which children looked down on the unfolding raid.
Reviewed by: Betsy Beard (2012)