The Battle of St. Albans...Vermont

Fredericksburg, Virginia. Vicksburg, Mississippi. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Atlanta, Georgia. All of these were the sites of some of the bloodiest and most important fighting the Civil War had seen. If you know any Civil War buffs, they have no problem spouting off the names of dozens of battles of this war, most of which were fought on Southern soil. And the only military actions in the North that are ever mentioned are Antietam, Gettysburg, and the raid and burning of Chambersburg, Pa. I bet you didn't know there was a small battle fought in, of all places, Vermont.

Following the loss of Atlanta to Sherman's Union troops in 1864, Confederate morale was dropping, rations were low, and times were becoming more and more desperate. It seemed as though there was no hope left for the Confederacy. There were, however, some men who did not give up on their cause. In fact, there were a few who were ready to exact revenge for the loss of Atlanta; revenge in the form of capturing a Northern town in Atlanta's place. That town was to be St. Albans, Vermont.

St. Albans, a quiet little town about 15 miles from Canada, welcomed three young men on Oct. 10, 1864. Claiming to be sportsman from Canada, they checked into a hotel, with the leader signing in as Bennett Young (Davis, 380). Over the course of a week or so, about 20 men arrived in groups of two or three. All were friendly, and no one in St. Albans suspected a thing.

One day while Young was conversing with a young lady that he met, he and his followers "threw off their overcoats to reveal Confederate uniforms" (Davis, 380). As Kenneth Davis puts it in his book Don't Know Much About The Civil War, "the whole event seemed to take on an almost comic air as Young melodramatically announced, 'This city is now in the possession of the Confederate States of America'" (Davis, 380). After robbing several banks in the town and stealing the townspeople's horses, Young and his followers actually forced some of the bank tellers and officers to take an oath of allegiance to the South and Jefferson Davis. They then set the town ablaze and fled into Canada, forcing the townsmen to fight the fire instead of Young and his men (Davis, 380).

As it turned out, Canadian authorities refused to turn the Confederates over to the Vermont militia on the grounds that they were following orders. Though they had no such orders at the time, "Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin helped the raiders by sending along the military orders that would legitimize Young's raid. Tried only for violating Canada's neutrality, the raiders were acquitted and freed" (Davis, 381).