Twenty-five years in the Secret Service: The recollections of a spy

by Henri Le Caron

XXIII.

Slowly but surely the Clan-na-Gael was gaining ground, despite all the forces arrayed against it. Triumphing over Church opposition, conscientious scruple on the score of joining secret societies, and the single opposing Revolutionary faction still faithful to the memory of Stephens, it had, in 1876, a membership exceeding 11,000, which included amongst its leading names those of Alexander Sullivan, John Devoy, O’Donovan Rossa, Thomas Clarke Luby, Thomas F. Burke, Dr. Carroll, James Reynolds, Frank Agnew, Colonel Clingen, Wm. J. Hynes, P. W. Dunne, Michael Boland, Denis Feeley, J. J. Breslin, Michael Kirwen, and General Millen.

These were the men who in the after years were to be in the front rank of the Clan-na-Gael, and by their position and influence to model and direct the policy of the organisation. Of them and their position at this time I shall now have some little to say.

With Sullivan I have already dealt, and here I need only state that, having established himself in Chicago, he had taken to the study of law, in which branch of the profession he was now—in 1876—preparing to practise. He had been maintaining his questionable reputation, for he had shot a man in cold blood; and though twice tried, had been successful in escaping the consequences of his act, owing to the employing of that process so frequently charged against the Government in Ireland—packing the jury. Of Devoy and O’Donovan Rossa I have also spoken before. The former, drifting to New York, had since we parted with him been engaged on some two or three American papers, and he was now, if I remember aright, engaged on the New York Herald staff. Rossa, very much to the front for the moment, in consequence of his “skirmishing” theory, had meantime been living on the proceeds of the fund raised for himself and his fellow-exiles on their arrival in 1871, and a special subscription for himself, which Ford inaugurated in the Irish World. Luby had been a well-known patriot since 1865, when, in company with John O’Leary and Charles J. Kickham, he had been sentenced to a long term of penal servitude for the part he played in Ireland as one of the editors of the Irish People. General Thomas Fras. Burke had served with the Confederate Army, and had been amongst those who, in 1867, left America to lead in that most disheartening of fiascos, the Irish rising of 1865, as the result of his part in which he was sentenced to death, but subsequently amnestied.

Dr. William Carroll, one of the principal physicians in Philadelphia, whose name will appear prominently in the future, and who stood one of the sponsors for Mr. Parnell on the occasion of his arrival in America, was best known as the admirer, friend, and associate of John Mitchell, and was himself nothing if not a Revolutionist. James Reynolds of New Haven, Conn., whom I first met in connection with the secret organisation, was by profession a gas- and brass-fitter, and an avowed advocate of “extreme” measures. He was in fact a member of the Revolutionary Directory of this period. Frank Agnew had a Fenian record extending as far back as the Senate period of the Fenian Brotherhood. Strangely enough, I first came in contact with him when, on an inspecting tour, I had occasion to inspect a Fenian Company of which he was captain in Chicago. He was one of those who arrived too late to be of use in connection with the Fenian raid of ’70. He was now a contractor of some importance in Chicago, and a great friend and ally of Sullivan’s. Of Colonel Clingen I need not say much, save that he had been an old Fenian ally of mine in days gone by, and had sat with myself on the Military Board during O’Neill’s régime.

Of the others I have mentioned, Hynes and Dunne perhaps deserve the most prominent place, by reason of the part they have recently played in the Cronin affair. Both these men, it will be remembered, came out as very strong opponents of Alexander Sullivan, whom they roundly accused of causing Dr. Cronin’s death. Hynes I knew as far back as 1865, when, as a clerk to John O’Neill, he took a very active part in the work of the Fenian Brotherhood. Owing to a row between O’Neill and himself, he severed his connection with active Fenianism, and obtained a clerkship in one of the departments at Washington, finding his way, after a little time, to Arkansas. Although returned as a carpet-bag Congressman for the State, he failed to prosper, and at last he found himself without a dollar in Chicago. Here the first man to help him was Alexander Sullivan, against whom he is now arrayed. Through Sullivan’s political influence, Hynes was engaged as professional juryman at a fee of two dollars a day, from which position he worked himself forward to that of a prominent politician and a well-known member of the bar at which he practises.

P. W. Dunne proved to be a duplicate of O’Donovan Rossa, in appearance and in many other ways, with this one strong exception, that, whereas Rossa never sacrificed any of his means for the good of his countrymen, but rather lived upon them in fact, Dunne sacrificed an almost princely fortune. In early years he had been a prominent distiller (a very lucrative business) in Peoria, Illinois; and he was one of the leading seceders from the Stephens wing of the Fenian Brotherhood, after the failure of 1865, in which he himself participated, in company with P. J. Meehan, editor of the Irish American. He was now situated in Chicago, occupying the position of Superintendent of Streets, and had preceded Sullivan and Clingen upon the Executive of the Clan-na-Gael.

As for the remainder, Boland, once a lieutenant in the United States Army, was now a practising lawyer in Kentucky, having meantime taken part in the ’66 raid on Canada. He was also one of the most prominent of Clan-na-Gael officials, and an advocate of extreme measures. Feeley, also an attorney-at-law, had been a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary in his early days, and was now, as of yore, one of the most prominent and bloodthirsty of rebels in the States. Kirwen had been Brigadier-General and Fenian Secretary of War during the Canadian raid of 1870, and had preserved his Revolutionary record unbroken; while Breslin, chiefly remarkable for the part he had played in helping James Stephens to escape from Richmond prison (Ireland) in 1866, now, as ever since then, a prominent and avowed Revolutionist, was occupying his public life in some municipal office of an important character, while, in secret, playing his part on the Revolutionary Directory of the Clan-na-Gael.

One name I have left to the last, and that is General Millen’s. The discredited hero of the Jubilee Explosion Scheme of 1887 was at this time engaged on the editorial staff of the New York Herald. Unlike almost every one whom I have named, his military title was neither of Fenian nor of American extraction. He had, according to his own account, gained both his military knowledge and his rank when, out in Mexico on the part of the New York Herald, he had thrown in his lot with Juarez prior to the overthrow of the government of Maximilian and the establishment of the First Republic, of which Juarez was President. Be the claims to military knowledge which he advanced good or bad, they were accepted with a certain amount of good faith by the Clan leaders; and his usefulness in this regard being appreciated, he held a position of some importance at this time, being in fact Chairman of the Military Board.