Clement Claiborne Clay

It was one of the most daring – and some say crazy – events of the Civil War.

In 1864, a small band of Confederate soldiers launched a surprise attacks on St. Albans, Vermont. The attack, which included robbing and burning the small town, was the northernmost Confederate land action during the Civil War, occurring hundreds of miles away from the war's other battles.

The raid was led by Lt. Bennett Young, a 21-year-old from Kentucky. The group of 23 men – known as the 5th Company Confederate States of America Retributors – came through Canada to attack the small town located about 15 miles inside the U.S. border. Several citizens were wounded and one was killed during the attack and a handful of raiders were captured.

Young got away and ended up in Europe after the war. He studied law and, after being pardoned in 1868, returned to Kentucky where he died in 1919, his name forever linked with the footnote in Civil War history.

But there's another man – this one from Huntsville – that played a major role in the St. Albans Raid and, on a larger scale, the Confederate efforts to launch spy operations from Canada.

Clement Claiborne Clay Jr.

Clement Claiborne Clay Jr. was born in 1816 in Huntsville to former Alabama Governor Clement Comer Clay. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, he went on to the University of Alabama and University of Virginia School of Law before being elected to the Alabama legislature.

He was later elected to the U.S. Senate where he became embroiled in the controversy surrounding states' rights, even proposing the radical notion of reopening the African slave trade. Clay joined the rest of his southern colleagues in walking out of Congress with the South seceded in January 1861 went on to serve in the Confederate Congress.

His photo was even on versions of the Confederate $1 bill.

It was after his bid for reelection failed – he wasn't able to carry pro-Union Madison County – that Confederate President Jefferson Davis tapped him for a post as commissioner to Canada.

The job wasn't just diplomatic. Clay was also charged with launching a series of efforts to undermine the union from the north through a network of spies.

"First, he embarked on a secret, unsuccessful, mission to secure Democrats in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois as Confederate allies in the run-up to the fall presidential election," the Encyclopedia of Alabama noted. "He also helped plan a failed attempt to unite representatives of the northern peace faction with Canadian forces to free and arm Confederate prisoners in Camp Douglas, a Confederate prison camp in Chicago."

None of the plans worked.

St. Albans

It was around this time that Clay directed Young to launch the Oct. 19, 1864 attacks on St. Albans. After it was conducted, Clay had to retain defense attorneys to help those raiders who were captured and there was even a possibility he himself would be arrested and tried for violating Canada's neutrality laws.

Clay wasn't arrested, and, with the South losing the war, he made his way through the Northern blockade to join his wife at the home of a family friend in Macon, Ga.

Lincoln's assassination

Clay originally hoped to join other Confederates who fled to Mexico but President Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865 put an end to those plans. Clay had been an outspoken critic of Lincoln and was implicated in the plot to kill the president. A $50,000 reward was placed on his head and he surrendered to Union authorities with the hopes that would convince them of his innocence.

It didn't and he spent the next year at Fortress Monroe in Hampton, Virginia in a cell next to Davis.

Clay was released April 18, 1866. In poor health and financially ruined, Clay returned to Huntsville where he practiced law and farmed. He died Jan. 3, 1882 and is buried in Huntsville's Maple Hill Cemetery.

Raid still remembered

The raid for which Clay is best remembered is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. The St. Albans Commemorative Committee is planning a celebration Sept. 18-21, complete with a period reenactment of the event.