Prosper Bender

Too young to be admitted to the medical profession in Lower Canada, he served as an army surgeon with Union forces in the final years of the American Civil War.

[5] In Quebec City, Bender lived on D'Aiguillon Street, where, each week, he welcomed an eclectic and expanding group of writers and political leaders.

Regular visitors included Joseph Marmette, Faucher de Saint-Maurice, Hubert LaRue, Oscar Dunn, Buteau Turcotte, and William Blumhart.

His Literary Sheaves, Or, La Littérature au Canada Français: The Drama, History, Romance, Poetry, Lectures, Sketches, &c. appeared in 1881.

Bender published Old and New Canada, 1753-1844: Historic Scenes and Social pictures; Or, The Life of Joseph-Francois Perrault, partly a biography of his great-grandfather, the following year.

A farewell dinner given in his honor in Quebec City and attended by legislators, ministers, and many literary figure reflected the influence he had developed and his large cultural network.

As he embraced new themes in his writing—during the mass migration from Quebec, he helped educate American readers about French-Canadian culture—he shied away from his political cause, which received little popular support and even less official encouragement.

According to one historian, unlike more intransigent supporters of annexation, Bender's views ebbed and flowed with changing conditions in Canada and, as such, he was a "bellwether" of Canadian national development.