hmmm, thats what I thought.. thanx people!

Mercenaries have a very long history, from the Janissaries to the Hassashins to the French Foreign Legion to contractors. During that time, the popular idea of what a mercenary is has changed quite a bit. The Hashashins were often tribal warriors who could be hired to fight for other tribes or clans. Ninjas could be hired to fight against other Shoguns or even the Shogun of the area in which they were based. The FFL fights only for France. Contractors fight for the money. But during the time of the US civil war, there were few mercenaries about, and none in North America. Many Canadians got involved in the US civil war for the same reason that many US citizens joined the Canadian and British Armies from 1939-1941. They joined for adventure, for glory, out of a sense of moral outrage, whatever. None of them joined to get rich and none of them joined simply because they were already mercenaries. At that particular time, mercenaries as we now understand them did not exist, and I don't think that the morals of the time would have allowed many people to (re)invent them. Canada and the US are closer in both morals and ideas than most people of either country (myself included) might care to admit, and to me it is definitely not a stretch to imagine a bunch of bored farmer's kids going to join the Union Army.

Dean.

I believe the Da Vinci code or Angels and Demons gives an acurate history of the Hassassin.

HASH-ASSASSIN.
look into it.

I dont get what those Hasasins where up to really..


Whats that movie about??


and Dean, Ninjas fought not agains other shuguns lol, I think the wird u are searching for might be "Daimyos" 8)

War seems to attract adventures from all over the world, and know doubt you could find people from almost every country on one side or another

Other than my welcome post made a few minutes ago, this will be my first post to the forum.

My name is Bart Armstrong and I have spent the last 8 years researching the Medal of Honbor and the Canadians who were awarded this incredible honor.

Doing research earlier today I found this forum..and this theread and would like to make a few comments about some of the previous 25 comments herein.

The fiorst post inmtrigues me as the motto the author uses sures soulds like a CSR mootto, If I am write, the the author, I am a former TSR. You ought to know what that is.

Re the Readers Digest article, one should realize that whilst no doubt many sources for the article were checked and double checked, one should consider that even the most powerful sources do not get it right all the time. Any ref to early Military records are full of errors that the trained eye would discover. Many soldiers lied about their age, their home town etc for a zilliuon reasons yet the records reflecvt their name was so an so from wherever, when clearly neither was the case.

Whilst some 50,000 Canadians went south aND FOUGHT, probably

Other than my welcome post made a few minutes ago, this will be my first post to the forum.

My name is Bart Armstrong and I have spent the last 8 years researching the Medal of Honor and the Canadians who were awarded this incredible award.

Doing research earlier today I found this forum..and this theread and would like to make a few comments about some of the previous 25 comments herein.

The first post intrigues me as the motto the author uses sures sounds like a CSR motto, If I am write, then to the author, I am a former TSR. You ought to know what that is.

Re the Readers Digest article, one should realize that whilst no doubt many sources for the article were checked and double checked, one should consider that even the most powerful sources do not get it right all the time. Any ref to early Military records are full of errors that the trained eye would discover. Many soldiers lied about their age, their home town etc for a zillion reasons yet the records reflect their name was so an so from wherever, when clearly neither was the case. In fact one fellow was so shrude he enlisted I think it was 42 times before getting caught and sent off to jail. He believed in multi levels of income and collected 41 bounties for signing up befor his gig came to an end.

Whilst some 50,000 Canadians went south and fought, probably as many as 7,000 died on US soil. There were not 4 but 8 Canadian Generals in the Civil War and one of these actually nominated Lincoln for office.

While oodles of site will tell you that 54 Canadians earned the MOH, and some 29 came from the Civil War days, both numbers have almost been doubled by my research. CW days prduced 57 MOH's coming to Canadians or those with ties to Canada and more may yet remain to be discovered.

Regarding post number 4, I should think that with the recruitment efforts, legal and otherwise in Canada during CW days, Lincoln was anything but AGAINST Canadian recruiting. And of interest to some, one of the Generals buried in NB served in the honor guard to escort his body after the assassination. Yet another Canadian was in charge of those sent off to capture his murder and yet another..a MOH recipient actually played a role in the building of the very funeral car used to escort his body throughout the several states passed during the procession.

Re the note at post 7 regarding the 61 Canadians who earned the MOH, that figure is nout of date, and in fact is mine from a few years back when I sent supporting materials to the Canadian Embassy at Washington with the request, honoured, for the Ambassador and some staff to attend at Arlington to conduct a ceremony for 9 Cdn MOH soldiers buried there. The "61" list was released to the CBC who then posted it on the net. They got some of the info wrong and ignored a subsequent request by me to correct their materials.

Post 9 makes ref to materials that ought to be reliable, but are not.

Two examples... EE Dodds was NOT born in Canada, but England.
BF Young's name is NOT YOUNG, but YOUNGS.

And many recipients are missing from the list.

I hope none of this offends any reader and welcome feedback

Bart Armstrong, CD
Victoria BC

Is that offer of pros and grog still good?

I thought the British never actually got into giving troops? They were going too but would only do it if the French and Spanish agreed, and on the Confederate side I believe? However the French and Spanish refused too and so the British sent no troops. If they had, the confederates may have won. At least, that's what my little knowledge on the American Civil War knows.

Originally Posted by Yin717

I thought the British never actually got into giving troops? They were going too but would only do it if the French and Spanish agreed, and on the Confederate side I believe? However the French and Spanish refused too and so the British sent no troops. If they had, the confederates may have won. At least, that's what my little knowledge on the American Civil War knows.

Britain & France came close to recognizing the Confederate Govt., & Britain almost declared War on the US over the Trent Incident, but that was it.