American Civil War

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.
 
*Hassassins*

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
 
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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
 
American Civil War posts

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
 
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.
 
Yin717 said:
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.
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Britain & France came close to recognizing the Confederate Govt., & Britain almost declared War on the US over the Trent Incident, but that was it.
 
George said:
Britain & France came close to recognizing the Confederate Govt., & Britain almost declared War on the US over the Trent Incident, but that was it.
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The British reinforced Canada by sending 5000 troops as a threatening warning to Washington. Washington responded by putting more troops along the northern border in states like Vermont, troops that could have been sent south to join the Army of the Potomac.

They also allowed confederate raiders to launch attacks from Canada such as the St Albans Raid.
 
03USMC said:
Britian also looked the other way at Laird Yards constructing a couple commerce raiders .
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Except for the Alabama, the ships were impounded. The Stonewall was sold to Denmark, and Denmark sold it to the Confederates after a war Denmark was involved in ended. There's a museum ship in Chile that looks like it may have been built for the Confederacy.
 
Canada's biggest concern was to stay out of the war and they had a very strong fear of American adventurism. Remember that America invaded in 1776 (Quebec Expedition led by Benedict Arnold, Daniel Morgan, et al) and the failed invasion of The War of 1812. Hence the influx of British troops to Canada.
 
Gary of CA said:
Canada's biggest concern was to stay out of the war and they had a very strong fear of American adventurism. Remember that America invaded in 1776 (Quebec Expedition led by Benedict Arnold, Daniel Morgan, et al) and the failed invasion of The War of 1812. Hence the influx of British troops to Canada.
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Your 1776/1812 info is correct, but mmarsh is correct, the troops were sent in case Britian decided to declare war, most likely the beginnings of an eventual offensive force.
 
Canadians in the American Civil War

This is an interesting post. I was not aware that significant numbers of Canadians or Britons served in the Civil War on either side.
I do know that the U.S. was concerned about an invasion of the northern states during the war and feverishly fortified the northern border.
In one humorous episode in that project, a brick masonry fort was constructed on the Richelieu River near the north end of Lake Champlain. After construction was well advanced, it was discovered that the fort was actually on the Canadian side of the border. It had to be torn down and moved south.
There was real concern about Britain's intention in supporting the Confederacy. British textile mills needed cotton until an alternative source was developed in Egypt. Britain would like to have seen the U.S. broken up and supplied arms and built blockage runner ships and even raiders like the C.S.S. Alabama.
Britain withdrew it's support from the Confederacy when they saw that it was politically unacceptable to support the cause of slavery and when they saw that the South was going to lose.
 
Britain had decided to stop the slave trade long before America did. After Parliament had banned the slave trade they actively set about to stop it and intercept any ship that was slaving and released the slaves. As many of these ships stopped were American this in turn was causing friction in some quarters of the USA and this is what helped bring the whole slavery issue to fore in America.
 
After the U.S. Mexican War vast new areas were opened in the West and Southwest for settlement. Texas became a state in 1845. When Texas had been part of Mexico slavery was illegal. Now that it was part of the southern U.S. slavery became widespread. Slave owners wanted to introduce slavery into much of the newly acquired areas and this set off a conflict between the southern slave holding states and the free states of the north initially resolved through various political compromises, finally resulting in armed conflict. In my view, this conflict was inevitable. The economy of the south depended upon a plantation system that required slave labor. Interesting, some southern states didn't care for slavery. In the northwestern part of the the old state of Virginia, the people were poor white farmers who didn't own slaves and had no desire to fight for the cause of slavery. The present state of West Virginia actually seceded from the state of Virginia after Virginia had seceded from the federal union. It can truly be said that the American Civil War, or War Between The States as it is called in the south set brother against brother. This topic is still emotional and controversial in the U.S. and I would be surprised if my comments set forth in this posting went unchallenged.
 
Remington 1858 said:
After the U.S. Mexican War vast new areas were opened in the West and Southwest for settlement. Texas became a state in 1845. When Texas had been part of Mexico slavery was illegal. Now that it was part of the southern U.S. slavery became widespread. Slave owners wanted to introduce slavery into much of the newly acquired areas and this set off a conflict between the southern slave holding states and the free states of the north initially resolved through various political compromises, finally resulting in armed conflict. In my view, this conflict was inevitable. The economy of the south depended upon a plantation system that required slave labor. Interesting, some southern states didn't care for slavery. In the northwestern part of the the old state of Virginia, the people were poor white farmers who didn't own slaves and had no desire to fight for the cause of slavery. The present state of West Virginia actually seceded from the state of Virginia after Virginia had seceded from the federal union. It can truly be said that the American Civil War, or War Between The States as it is called in the south set brother against brother. This topic is still emotional and controversial in the U.S. and I would be surprised if my comments set forth in this posting went unchallenged.
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Texas was technically not a Slave State, only allowing Indentured Servants. The official position of the US Govt was the Southern States didn't legally secede(Then why did they have to be re-admitted after the War?) So...the creation of W.V. was at best on shakey legal ground, if not out right illegal. The Constitution says the Fed. Govt. can't create a State from an existing State with out the permission of the State losing the area. Where the Govt. of Virginia wasn't going to give permission, the Fed. Govt. created a "Va. State Govt. in exile" out of thin air to give "Permission" to the Fed. Govt. that created it to create the State of W. Va. Seems like out right fraud.
 
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