The Civil War Years

While the Yankees and the Confederates fought a ruthless civil war in the United States, Britain and the northern states waged a "war in anticipation" as British North America waited and wondered whether the federal army of the United States would invade. Robin Winks's classic study is a dramatic examination of the impact of the American Civil War on Canada, especially on the movement toward Confederation. From the Chesapeake incident off the coast of Nova Scotia, through the St. Albans Raid from Quebec into Vermont, to the reinforcing of garrisons across British North America in response to the Trent Affair, the Civil War Years ranges across the early Canadian landscape. It offers an in-depth survey of Canadian public opinion on the war, the role of Confederate sympathizers in Canada, and the number of Canadians enlisted in the armies of the North and South.