the American-Canadian War

There was a brief incident in 1838-39 called the Aroostoock War, named for Aroostook county in northern Maine, and the State of Maine declared war on New Brunswick (Canada did not exist until July 1, 1867), in a border dispute. I'd suggest that you go to Google or some such and type in the words: "Aroostook War."

An incident which i find much more interesting, which actually had the character of a war was the invasion by the Fenians in 1866. The Fenians were the American branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, from which the Irish Republican Army eventually arose. There was an abortive attempt to take a coastal island immediately after the American civil war--in which a great many Irish fought on both sides, although mostly for the Federals. This failed, but nothing deterred, the leadership planned a larger invasion. That leadership was always divided, and accusations were made repeatedly by one group against others for sabotaging such plans. The accusation is sufficient to show the disunity which doomed the efforts.

However, the common soldiers involved were quite good, being combat veterans of a war which produced a good deal of innovation which was subsequently ignored. The main 1866 invasion was planned to disrupt the Niagara penninsula to such an extent as to create chaos and draw of the defending forces, so as to facilitate an invasion across the St. Lawrence shortly thereafter. Fumbling and interference by American authorities foiled all of the attempts, including the main effort which was to have crossed from Cleveland--except one. Colonel John O'Neill crossed from Blackrock (outside Buffalo, New York) with about 600-700 battle-hardened veterans. They took Fort Erie, and moved inland over the site of the battles in the war of 1812 near Queenston, and on the road near Ridgeway, they were set upon by several detachments of Canadian militia. At the time of the original battle of Queenston in December, 1812, one Bishop Strachan of York (modern Toronto) made a specious claim that the Canadian militia had driven out the American invaders almost single-handedly. This lead to the rise of the "Canadian Militia Myth," and doomed their efforts at Ridgeway in 1866 to failure. The Canadian troops behaved well enough, but they were not at all prepared for the state of the art tactical doctrine of the Irish veterans, and their leaders were hopelessly incompetent. O'Neills boys spread out in a skirmish formation, and then fell back on a fence line, behind which the bulk of the Fenians waited. The Canadians took the bait, and got badly shot up. Their officers were unsure as to how they ought to proceed at this point, and when some riders were seen, some one of them paniced, and called out "repel cavalry." The one full-strength unit present, The Queen's Own Rifles (Toronto), immediately formed square, falling back to do so, and exposing the flank of the units on either side. The Fenians had plenty of experience, and poured it into the flanks of the exposed and now panicking dismounted artillery which formed the broken Canadian line. These men fell back in disorder, and the Fenians now turned their fire on the Queen's Own, densely packed in a Napoleonic era square to repel a cavalry attack (the Fenians had no cavalry). The officers who had kept their heads saw that the regiment was going to be destroyed if they did not fall back--so the Fenians "won" the "battle" of Ridgeway. O'Neill knew forces were converging on him, and had now learned that the other forces would not land, so he fell back to Fort Erie, easily brushing aside the militia who opposed him, and capturing a party who had "taken" the Fort. (The men he had left behind there knew better than to try to defend that post.) Having reassembled his force, he put off into the Niagara River, and promptly surrendered to U.S. Navy gunboats, who took the Irish back to the American side.

The bursting of the bubble of the "Canadian Militia Myth" lead the English to reassess their commitment to North America, and their response was, in so many words, "You boys are on your own." In the year that followed Ridgeway, John MacDonald and Wilfrid Laurier formed Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec) into a dominion, and at Charlottestown, convinced the Maritimes to join, using hefty financial incentives. Ridgeway created the modern Canadian nation, in a round about way.

godddddd damn i love you!

Sorry, i'm already taken . . .

The Aroostook war was a funny skirmish that wound up pretty much as it started, and nobody got hurt.
Ever since the end of the American Revolution, a boundary of the NE US was set by some convoluted bit of ... "mandering that involved drawing a perfectly straight line running North somewhere near the source of the st croix River, which was supposed to be near a nonexistent mountain range, and all this involved some creative mapwork.
Originally when the treaty of 1783 was signed, this US/Canadian boundary was never understood and since nobody even knew where the source of the St Croix was you can see how a boundary dispute was going to happen , So both Maine Farmers, and New Brunswick Lumbermen claimed the valleys of the area of present Aroostook County (named for the river of the same name) This led to much in the way of peoples mail being sent to the wrong country and radio stations only carrying cod fish reports , So everybody was getting a bit impatient. Well, we went and had another War with the British which, strangely enough, had nothing to do with this part of the Northeastern US boundary
In 1814, as part of the Treaty of Ghent, the King of the Netherlands was chosen as arbiter for the various boundary settlements. He, as part of his arbiterhood, thought what he established was the boundary that made sense, and the Maine farmers, again not quite in full agreement, said screw you and thus began another 30 year period of aggressive settlement, sort of like, well, you know. In 1839, things came to a head with small skirmishes between farmers and woodsmen. So Maine, in asserting its sovereignty, raised a militia and the weenie New Brunswickers petitioned and recieved British army assistance. So the stage was set as British and MAine militiamen were marching around preening for battle.

Well sir, then Gen Winfield SCott was sent in with a rather teeny force of US regulars and , through some intermediaries, he easily struck a deal to avoid a real battle since he had that really uncomfortable collar and really looked rather like a salad shooter all dressed up. The deal was to set a boundary that , essentially was nothing more than the same one that the King of Netherlands defined 30 years earlier. To this the Americans agreed, and the new /old boundary (which still remained as that dumb north south line along the eastern side of Maine) was finalized in the Webster/ Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
The entire period of dispute culminated by this brief and unbloody war was made famous in Maine History and is a reason to, each summer, hold cross border celebrations of international "good Sense" in some of the most gawdaful mosquito infested areas of Maine and New Brunswick,.
Typical of fun starved border areas, people by the 20s and even more, travel to Presque Isle and Ft Fairfield and on to Aroostoock New Brunswick to celebrate the occassion and to dine on local favorites like moose offal, fried julienne potatoes with creamy white gravy, and samfire weed with butter .

Fascinating history Setanta. Now in Tarana there is an Irish pub on practically every corner, and Bishop Strachan is a private girls school known for it's short-kilted hotties. I live not far from there, and in the Forest Hill Village, the UCC boys sniff around those girls like dogs. Heh heh...the good ole days...

short-kilted hotties ye say . . . hmmmmm . . . seems that there would be much fertile ground for, uh . . . sociological research . . . yeah, that's it, sociological research . . . just where abouts is this school? Street names, man, i need street names, so i can take the right subway.

St. Clair West subway is closest, then you gotta walk. Conveniently, I live a block away from St. Clair West. Now...I can take you there, as long as it is in the interest of "research"...

We'll need a "large sample," you know, to make the results statistically meaningful . . .

Oy!








i used to live near the back entrance to st. clair west. good boy watching territory round there. hockey players. <<sigh>>

Damn, that girl's ever where . . . can't have a lil' innocent fun anywhere anymore . . .

It's the lil innocents I'm trying to protect.

You mean those St. Mike's boys who try to skive beer without ID at Legends, the local pub?

Now there's a good plan, Boss, we drop Miss Virtue off by the pub entrance, so as to facilitate her protection racket, then we hie off to help her out by protectin' them Bishop Strachan lovelies, er, i mean innocent flowers . . . yeah, that's what i meant . . .

You appear to be under the impression that Ms. Virtue is recently hatched.

Innocent flowers indeed.....a story I recalled in another thread about seeing a far too young thang not wearing undies under her kilt? Bishop Strachan girl...

Not to change the subject or to divert too much from the entertaining battle of the sexes Setanta and Beth are waging here, but when I saw the title of this thread, I came here because of an article in this past Sunday's Boston Globe's Ideas section.

The writer -- Jeet something or other -- discussed the seeming liberalism of Canadians v the increasing conservatism of Americans. It seems only 11% of Canadians are fundamentalists as opposed to a whopping 40% of Americans (I would love to use experience to dispute this but as an urban person, I am sheltered. On a trip to Vermont on summer about 6 years ago, I surprised by the number of tents, housing revivals, that dotted the landscape. And I thought Vermont was NYC-North!!). Interestingly, while 38% of Americans believe men are inherently superior to women, only 24% of Canadians are so misguided.

I think this might be why I have trouble understanding some of the political threads....I don't get 'Mericans and their wacky views. Go Canada!

Watch yerself boy, lessen you want a little remedial regime change up there . . .

Seems to me that a 'remedial' regime is what you already have with Dubya. Canada won't take less than intermediate if we have to change.