Ridgeway

Ridgeway PDF Author: Peter Vronsky
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN: 0143182846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking narrative, historian, investigative journalist and filmmaker Peter Vronsky uncovers the hidden history of the Battle of Ridgeway and explores its significance to Canada’s nation-building myths and traditions. On June 1, 1866, more than 1,000 Fenian insurgents invaded Canada across the Niagara River from Buffalo, N.Y. The Fenians were mostly battle-hardened Civil War veterans; the Canadian troops sent to fight them came from a generation that had not seen combat at home for more than 30 years. Led by inexperienced upper-class officers, the volunteer soldiers were mostly young, some as young as 15 years old. They were farm boys, shopkeepers, apprentices, schoolteachers, store clerks and two rifle companies of University of Toronto students hastily called out from their final exams. Many had not fired live rounds from their rifles even once. When they fought the Fenians near the village of Ridgeway the next day, a single rifle company of 28 students took the brunt of a counter-attack by 800 insurgents and suffered the most killed and wounded. The events of June 2, 1866, were covered up by the Macdonald government. The story was falsified so thoroughly that most Canadians today have not heard of the first modern battle in which Canadians died.

Ridgeway

Ridgeway PDF Author: Peter Vronsky
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN: 0143182846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this groundbreaking narrative, historian, investigative journalist and filmmaker Peter Vronsky uncovers the hidden history of the Battle of Ridgeway and explores its significance to Canada’s nation-building myths and traditions. On June 1, 1866, more than 1,000 Fenian insurgents invaded Canada across the Niagara River from Buffalo, N.Y. The Fenians were mostly battle-hardened Civil War veterans; the Canadian troops sent to fight them came from a generation that had not seen combat at home for more than 30 years. Led by inexperienced upper-class officers, the volunteer soldiers were mostly young, some as young as 15 years old. They were farm boys, shopkeepers, apprentices, schoolteachers, store clerks and two rifle companies of University of Toronto students hastily called out from their final exams. Many had not fired live rounds from their rifles even once. When they fought the Fenians near the village of Ridgeway the next day, a single rifle company of 28 students took the brunt of a counter-attack by 800 insurgents and suffered the most killed and wounded. The events of June 2, 1866, were covered up by the Macdonald government. The story was falsified so thoroughly that most Canadians today have not heard of the first modern battle in which Canadians died.

When the Irish Invaded Canada

When the Irish Invaded Canada PDF Author: Christopher Klein
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385542615
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
"Christopher Klein's fresh telling of this story is an important landmark in both Irish and American history." —James M. McPherson Just over a year after Robert E. Lee relinquished his sword, a band of Union and Confederate veterans dusted off their guns. But these former foes had no intention of reigniting the Civil War. Instead, they fought side by side to undertake one of the most fantastical missions in military history: to seize the British province of Canada and to hold it hostage until the independence of Ireland was secured. By the time that these invasions--known collectively as the Fenian raids--began in 1866, Ireland had been Britain's unwilling colony for seven hundred years. Thousands of Civil War veterans who had fled to the United States rather than perish in the wake of the Great Hunger still considered themselves Irishmen first, Americans second. With the tacit support of the U.S. government and inspired by a previous generation of successful American revolutionaries, the group that carried out a series of five attacks on Canada--the Fenian Brotherhood--established a state in exile, planned prison breaks, weathered infighting, stockpiled weapons, and assassinated enemies. Defiantly, this motley group, including a one-armed war hero, an English spy infiltrating rebel forces, and a radical who staged his own funeral, managed to seize a piece of Canada--if only for three days. When the Irish Invaded Canada is the untold tale of a band of fiercely patriotic Irish Americans and their chapter in Ireland's centuries-long fight for independence. Inspiring, lively, and often undeniably comic, this is a story of fighting for what's right in the face of impossible odds.

The Last Invasion of Canada

The Last Invasion of Canada PDF Author: Hereward Senior
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1550020854
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In the turbulent decade which produced the Canadian Confederation of 1867, a group of seasoned veterans of the American Civil War turned their attention to the conquest of Canada. They were Irish-American revolutionaries — unique because they fought under their own flag. They were know as the Fenians and they believed that the first step on the road to the liberation of Ireland was to invade Canada. The Last Invasion of Canada vividly recaptures the drama of the decade. It recounts the fledgling nation's rag-tag, but patiotic, defence against an ememy committed to a glorious cause, but with only scatterered resources. It is a story of courage, espionage and petty crime, and of mismatched motivations and goals.

Narrative of the Fenian Invasion of Canada

Narrative of the Fenian Invasion of Canada PDF Author: Alexander Somerville
Publisher: Hamilton, C.W. [i.e. Ont.] : Published for the author by J. Lyght
ISBN:
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description


Rebels on the Niagara

Rebels on the Niagara PDF Author: Lawrence E. Cline
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438467532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
In what is now largely considered a footnote in history, Americans invaded Canada along the Niagara Frontier in 1866. The group behind the invasion—the Fenian Brotherhood—was formed in 1858 by Irish nationalists in New York City in order to fight for Irish independence from Britain. At the end of the American Civil War, Fenian leaders attempted to use Irish Americans, many of them combat veterans, to seize Canada and make it the "New Ireland" as a means to force the British from "old" Ireland. New York State was both the epicenter of Fenian leadership and a key support base and staging area for the military operations. Although relatively short-lived and with some of its military operations being somewhere between farce and tragedy, the Fenian Brotherhood had a very important impact on nineteenth-century New York and America, but remains largely forgotten. In Rebels on the Niagara Lawrence E. Cline examines not only the Fenian operations and their impact on Canada, but also the role the United States and New York played in both the initial support for the Fenian movement and its subsequent collapse in America.

Troublous Times in Canada

Troublous Times in Canada PDF Author: John A. MacDonald
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
"Troublous Times in Canada" by John A. MacDonald. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Narrative of the Fenian Invasion of Canada ... with a map of the field of combat at Limestone Ridge

Narrative of the Fenian Invasion of Canada ... with a map of the field of combat at Limestone Ridge PDF Author: Alexander Somerville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description


Secret Service

Secret Service PDF Author: Reginald Whitaker
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 080200752X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 721

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Book Description
Drawing on previously classified government records, the authors reveal that for over 150 years, Canada has run spy operations largely hidden from public or parliamentary scrutiny - complete with undercover agents, secret sources, agent provocateurs, coded communications, elaborate files, and all the usual apparatus of deception and betrayal so familiar to fans of spy fiction. As they argue, what makes Canada unique among Western countries is its insistent focus of its surveillance inwards, and usually against Canadian citizens.

Blood and Daring

Blood and Daring PDF Author: John Boyko
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307361462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Blood and Daring will change our views not just of Canada's relationship with the United States, but of the Civil War, Confederation and Canada itself. In Blood and Daring, lauded historian John Boyko makes a compelling argument that Confederation occurred when and as it did largely because of the pressures of the Civil War. Many readers will be shocked by Canada's deep connection to the war—Canadians fought in every major battle, supplied arms to the South, and many key Confederate meetings took place on Canadian soil. Filled with engaging stories and astonishing facts from previously unaccessed primary sources, Boyko's fascinating new interpretation of the war will appeal to all readers of history.

Turning Back the Fenians

Turning Back the Fenians PDF Author: Robert L. Dallison
Publisher: Fredericton, N.B. : Goose Lane Editions
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
In the early 1860s, Irish immigrants in the United States were eager to help the Fenian brotherhood overthrow the British in Ireland. The American Fenians' mission: to invade British North America and hold it hostage. New Brunswick, with its large Irish population and undefended frontier, was a perfect target. The book tells how, in the spring of 1866, a thousand Fenians massed along the St. Croix River and spread terror among New Brunswickers. When the lieutenant-governor called in British soldiers and a squadron of warships, the Fenians saw that New Brunswick was no longer an easy target, and they turned their efforts against central Canada. The Fenian "attacks" and the demand for home defence fanned the already red-hot political debate, and a year later, in July 1867, New Brunswick joined Confederation. Turning Back the Fenians is volume 8 in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.