Between 33,000 and 55,000 British North Americans (BNAs) fought in the American Civil War. Historians though, have largely overlooked or misinterpreted the BNAs' contribution. Most historical accounts portray BNAs as mercenaries, bounty jumpers, or as the victims of press gangs. Many works imply that most BNAs were kidnapped, or drugged and hauled while unconscious across the border to "volunteer." We are also told that BNAs expended enormous amounts of energy attempting to secure their discharges, and of necessity, had to be placed under guard to prevent their desertion. Nowhere, however, are we informed about average BNAs. Most were neither victims nor abusers of the American recruitment system. Unfortunately, their large and significant contributions to the Union's war effort are all but lost, as historians have tried to capture the more exciting and extraordinary side of BNA recruitment. Such an unbalanced portrayal of BNAs characterizes them as inferior soldiers, and that is a disservice to both BNAs, and to the units in which they served. Much of the misunderstanding surrounding BNAs stems from the lack of a common definition for BNA, and through a failure by researchers to appreciate the significance of the changing nature of the Civil War soldiers' enlistment motivations. My study, on the other hand, concentrates on average BNAs and, in the process, tries to come to grips with their true reasons for enlisting. In the end, the payoff is a more balanced depiction of BNA troops; and the discovery that BNAs were not a homogeneous group of men. There were two basic types: those who resided in the United States before their enlistment, and those who crossed the frontier from the British provinces to volunteer. Both types were willing recruits, but otherwise they showed unique characteristics and enrollment behaviour. American resident BNAs enlisted in patterns much like their American neighbours and friends, while British North American resident BNAs were, in the main, driven by the enlistment bounty. The distinction is important if a better understanding of BNAs is to be achieved.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/6698 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Jenkins, Danny R. |
| Contributors | Craig, Béatrice |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 138 p. |
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