New Brunswick men bolstered the Union ranks during the Civil War

The International Bridge connects Calais (left) with St. Stephen, New Brunswick (right). During the 19th century the border between Maine and New Brunswick was fluid as people intermingled and intermarried. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Maine sent approximately 73,000 men into the army to fight during the Civil War, but not all those recruits hailed only from the Pine Tree State. In fact, “over 2,400 New Brunswick-born men enlisted in the State of Maine,” says Canadian historian and Civil War re-enactor Larry Burden.

He and his wife live in St. Andrews on Passamaquoddy Bay in St. Andrews. An avid military historian and Civil War buff, he belongs to the New Brunswick-based Co. I, 20th Maine Infantry Regiment. He is also a member of the Maine-based Co. B, 20th Maine.

Wherever they appear in the Maritimes, the Co. I lads talk to fellow Canadians about the various roles that Maritimers played in the Union army and navy — and to some extend in the Confederate army and navy. “During the Civil War there was no country of Canada. We were all British subjects living in British North America, Burden says. Existing British provinces were “West and East, or Upper and Lower Canada,” Vancouver Island, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Bermuda.

A retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant, Larry Burden of St. Andrews in New Brunswick belongs to Co. I, 20th Maine Infantry. The all-Canadian company represents Atlantic Canadians who served in Union outfits during the Civil War. (Courtesy Larry Burden)

According to Burden, “Canadians never have been taught that our country was created largely because of the Civil War. Very little serious study has been done on the topic, and what little there has been done” was conducted “in Canada-centric. By that I mean Ottawa and Ontario.”

With the Civil War at best a minor topic in Maine history classes today, few Mainers realize that Maritimers frequently enlisted in Maine or other loyal states. The reasons trace to the American Revolution.

“The relationship between New Brunswick and Maine is unlike any other border jurisdiction in North America,” Burden says. “We are not friends, we are family as well.”

He explains that after the Revolution, “tens of thousands of Loyalists (Tories) moved en masse” to Upper and Lower Canada and to Nova Scotia, when then encompassed New Brunswick. “So many Loyalists moved to what is now New Brunswick that a new province was carved out of Nova Scotia.”

In New Brunswick, “most of the Loyalists settled in Saint John and up the St. John River” and “the lands to the west up to the Maine border.” Loyalists and Americans living soon “intermingled … across a very fluid border” and “intermarried and grew together in carving out a living largely built on lumber,” Burden says.

Border residents “largely ignored” the War of 1812 and continued “to work together,” he says. By the mid-19th century “both northern Maine and western New Brunswick experienced a mass exodus due to the lack of timber. Most of it had been cut down, and there was little in the way of work,” so many Maritimers moved to the States, and many Mainers moved to the Midwest or the far West.

The blockhouse at St. Andrews, New Brunswick was built to protect the port during the War of 1812. For a while during the Civil War, residents were worried that American troops might attack their town. (Judith Bourque, courtesy Wikipedia)

During the Civil War “many New Brunswickers who had moved to the States enlisted for the Union in places as far west as Minnesota and California,” Burden points out. “Many of their children who were born in New Brunswick and were now of age enlisted as well. By the middle of the war, thousands of Maritimers were enlisting in the navy and the army for adventure and bounties.

“Most of the men that enlisted never returned to the Maritimes,” Burden says. “I think meeting American women had something to do with it.”

Although aware that Maritimers were crossing the border to enlist, Maine newspaper publishers mostly ignored that trend and focused instead on the American “skedaddlers” fleeing to New Brunswick to avoid military service. However, one group of British recruits got some media attention, albeit a year or so after they joined the American army.

Relations between the United States and Great Britain worsened significantly after U.S. Navy Capt. Charles Wilkes (commanding the USS San Jacinto) snatched two Confederate diplomats from RMS Trent on November 8, 1861. The resulting “Trent Affair” led to loud war rumblings on either side of the Atlantic.

At St. Andrews, the “citizens didn’t sleep well at night on account of the Trent affair and impending border warfare,” recalled a Portland-area resident familiar with Lubec, Eastport, and the Passamaquoddy region.

“So they must have a garrison” and petitioned “the authorities at St. [Saint] John,” who in turn “with due form and full colonial circumlocution, sent the citizens a number of the Queen’s [Royal Army] artillerists and a couple of brass pieces [cannons] to make a show with,” the Mainer said. “Received with due honors by the now happy and protected St. Andrewsites, they pitched their camp, or went into barracks, and that night the citizens slept a sound sleep.”

The British soldiers (“the protectors”) apparently “were a little dissatisfied with a shilling a day and the piping time of peace,” so they sailed over to Eastport during the darkness and enlisted for the war!” the Mainer said.

Source: Letter from the Lakes, Portland Daily Press, Saturday, July 4, 1863

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If you enjoy reading the adventures of Mainers caught up in the Civil War, be sure to  get a copy of the new Maine at War Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg, available online at Amazon and all major book retailers, including Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. —————————————————————————————————————–

Passing Through the Fire: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Civil War (released by Savas Beatie) chronicles the swift transition of Joshua L. Chamberlain from college professor and family man to regimental and brigade commander. Drawing on Chamberlain’s extensive memoirs and writings and multiple period sources, the book follows Chamberlain through the war while examining the determined warrior who let nothing prevent him from helping save the United States.

Order your autographed copy by contacting author Brian Swartz at visionsofmaine@tds.net

Passing Through the Fire is also available at savasbeatie.com or Amazon.

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Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He enjoys hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.