Little known history of America attacking Canada!
Canada Under Attack is an interesting story of Irish-American Civil War veterans, the Fenians, who decided to invade Canada to force England to free Ireland. I wonder how many pints it took to dream up that scheme (don’t hate on me–I’m also Irish-American so I know of what I speak). I know I had relatives fighting for the Union during the Civil War so this topic was of interest to me.
The book states that the Fenians were not taken seriously in history books. However, the Canadians who fled their homes at the time and the dead and wounded from the numerous skirmishes would disagree.
The book was written by a Canadian but it didn’t favor the Canada side. There are fascinating stories regarding one Canadian leader who purposely disobeyed his commander and also left his troops once the battle began. Both sides seemed drastically unprepared for battle. I admit I have never read military history before but there is a lot of descriptions of where in Canada the battles were held but no map in the book that would have helped me picture how close together the battles were. I also found some of the writing pretty dry. However, all the story was compelling enough to keep me reading.
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway but that has not impacted my review.