Militia

 This map of the east coast includes the blockades that the Union navy put up around Confederate ports. The concept was the overall strategy that would win the war. Called Anaconda, it meant blockading the ports, seizing control of the Mississippi, and strangling the Confederacy. It was the plan conceived by Winfield Scott, the hero of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, the general-in-chief who knew he was too old to lead armies onto the field.

The Trent Affair flared up during the Civil War, with the capture of Confederate diplomats by Union officers on a British ship near Cuba. It built up tensions, as it violated British neutrality. While the Union government weighed its options, the British prepared for the possibility of war.

British regulars manned the defences in Canada, augmented by ill-trained Canadian militia. There weren't enough of either. It was recognized that this was going to have to change.

This is a model of the SS Great Eastern, which transported British soldiers to North America during the Trent Affair.

This display case includes equipment for British regulars.

This large display features an image of the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII laying the cornerstone of Parliament in Ottawa. 

By the spring of 1862, colonial leaders were busy increasing the numbers of the militia.

The efforts included upgrading to better weapons.

Warfare

 Mary Ann Shadd established her newspaper, the Provincial Freeman, to speak to free black people in Canada, and to advocate for those facing the threat of being returned to slavery south of the border to come north. Samples of her columns can be found on a digital display.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, tensions rose between the British and the Union. Canada's status was uncertain.

Confederate forces organized during the first months of 1861, and at Fort Sumter in Charleston, Confederates opened fire on the federal fort and forced the surrender of its garrison. When the Union government called for more volunteers, more states voted to secede. The Civil War had begun.

Britain quickly adopted a stance of neutrality in the war, prohibiting its subjects from joining either side.

The first major engagement of the war was at Bull Run, Virginia. Both sides assumed it would be a short war. Bull Run proved to be a calamity for Union forces, who retreated back to Washington. It became obvious that this was going to be a very bloody affair.

The Trent Affair, which we'll look at more tomorrow, happened during this time. The Union Navy established a blockade of southern ports, and arrested two Confederate diplomats aboard a British mail ship, the Trent. This set off a diplomatic firestorm.

The war in the western theatre was not as covered by the press as that in the eastern theatre, but it was as important in the long run. Battles at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February of 1862 saw the rise of Ulysses S. Grant in victories. A veteran of the old army and the Mexican War, Grant would prove his abilities more and more as the war went on.

At Shiloh, Union and Confederate forces clashed in a horrendous battle with 23 000 casualties.

In the eastern theatre, the Peninsula Campaign was an attempt by the commanding general, George McClellan, to threaten the Confederate capital of Richmond. Its last stages were known as the Seven Days, in which Robert E. Lee had taken command and completely out-maneuvered the Union Army, beginning to establish his legendary reputation.

Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, and the same man who would one day be Edward VII, came to the Canadian colonies in 1860 on an official visit. This display case features items of that time. The visit would highlight loyalty to the Queen, but also divisions in the colonies and a need to consolidate defense.

Hostility

 This family bible, which is now part of the collection of the museum and historical site at Buxton, is well worth a second look.

Other artifacts in the case include a spelling book and a writing slate. 

There were issues. The new settlers found racism and discrimination in their new land regardless, and would have to push back against it.

This is a book by a white Abolitionist extolling the virtues of life in Canada for former slaves.

And here's a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Despite its role in galvanizing the North and making many who had never thought of Abolition think twice, the book was also criticized as being stereotypical.

The timeline continues. In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the federal election as part of the new Republican party, which had been established to halt the expansion of slavery west. For Southerners, it was the last straw.

Secession was called for in southern states over the weeks and months that followed. The Confederacy was becoming a reality. War was inevitable.

This display case features the copy press and documents linked to Mary Ann Shadd. She came north to Canada after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, and established a black Abolitionist newspaper. More from her tomorrow.

Tensions

 Shannon Prince is the sixth generation descendant of residents of the Elgin Settlement, or Buxton, one of the settlements of escaped slaves who found safety in Canada. She is a curator and historian at the historic site and museum at Buxton, and her commentary at this spot in the exhibit says a lot.

This display case features a rifle and book by black settlers. The engraving is about the Harpers Ferry raid of 1859, one of the points of no return that would lead to the Civil War.

John Brown was a white abolitionist who spent time out west fighting for that cause. He came to Canada in 1858 looking for help in planning the raid on Harpers Ferry, where a federal arsenal was located. His intention was to start a revolution.

James Monroe Jones had been born in slavery in North Carolina, but bought by his father and brought to freedom in Canada. He became a well regarded gunsmith, and the rifle is one of his. He would help finance the Harpers Ferry raid. Abraham Shadd, the patriarch of a black Abolitionist family, relocated his family to Canada after his daughter moved there. The book is his journal.

Osborne Perry Anderson had been born into a free family in Pennsylvania and went north to Canada. He took part in John Brown's raid, evading death and capture, and lived to tell the tale, returning north.

The outer wall of the exhibit space features the timeline told throughout, spanning from 1850 to 1877.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was one of those pivotal points in the road to the Civil War. The use of the photograph of Peter at lower right is vivid. I have seen the photo before, but it is always haunting.

In 1852, the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin galvanized the north in its depiction of the cruelties of slavery. 

Two years later, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which enabled local settlers to decide for themselves as to if a new territory and state would be free or slave. Settlers from both factions rushed west into the area. 

The Civil War effectively began in the west, with abolitionist and pro-slavery settlers killing each other for years in Kansas and Missouri before Fort Sumter. One of the bloodiest incidents of that period was the attack on the antislavery town of Lawrence, Kansas.

The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 ruled that the federal government could not restrict slavery, and that black people, free or enslaved, had no rights that a white person was obliged to respect.

The Harpers Ferry raid on the federal arsenal took place in October 1859. John Brown led the raid, took hostages, and was brought down by Marines sent up from Washington. Colonel Robert E. Lee was the Union officer that oversaw the Marine response, and Brown would later be executed for treason. He would be called the Meteor of the War, the one man who did more than anyone else to bring it about.

Buxton was one of the black settlements, in what is now Ontario. Freed slaves established such communities, with businesses, schools, churches, and a new life for themselves.