(ethereal music) - This is the earliest known photograph of Niagara Falls. (ethereal music continues) It was taken from the Canadian side around 1840, back before all the wax museums and casinos, when this world wonder was untouched by the sightseeing throngs we know today. (ethereal music continues) For more than 200 years, Canadians and Americans have been gazing out at each other across this spectacular natural border. Today, they do so as friends. But not long after that photo was taken, dread loomed over these waters. (soft suspenseful music) Through the mist and beyond the horizon, Canadians saw trouble coming. (thunder rumbling) (soft tense music) The United States were about to be torn apart. (thunder rumbling) Blood would flow, cities would burn, as Americans turned against Americans, while the freedom of millions hung in the balance, and tens of thousands of Canadians would be a part of it all. The US Civil War was the biggest war this continent has ever seen, and it wasn't just an American affair. Its reach would extend across this border. (tense foreboding music) Thousands of Canadians would rush south to take up arms, while Canadian cities would be filled with secret agents and intrigue. And as the ashes cooled, a new nation would be forged. (dramatic music) This is the Canadian story of the American Civil War. This, is "Canadiana." Welcome to Chatham. It's a relatively quiet city in the middle of southern Ontario. Not exactly the first place that leaps to mind when you think of the bloodiest war in American history. But two centuries ago, this was one of the most passionately anti-slavery towns on earth. Chatham, Ontario would help ignite the American Civil War. In the middle of the 1800's, millions of people were still enslaved in the Southern United States. Tens of thousands of them were risking their lives to escape along the Underground Railroad. Many of them heading north to the Canadian colonies, where slavery had been banned. Chatham was one of the most important stops at the end of that dangerous journey. A full third of the people who lived here were black. Many of them, new arrivals who'd fled the US, including Maryanne Shadd, and Osborne Perry Anderson. Shadd was a publisher, the first black woman in North American history to run her own newspaper. "The Provincial Freeman" was a beacon of hope, fighting racism on both sides of the border, and championing the end of slavery. Anderson worked for the paper too, selling subscriptions, and printing copies on his printing press using paper and ink to fight for the freedom of millions. "The provincial Freeman" helped Chatham earn its reputation as a stronghold of anti-slavery activity. It's been said that nowhere on earth was more hated by slave holders than the Canadian colonies. And that reputation would soon attract a wildly passionate American abolitionist, the legendary John Brown. Brown was a crusader for freedom, a fanatically religious man who believed he was a holy warrior appointed by God to end slavery. His supporters included major figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. He'd already served as a station master, running a safe house on the Underground Railroad, and waged a bloody gorilla campaign against slave holders in Kansas. Now, he was ready to take the next step. (rousing music) John Brown wanted to spark a second American revolution, a civil war that would end slavery once and for all. And to do it, he came here to Chatham, to the First Baptist Church. Brown invited local residents to a series of secret meetings. He preached his dream of an armed insurrection, and asked the delegates to approve a new and improved US Constitution for the free reborn country he hoped to build out of the ashes. Osborne Perry Anderson attended those meetings, serving as secretary. He signed the new Constitution, and then he headed south to join John Brown's war. Their plan was so daring and audacious, it bordered on madness. On an autumn night in 1859, Brown's tiny army of about 17 men, launched a raid on the town of Harper's Ferry, where the American government kept a massive stockpile of weapons. They seized the arsenal, and began taking hostages, confident that a wave of enslaved people and allies would rise up and join them, and the revolution would begin. Chatham, Anderson, as they called him, was given a particularly high profile hostage target, George Washington's great grand nephew. The Canadian and a few other Raiders stormed his mansion, freed the people he enslaved, and armed those willing to join their fight. In the process, they confiscated three of the man's most prized possessions passed down to him from the president, George Washington's famous sword, and a pair of pistols that had once belonged to the revolutionary hero, Lafayette. The eminent slave holder was forced to hand them all over to the black revolutionary from Chatham. Symbolism wasn't lost on anyone. News of the raid soon spread, along with rumours that Anderson was the group's leader. It wasn't long before 1500 militiamen arrived, along with federal troops, led by Robert E. Lee, who would soon become the Confederacy's most famous civil war general. The revolutionaries were outnumbered, besieged for days on end, and eventually overrun. Nearly all the Raiders who hadn't already been killed, were captured, and sentenced to death, including John Brown. Anderson who was one of the few who escaped, using his contacts on the Underground Railroad to slip out of the country, and make a harrowing journey back here to Chatham. Then, he set to work spreading the story of Harper's Ferry far and wide, the only black Raider who survived to tell the tale. And while John Brown was hanged just weeks after his failed revolution, he used that time to tell the story too. He wrote hundreds of letters, gave interviews to the press, and rallied support for the fight against slavery, a true martyr to the cause. The raid on Harper's Ferry divided the United States even further than it already was. Pro-slavery southerners saw it as a sign, it was time to form their own country, while abolitionists saw it as a heroic act, an urgent reminder that slavery needed to end now. It was less than a year later, that Abraham Lincoln was elected as president of the United States. And in the weeks and months that followed, the southern states, all seceded from the union, declaring themselves to be a new country, the Confederate states of America. And with that, the Civil War began. The Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the war. Two massive armies tore into each other outside Washington, DC. But it wasn't just Americans fighting that day. There were Canadians on the battlefield too, including a woman from the Maritimes who joined the Union Army in disguise. (ominous music) Sarah Emma Edmonds grew up on a farm in New Brunswick. When she was just 17 years old, her father tried to marry her off to a man she'd never met, who was nearly twice her age. That's how she ended up here in St. Johns, running away from home to live life on her own terms. And it's why she first decided to disguise herself as a man. (ominous music) Edmonds borrowed some clothes from a friend, cut her hair, darkened her skin a bit, and even had surgery to remove a mole from her face. She adopted a new identity, becoming a travelling Bible salesman, named Franklin Thompson. By the time the Civil War broke out, she was living in the United States. And while she would always consider herself a Canadian, she hid that fact, so she could join the Union Army, and fight for what she called a just cause. When she enlisted, they didn't notice she was a woman. They only cared that she could see, hear, had a trigger finger to fire with, and at least two teeth, so she could rip open cartridges of gunpowder. And so Edmonds became one of more than 500 women who fought in the war disguised as men. She was assigned the job of field nurse, still typically a man's job back then, and sent off to join the fight. She soon found herself at Bull Run, in the thick of the war's first big battle. She rushed through the smoke and roar of artillery, musket balls hissing all around her, as she rescued wounded men and gave comfort to the dying. In a nearby church, used as a field hospital, Edmond's rushed to stitch men back together, and bandaged their wounds, held some down while their limbs were sawn off. The battle was lost. The union retreated, but Edmonds stayed behind, tending to her patients as long as she could before she fled. She barely escaped. During the war, Edmonds would fight on the front lines, ride dangerous missions as a messenger, and she wasn't alone. There were other Canadians fighting for the North all through the war. Like Edward P Doherty, who grew up near Drummondville, and signed up just days after the first call for troops was sent out. He was captured at Bull Run by the Confederates, but made a daring escape. Calixq LaVallee was a musician from Quebec, who fought at the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest of the entire war. He would go on to write the music for, "Oh Canada." And Chatham Anderson fought too. Once the Union Army began accepting black soldiers, he worked as a recruiter, convincing black Canadians to enlist, and then joined up himself, eager to fight in the war he had helped start. There wasn't a major battlefield in the entire Civil War where Canadians didn't fight. Tens of thousands of them joined the Union Army, willing to risk their lives in the struggle against the Confederacy and slavery. (tense music) But by doing it, Edmonds, Anderson, and all the others, were breaking the law. Because while you might assume the Canadian colonies would support the North during the war, that's not what happened at all. Today, Canada and the United States are the best of friends. They share the longest border on the planet. Nearly 9,000 kilometres across land and sea, that both nations are proud to point out, that this is the longest undefended border too. But two centuries ago, things were very different. There were times when Canada and the United States were mortal enemies. Here, in St. John, you'll find a giant physical reminder of just how bad things could get. This Martello Tower is just one, of a whole series built across the eastern half of our country. Like here, in Halifax and Kingston, and Quebec City. They were built at different times over the course of many decades, but with one big fear in mind, the fear of an American invasion, a fear became true more than once. It went all the way back to the American Revolution. When the rebellious colonies of the United States overthrew British rule, they also attacked the loyal British colonies to the North, the Canadian ones. They besieged Quebec City, and occupied Montreal. The relationship didn't get off to a good start, and it didn't end there. The Americans launched an even bigger invasion during the war of 1812. Then there were the border skirmishes of the Patriot War, with Americans supporting Canadian rebels. And the Oregon crisis, when the US tried to annex the entire Pacific Northwest, and got a lot of it. Heck, in the months before John Brown's raid, war had nearly broken out over a barnyard animal. When an American killed a Canadian pig on an island off the coast of BC, it sparked a tense stand-off involving thousands of troops, with both sides claiming the island for themselves, in what became known as "The Pig War." Many Americans thought those tensions would inevitably end with the Canadian colonies joining the United States. Americans like this man, William Seward, one of the most powerful politicians in the US, Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State. Seward talked openly about his dream of the United States, that covered the entire continent, manifest destiny, and even some influential Canadians agreed signing a manifesto, asking to be taken over. As the Civil War loomed, Seward had tried to find an excuse to start a war with the Canadian colonies, hoping to unite Northerners and Southerners, against a common enemy. While American newspapers called for an invasion. They figured if the South left the United States, the Canadian colonies would make a nice replacement. And when the Civil War started, those tensions only grew higher. The British were officially neutral, refusing to take sides, which meant the Canadian colonies were neutral too. The Canadian authorities did everything they could to stay out of the war, but the union didn't always respect that decision. Some northern recruiters snuck across the border, to kidnap Canadians, and forced them into the Union Army. There are stories of sex workers drugging drinks to knock men out before dragging them back south, where those Canadians would suddenly find themselves fighting for the north. And when the union boarded a British ship to arrest Confederate diplomats on their way to meetings in England, it nearly sparked the war William Seward had been after. Something had to be done. The Canadian colonies needed reinforcements to protect the border and settle things down. They would come from Britain, and they would arrive in spectacular style. The Great Eastern was the biggest ship in the world, bigger even than the biblical dimensions of Noah's Ark. And so famous that it's appeared in a Jules Verne novel, and a song by Sting. As it steamed out of Liverpool, it was carrying twice as many people, as any ship had ever carried before. More than 2000 soldiers were on board, plus families and crew all bound for Canada in a hurry, the captain pushed the ship as fast as it would go, refusing to slow down even in thick fog, barely dodging icebergs. Nearly ploughing right into another big ship, when it reached the coast of Newfoundland. (ship horn sounding) Thankfully, the Great Eastern made it across the ocean in one piece, smashing the record for the quickest crossing ever. It was packed so full of soldiers, that when it docked here at Quebec City, it took two days to ferry them all ashore. It was a huge public event. The mayor himself welcomed the crew. (ceremonious music) The captain gave interviews to the press, (ceremonious music continues) and sight seers came from as far away as Toronto. (ceremonious music continues) And all that spectacle had a purpose, to drive home one big message to the Americans. (ceremonious music continues) All across the Canadian colonies, preparations for war were underway. Militias were expanded, fortresses were upgraded, schools were turned into barracks. In Toronto, students formed rifle cores, and in Montreal, shops closed early so employees could drill, and railway facilities were turned into weapons factories. Thousands of additional soldiers poured in from Britain, along with 50,000 guns, and millions of rounds of ammunition. Even some of the old Martello towers were reinforced, given new artillery, ready to face down yet another American invasion. (intense rousing music) And so, when a meteor streaked across the sky above Niagara Falls that winter, people didn't see it as a shining beacon of friendship between nations. They saw it as an omen of an impending Canadian American war. Thanks to some trouble making pirates, that war would very nearly happen. (intense rousing music) (soft piano music) In part two, we'll meet the Canadians who supported the Confederacy, from pirate spies, and slave holding families, to some of the most celebrated leaders in the history of our country. But first, another story. Just a year after the end of the Civil War, an American army really did invade the Canadian colonies. They began slipping across the border, under the cover of darkness one June night, crossing the Niagara River with a bizarre plan. It's a truly strange story, and I'll tell you the rest in a second. But first, I want to thank you so much for watching. These episodes are a ton of work. And this two-part story is our most ambitious yet, which is why it's taken a little longer than usual to release it, and why we need your support. We have lots more episodes to share, but the editing and animation is a full-time job. So we need your help. You can support us on Patreon. Every little bit makes a difference. You'll find the link below. You can also spread the word, or like, comment, and subscribe, and hit the bell to get an alert when part two comes out. Now, back to that invading army. It was in June of 1866, that more than a thousand soldiers crossed the river on the border between Buffalo, and Fort Erie. They were Fenians, Irish Americans with an optimistic plan to conquer the Canadian colonies, or at least part of them, and then trade them back to the British in return for Irish independence. Most of them had fought in the Civil War, and were even still wearing their old uniforms. They were well-trained, and well armed. The next day, they ambushed an army of Canadian volunteers. The battle of Ridgeway was a bloody mess. The Canadians retreated, and the Fenians won the day. But the resistance was strong enough to convince the invaders, they weren't exactly gonna be welcomed as liberators. Still, that invasion was far from the only Fenian attack on Canadian soil. And years later, when one of the most powerful politicians in Canada was assassinated, it was the Fenians who are suspected of the crime. We've got a whole episode about that murder mystery. You'll find it linked in the description below. The Fenians raids eventually fizzled, but they did drive home a very urgent point. If the Canadian colonies didn't want to get swallowed up by the United States, they'd better start working together. That's another story we'll be sharing in part two. So hit that bell, and stay tuned. Thanks again for watching. I'm Adam Bunch, and we'll see you next time, on "Canadiana."