While many people don’t know about the 40,000 or more Canadians who fought in the American civil war in the 1860s, even fewer know about the Canadians who enlisted in the United States Army almost two decades earlier to fight a war with Mexico.
The Mexican-American War lasted from April 1846 to February 1848, and during that period some 1,500 Canadians joined the US army.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the war stemmed from the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (US claim). The war resulted in the United States’ acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean.
With genealogists in mind, Patrick Lacroix, a Canadian historian who now lives in the US, has compiled a list of more than 500 men from British North America (Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick).
To put together the list, Mr. Lacroix explored Ancestry’s collection, U.S. Army Register of Enlistments (1789-1914).
Unfortunately, genealogists who find an ancestor’s name on the list will be hard pressed to uncover more information about their military service.
“I have yet to find more extensive service files beyond the actual register,” said Mr. Lacroix. “However, though they are not included in my study, FamilySearch does carry Mexican War pension files (United States Mexican War Pension Index, 1887-1926) for individuals seeking more information.”
Learn more about the conflict and the men who enlisted in Mr. Lacroix’s blog post, Maska, Mexico, and Pre-Civil War Migrations.
How about the Confederate spy ring in Canada? How many Canadians know that the northernmost battle in the U.S. Civil War was launched from Canada into St Albans Vermont!
(I’d love to find a list of these spys)