National Network for Equitable Library Service

A little-known episode in North America's history, the 1839 Aroostook War was an undeclared war with no actual fighting. It had its roots in the 1793 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War but left the border of Maine (then part of Massachusetts) and British North America unsettled, and in the War of 1812, when parts of northern Maine were occupied by Britain.

When most people think of the War of 1812, they think of the Niagara frontier, the British burning of the White House, the harrowing tale of Laura Secord, and the much-ballyhooed Battle of New Orleans. But there was more of British North America involved in the war than Upper and Lower Canada.With Great Britain locked in battle with Napoleon's France, the United States pounced on the chance to declare war on Britain. In New Brunswick, the threat of invasion was a very real possibility.

At 31 years old, Major Cyrus Inches resolved to survive the Great War, and did so without losing his sense of humour, in spite of the tragedies he constantly faced. His letters home were stored and left undisturbed for almost ninety years. Cleverly written with wit and humour, they reveal voluminous details of life during the war. Cyrus Inches also kept a diary and published a booklet called The 1st Canadian Heavy Battery in France — Farewell Message to NCOs and Men, which chronicled the movements and the battles of his battery.

Steel Calvary is the story of the transformation from of a horse cavalry unit to one of Canada's most famous armoured regiments.Twentieth century warfare is epitomized by the image of Allied tanks growling across the countryside, engaging their Nazi counterparts. One of the most storied of such regiments is the 8th (New Brunswick) Hussars. Founded in 1848 as the first volunteer cavalry regiment in British North America, the Hussars began the Second World War as a Motorcycle Regiment before converting to tanks in 1941.

Daniel MacMillan never saw the battlefields of Passchendaele or Vimy Ridge. A farmer in the tiny New Brunswick community of Williamsburg, he experienced the Great War entirely from the "home front." War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914-1927 is a portrait of the other side of war from the perspective of a man who, like countless families across North America, had no choice but keep on going with his life as sons, nephews, brothers and fathers fought and died on battlefields worlds away.

In the early 1860s, Irish immigrants in the United States were eager to help the Fenian brotherhood overthrow the British in Ireland. The American Fenians' mission: to invade British North America and hold it hostage. New Brunswick, with its large Irish population and undefended frontier, was a perfect target. The book tells how, in the spring of 1866, a thousand Fenians massed along the St. Croix River and spread terror among New Brunswickers.

The word "pirate" conjures up many Hollywood images, but Trimming Yankee Sails by Faye Kert paints a very different picture. Covering the Atlantic coast from Cape Breton Island, Halifax, and Saint John to the east coast of the United States down to the Virginias, this insightful book offers a glimpse of northeastern North America's naval history and the pirates and privateers who scourged the Atlantic coast throughout the 19th century. In Trimming Yankee Sails, Faye Kert recounts a thrilling but little known story.

Almost since Champlain's men first settled on St. Croix Island in 1604, the French and the English fought for control of Acadia, a huge area consisting of today's Maritime Provinces and parts of Quebec and Maine. The British assault on Fort Beauséjour in 1755 was the final act in this long struggle. The frontier between the two imperial powers lay along the Chignecto Isthmus, the neck of low, fertile marshlands and parallel ridges joining Nova Scotia to the mainland. Of great strategic importance, this land was the scene of a few pitched battles and constant petty warfare.

Since the last Ice Age, the only safe route into Canada's interior during the winter started at the Bay of Fundy and followed the main rivers north to the St. Lawrence River through what is now New Brunswick. Aboriginal people used this route as a major highway in all seasons and the great imperial powers followed their lead.

In 1917, the Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge in northern France, and a myth grew that Canada — as a nation — was born on its slopes. But the cost was tremendous: 10,000 Canadians were killed, wounded, or went missing in the three-day battle. Shortly thereafter, Prime Minister Robert Borden assembled a "Union Government" to support conscription and called an election on the issue. Canada split along ethnic lines: English Canadians supported conscription; French Canadians rejected it. By year end, Canada teetered on the brink of civil war.