1861

How They Went to Take Canada. Punch, Volume 41, August 17, 1861, p. 67

A sarcastic John Bull asks Union troops fleeing in haste from the battlefield of Bull Run: "Hullo, Brother Jonathan. Where are you all running to?" Abandoning their weapons and equipment, the "skedaddling" Federal soldiers shout back, "Jist gwine to take Canada" as their line of retreat passes a signpost pointing "To Canada."

Tenniel's cartoon compresses the events of several months. During the confused weeks following the fall of Fort Sumter, as Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to help defeat what many people still thought was only a localized insurrection, some editorial writers in Northern newspapers had called for an American invasion of Canada. They suggested, implausibly, that a foreign war against Great Britain would quickly re-unite the fragmenting Union in the face of an old traditional foe. The Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), fought in Virginia on June 21, 1861, marked the first major clash of Northern and Southern forces. At first successful, Union advances were repulsed by a late afternoon Confederate counterattack. The ensuing Federal retreat quickly turned into a rout, with many units fleeing in panic back towards Washington, D.C. John Bull's mocking attitude suggests that Britain felt it had little to fear from such poorly-trained, undisciplined troops.