Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7221-481X
Date Available
5-17-2027
Year of Publication
2025
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
History
Faculty
Dr. Amy Murrell Taylor
Faculty
Dr. Vanessa Holden
Faculty
Dr. Erik Myrup
Abstract
This dissertation expands historians’ geographical understanding of the American Civil War to include British North America, specifically, Canada. My study shows that the physical boundaries of the Confederacy did not outline the full range or coverage of its supporters, nor did the physical boundaries of the battlefield define the extent of war making and wartime action. Raids were executed from Canada against the United States home front prompting the United States Army, government, and American civilians to confront these Confederates and stop their insidious presence and violence. Where slavery thrived, a lack of official Confederate government did not prevent enslavers and Confederates from exercising and extending their influence and extending that influence to the international border to secure a military victory for the Confederate States of America, especially in the state of Kentucky. Treasonous individuals, and their wives and families, maintained their disloyalty and avoided imprisonment by American authorities by fleeing to Canada. Magnifying the wartime actions at the international border between Canada and the United States, and in the borderlands, shows the limitations of borders and the incomplete power of nations to govern and control people—a lesson enslaved men and women taught enslavers by their constant resistance and challenging of the institution of slavery. This study moves chronologically from the Antebellum Era to the Civil War years and ends during Reconstruction.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.170
Funding Information
1. Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Andrew Mellon Research Fellowship, 2025
2. Kentucky Historical Society Two-Week Fellowship, 2024
3. Massachusetts Historical Society’s Andrew W. Mellon Short-Term Research Fellow, 2021
4. Bryan Dissertation Fellowship, University of Kentucky's History Department, 2021
5. Clements Library’s Jacob M. Price Fellowship at the University of Michigan, 2021
6. The University of Kentucky's History Department Summer Research Award, Summer 2021-2023
7. Filson Historical Society Fellowship, Louisville, Kentucky, 2019
8. Leslee Gilbert and Daniel Crowe Fellowship for Graduate Student Development, University of Kentucky, 2019
9. Charles P. Roland Fellowship, University of Kentucky, 2019
Recommended Citation
Werking, Cassandra Jane, "Refuge, Raids, and Confederates on Sleighs: How the Confederacy Exploited Canada and the International Border and Shaped the American Civil War" (2025). Theses and Dissertations--History. 93.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/history_etds/93
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