Military history of Nova Scotia

During King William's War, the Mi'kmaq, Acadians and Maliseet participated in defending Acadia at its border with New England, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine.

Two years later, New France, led by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, returned and fought a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy before moving on to raid Bristol, Maine again.

Concerned about their overland supply lines to Quebec, they first raided the British fishing port of Canso on May 23, and then organized an attack on Annapolis Royal, then the capital of Nova Scotia.

Then, in mid-August, a larger French force arrived before Fort Anne, but was also unable to mount an effective attack or siege against the garrison, which was relieved by the New England company of Gorham's Rangers.

To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (Citadel Hill) (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

During this time period Acadians participated in various militia operations against the British and maintained vital supply lines to the French Fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour.

In April 1756, Major Preble and his New England troops, on their return to Boston, raided a settlement near Port La Tour and captured 72 men, women and children.

[33] En route to the St. John River Campaign in September 1758, Moncton sent Major Roger Morris, in command of two men-of-war and transport ships with 325 soldiers, to deport more Acadians.

[40] Colonel Robert Monckton led a force of 1150 British soldiers to destroy the Acadian settlements along the banks of the Saint John River until they reached the largest village of Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas (present day Fredericton, New Brunswick) in February 1759.

From there he was eventually sold or traded to the French and taken to Quebec, where he was held until late in 1759 and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, when General Wolfe's forces prevailed (See Journal of John Witherspoon, Annapolis Royal) .

[77] The following year, March 1758, there was a raid on the Lunenburg Peninsula at the Northwest Range (present-day Blockhouse, Nova Scotia) when five people were killed from the Ochs and Roder families.

Halifax Harbour had served as a Royal Navy seasonal base from the founding of the city in 1749, using temporary facilities and a careening beach on Georges Island.

Military spending and the opportunities of wartime shipping and trading stimulated growth led by local merchants such as Simeon Perkins, Charles Ramage Prescott and Enos Collins.

In 1793, under the command of Brigadier General James Ogilvie led two vessels – the Alligator and the schooner Diligent – and three transports gathered to conquer French occupied Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

[94] The breaking point came in October 1805, when Vice-Admiral Mitchell ordered press gangs from HMS Cleopatra to the streets of Halifax armed with bayonets, sparking a major riot in which one man was killed and several others were injured.

Wentworth lashed out at Mitchell for sparking urban unrest and breaking provincial impressment laws, and his administration exploited this violent episode to put even tighter restrictions of recruiting in Nova Scotia.

Halifax also received in October 1814, 30 wounded from one of the most violent privateer clashes of the war, which happened between a cutting-out party from HMS Endymion and Prince de Neufchatel on the south side of Nantucket.

The brief life of the colony yielded customs revenues, called the "Castine Fund", which were subsequently used to finance a military library in Halifax and found Dalhousie College.

Three Black Nova Scotians served in the famous 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Hammel Gilyer, Samuel Hazzard, and Thomas Page.

Nova Scotia was the site of two minor international incidents during the war: the Chesapeake Affair and the escape from Halifax Harbour of the CSS Tallahassee, aided by Confederate sympathizers.

[125] Nova Scotia became a haven for Confederate Secret Service agents and supporters and had a role in engaging in blockade running with arms largely from Britain.

Nova Scotia's role in arms trafficking to the South was so noticeable that the Acadian Recorder in 1864 described Halifax's effort as a "mercenary aid to a fratricidal war, which, without outside intervention, would have long ago ended.

This rather baseless scare was one of the main reasons why Britain sanctioned the creation of Canada (1867); to avoid another possible conflict with America and to leave the defence of Nova Scotia to a Canadian Government.

[136] On November 7, 1900, the Royal Canadian Dragoons engaged the Boers in the Battle of Leliefontein, where they saved British guns from capture during a retreat from the banks of the Komati River.

It was the largest POW camp in Canada during World War I; a maximum of 853 prisoners were housed at one time at the old Malleable Iron foundry on the corner of Hickman and Park Streets.

The Communist Party of Canada (which included Dr. Norman Bethune) had a significant recruitment effort in Nova Scotia for the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to fight against the rebel Nationalists (which they presented as ‘fascist’) in the Spanish Civil War.

From the start of the war in 1939 until VE Day, several of Canada's Atlantic coast ports became important to the resupply effort for the United Kingdom and later for the Allied land offensive on the Western Front.

[152] Both ports were heavily fortified with shore radar emplacements, search light batteries, and extensive coastal artillery stations all manned by RCN and Canadian Army regular and reserve personnel.

For example, in World War II, while mine sweeping near Sambro Light Vessel on 24 December 1944 while preparing to escort a convoy, HMCS Clayoquot was hit by a torpedo aft fired by U-806.

At Camp Hill Cemetery there are 17 graves of Norwegian sailors, soldiers and merchant seamen who died in Nova Scotia during World War II.