Almost 50,000 people from what would become Canada fought in the U.S. Civil war and of these, as many as 200 enlisted for the South.

Thomas Brooks, author and amateur historian who has researched Canada's involvement in the Civil War extensively, says the side on which soldiers fought often had to do with where they lived. For example, New Orleans was a busy port and many foreigners, including those from what is now Canada, lived there when war broke out. Others may have drifted to the South to find work and joined up when the war erupted in 1861. In fact, Brooks wrote about a history of the 10th Louisiana Infantry that was called "Lee's Foreign Legion" because soldiers from around the world fought in it.

"Friends of these people were going off to fight and that certainly is a motivation in any war, that sense of adventure," Brooks says.

One of the more famous Canadians who chose to fight for the South was Dr. Soloman Secord, who was a great nephew of Laura Secord, the heroine on the British side of the War of 1812. He left his home in Kincardine, Ont. and travelled to Georgia where he enlisted in the 20th Georgia Infantry as a surgeon.

There was a touch of irony to this because Secord was known as an abolitionist (that is, he opposed slavery), and in fact, almost got hanged in Georgia several years before for speaking out against slavery, says Brooks. But Secord had many friends in Georgia and probably signed up to help these people out.

Secord was captured at Gettysburg and became a prisoner of war in Maryland but escaped and joined up with his regiment in Tennessee. However, he finally left the war in October, 1864 and returned to his Kincardine home.

Secord was a highly respected doctor in the community, and when he died in 1910, a monument was erected in his memory. Brooks believes this is the only monument to a Confederate officer in Canada.

Another Canadian-South connection is that the last acknowledged survivor of Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg is buried in Canada. William Hatcher Barnett had come from Virginia to visit his sons, who had immigrated to Alberta in the 1930s, and died of a heart attack there. He's buried in a small cemetery about 50 miles from Calgary.