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The Fenian Raids and militia re-organization by Richard E. Ruggle During the 1860s, the role of the militia was hotly debated, and its organization, training and equipment were the subject of a series of militia bills designed to make it more effective. British North America felt a real threat from the United States, which had become the world's strongest military power during the course of the civil war. A number of incidents between Britain and the United States during the war threatened to ignite into hostilities, and the easiest way for the Americans to get at Britain would be to attack her North American colonies. When the civil war ended, thousands of demobilized Union soldiers of Irish background threatened to 'liberate' the Canadas from the British crown. Financial restraints The colonies were defended by British regular forces, and by the militia. Defence policy took second place to political desires for financial restraint. The British government wanted Canada to assume more responsibility for its own defence, and although Canadian politicians agreed, they were reluctant to spend the money needed to do so effectively. When one company of militia were mustered in 1861, they wore clothes strapped in at the waist with basswood bark, and carried flint-lock muskets, shot guns, a few rifles or scythe blades tied to pitch fork handles. Two Militia Acts in 1863 started the road to reform. The Sedentary Militia could be ordered out for drill for six days a year, and another 35,000 volunteers might be trained, but would not be paid. More reforms were needed, and they were designed by the Adjutant General of Militia, Colonel Patrick MacDougall, who had spent ten years in Canada as a junior officer, and who had been the first commandant of Britain's new staff college in 1858. An early Total Force Schools for militia officers were run in Kingston, Hamilton and London (1865), and over a thousand graduates trained for three weeks at Laprairie with the British regulars. British drill sergeants trained the volunteers. By the time of confederation there was a sort of 'total force', in which regulars and militia trained together. 5