Chesapeake Incident

The Chesapeake Incident happened on December 7, 1863 when a group of confederates took the USS Chesapeake, a Northern ship doing a trade run from New York to Portland. The Southern hijackers wished to sell the Chesapeake's cargo and then purchase armamements and then transform the Chesapeake into a privateer in order to intercept and attack merchant ships from the North.Though, they did reach British territorial waters off the coasts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, they were captured by two Northern warships on Dec. 16 in St. Margaret's Bay in Nova Scotia. The warships also searched a Nova Scotian boat for possible refugees. These acts by the North and South seriously violated British neutrality.

Although there were no serious consequences, this incident demonstrated that the North and South were not afraid to violate British neutrality during the Civil War and therefore aided in the joining of the Maritimes to the Confederation of Canada.