In 1859 Great Britain and the United States almost went to war over the Northwest boundary when an American farmer shot a British pig. That July, U.S. Army Captain George E. Pickett looked down the gun ports of two British warships from his camp on San Juan Island. He knew he needed help, and the sooner the better. The future Confederate general had been ordered there to protect the rights of U.S. settlers from the might of the British Empire.

First published in 1999, Mike Vouri's lively account of the Pig War crisis has been revised and expanded into a definitive new edition. Additional photographs, maps, and drawings are combined with new material providing fresh insights into the boundary dispute that confounded diplomats of three nations, but never quite descended into a shooting war.