How One Pig Nearly Started a War: The Bizarre Tale of the Pig War

On June fifteenth, 1859, an American farmer named Lyman Cutlar shot a pig. And that single act of porcine pest control nearly triggered a third, full-scale war between the United States and Great Britain. Which, if you remember what we were talking about yesterday with diplomatic near-misses, feels… depressingly familiar. So here’s the setup. Back in 1846, the US and Britain signed the Oregon Treaty to settle their border dispute in the Pacific Northwest. Mostly. They drew the line along the 49th parallel, but when the line hit the water between the mainland and Vancouver Island, the treaty language got sloppy. It said the border should run through "the middle of the channel." The problem is, there are two channels.

One route gives the strategic San Juan Islands to the Americans; the other gives them to the British. So for thirteen years, both nations just sort of… let it ride. American settlers moved onto San Juan Island. British employees of the Hudson's Bay Company were also there. They were neighbors in a state of total legal ambiguity. What could possibly go wrong? Enter Lyman Cutlar and his potato patch. One morning, he finds a large black boar, owned by his British neighbor Charles Griffin, rooting around in his garden. Again. Cutlar had warned him. So he grabs his rifle, takes aim, and solves his potato problem permanently. End of pig. But not the end of the story.

Cutlar, feeling a little guilty, goes to Griffin to offer compensation. "How about ten dollars?" he says. Griffin, furious, demands one hundred dollars. A hundred dollars in 1859 is like two or three grand today. For a pig! Cutlar refuses. Griffin threatens to have the British authorities arrest him. And right there is the moment a dead farm animal becomes a geopolitical crisis. Because when the local British magistrate threatens to drag an American citizen to a British jail, the other American settlers on the island panic. They send a petition to the U.S. Army for protection. And the man who gets that petition is General William S.

Harney, a notorious anti-British hothead just LOOKING for a fight. His response? He sends in Captain George Pickett—yes, that George Pickett of the future disastrous charge at Gettysburg—with about sixty soldiers to occupy the island. Pickett lands, raises the American flag, and declares the entire island U.S. property. The British response is… not subtle. They dispatch three warships, carrying over a thousand Royal Marines and more than seventy cannons, to face down Pickett's tiny company. The British Rear Admiral, Robert Baynes, has orders to land his troops and remove the Americans, by force if necessary. He is one command away from starting a war.

But looking at the situation, he reportedly tells the governor, "I will not involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig." Cooler heads. When the news finally reached Washington and London, the politicians were horrified. President Buchanan dispatched the top general of the entire army, Winfield Scott, to sort it out. Scott, old and incredibly formal, sailed up there and negotiated a brilliant, simple solution with the British governor. They agreed to a joint, peaceful military occupation until the diplomats could figure out the actual border. For the next twelve years, a hundred American soldiers and a hundred British Royal Marines lived on the island together.

They became great friends. They visited each other's camps, celebrated holidays, and held sporting competitions. They called it the "Pig War" because the only casualty was the pig. The final border was settled in 1872 by an international arbitrator—Kaiser Wilhelm the First of Germany, of all people. He gave the islands to the Americans. The whole standoff shows you how a tiny, almost comical event doesn't cause a crisis. It just reveals the fault lines that were already there, waiting for a spark. The pig wasn't the reason. It was just the excuse.