67th Tigers
Banned
This sounds like a lot of free troops for a state which doesn't exactly have an overly large military for the territory that its trying to defend (In general, not in a British-American War).
Where are your sources on the locations of these troops?
The Army Lists.
You misunderstand the nature of the British military. In 1861 the British could field, including their reservists, 1 million men. There are 290,000 "auxiliary troops" (i.e. volunteers, militia and yeomanry) available in the British Isles to conduct home defence. The regular army is almost entirely available for offensive tasks abroad. By December 1854 only four line infantry battalions were left in the UK, all of whom had just returned from overseas and had to recruit back upto strength. In 1855 all of those finally deployed to either the Crimea directly or relieved another unit which went forward to the Crimea.
In 1862 there were 65 regular infantry battalions at home or in theatre (minus some for home defence duties already counted below, and excluding the Royal Canadian Regt), 13 in the Mediterranean garrisons, and 2 of the 5 in South Africa can be withdrawn. That equates to 80 infantry battalions (ca. 99,000 officers and men at war establishment), far more than HMG proposed using (although several of these will be on rotations and so not really available). On peace establishment the British Army only held logistics for the deployment of 5 Army Corps (60 infantry battalions, 15 cavalry regiments, 30 artillery batteries, 10 horse artillery batteries &c.) at home. A Corps had a peacetime establishment of 16,000 R&F, so 5 Corps = 80,000 which is precisely the number HMG committed to Canada.
There are another 74 battalions (57 in the Eastern colonies, 3 in China, 3 in South Africa, 6 in New Zealand and 4 Guards battalions needed at home, excluding 9 European battalions of the HEIC which were formally incorporated into the Army in Feb '62) that would not be sent to Canada (although ca. 8 battalions would be pulled from India as the British component of an expeditionary Corps against California).
The artillery at home, the Med and in theatre has 10 horse batteries (60x 9 pdr Armstrong rifled guns), 40 field batteries (240x 12 pdr Armstrong rifled guns) and 80 garrison batteries, which may provide siege batteries (4x 40 pdr Armstrong guns) for a battering train and man fortifications. There are 20 horse, 39 field and 31 garrison batteries in India (largely still with smoothbore ordnance). To provide a 5 Corps army would take all the horse and 3/4ths the field artillery available.
The cavalry has 20 regiments at home and 11 in India. It would take 3/4ths the available regiments to provide 5 cavalry brigades for 5 Army Corps.
There are 6 Corps logistics units (Military Train battalions). 1 is deployed to the East (in 1860 supporting the expeditionary Corps to China, by 1862 they've partially redeployed to NZ). 5 are at home to support a 5 Corps overseas expeditionary force.
Of the 36 RE field companies, 32 are available at home, in the Med, SA or in theatre. 15 are required to make up the engineer complement of the expeditionary force. There is only one Corps bridging train on fixed establishment, but plans were to simply equip another 4 by converting 4 field companies.
Asking as someone without anything more precise than that the extra-European theater is where Britain generally preferred to station its regiments.
It is if this becomes a major land war - and having a hundred thousand men in Canada (referring to the regulars) sounds like a major deployment for a state that only has 347,000 total - counting the navy - in 1860.
and?
Deploying the bulk of ones disposable force to the theatre of operations does not seem odd to me.
Doable or not, either the US is a bigger or threat or the British are planning something other than defending Canada and waiting for the blockade to work.
They worked on the worst case scenario, that the US would immediately make peace with the CS and put 300,000 men against Canada. With hindsight that's not likely.
And there's no other source at all? Or is this just the easiest source?
Not without several years of lead up. The Richmond manure pits finally produced a massive supply.... in summer 1865 when it no longer was worth a damn.