Posted by Saphroneth, 31 May 2016 on the "If they will not meet us on the open sea" (a Trent TL) thread
27 December
Lyons is informed that Mason and Slidell will not be released from captivity. (PoD.)
29 December
Lyons leaves the US via New York on the sloop
Rinaldo. (n.b. Detaining him would be contra to all diplomatic standards.)
3 January
First tranche of Canadian militia officially completes mobilization. 38,000 rank and file (>40,000 All Ranks) are mobilized, in addition to the 5,000 Class A active militia and additional newly raised volunteers. These troops are all armed with Enfield rifle-muskets, and begin drill and target practice with training from NCOs of the 30th and 47th Foot.
At about the same date, the US begin calling up additional volunteers to form into a field army in case it is necessary to invade Canada. The projections are for ~200,000 troops, though there are significant concerns about the number of small arms available - it was only a month ago that Cameron asked Northern governers not to send any more regiments unless called for (due to the shortage of small arms; most regments thus raised have been armed with smoothbores rather than rifles) - and about paying for these additional soldiers, since the crisis has already caused the banks of the Union to suspend specie payments.
5 January
Immortalite arrives at the Chesapeake. The captain discovers Lyons has quit the country, and in response lights her boilers and sails hard for Bermuda. The USN blockading squadron does not engage her - at this point the two nations are not at war - and in fact informed
Immortalite of the movement of the ambassador.
8 Jan
Immortalite makes Bermuda, and conveys the news to Adm. Milne. Milne orders his ships to concentrate ahead of the declaration of war, and has their coal bunkers topped off from the
Dromedary hulk as they come in. (Due to the geometry of the Bermuda harbour basin, the battleships cannot enter the basin to coal in bad weathers and must use lighters - fortunately the pause is long enough that
Hero and
Donegal have time to enter and coal fully.)
8/9 Jan
Overnight Cabinet session in the United Kingdom on whether to declare war. The decision is made in the affirmative.
9 Jan
A fast steamer leaves the UK carrying the news of the war to Bermuda. It will make the crossing in ten days.
Other steamers head for Jamaica, Halifax, South Africa, and the Pacific - among other destinations.
Tuscaroa is in harbour in Southampton when war is declared. She is originally not aware of the decision, being more concerned with keeping watch on the
Nashville, but her captain (Tunis A.M. Craven) discovers the state of war when HMS
Dauntless (guardship) steams up to her and levels her broadside.
Tuscaroa is captured without fuss and will become HMS
Troubridge.
12 Jan
Orders are tendered in Britain for ironclads to pass through the Canadian canals and operate on the Great Lakes. Their maximum length, beam and draft are defined by the dimensions of the locks on the Welland Canal, and they are to deliver in 90 days. To speed construction they will use plates rejected from the
Warrior - lower quality, but still rolled armour.
15 Jan
HMS
Mersey takes on Prince Albert to carry him back to Bermuda and out of harms’ way. Dunlop is alerted that there may be a state of war soon existing.
16 Jan
More orders are tendered in the US for various ironclads - these include the
Passaic class of five, the
Casco class of eight and another four broadside ironclads (which will complete the 20-ironclad navy). First delivery is expected for the summer, pending availability of guns and armour plate.
17 Jan
It is noted that a worrying proportion of British subjects serving in the armies of the Union (approx. 30% of the total ~100,000) are thought likely to either desert or resign at the prospect of facing their fellow countrymen. This is not considered a major problem by the Department of War as, while these men tend to be reasonably skilled (indeed many of them are ex-British soldiers) the main constraint on the size of the Union armies is rapidly becoming not manpower but firearms. Every arms shipment is being used almost straightaway without any reserve building up,and the figure of 200,000 (i.e. 230,000 new recruits, requiring 200,000 new firearms over wastage) has not yet been achieved and does not look close to being achieved by the end of the month.
18 Jan
A second tranche of troops is ordered to Canada from the United Kingdom (the last of the 18 battalions already ordered to Canada will leave next week). The 1/8th, 2/18th, 2/19th, 2/21st, 2/25th, 26th, 29th, 31st, 32nd, 41st, 49th, 53rd, 1/60th, 61st, 78th, 84th and 86th are all ordered to make ready for movement - in addition, requests are made for militia battalions to go overseas and relieve British colonial garrisons. It is hoped that the Mediterranean alone - if stripped down to Crimean levels of regular battalions - can release a further 11 battalions of infantry.
Preliminary estimates conclude that as many as 8 divisons of infantry may be in Canada by the time of the thaw in April - all well armed and trained, being prewar Regulars and many of them with Crimean or Indian experience.
20 Jan
Milne recieves confirmation of the declaration of war, along with confidential orders - he is to aggressively raid the US east coast and destroy fortifications where possible, to attempt to draw off as much manpower as possible from the expected invasion of Canada. This is considered to be a more immediate priority than throwing a blockade across the coast - that can wait a month or two. (This strategic assessment is perhaps in error, as it was made without understanding of the critical shortage of small arms the Union is finding itself with)
21 Jan
Greyhound sets off to carry the war order to Rum Key. When it arrives there,
Bulldog will carry it on to Dunlop.
The news of the declaration of war arrives in Halifax. It reaches Upper and Lower Canada, the Maritimes - and Washington - within hours by telegraph.
22 Jan
A paddle steamer sets off from the Potomac to Port Royal, carrying orders to recall the blockading squadrons in the South Atlantic and the Gulf.
In discussion with the captain of broadside ironclad HMS
Terror, Frederick Hutton, Milne informs the captain that he will be expecting
Terror to participate as soon as possible as he feels it will be impossible to reduce the US forts without her.
Hutton is proud of his vessel, but he was also proud of his previous -
Neptune - and sailed her in the Baltic in the Russian War. He respectfully reminds Milne of the lessons of Bomarsund, in which sailing vessels with steam power sufficed to reduce the very modern fortifications in the Aland islands.
Milne considers this, and tells Hutton a final decision will be made tomorrow.
23 Jan
Agamemnon arrives at Bermuda, and quickly begins recoaling. Her arrival gives Milne three battleships - one short of the four he considers necessary.
Captain Hutton seeks out Milne, and hands him a report he has borrowed from one of his gunners. It is the Journal of the Royal Artillery, specifically a section on the artillery experiments performed against a Martello tower in early 1861.
Milne reads, impressed, and informes Hutton that he has made his decision - he will try one attempt without ironclads, and see how this eventuates.
Hutton is pleased to be vindicated, though admits he may have shot himself in the foot by making it less likely his ship will be used!
24 Jan
Aboukir arrives, and starts taking on as much coal as possible.
25 Jan
Milne sets sail for the Chesapeake. His fleet consists of
Hero, Donegal, Agamemnon, Aboukir, Immortalite, Melopmene, Liffey, Spiteful, Rinaldo, Medea, Cygnet and
Racer, plus colliers and support vessels, and HMS
Terror is left in Bermuda as harbour defence vessel.
Diadem and
Landrail will soon arrive in Bermuda, and will be redirected on to join Milne when possible.
26 Jan
HMS
Orpheus and HMS
Hydra sail into the undefended Saco Bay and drop the railroad bridge across the Saco River, thus isolating Maine and allowing Nova Scotia militia to in future capture the railway west towards the Windsor Corridor.
27 Jan
The HMS
Chesapeake stops the
Saginaw from leaving Hong Kong. The news of the declaration of war had come in on a steamer from India only a few hours before, and
Chesapeake is to stop
Saginaw leaving port by any means necessary.
Saginaw has three medium guns on the broadside;
Chesapeake has 26. The US ship surrenders.
28 Jan
Dunlop -
Sans Pareil, St George, Ariadne, Phaeton, Challenger, Jason, Desperate, Barracouta, Bulldog, Steady - leaves Vera Cruz.
29th
Milne's squadron arrives off the Chesapeake bay. His arrival makes it certain to the USN that the war is not a bluff, and in the face of superior firepower the vessels withdraw to protect the entrance to the Potomac.
30th
Minnesota and HMS
Liffey exchange fire at long range. The
Minnesota scores four hits with her 9” guns and one hit with her 8” guns, taking in return three 8” shells and two 32-lber hits. The RN shells are slightly more effective due to their better fuzing (with Moorsom fuzes detonating reliably inside the enemy ship, as opposed to the fixed-time Dahlgren fuzes) and larger bursting charges, but at the extreme range (over 2,000 yards) the main damage is to the sidewalls - neither ship has been disabled.
Minnesota withdraws when
Hero fires a broadside which comes close to ranging her, throwing a further forty-plus projectiles in a single salvo - the Union vessel is now outweighed in broadside 2:1, and HMS
Donegal is also visible moving in.
It is believed the
Minnesota was attempting to break out, though this is unclear.
Ironically, this is perhaps the most favourable moment for the US ships to force a confrontation - both
Agamemnon and
Aboukir are still taking on coal to top up their bunkers - but the combined RN force still has approx. 80 heavy shell guns per broadside in addition to their 32-lbers.
Also on this date, the
Monitor is launched.
You have my apologies. I misread your post and conflated it with another I can no longer find. Again my apologies. BTW the HMS Chesapeake was a 51 gun steam frigate completed in 1855.
And your Canadian militia timeline needs severe editing.
In spite of its proud record—or perhaps because of it—the Canadian militia had been allowed to decline into a mere paper force. By law the entire male population between eighteen and sixty was liable for service but the vast majority of these, the sedentary militia, had no existence beyond enrolment. The only active force, the volunteers, received a mere six or twelve days' annual training according to the arm of the service, and of the 5,000 authorized there were only some 4,422 in June 1861 – a "miserable small force! And many of them but ill-trained, unless greatly improved since last year", was Newcastle's comment.
[104]
On December 2, at Williams' urging, the Canadian government agreed to raise its active volunteer force to 7,500. The risk of war pushed the number of volunteers to 13,390 by May 1862, although the number of "efficient" volunteers was only 11,940.
[107] On December 20, Williams also began training one company of 75 men from each battalion of the Sedentary Militia, about 38,000 men in total, with the intention of raising this to 100,000.
[108] Warren describes the Sedentary militia on their initial muster, before arms and equipment were served out to them:
Untrained and undisciplined, they showed up in all manner of dress, with belts of basswood bark and sprigs of green balsam in their hats, carrying an assortment of flintlocks, shotguns, rifles, and scythes. Their officers, prefacing orders with "please", recoiled in horror as formations of the backwoodsmen zigzagged on command to wheel to the left.
[109]
By the summer of 1862, long after the crisis had subsided, the available Canadian volunteers numbered 16,000; 10,615 infantry; 1,615 cavalry; 1,687 artillery; 202 volunteer engineers besides new corps not yet accepted into service and the militia.
[110
Williams' task in raising, arming and disciplining this army was not dissimilar to the one that the Union and Confederates had faced at the beginning of the Civil War, a year earlier. In the Province of Canada there were 25,000 arms, 10,000 of them smoothbores, and in the Maritimes there were 13,000 rifles and 7,500 smoothbores: though weapons were readily available in England, the difficulty was in transporting them to Canada.
[105] 30,000 Enfield rifles were sent on December 6 with the
Melbourne, and by February 10, 1862 the
Times reported that modern arms and equipment for 105,550 had arrived in Canada along with 20 million cartridges.
[106]
But as far as some of your other statements:
1. I don't know where you got your story about wrought iron shot and half charges as it applies to the battle on 8 March 1862. The USS Congress was armed 4 x 8" shell guns and 22 x 32pdr medium weight long guns on her spar deck and 26 x 32pdr heavy long guns on her gun deck. The USN did not produce wrought iron shot for its 32pdr guns. The USS Cumberland was armed with 22 x IX-in Dahlgren shot/shell guns in broadside and a X-in Dahlgren shot/shell gun in pivot aft and a 60pdr Parrott rifle in pivot on forward, all on her gun deck. The USN did not produce wrought iron shot for either the IX or X inch Dahlgrens for the simple reason that by the time such shot could be produced it was obvious that these guns, even at full charge, were unable to deal with even the first generation of Confederate ironclads. The IX inch Dahlgren was retained as a broadside gun because its shell and shot were still effective against wooden ships and fortifications and had a higher rate of fire than the larger Dahlgrens. There is no official or substantiated history of the battle claiming that either ship had wrought iron shot or used half charges in preference to full charges for some reason of economy. I can only think that some memoir or letter written by a participant claimed such a situation because of the ineffectiveness of the fire of both USS Congress and USS Cumberland against CSS Virginia. The fact is, with full charge and even wrought iron shot, the IX-in and X-in Dahlgren would not have penetrated the armor and oak backing of the CSS Virginia's casemate. On 9 March 1862, when USS Monitor engaged the CSS Virginia. During the battle, the USS Monitor used 15lb charges (half charge) in its XI-in Dahlgrens at the direction of the Chief of Ordnance, Dahlgren himself, as the gun had not finished its proofing tests. The Monitor did use wrought iron shot, but did not have cored shot, which would have increased the velocity. The result was to damage but not penetrate the CSS Virginia's casemate. After the battle, the XI-in Dahlgren was cleared for full charges (30lbs), at which, with wrought iron shot, it could penetrate a 4" wrought iron plate and 24" of oak at point blank range. Cored shot, at a higher velocity, would have performed somewhat better. For this reason, the XI-in Dahlgren became the primary pivot gun on US wooden warships, to provide an anti-armor capability. The XI-in gun would have had difficulty penetrating the second generation Confederate and British ironclads with even cored shot, but at the Battle of Mobile Bay, the captain of the USS Chickasaw, a two turret river/coastal monitor with the XI-in gun, up the charge to 50lbs on his own authority, and the cored shot could be seen to nearly penetrate the casemate of the CSS Tennessee. The XI-in gun when proofed to destruction handled 60lb charges without any signs of distress.
2. The Franco-Prussian War is a classic case study of armies misinterpreting the events and outcomes of battles and wars. The French artillery was equipped the La Hitte rifling conversion of the bronze 12pdr light gun-howitzer (NOT smooth-bores) and the mitrailleuse, a mechanical form of machine gun. The Prussians used Krupp steel barrel breech-loading 6pdr in their batteries. When new, the Krupp guns had a slight advantage in rate of fire, maximum range and accuracy. This advantage became more noticeable as the guns were fired for any length of time. As the US found out by 1862, bronze is a poor metal for rifled artillery. It stretches as the pressure of each firing pushes into the metal. After 100 rounds, the rifling could no longer securely grip the projectile and both velocity (as gas passed up the barrel around the projectile) and accuracy suffered. The French adopted the conversion because of its economy in producing rifled artillery quickly and cheaply. Still, neither gun had a recoil mechanism and both used black powder and bag charges, which meant that the rate of fire was similar for both guns. Once battle was joined, both guns were restricted in using their maximum ranges due to masking terrain and black powder clouds. The superiority of the Prussian artillery lay not in its guns but in its organization and use. The French dissipated their artillery power by dispersing their batteries among their formations. The Prussians retained artillery reserves at corps level which allowed them to concentrate guns and fire at critical points. This allowed them to drive off the French artillery and then pound the French infantry, which up to that point had held its own, as Prussian infantry tactics, based on the presumed fire superiority of their Dreyse needle guns, exposed them to the fire of the better French Chassepots. But the real point of the war was the quicker mobilization of larger forces by the Prussians enabled by their staff system and their positioning of their railroads which allowed the Prussians to repeatedly flank French forces which were holding their own tactically at the operational and strategic levels finally forcing the surrender at Sedan. Foreign armies picked up on the use of railroads for mobilization and trained conscripts for larger formations, but saw the use of the Krupp guns as the point of Prussian artillery superiority, not their organization and doctrine. Had the French and Prussians exchanged guns, the Prussians would still have won.
3. I have a very extensive library and access to the Combined Arms Library at Ft. Leavenworth (CG&SC), the Army War College and the Army Center for Military History, along with lending privileges from the libraries at the Pentagon and the USMA. I cannot find one instance where entire battalions were rotated through Hythe before 1878. Until that time, from 1855, a Corps of Instructors, 100 1st class and 100 2d class, were maintained by the School and distributed to the regiments and the regimental depots as required to provide training in marksmanship. If you have a reference that contradicts this, post it. But this system makes sense as the cost of rotating battalions from their garrisons even in England would have been unsupportable.
4. Other than the Guards, the peacetime establishment of a British Army regular infantry regiment of was reduced by retaining the required numbers of officers and NCOs and reducing the numbers of enlisted men to as low as 400 per battalion in garrison in England. Somewhat higher levels of manning were maintained in Ireland, and overseas garrisons, but when a battalion departed for overseas duty, its strength was brought up by recruits and drafts from other regiments/battalions in England/Scotland. The battalions that arrived in Canada after a transit at sea and a movement from Halifax to Montreal, Quebec or even farther to Toronto would have numbers of sick and infirm Soldiers, so that field strength would not exceed 800 men in the deployed companies. Up to 25% of these Soldiers would be new recruits, being trained on the job, which would have been difficult while the battalion was in transit. The standard shoulder arm would be a .577 Enfield rifle-musket or rifle, muzzle loading with a percussion lock. Rate of fire and effective range would be similar to a veteran US or Confederate infantry regiment, no more than 3 rounds per minute, declining as the barrel fouled and the Soldier tired. The maximum effective range at a formed opposing unit on a clear day, with the first volley across open terrain, for those Soldiers recently trained by an Instructor from Hythe, might be as far as 1,000 yards, but more likely 600. A recently recruited US volunteer infantry regiment would have around 800 men and officers after strategic attrition, such as sickness, death or disablement from accident or desertion. The attack would be carried out with two companies forward and skirmishing and eight companies in a two rank line. The skirmishing company, at the least, would have rifles or rifle-muskets. These could be the .54 or .58 M1841 "Mississippi" rifles (over 125,000 still in service as of 31 Jan 62), the .69 M1842 musket rifled between 1856-61 (50,000 in service 31 Jan 62), the .58 M1855 rifle or rifle musket (about 30,000 still in service), the .58 M1861 rifle-musket (Springfield, of which 50,000 had been received by the US Army by 31 Jan 62), the .577 Enfield rifle or rifle-musket (over 300,000 had reached the US by 31 January 1862, bought by the US and state governments, Massachusetts and NY among them, from the British government production, which meant they had interchangeable parts, as the government manufactured Enfield was produced on machinery bought from the US in 1856), or the .54 Lorenz rifle or rifle-musket (over 100,000 imported from Austria by 31 Jan 62). Even in 1864, the New York regiments of the "Irish" Brigade retained the .69 M1842 musket as it produced significant close range firepower with the "buck and ball" cartridge, while the 28th Massachusetts in the brigade carried the .577 Enfield to act as brigade skirmishers. This was because despite the theoretical range achievable by the rifle or rifle-musket with the conical bullet, combat conditions often limited the effective range to under 200 yards. Start with Paddy Griffiths for a re-evaluation of the impact of the rifle on Civil War tactics. The US volunteer infantry regiment would be accompanied by a similar regiment on both flanks. If the British regular battalion maintained its focus on the regiment to its front, it would produce 14,400 rounds for the 6 minutes it would take the US regiment to cross 600 yards. That's 18 rounds per Soldier in the attacking US regiment. Accuracy would increase as range diminished, but even if only 50% of the rounds hit something, it would stop the US regiment before it reached 100 yards. But if the British regular battalion refused its flanks, with 200 men on each flank, the number of bullets produced against the frontal attack falls to 9 per attacker and maybe 4 hits per attacker. The refused flanks are producing 3600 rounds against 800 Soldiers, so 4.5 rounds per attacker and maybe 2 hit each attacker. If the US regiments are armed with rifles and stop and engage in a firefight at 500 yards, they produce at least 2 rounds per minute, so they are sending back down range, 4,800 rounds per minute versus 2,400 from the British. You reduce the hit rate for the US regiments to 25% and they get 600 hits per minute versus 1,200 for the British. In one minute of firing, there would be 200 British regulars left versus 1,200 US volunteers. In the next minute, the British produce 300 hits and the US volunteers produce 250 hits, leaving no British regulars and 900 US volunteers. If only 600 US volunteers are armed with rifles, the first minute would see 1,200 rounds from the US troops in skirmish line and 2,400 from the British in line. If we send skirmishers forward from the British, they would be 100 skirmishers versus 600. If the entire British battalion broke completely down into a skirmish line (which isn't doctrinal, the manual calls for retaining a formed reserve if other formed troops are not available to provide support), we would have 800 British skirmishers against 600 American, which would be 2,400 rounds versus 1,200, both being in open order and using cover, the hit rate falls, so after a minute the British have 680 men left and the US skirmishers are down to 360. Another minute and there are 608 British left and 156 American skirmishers, with the main US line now 300 yards away. Another minute and there are 577 British left and the American skirmishers have been eliminated. But the main line of 1,800 Americans is now 200 yards away. Both sides exchange fire and in a minute later there are 217 British troops left and there are 935 US troops left at 100 yards. One minute later there are no British troops left standing and 610 surviving US troops occupy the defended position, even if only 600 American troops are armed with rifles or rifle-muskets. Certainly the factors can be adjusted, but I gave the British a 100% advantage in hit rate and a 50% advantage in rate of fire. As some Soviet general, or supposedly Lenin or Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all its own".
5. As far as the Canadian theater, the St. Lawrence River is iced over in winter and navigable by deep water ships only as far as Montreal because of the Lachine Rapids. While the locks built for the Lachine Canal were enlarged to 200' x 44' , they were only 8.9' deep. Even the British armored batteries were to wide in beam and to deep in draft, except HMS Aetna. Smaller wooden steam powered warships below the class of steam gunboats such as the "Britomart" class which drew too much water for the locks. Therefor, both the US and Britain would have to rely on local resources on the Great Lakes. The Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1818 had demilitarized the Great Lakes after they had been a major theater of war in 1812-15. Each country was allowed a single warship with a constrained armament (no more than 100 tons burthen and with 1 x 18pdr gun) and limited military facilities on the Lakes. With the US-British détente that begin with the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, both sides closed and converted the significantly large naval facilities and yards built up during the War. Warships were left on stocks (USS New Orleans, 120 guns) was still on the stocks in 1862), sunk in fresh water for preservation (USS Niagara was one such) or dismantled or sold off, armament and equipment being stored locally. The ships on the stocks could be launched and completed or modified and completed in 3 to 9 months depending on levels of completion and modifications, by which time crews would have been found. Sunken vessels, being sailing ships, might not be worth raising, but they could be modified to steam ships, which would take 6-9 months. Commercial ships could be requisitioned and armed inside 30 days and steam powered paddle and screw gunboats could be completed in 3-4 months. The initial armament would be that in storage, which for both sides, would be muzzle-loading, smooth-bore cast iron guns and carronades. Such guns could be refurbished and remounted on wooden or iron carriages in 30 days or so. They could also be rifled, as could the surplus Army guns and "columbiads" in storage in the Atlantic Coast ports. Such guns would be available by rail or steamship up the Hudson or Lake Champlain in 2-3 weeks for the Americans. Guns for British ships on the Lakes not already in storage would have to come from Halifax by steam ship, barge and rail from Halifax should surplus guns be available there. In the winter, such movement could take 3 weeks. If guns had to come from England by steamship at 6 knots cruising, the trip, in good weather, would take 20 days in transit, should the guns be immediately available in Liverpool, with 2 days to load and 2 days to unload. So a 32pdr gun or a 68pdr could reach Montreal in 26-28 days if everything went right in good weather. With the repeal of the Navigation Acts in 1849 and the introduction of railroads (1,800 miles in 1860), shipbuilding along the Canadian lake shore declined to such a point that most Canadian flag vessels on the lakes were built in the US. Canadian shipbuilding at Halifax and St. Johns, however, grew with trade between Canada and Great Britain, especially the transport of immigrants. Still, it was cheaper to ship and receive imports through the US as the customs duties were imposed at Montreal, which dominated the St. Lawrence river and rail lines to the disadvantage of Upper Canada. There were but three foundries on the Canadian side, as Canada exported wheat and flour to Britain after the repeal of the Corn Laws. While there was plenty of wood and quantities of iron, coal and coke were imported and it would take time to rebuild the yards and expand the foundries. There was no manufacturer of small arms or cannon in Canada or of black powder. On the American side, there were shipyards in Erie, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo and Milwaukee, all able to build wooden steamships and even iron steamships (the single permitted US warship, USS Michigan, had an iron hull). There were foundries both in these cities and in nearby Pittsburg, Akron, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Iron, coal, coke, wood, steam engines and guns were all available depending on priorities. Canada's population in 1861 was 3,112,169. The population of the states remaining in the Union was bordering Canada and the Lakes was 16,071,275 in 1860. Those same states produced 413, 048 tons of iron products and 805,323 tons of pig iron in the year ending 1 June 1860. The US had more than 1,300 sailing and over 600 steam ships on the lakes, the average length of the steam ships being 160' on the main deck. In 1857, Canadian flagged vessels amounted to 43 steamships and 184 sailing ships and craft.
Bottom line: There was no way that the British could seize control of the Lakes, not in February 1862 or June 1864. With US control of the Lakes, there was no possibility of the British starting and sustaining any invasion of the US from Canada. The US could maintain small forces to man the fortifications of their main ports to protect against raids, but without water transport, there was no way for the British to conduct offensive operations into the US. Even more, with the head waters and Montreal under blockade, all supplies coming from Britain would come down a single track railway from Halifax which was in many places within five miles of US territory, so subject to raids, unless the British garrisoned every mile of track. Once it realized this fact, the US could ignore Canada for the moment and concentrate on suppressing the Southern insurrection, the war at sea (the US did not sign the Treaty of Paris outlawing privateers) and the along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
6. Distance from Liverpool to Halifax - 2,727 miles. Halifax to Montreal - 770 miles
Distance from Boston to Plattsburg - 244 miles, to Montreal - 308 miles
Distance from NYC to Plattsburg - 310 miles, to Buffalo - 374 miles, to Montreal - 371 miles, to Quebec - 517 miles, to Erie - 431 miles, to Toronto - 490 miles
Distance from Buffalo to Montreal - 398 miles, to Kingston - 274 miles, to Toronto - 98 miles
Distance from Erie to Kingston - 361 miles, to Toronto - 194 miles
Distance from Cleveland to Toronto - 290 miles
Distance from Detroit to Toronto -235 miles
Distance from Chicago to Toronto - 520 miles, to Detroit - 282 miles
Distance from Boston to Halifax - 407 miles
Distance from NYC to Halifax - 869 miles, to Kingston, Jamaica - 1,582 miles
Distance from Philadelphia to Erie - 421 miles, to Halifax - 964 miles, to Kingston, Jamaica - 1,523 miles,
Distance from Pittsburg to Erie - 127 miles, to Cleveland - 132 miles, to Buffalo - 214 miles
Distance from Cincinnati to Cleveland - 248 miles, to Detroit - 264 miles
Average speed of a steamship 10 mph
Average speed of a river boat 8 mph
Average speed of a train 20 mph
Average daily movement of a force of 50,000 men - 10-20 miles
Average daily movement of a wagon or siege train - 10 miles
Now consider the time and distance factors for a Canadian theater circa 1862.
