The Dead Skunk
- Thread starter Lycaon pictus
- Start date
I’m intrigued by the reference to ‘Royal British’ sources. Implying that not only are there sources that are British but non-royal, the two may have – indeed, may still – exist contemporaneously…
Well that list of North American countries puts the kibosh on my idle speculation Texas might last as a country to no ones plans.
So Brougham and company get a boost here on the homefront. Hopefully that will work toward a more stable Britain, finger still crossed to avoid the dreaded R word.
Oh Twigg, I hope you live long and hold command over yet more actions where you can lead the sons of the South.
I was stunned when he tried to suborn the locals. This has been a war to the knife for them since Fanin's raid made it clear wghat this war was about. And seriously, he thought Cherokee being allowed to keep slaves was a selling point to someone in abolitionist Florida?
I'd say the Union has already lost this campaign; they have lost their momentum even if they take the town today and more imperial forces are on the way. Plus we have the inspired leadership of General Twigg.
Black Hessians, I see that catching on; its got bite.
So Brougham and company get a boost here on the homefront. Hopefully that will work toward a more stable Britain, finger still crossed to avoid the dreaded R word.
Oh Twigg, I hope you live long and hold command over yet more actions where you can lead the sons of the South.
I was stunned when he tried to suborn the locals. This has been a war to the knife for them since Fanin's raid made it clear wghat this war was about. And seriously, he thought Cherokee being allowed to keep slaves was a selling point to someone in abolitionist Florida?
I'd say the Union has already lost this campaign; they have lost their momentum even if they take the town today and more imperial forces are on the way. Plus we have the inspired leadership of General Twigg.
Black Hessians, I see that catching on; its got bite.
Afraid that ship may have already sailed. There was a reference to "pre-revolutionary Britain" at some point a while back (I think during that whole sequence with George IV trying to divorce his wife? can't remember), and there was that reference to "Royal British" sources in that last update.
Not that it's going to happen immediately - I expect Queen Charlotte isn't the last monarch of the UK, for example - but something definitely happens probably in the 20th century. I expec it'll be a while before we get hints as to what that is, though.
Also, what happens in those other parts of the world? Can't imagine what'd happen in the Aus/NZ that'd attract British attention, though admittedly i don't know much about early Australian history. The Far East I can understand, this was aobut the time of OTL's Opium War and I don't think the situation of China has changed much from OTL at this point - unless the note about the Far East was a reference to a British Commodore Perry instead..
As for Persia, had to look back a while to refresh my memory. Now this is a few years out of date TL-wise, but last we heard of Persia, they were in the middle of a civil war. One side was backed by Muhammad Ali and the other was backed by the Tsar of All the Russias. Then the former got defeated and his son has made a deal with the British to support his claim. Unfortunately for him the British have had more pressing things to worry about for the last year or two - including fighting said Tsar of All the Russias directly rather than in a proxy war in some perceived backwater - so unless the Brits can move in more forces later they'd have to deal with a Russian client on the Persian Gulf...
Well regarding the 'revolution', my hope is like the Glorious Revolution it will not end the monarchy but bring other changes. A slim hope but I still hold to it, like hopes for a Kingdom of Canada; ah it would tick the Union off so much no?
For New Spain a major issue will be how Old Spain responds to this. The current war could renew ties between the two polities for another generation or could hasten them breaking apart. And if New Spain did breakaway what of Spain's direct colonies in Central America?
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Jolly good show.
Like to see the British have no respect for Berrien.
Hope to see Osceola kick some Yankee ass!
Also sincerely looking forward to a hopefully Republican Britain.
Like to see the British have no respect for Berrien.
Hope to see Osceola kick some Yankee ass!
Also sincerely looking forward to a hopefully Republican Britain.
Dead of Winter (4)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
Garland arrived at Fort Weatherford—which the Army was officially calling “Fort Suwannee”—only a few days after Twiggs had left it. In addition to his veterans from Falmouth (apart from the luckless Richmond Zouaves) he had help from the Corps of Engineers. His orders were:
• Repair the fort and expand it to fill the needs of the U.S. Army.
• Improve the road to Tallawaga to facilitate the American conquest of Muscoguea.
• Provide military assistance as needed to General Twiggs, who would still be in overall command of this front.
He found that the commanding officer, Captain Henry Clay Jr., was already at work on this first task. With Garland’s much greater resources, the fort was expanded in three weeks. The hero of Falmouth would have very little time to begin work on the road, and his work on the fort would be needed sooner than he expected…
General Twiggs left few personal accounts of his own career, but his subordinates and fellow officers agree that he despised any form of warfare—offensive or defensive—that involved standing still for days at a time. In the afternoon of March 26, hearing that Erskine was approaching from the northeast and that Morrison and Osceola had joined forces to the south, he chose to abandon the siege—not to withdraw, but to attack Erskine with all his force, placing the Georgia Hussars in the lead. The attack was completely unexpected, and forced Erskine into a temporary withdrawal. The French Marshal Patrice de MacMahon, in his review of the war, would later describe this as “a classic victory of an amateur dangereux[1] over a more experienced foe.” (The term amateur dangereux might be a compliment if MacMahon were speaking of a young conscript seeing his first battle, but not when speaking of a 48-year-old general who had served in the U.S. army since the War of 1812.)
But there is a reason most generals would not choose to abandon a siege on a whim. Before Twiggs could organize a pursuit of Erskine, Tustenuggee launched a sally from within Tallawaga which took his army in the flank. This sally happened to strike at the 22nd of Kentucky, an all-volunteer infantry regiment which had little training and (until today) no combat experience and was even less prepared for an attack out of nowhere than Erskine’s army had been. Their sudden retreat caused a panic which disrupted Twiggs’ attack, giving Erskine a chance to regroup and allowing Tustenuggee and his men to retreat to the town before nightfall.
During the night, Osceola and his army took up a position east of the city, while Morrison established himself west of it, making it impossible for him to resume the siege. Twiggs chose to withdraw entirely when he saw that Erskine’s army was preparing to move behind him. The debacle in early September of the previous year had taught him one lesson—never to let the enemy block his line of retreat.
Twiggs’ retreat, however, was uncharacteristically slow and something of a running battle. According to Col. Sterling Price, who had become his right-hand man in this campaign, “He knew Garland was coming with reinforcements. He reckoned the slower he went back now, the less he’d have to retake later.” By keeping his artillery batteries in the rear and ordering regular attacks by the Georgia Hussars, Twiggs was able to hold Morrison, Osceola, and Erskine at bay for four days.
Everything changed on April 1, when Twiggs’ army used the old Camino Real[2] to cross the Santa Fe. No bridge or ford was needed, because this was where the small river plunged into a sinkhole in the karst landscape, emerging to the surface about four and a half kilometers south by southwest. The land over this natural culvert was part of a Muscogee hunting preserve, and dense hickory, live oak, elm, magnolia, and American hornbeam were allowed to grow until their upper branches overshaded the trail entirely, leaving it cool but dimly lit even at midday. Curtains of moss hung from the branches of the oaks, further impeding visibility.
The Charleston Light Dragoons were leading Twiggs’ army up the road when they saw two dozen or so Floridian immigrant volunteers, clutching muskets and sickles and standing amid an improvised barricade of fallen branches and wagons. Col. Benjamin Huger Rutledge Sr. saw no need to request assistance from the infantry, let alone summon artillery from the other end of the army, to deal with untrained troops and a barrier his horses could easily leap. He simply ordered the charge, leading it himself and laughing as he did.
As he most likely expected, the volunteers scattered as he came, hiding behind the largest trees they could find. What he could not have expected was what happened next—the charges hidden in the barricade and buried fougasse-style in the dirt roadbed went off, filling the air with shrapnel of potsherds, thorn branches, and fresh-cut manchineel. Some of the Light Dragoons who (unlike Col. Rutledge[3]) survived this ambush would later succumb to poison in their wounds.
The explosions had only just ended when the volunteers hiding behind trees came out, along with hundreds more who had been hiding in the forest, and started shooting at the men on the path.
Twiggs ordered the infantry to fan out into the surrounding forest and flush out the enemy. They had the manpower to do this, but not quickly. During the delay, Cole and FitzGerald caught up with Morrison, and their army fanned out into the forest in pursuit.
Twiggs’ army was now outnumbered three to one, and the space between the sinkhole and the rise was too wide for him to use it as a chokepoint. His ability to see what was happening in this forested battlefield, let alone control it, was limited, but Price warned that the “jungle-wise Black Hessians” were preparing to outflank his army and might roll it up on either side.
What happened next is unclear. Some accounts claim Twiggs’ horse was shot out from under him, others that it stumbled over a tree root. In the fall, Twiggs suffered a concussion and knee injury.
Seeing that they were losing and determined not to preside over the capture of a second army in Florida, Price took command and ordered a retreat at speed. He abandoned not only the artillery and rocket tripods (having no more cannon shot or rockets in any case) but most of his own ill or wounded soldiers. He was only able to bring Twiggs along by having him tied to the saddle of a fresh horse. As the retreat quickly turned into a rout, many infantrymen fell behind while stumbling through the heavy brush and were killed or captured. The army that returned to Fort Weatherford was less than half the size of the one that had ventured forth from it, and the siege of the fort itself began two days later.
What Morrison, in his official report, named “the Battle of the Sunken River” effectively ended Twiggs’ campaign. For the the first few days, he reportedly would not speak even to issue orders. Garland used this period of effective command to arrange a prisoner exchange with Osceola. After this, Twiggs spent the rest of the war trapped inside the fort, arguing with his subordinates and making frequent, costly, ill-conceived sallies in an attempt to seize the initiative. Garland spoke against this so frequently that on May 2, Twiggs relieved him of command and sent him back to Washington.
And yet the greatest blunder was not Twiggs’, and was not realized at the time. By expanding the moats from the Suwannee, Garland had unknowingly created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Summer was coming, and with it, malaria.
In the west, Dade had essentially conquered the province of Apalachicola, but could not hold it—guerrilla activity was so widespread that his scattered units controlled nothing but the ground they stood on. But so long as Twiggs’ army remained in place, an army of at least equal size was needed to guard it, preventing Morrison from committing more than a few units to the liberation of Apalachicola…
April 13, 1838
Hopewell[4], Kyantine Territory
The governor’s mansion of Kyantine Territory was just another cabin. It had maybe room enough inside for a horse to turn around. Not that Captain Jedediah Smith planned to do any such thing—he dismounted and led his horse to the nearby (slightly larger) stable before entering to see the governor.
Governor Beriah Green was only a few years older than Smith himself—but then, few old men moved out to the frontier. With his prim manner and perfect little beard, he looked more like a professor or minister[5] than a territorial governor, and Smith suspected he had the job for the same reason what’s-his-name from south of Oak Hill did—even Negroes felt they needed a white man for this job, if only to be taken seriously by other officals. Being one of the few west of the Mississippi who would not drink alcohol, the governor offered Smith some tea.
“I mean no disrespect to your rank, Captain,” said Green, “but I was hoping to speak to Col. Wright[6] himself.”
“I’ll see that he gets your message.” More than anything, Smith wanted to get back to exploring the west—the true West, not this backwater. Playing messenger-boy around here was better than fighting over Florida swampland, but not by much. “What do you need?”
“We need horses, and instructors in cavalry warfare. You heard about the Comanche raid west of here two nights ago?”
“Something.”
“God be praised, He granted us a measure of victory. Still, a settlement west of here was burned out by a fighting band. I don’t know how many were killed—two, three dozen. The survivors fled here, and the Comanches made the mistake of following them. We were able to ambush the band. Half of them escaped, but they left two strings of remounts behind.” Smith nodded. The Comanches rode with more spare horses than anyone he’d ever heard of, so they could remount often and ride faster than other tribes.
“So you have some horses already. Does your militia know what to do with them?”
“In terms of taming and handling, yes. Some settlers here have worked with them before—in fact, we had a young fellow come down from Freedmansville just yesterday who seems to know his way around them. But if we are to defend ourselves properly out here, we must learn to ride and fight like Comanches, and match their numbers on horseback.”
Smith nodded. “For that, you would need more horses.”
“Not just geldings, either—mares for breeding. We have some stallions now. Not many, but enough for breeding purposes.”
“Governor, I must be blunt. The President’s rearmament was only for the purpose of waging his war on Florida and Louisiana. Wright’s regiment is as understrength as ever, and if the War Department ever does get around to bringing us up to full strength, I very much doubt it will be for the purpose of protecting Kyantine. Other concerns aside, if we’re not at war with the Spanish Empire now, we’re likely to be before too long.” Green nodded. “May I offer a suggestion?”
“By all means.”
“I know there are many Quaker and Methodist teachers in this territory. And while some spent their own money to come here, that the majority are being sponsored by generous abolitionists. For anything as substantial as horseflesh, you would find it more profitable to seek assistance from them than to ask the War Department.”
“I understand.”
“As for instructors in horsemanship…” Smith paused. Negroes and abolitionists weren’t his favorite sort of people. On the other hand—and this hand was much the stronger—if his scalp ended up on anyone else’s belt, it wouldn’t be one of theirs. “Whatever Berrien and Poinsett may wish, they have never forbidden us to offer instruction to the territorial militia. And it would give some of us something to do while awaiting orders.”
April 16, 1838
Viceregal Palace
México, New Spain
Minister of War Antonio Bustamante looked squarely at the prime minister. “Well, Your Excellency[7]? Are we or are we not at war?”
“With these invaders? Certainly,” said Valentin Gomez Farias. He considered his next words carefully. It wouldn’t do to seem weak, especially not in front of a man who still harbored sympathies for the late Iturbide. “And as for the United States… we had better be prepared for the worst.”
“Always good advice,” said Minister of Finance José Manuel Zozaya.
“Then why have you allowed our army to grow smaller?” Bustamante’s voice was lower, but no warmer.
“So that we can tend to the needs of the soldiers we have without going bankrupt,” said Gómez Farías. Zozaya nodded. “And as things stand, we have some… 45,000 men. Louisiana held off the Yankees for two months with a third as many.”
“Those men are scattered all over the map!”
“You have been in charge of their disposition. Do you have any regrets?” Gómez Farías suspected that Bustamante did. One of the few things the two of them agreed on was that soldiers needed to be kept on the southern border, or in barracks near disaffected cities, or as far north as logistics would allow—everywhere but too close to the capital, where people might get ideas. Which was a problem if you needed a lot of men in one place as quickly as possible, especially since the viceroyalty’s railroad grid consisted of many, many miles of planned routes, concessions, land purchases, and one actual railroad to Puebla that might be finished in 1842.[8]
Then there was the expedition Bustamante had ordered to the San Francisco Bay, in the unlikely event that the Yankees tried to swoop in from Astoria and take the place. By the time they’d heard that Brougham had sent men to Astoria, it was too late to recall the expedition, and now none of those soldiers were available to guard Tejas. Still…
“And you have made sure that Tejas is not wanting for soldiers. We have an infantry regiment at Nacogdoches, and cavalry regiments at San Antonio, Castellano, Hueco, and San Patricio. If we pull the garrisons out of San Luis Potosí, Aguayo[9] and Monterrey…”
Bustamante nodded. “Whatever else, we won’t roll over. General Urrea commands the Monterrey garrison. He knows what he’s about. But I must ask again—is this war?”
“I suspect Urrea will know before we do. If it is war, then the invaders should be treated as soldiers. If not, they are bandits. And as for this Navarro, tell Urrea to take him alive if—”
“No! No mercy!” Bustamante looked furious, as though someone had already suggested it. “This man deserves a traitor’s death far more than Iturbide ever did!”
“We are already in agreement,” said Gómez Farías coldly. “As I was about to say, when Navarro is caught, we should bring him back alive if possible, with evidence for his treason and witnesses who can attest to it. When the time comes… I will tell the executioner he’s being paid by the hour.”
Bustamante smiled at that.
[1] I.e. someone whose sheer inexperience makes him/her scarily unpredictable in combat. Twain’s remark on swordsmen is in the same spirit.
[2] This road, a cleared trail across northern Florida to which various colonial governors have added corduroy in places, although not this place.
[3] He died in 1832 IOTL.
[4] OTL Red Oak, OK
[5] IOTL, of course, Green was both of these things.
[6] George Wright, commander of the nearby cavalry regiment.
[7] A title Iturbide insisted on to the point where it became a habit. Sometimes used sarcastically.
[8] Still well ahead of where Mexico was at this point IOTL.
[9] Ciudad Victoria IOTL
• Repair the fort and expand it to fill the needs of the U.S. Army.
• Improve the road to Tallawaga to facilitate the American conquest of Muscoguea.
• Provide military assistance as needed to General Twiggs, who would still be in overall command of this front.
He found that the commanding officer, Captain Henry Clay Jr., was already at work on this first task. With Garland’s much greater resources, the fort was expanded in three weeks. The hero of Falmouth would have very little time to begin work on the road, and his work on the fort would be needed sooner than he expected…
General Twiggs left few personal accounts of his own career, but his subordinates and fellow officers agree that he despised any form of warfare—offensive or defensive—that involved standing still for days at a time. In the afternoon of March 26, hearing that Erskine was approaching from the northeast and that Morrison and Osceola had joined forces to the south, he chose to abandon the siege—not to withdraw, but to attack Erskine with all his force, placing the Georgia Hussars in the lead. The attack was completely unexpected, and forced Erskine into a temporary withdrawal. The French Marshal Patrice de MacMahon, in his review of the war, would later describe this as “a classic victory of an amateur dangereux[1] over a more experienced foe.” (The term amateur dangereux might be a compliment if MacMahon were speaking of a young conscript seeing his first battle, but not when speaking of a 48-year-old general who had served in the U.S. army since the War of 1812.)
But there is a reason most generals would not choose to abandon a siege on a whim. Before Twiggs could organize a pursuit of Erskine, Tustenuggee launched a sally from within Tallawaga which took his army in the flank. This sally happened to strike at the 22nd of Kentucky, an all-volunteer infantry regiment which had little training and (until today) no combat experience and was even less prepared for an attack out of nowhere than Erskine’s army had been. Their sudden retreat caused a panic which disrupted Twiggs’ attack, giving Erskine a chance to regroup and allowing Tustenuggee and his men to retreat to the town before nightfall.
During the night, Osceola and his army took up a position east of the city, while Morrison established himself west of it, making it impossible for him to resume the siege. Twiggs chose to withdraw entirely when he saw that Erskine’s army was preparing to move behind him. The debacle in early September of the previous year had taught him one lesson—never to let the enemy block his line of retreat.
Twiggs’ retreat, however, was uncharacteristically slow and something of a running battle. According to Col. Sterling Price, who had become his right-hand man in this campaign, “He knew Garland was coming with reinforcements. He reckoned the slower he went back now, the less he’d have to retake later.” By keeping his artillery batteries in the rear and ordering regular attacks by the Georgia Hussars, Twiggs was able to hold Morrison, Osceola, and Erskine at bay for four days.
Everything changed on April 1, when Twiggs’ army used the old Camino Real[2] to cross the Santa Fe. No bridge or ford was needed, because this was where the small river plunged into a sinkhole in the karst landscape, emerging to the surface about four and a half kilometers south by southwest. The land over this natural culvert was part of a Muscogee hunting preserve, and dense hickory, live oak, elm, magnolia, and American hornbeam were allowed to grow until their upper branches overshaded the trail entirely, leaving it cool but dimly lit even at midday. Curtains of moss hung from the branches of the oaks, further impeding visibility.
The Charleston Light Dragoons were leading Twiggs’ army up the road when they saw two dozen or so Floridian immigrant volunteers, clutching muskets and sickles and standing amid an improvised barricade of fallen branches and wagons. Col. Benjamin Huger Rutledge Sr. saw no need to request assistance from the infantry, let alone summon artillery from the other end of the army, to deal with untrained troops and a barrier his horses could easily leap. He simply ordered the charge, leading it himself and laughing as he did.
As he most likely expected, the volunteers scattered as he came, hiding behind the largest trees they could find. What he could not have expected was what happened next—the charges hidden in the barricade and buried fougasse-style in the dirt roadbed went off, filling the air with shrapnel of potsherds, thorn branches, and fresh-cut manchineel. Some of the Light Dragoons who (unlike Col. Rutledge[3]) survived this ambush would later succumb to poison in their wounds.
The explosions had only just ended when the volunteers hiding behind trees came out, along with hundreds more who had been hiding in the forest, and started shooting at the men on the path.
Twiggs ordered the infantry to fan out into the surrounding forest and flush out the enemy. They had the manpower to do this, but not quickly. During the delay, Cole and FitzGerald caught up with Morrison, and their army fanned out into the forest in pursuit.
Twiggs’ army was now outnumbered three to one, and the space between the sinkhole and the rise was too wide for him to use it as a chokepoint. His ability to see what was happening in this forested battlefield, let alone control it, was limited, but Price warned that the “jungle-wise Black Hessians” were preparing to outflank his army and might roll it up on either side.
What happened next is unclear. Some accounts claim Twiggs’ horse was shot out from under him, others that it stumbled over a tree root. In the fall, Twiggs suffered a concussion and knee injury.
Seeing that they were losing and determined not to preside over the capture of a second army in Florida, Price took command and ordered a retreat at speed. He abandoned not only the artillery and rocket tripods (having no more cannon shot or rockets in any case) but most of his own ill or wounded soldiers. He was only able to bring Twiggs along by having him tied to the saddle of a fresh horse. As the retreat quickly turned into a rout, many infantrymen fell behind while stumbling through the heavy brush and were killed or captured. The army that returned to Fort Weatherford was less than half the size of the one that had ventured forth from it, and the siege of the fort itself began two days later.
What Morrison, in his official report, named “the Battle of the Sunken River” effectively ended Twiggs’ campaign. For the the first few days, he reportedly would not speak even to issue orders. Garland used this period of effective command to arrange a prisoner exchange with Osceola. After this, Twiggs spent the rest of the war trapped inside the fort, arguing with his subordinates and making frequent, costly, ill-conceived sallies in an attempt to seize the initiative. Garland spoke against this so frequently that on May 2, Twiggs relieved him of command and sent him back to Washington.
And yet the greatest blunder was not Twiggs’, and was not realized at the time. By expanding the moats from the Suwannee, Garland had unknowingly created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Summer was coming, and with it, malaria.
In the west, Dade had essentially conquered the province of Apalachicola, but could not hold it—guerrilla activity was so widespread that his scattered units controlled nothing but the ground they stood on. But so long as Twiggs’ army remained in place, an army of at least equal size was needed to guard it, preventing Morrison from committing more than a few units to the liberation of Apalachicola…
Eric Wayne Ellison, Anglo-American Wars of the 19th Century
April 13, 1838
Hopewell[4], Kyantine Territory
The governor’s mansion of Kyantine Territory was just another cabin. It had maybe room enough inside for a horse to turn around. Not that Captain Jedediah Smith planned to do any such thing—he dismounted and led his horse to the nearby (slightly larger) stable before entering to see the governor.
Governor Beriah Green was only a few years older than Smith himself—but then, few old men moved out to the frontier. With his prim manner and perfect little beard, he looked more like a professor or minister[5] than a territorial governor, and Smith suspected he had the job for the same reason what’s-his-name from south of Oak Hill did—even Negroes felt they needed a white man for this job, if only to be taken seriously by other officals. Being one of the few west of the Mississippi who would not drink alcohol, the governor offered Smith some tea.
“I mean no disrespect to your rank, Captain,” said Green, “but I was hoping to speak to Col. Wright[6] himself.”
“I’ll see that he gets your message.” More than anything, Smith wanted to get back to exploring the west—the true West, not this backwater. Playing messenger-boy around here was better than fighting over Florida swampland, but not by much. “What do you need?”
“We need horses, and instructors in cavalry warfare. You heard about the Comanche raid west of here two nights ago?”
“Something.”
“God be praised, He granted us a measure of victory. Still, a settlement west of here was burned out by a fighting band. I don’t know how many were killed—two, three dozen. The survivors fled here, and the Comanches made the mistake of following them. We were able to ambush the band. Half of them escaped, but they left two strings of remounts behind.” Smith nodded. The Comanches rode with more spare horses than anyone he’d ever heard of, so they could remount often and ride faster than other tribes.
“So you have some horses already. Does your militia know what to do with them?”
“In terms of taming and handling, yes. Some settlers here have worked with them before—in fact, we had a young fellow come down from Freedmansville just yesterday who seems to know his way around them. But if we are to defend ourselves properly out here, we must learn to ride and fight like Comanches, and match their numbers on horseback.”
Smith nodded. “For that, you would need more horses.”
“Not just geldings, either—mares for breeding. We have some stallions now. Not many, but enough for breeding purposes.”
“Governor, I must be blunt. The President’s rearmament was only for the purpose of waging his war on Florida and Louisiana. Wright’s regiment is as understrength as ever, and if the War Department ever does get around to bringing us up to full strength, I very much doubt it will be for the purpose of protecting Kyantine. Other concerns aside, if we’re not at war with the Spanish Empire now, we’re likely to be before too long.” Green nodded. “May I offer a suggestion?”
“By all means.”
“I know there are many Quaker and Methodist teachers in this territory. And while some spent their own money to come here, that the majority are being sponsored by generous abolitionists. For anything as substantial as horseflesh, you would find it more profitable to seek assistance from them than to ask the War Department.”
“I understand.”
“As for instructors in horsemanship…” Smith paused. Negroes and abolitionists weren’t his favorite sort of people. On the other hand—and this hand was much the stronger—if his scalp ended up on anyone else’s belt, it wouldn’t be one of theirs. “Whatever Berrien and Poinsett may wish, they have never forbidden us to offer instruction to the territorial militia. And it would give some of us something to do while awaiting orders.”
April 16, 1838
Viceregal Palace
México, New Spain
Minister of War Antonio Bustamante looked squarely at the prime minister. “Well, Your Excellency[7]? Are we or are we not at war?”
“With these invaders? Certainly,” said Valentin Gomez Farias. He considered his next words carefully. It wouldn’t do to seem weak, especially not in front of a man who still harbored sympathies for the late Iturbide. “And as for the United States… we had better be prepared for the worst.”
“Always good advice,” said Minister of Finance José Manuel Zozaya.
“Then why have you allowed our army to grow smaller?” Bustamante’s voice was lower, but no warmer.
“So that we can tend to the needs of the soldiers we have without going bankrupt,” said Gómez Farías. Zozaya nodded. “And as things stand, we have some… 45,000 men. Louisiana held off the Yankees for two months with a third as many.”
“Those men are scattered all over the map!”
“You have been in charge of their disposition. Do you have any regrets?” Gómez Farías suspected that Bustamante did. One of the few things the two of them agreed on was that soldiers needed to be kept on the southern border, or in barracks near disaffected cities, or as far north as logistics would allow—everywhere but too close to the capital, where people might get ideas. Which was a problem if you needed a lot of men in one place as quickly as possible, especially since the viceroyalty’s railroad grid consisted of many, many miles of planned routes, concessions, land purchases, and one actual railroad to Puebla that might be finished in 1842.[8]
Then there was the expedition Bustamante had ordered to the San Francisco Bay, in the unlikely event that the Yankees tried to swoop in from Astoria and take the place. By the time they’d heard that Brougham had sent men to Astoria, it was too late to recall the expedition, and now none of those soldiers were available to guard Tejas. Still…
“And you have made sure that Tejas is not wanting for soldiers. We have an infantry regiment at Nacogdoches, and cavalry regiments at San Antonio, Castellano, Hueco, and San Patricio. If we pull the garrisons out of San Luis Potosí, Aguayo[9] and Monterrey…”
Bustamante nodded. “Whatever else, we won’t roll over. General Urrea commands the Monterrey garrison. He knows what he’s about. But I must ask again—is this war?”
“I suspect Urrea will know before we do. If it is war, then the invaders should be treated as soldiers. If not, they are bandits. And as for this Navarro, tell Urrea to take him alive if—”
“No! No mercy!” Bustamante looked furious, as though someone had already suggested it. “This man deserves a traitor’s death far more than Iturbide ever did!”
“We are already in agreement,” said Gómez Farías coldly. “As I was about to say, when Navarro is caught, we should bring him back alive if possible, with evidence for his treason and witnesses who can attest to it. When the time comes… I will tell the executioner he’s being paid by the hour.”
Bustamante smiled at that.
[1] I.e. someone whose sheer inexperience makes him/her scarily unpredictable in combat. Twain’s remark on swordsmen is in the same spirit.
[2] This road, a cleared trail across northern Florida to which various colonial governors have added corduroy in places, although not this place.
[3] He died in 1832 IOTL.
[4] OTL Red Oak, OK
[5] IOTL, of course, Green was both of these things.
[6] George Wright, commander of the nearby cavalry regiment.
[7] A title Iturbide insisted on to the point where it became a habit. Sometimes used sarcastically.
[8] Still well ahead of where Mexico was at this point IOTL.
[9] Ciudad Victoria IOTL
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Another defeat like that in Florida is going to rankle fiercely, no doubt. Being forced back/captured three times now is going to turn that place into a bogeyman of sorts for America. Will play into a strong founding legend alright and things are about to get even messier, depending on how New Spain react to things.
Alas Twigg can aid the cause of Florida no more it seems, they will have to endure without him.
Looks like I was off the mark with the idea of New Spain sending forces to aid Wellington against the Americans. So essentially New Spain has few troops to spare so if Lamar defeats the forces stationed in Tejas he will have quite a lot of breathing room. But bu the same token if Lamar suffers a defeat the Union isn't in much of a position to help bail him out.
And Kyantine is arming itself, which will hopefully aid it in the Troubles.
At this point I am thinking the war will end come next winter after the fall campaigns run their course. The Unions failures in Florida are piling up and if they suffer defeat in Canada over the summer it will fall to a Louisiana campaign to reinvigorate the war effort, and Wellington is going to have all summer to prepare for their arrival it looks like.
My guess is that the US either is stopped or slightly rolled back in Canada with Brougham's deal getting the Quebec rebels onside with the Empire and Berrien sending more troops South after the disaster in Florida. And followed by a defeat in the Republic and Astoria occupied by the British, the Americans will seek peace.
The main change being that Berrien gets back for Maine the Northern counties lost in the last war but otherwise having to return Canada for Astoria and otherwise status quo mostly prevailing. Though we may see Britain get more in exchange for not getting basing right in the Union. For the Empire and allies it will be a victory holding off the invaders, and see renewed military investment in the continent; while in the Union it will set the country on the road to the Troubles with each side blaming the other for the war being lost.
Looks like I was off the mark with the idea of New Spain sending forces to aid Wellington against the Americans. So essentially New Spain has few troops to spare so if Lamar defeats the forces stationed in Tejas he will have quite a lot of breathing room. But bu the same token if Lamar suffers a defeat the Union isn't in much of a position to help bail him out.
And Kyantine is arming itself, which will hopefully aid it in the Troubles.
At this point I am thinking the war will end come next winter after the fall campaigns run their course. The Unions failures in Florida are piling up and if they suffer defeat in Canada over the summer it will fall to a Louisiana campaign to reinvigorate the war effort, and Wellington is going to have all summer to prepare for their arrival it looks like.
My guess is that the US either is stopped or slightly rolled back in Canada with Brougham's deal getting the Quebec rebels onside with the Empire and Berrien sending more troops South after the disaster in Florida. And followed by a defeat in the Republic and Astoria occupied by the British, the Americans will seek peace.
The main change being that Berrien gets back for Maine the Northern counties lost in the last war but otherwise having to return Canada for Astoria and otherwise status quo mostly prevailing. Though we may see Britain get more in exchange for not getting basing right in the Union. For the Empire and allies it will be a victory holding off the invaders, and see renewed military investment in the continent; while in the Union it will set the country on the road to the Troubles with each side blaming the other for the war being lost.
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On the one hand, it is already known that New Spain will not be affected by the war, so Lamar is screwed.
How so? New Spain it said was affected to a lesser extent than the others not unaffected right; and that's subjective to the author of the IU piece.
Dead of Winter (5)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
A couple things I should've mentioned about New Spain:
• Relations between the civilian government and the military are fraught, as hinted at here. Bustamante isn't just a grumpy underling—he's a potential threat.
• Relations between the government in México and some of the outlying territories are fraughter. There's a reason cities like Monterrey and Aguayo have whole regiments garrisoning them in the first place.
And now, something that turned out to be way longer than I thought it would be and deserves its own post:
April 16, 1838. Monday dawned clear and warm over Washington, D.C. John Macpherson Berrien had asked to address both houses of Congress. Before his speech, he met with Sen. Davy Crockett and Rep. John C. Calhoun, leaders of the Tertium Quid party in Congress.
The news he brought would astonish them. There had been rumors of an expedition to Texas being planned, but such rumors had appeared every now and then for at least the past thirty years and had become much more common in the past ten years. At any other time, Lamar’s gathering of armed men in Alpheus and Quitman’s larger gathering in Demopolis could not have been hidden—but with the war on and new volunteer regiments forming in every city, these assemblies were as inconspicuous as trees in a forest. When a fleet of steamboats carried these men to the Tennessee River, and from there to the Mississippi, it would have appeared to most onlookers that reinforcements were going to Fort Adams.
Not until the fleet began going up the Arkansas[1] did it become obvious that something else was happening. When the men disembarked in Little Rock and headed west by southwest, word spread in all directions—but with telegraph companies only just being founded in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, it could move no faster than a galloping horse. No one in America had a better network of horse-couriers than the U.S. Army, and the Army answered to Poinsett, who in turn answered to Berrien. Thus, the news came like a bolt from the blue when Berrien informed them of the Lamar-Quitman expedition’s invasion of Texas, and he only compounded the shock when he asked them to declare war on New Spain—and, by extension, the entire Spanish Empire—in support of that expedition.
Berrien was a master orator, and this morning he held nothing back. His speech was just short of 18,000 words long and took well over two hours to deliver. In an age of oratory, this was not seen as outrageous, but it was noted at the time and would be used against him later.
There were, of course, many things that Berrien didn’t say. He said nothing to indicate that he had the least foreknowledge of the expedition, claiming only that he had received word of its embarkation on Friday which had been confirmed on Saturday. (His notes for the day reveal that this was in fact a true statement.) Nor did he mention the true rationale for the expedition—to bring Texas into the Union as a slave state.
Instead, Berrien spent the first half of the speech placing the expedition in the context of American expansion, claiming that “from the founding of our great nation, it was our destiny to expand to the Pacific and to allow nothing to stand in our path.” He pointed out that the first English settlements in the New World, at Plymouth, Jamestown, and the lost colony of Roanoke Island, were made in violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas, by which all North America was under the dominion of Spain—a treaty “enforced by papal bull,” as Berrien pointed out more than once, possibly in an attempt to stir up anti-Catholic sentiment. “But the men who founded those settlements dared to defy the Pope and the King of Spain—and how many of us in this room are the descendants of those heroes?”
Answering his own question and bringing his speech further into the realm of the personal, Berrien spent many minutes telling the stories of John Clay, one of the earliest settlers in Virginia; Henry Adams, who brought his family to Massachusetts in the early seventeenth century; young Thomas Webster, who came to Watertown, Massachusetts with his mother and stepfather in the 1630s; Anthony Janszoon van Salee, a Dutch settler of what was then New Amsterdam and ancestor of Senate Majority Leader Samuel L. Southard; and Obadiah Seward, himself a descendant of West Indies settlers, who moved to New Haven, Connecticut and in 1660 married Bethia Hawes, daughter of English settler Richard Hawes. He closed with the story of a French Huguenot[2], Cornelius Jansen Berrien, who moved to New York with his Dutch wife Jannetje Strycker in the mid-seventeenth century, “fleeing the absolutism and Papist tyranny of Louis XIV.” The president added that “that same Louis XIV had a grandson, Philip Duke of Anjou, who became king of Spain. And it is the great-grandsons of that King Philip who rule in Madrid and México and claim dominion over Texas today.”
Having returned to the present, Berrien’s speech took flight from the mundane facts of genealogy to the skies of hyperbole, his words at times bordering on the erotic. “Texas is the fair young princess of American lands, her fields as warm as Georgia’s and as fertile as Ioway’s. For a thousand kilometers to the west, her buffalo graze over fallow meadows that cry out for plow and seed, for cotton and hemp, sugar and tobacco, wheat and barley and good American corn!” He dismissed the people of New Spain as “mongrel Spaniards, their half-Moorish blood adulterated again with savage Indian stock of blood-soaked Tenochtitlán” and said that “they have possessed this princess of lands for three centuries and more, and they have done nothing with her; only kept her locked away to pine for true men. Like the dog in the manger, they presume to deny us what they themselves have no use for. But great nations do not brook denials, and take what is their due.”
Finally Berrien spoke of the filibusterers themselves. “These are no wayward young men in search of mischief, but upright citizens, many of them husbands with children.” He spoke of John Quitman, who had left behind a wife and three daughters[3] on one of his Mississippi plantations, and Mirabeau Lamar, who left in Alpheus “not only his own daughter, but his nephew and two nieces, the children of the martyred Judge Lamar.” He also said that there were men in the expedition from states both North and South—which was true, although nearly three out of four of them came from the South.
The president closed his speech thus: “These men trusted us, and they trust us still. They trust us to do what is right for their children, and for our own. They trust us not to reward their valor and their patriotism with cowardice and indifference. Even now as they fight for the future of our nation and our race, they trust that they shall not fight alone. Let us prove ourselves worthy of their trust. Let us join them on this bold adventure.” (Such rhetoric might elicit a chill of recognition a century later, but at the time it was quite conventional.)
But Berrien was not the only orator in the chamber. Scarcely had he left to return to the White House when Daniel Webster rose to speak. His remarks were much shorter:
Sen. Clay, whose voice still held sway among the Democratic-Republicans, rose to speak next. “I remind the President that the Treaty of Tordesillas was held as worthless outside the confines of Iberia and the city of Rome,” he said. “Whereas I myself negotiated the treaty with Spain—a treaty both parties have since adhered to. Should we declare war now, at the behest of these freebooters, we should declare to the world that peace and war lie not in the hands of this august body, but in those of every pirate and bandit who claims our citizenship. What nation could make treaties with us under such circumstances? Which of our allies could be sure of our friendship?”
Rep. Adams questioned whether the United States could fight two strong European nations at once. He spoke with uncharacteristic emotion: “To bring down the wrath of two Powers at once might leave us in a worse position than we were at Roxbury. It has been my life’s work these twenty years and more to rebuild our nation’s strength and restore her pride from that humiliation. I beg you, do not cast away my work in a single act of folly. Do not make me embark on this task again. I am too old.”
Sen. Crockett was the first, after Berrien himself, to speak in favor of war. Unlike the others, his speech was the homespun style he had spent years cultivating. “I don’t mind tellin’ y’all I got a bone to pick with this Mira-boo Lamar and his friend John Quitman,” he said. “Why in tarnation did they go runnin’ off to Texas and not bring me along? Did my invitation get lost in the mail? Because I tell y’all, as God is my witness, I would’ve resigned this office with immediacy, picked up my old rifle, saddled up and gone with ‘em!”
Rep. Calhoun’s speech was uncharacteristically short—his correspondence reveals that Berrien had begged him not to speak of “sectional interest or advantage” which for the past few years had been well nigh his only topic. “You may, if you wish, prevent this nation from declaring war,” he said, “but can you prevent the King of Spain from declaring war on us in response to this provocation? Would it not be better to meet his forces on the field in a time and manner of our own choosing, when we are prepared and he is not?”
Sen. Henry Wharton Conway[5], a Tertium Quid from Arkansaw who served on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and knew more of Texas than any other Senator, spoke in support of the war for the opposite reason: “We need have no fear of Spain. She is at this moment fighting many wars, and has neither ships nor men to spare. Her vassals in New Spain cannot send an army north of the Bravo[6], nor so much as a regiment north of the Brazos.”
When Rep. Charles Sumner spoke for the Liberation Party, he alone was willing to point out the trou de loup in the floor: “This invasion was done not to bring liberty to a land in need of it, but to bring slavery to a land blessedly free of it.” It was Sumner who first hinted at the accusation that would come to dominate the summer, especially as its truth became known:
Many other speeches were made in Congress that day. The last to speak was Sen. Southard. He observed that “in war as in peace, our President is Mr. Berrien, not King John. He is our leader, not our lord. He is well within his rights to ask this of us, and we are likewise within our rights to answer him ‘no.’”
And so they did. Despite the best efforts of Rep. Calhoun and Sen. Crockett, debate lasted only that day, and ended when Congress voted—on strict party lines, Tertium Quids against everyone else—not to declare war.
None of them realized that it was already too late. The Friday that Berrien had received the message, he had sent orders of his own. Even as Congress was voting, those orders were galloping their way across the South…
[1] Yes, Shreve is still working on clearing the Great Raft. If anything, his work has slowed down—the war means fewer men and boats can be spared.
[2] I actually have no idea if Cornelius Janszen Berrien was Huguenot, or even Protestant, but it certainly suits Berrien’s purposes to make the claim.
[3] He had two daughters IOTL.
[4] Although growing furiously, Terni is still very much overshadowed by Milan and Naples in terms of population and cultural importance.
[5] IOTL he was killed in 1827 in a duel with Robert Crittenden.
[6] What Americans IOTL call the Rio Grande.
• Relations between the civilian government and the military are fraught, as hinted at here. Bustamante isn't just a grumpy underling—he's a potential threat.
• Relations between the government in México and some of the outlying territories are fraughter. There's a reason cities like Monterrey and Aguayo have whole regiments garrisoning them in the first place.
And now, something that turned out to be way longer than I thought it would be and deserves its own post:
April 16, 1838. Monday dawned clear and warm over Washington, D.C. John Macpherson Berrien had asked to address both houses of Congress. Before his speech, he met with Sen. Davy Crockett and Rep. John C. Calhoun, leaders of the Tertium Quid party in Congress.
The news he brought would astonish them. There had been rumors of an expedition to Texas being planned, but such rumors had appeared every now and then for at least the past thirty years and had become much more common in the past ten years. At any other time, Lamar’s gathering of armed men in Alpheus and Quitman’s larger gathering in Demopolis could not have been hidden—but with the war on and new volunteer regiments forming in every city, these assemblies were as inconspicuous as trees in a forest. When a fleet of steamboats carried these men to the Tennessee River, and from there to the Mississippi, it would have appeared to most onlookers that reinforcements were going to Fort Adams.
Not until the fleet began going up the Arkansas[1] did it become obvious that something else was happening. When the men disembarked in Little Rock and headed west by southwest, word spread in all directions—but with telegraph companies only just being founded in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, it could move no faster than a galloping horse. No one in America had a better network of horse-couriers than the U.S. Army, and the Army answered to Poinsett, who in turn answered to Berrien. Thus, the news came like a bolt from the blue when Berrien informed them of the Lamar-Quitman expedition’s invasion of Texas, and he only compounded the shock when he asked them to declare war on New Spain—and, by extension, the entire Spanish Empire—in support of that expedition.
Berrien was a master orator, and this morning he held nothing back. His speech was just short of 18,000 words long and took well over two hours to deliver. In an age of oratory, this was not seen as outrageous, but it was noted at the time and would be used against him later.
There were, of course, many things that Berrien didn’t say. He said nothing to indicate that he had the least foreknowledge of the expedition, claiming only that he had received word of its embarkation on Friday which had been confirmed on Saturday. (His notes for the day reveal that this was in fact a true statement.) Nor did he mention the true rationale for the expedition—to bring Texas into the Union as a slave state.
Instead, Berrien spent the first half of the speech placing the expedition in the context of American expansion, claiming that “from the founding of our great nation, it was our destiny to expand to the Pacific and to allow nothing to stand in our path.” He pointed out that the first English settlements in the New World, at Plymouth, Jamestown, and the lost colony of Roanoke Island, were made in violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas, by which all North America was under the dominion of Spain—a treaty “enforced by papal bull,” as Berrien pointed out more than once, possibly in an attempt to stir up anti-Catholic sentiment. “But the men who founded those settlements dared to defy the Pope and the King of Spain—and how many of us in this room are the descendants of those heroes?”
Answering his own question and bringing his speech further into the realm of the personal, Berrien spent many minutes telling the stories of John Clay, one of the earliest settlers in Virginia; Henry Adams, who brought his family to Massachusetts in the early seventeenth century; young Thomas Webster, who came to Watertown, Massachusetts with his mother and stepfather in the 1630s; Anthony Janszoon van Salee, a Dutch settler of what was then New Amsterdam and ancestor of Senate Majority Leader Samuel L. Southard; and Obadiah Seward, himself a descendant of West Indies settlers, who moved to New Haven, Connecticut and in 1660 married Bethia Hawes, daughter of English settler Richard Hawes. He closed with the story of a French Huguenot[2], Cornelius Jansen Berrien, who moved to New York with his Dutch wife Jannetje Strycker in the mid-seventeenth century, “fleeing the absolutism and Papist tyranny of Louis XIV.” The president added that “that same Louis XIV had a grandson, Philip Duke of Anjou, who became king of Spain. And it is the great-grandsons of that King Philip who rule in Madrid and México and claim dominion over Texas today.”
Having returned to the present, Berrien’s speech took flight from the mundane facts of genealogy to the skies of hyperbole, his words at times bordering on the erotic. “Texas is the fair young princess of American lands, her fields as warm as Georgia’s and as fertile as Ioway’s. For a thousand kilometers to the west, her buffalo graze over fallow meadows that cry out for plow and seed, for cotton and hemp, sugar and tobacco, wheat and barley and good American corn!” He dismissed the people of New Spain as “mongrel Spaniards, their half-Moorish blood adulterated again with savage Indian stock of blood-soaked Tenochtitlán” and said that “they have possessed this princess of lands for three centuries and more, and they have done nothing with her; only kept her locked away to pine for true men. Like the dog in the manger, they presume to deny us what they themselves have no use for. But great nations do not brook denials, and take what is their due.”
Finally Berrien spoke of the filibusterers themselves. “These are no wayward young men in search of mischief, but upright citizens, many of them husbands with children.” He spoke of John Quitman, who had left behind a wife and three daughters[3] on one of his Mississippi plantations, and Mirabeau Lamar, who left in Alpheus “not only his own daughter, but his nephew and two nieces, the children of the martyred Judge Lamar.” He also said that there were men in the expedition from states both North and South—which was true, although nearly three out of four of them came from the South.
The president closed his speech thus: “These men trusted us, and they trust us still. They trust us to do what is right for their children, and for our own. They trust us not to reward their valor and their patriotism with cowardice and indifference. Even now as they fight for the future of our nation and our race, they trust that they shall not fight alone. Let us prove ourselves worthy of their trust. Let us join them on this bold adventure.” (Such rhetoric might elicit a chill of recognition a century later, but at the time it was quite conventional.)
But Berrien was not the only orator in the chamber. Scarcely had he left to return to the White House when Daniel Webster rose to speak. His remarks were much shorter:
What madness is this? At a time when the United States of America is at war with the greatest power on Earth—our armies embroiled on one front and preparing to fight again on a second while keeping a watchful eye on a third, our navy huddled in harbor or dodging and yawing about the Atlantic to avoid death or capture, our treasury stretched to the limit in support of these endeavors—are we to declare war on yet another power? At the bidding of some five hundred adventurers?
And by what right would we do this? Even if New Spain lay helpless as a babe before our regiments, what justice would there be in declaring war on a Christian people who have done us no wrong? In all the president’s long talk, I have heard nothing that sounded like a moral claim. ‘We are free to take whatsoever you fail to defend’ is an argument worthy of rogues and footpads, not of statesmen.
And if the fields of Texas lie fallow, have we no fallow fields of our own? To the northwest, from the Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the mighty Pacific, stretch lands broad and undeveloped, and indisputably ours. Wisconsing, Ioway, Mennisota, Kaw-Osage—even now, these territories cry out for more settlement, for men with arms to hold the Indians at bay—men like the ones who have gone to Texas instead.
And if these men wished to exercise their valor and their patriotism, and to extend our banner over new territories in so doing, then I repeat that we are at war, and for that very purpose. Their hands, their guns, their horses would have been welcome on any front of this war.
Gentlemen, the purpose and destiny of this nation is not merely to expand, but to provide a refuge for freedom and an exemplar of republican, representative government. In Paris, Milan and Naples[4], and in Berlin, Hanover, and Vienna—and yes, even in London and Madrid—curious minds watch us still, hoping that we shall prove that a nation may govern itself in wisdom without kings or nobles, not succumbing to greed or arrogance. Let us prove ourselves worthy of their trust. I shall vote against this ill-conceived scheme.
Sen. Clay, whose voice still held sway among the Democratic-Republicans, rose to speak next. “I remind the President that the Treaty of Tordesillas was held as worthless outside the confines of Iberia and the city of Rome,” he said. “Whereas I myself negotiated the treaty with Spain—a treaty both parties have since adhered to. Should we declare war now, at the behest of these freebooters, we should declare to the world that peace and war lie not in the hands of this august body, but in those of every pirate and bandit who claims our citizenship. What nation could make treaties with us under such circumstances? Which of our allies could be sure of our friendship?”
Rep. Adams questioned whether the United States could fight two strong European nations at once. He spoke with uncharacteristic emotion: “To bring down the wrath of two Powers at once might leave us in a worse position than we were at Roxbury. It has been my life’s work these twenty years and more to rebuild our nation’s strength and restore her pride from that humiliation. I beg you, do not cast away my work in a single act of folly. Do not make me embark on this task again. I am too old.”
Sen. Crockett was the first, after Berrien himself, to speak in favor of war. Unlike the others, his speech was the homespun style he had spent years cultivating. “I don’t mind tellin’ y’all I got a bone to pick with this Mira-boo Lamar and his friend John Quitman,” he said. “Why in tarnation did they go runnin’ off to Texas and not bring me along? Did my invitation get lost in the mail? Because I tell y’all, as God is my witness, I would’ve resigned this office with immediacy, picked up my old rifle, saddled up and gone with ‘em!”
Rep. Calhoun’s speech was uncharacteristically short—his correspondence reveals that Berrien had begged him not to speak of “sectional interest or advantage” which for the past few years had been well nigh his only topic. “You may, if you wish, prevent this nation from declaring war,” he said, “but can you prevent the King of Spain from declaring war on us in response to this provocation? Would it not be better to meet his forces on the field in a time and manner of our own choosing, when we are prepared and he is not?”
Sen. Henry Wharton Conway[5], a Tertium Quid from Arkansaw who served on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and knew more of Texas than any other Senator, spoke in support of the war for the opposite reason: “We need have no fear of Spain. She is at this moment fighting many wars, and has neither ships nor men to spare. Her vassals in New Spain cannot send an army north of the Bravo[6], nor so much as a regiment north of the Brazos.”
When Rep. Charles Sumner spoke for the Liberation Party, he alone was willing to point out the trou de loup in the floor: “This invasion was done not to bring liberty to a land in need of it, but to bring slavery to a land blessedly free of it.” It was Sumner who first hinted at the accusation that would come to dominate the summer, especially as its truth became known:
Our president claims he heard of this invasion only three days ago, and needed another day to confirm it; yet by my pocket-watch he spoke for a good two hours and nineteen minutes on the subject. And these were no extemporaneous remarks such as we are making now, but a structured oration, each word of which was chosen with care. He is a most eloquent man—I have never denied it—but can even he compose such a speech over the course of a single weekend? And fill it with the fruits of exhaustive research, drawing upon our nation’s history and that of many of our own families? I think not. Therefore I ask: what did Mr. Berrien know, and when did he know it?
Many other speeches were made in Congress that day. The last to speak was Sen. Southard. He observed that “in war as in peace, our President is Mr. Berrien, not King John. He is our leader, not our lord. He is well within his rights to ask this of us, and we are likewise within our rights to answer him ‘no.’”
And so they did. Despite the best efforts of Rep. Calhoun and Sen. Crockett, debate lasted only that day, and ended when Congress voted—on strict party lines, Tertium Quids against everyone else—not to declare war.
None of them realized that it was already too late. The Friday that Berrien had received the message, he had sent orders of his own. Even as Congress was voting, those orders were galloping their way across the South…
Charles Cerniglia, The Road to the Troubles: The American South, 1800-1840
[1] Yes, Shreve is still working on clearing the Great Raft. If anything, his work has slowed down—the war means fewer men and boats can be spared.
[2] I actually have no idea if Cornelius Janszen Berrien was Huguenot, or even Protestant, but it certainly suits Berrien’s purposes to make the claim.
[3] He had two daughters IOTL.
[4] Although growing furiously, Terni is still very much overshadowed by Milan and Naples in terms of population and cultural importance.
[5] IOTL he was killed in 1827 in a duel with Robert Crittenden.
[6] What Americans IOTL call the Rio Grande.
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So, not only did Berrien set up a land grab from a neighbouring nation, not only did he do this in the middle of an outright war, not only did he mislead Congress over his role in it, but he gave the orders for an attack before securing a declaration of war and failed to gain it on top of that?
So... Impeachment on the horizon?
So... Impeachment on the horizon?
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They're going to hang Berrien when this is all said and done - he is now officially a rogue executive who is overriding the will of Congress and who is dragging the United States into disaster and defiling it's honor.
About time someone gets it. The consequences of this are gonna be...explosive.
Going to war with a second country, while having the DOW rejected by Congress (even if the Spanish are going to declare war anyway - after all this now looks even more like an unprovoked attack from their side now).
There's going to be even more outrage in the north especially if any gains in canada are traded back later on, or that front is seen to be secondary. And remember, there are elections to the Congress this year. Whatever TQ Congressmen got elected from northern states are about to be out of a job come 1839, I'd think.
As for impeachment, I don't know. On one hand, I seeem to recall it being confirmed that Berrien was the *only* TQ president, which implies he makes it through his term, even if he's a lame duck as soon as the war is over. On the other hand...did we ever get a name for Berrien's VP? Can't remember off the top of my head...
Or the VP gets impeached too. Or the VP gets assassinated.
It is my belief the Americans will have more success in Canada as a delicious irony for Berrien who will be forced to accept Canadian territory by the north so America has some gain from the war.