alternatehistory.com

12 July
After checking the Admiralty plans for attack on Charleston (and finding them very useful), Grey - the First Naval Lord - concurs that more troops will be required from the Army if the goal is to do more than bombard and capture the town itself.
Accordingly, he recommends the charter of a further half-dozen vessels - each to carry one battalion - and a spare for their artillery.
The Duke of Cambridge endeavours to ensure that the regiments sent are a mixture of those with the Snider and those with the Enfield, and to provide enough spare Enfields for all if the decision is made to revert mid-campaign.

Satsuma domain declares victory in the recent battle of Kagoshima, citing the way the British have withdrawn. Since half their batteries are destroyed and the (evacuated) town is on fire, this seems hard to believe - especially as the British have withdrawn with three captured Satsuma domain merchant ships.

14 July
A full review of US naval fortifications is recommended. In addition to a use of a variety of heavy weapons - with a focus on those which can pierce ironclads at range, as piercing is always considered superior to not piercing - it is also recommended to get hold of a British Armstrong rifle in whatever manner this may be done to find what materials are most resistant to it.
Mines are also recommended for fully-funded development, though the budget is still rather tight in many ways and some difficult prioritization decisions seem likely. The ideal is that defences should be designed for the specific harbour they are to be defending and to be informed by the events of the late war - for example, the fortification of New York must not include any angles not covered by the fort guns, and the mines to be emplaced in various positions must be capable of enduring at least three months submerged in a materially unimpaired condition.

At least one officer notes that the US forts would have been a far harder target if they had been fully armed, but for Fort Delaware alone this would involve approx. 130 heavy guns (to fill the second tier and barbette) or 190 (including the first tier). As the Army has only recieved the following numbers of coast-defence heavy guns since the start of the late war;
15" Rodman: 10
10" Rodman: 31
8" Rodman: 90
10" Parrott: 2
8" Parrott: 22
6.4" Parrott: 135
And some of the 15" guns and 8" rifles at least were sunk in extemporized ironclads, it is clear that years of effort would be required to provision forts with sufficient heavy guns - and that they may by that time be obsolete.

15 July
The Emperor of Japan reiterates that it would be foolish to fold to foreign pressure.

A shipment of Snider-Enfield rifles arrive in New Zealand. They are to rearm the 65th, 12th and 14th regiments, a welcome addition to the firepower of the British Army present in the colony.

16 July
The New York Herald includes an editorial suggesting that the current moment of distraction for the British would be the perfect opportunity to annex Canada.
On the same day, the Rush-Bagot agreement is reactivated by mutual agreement between the British Empire and the United States. Both sides bend the rules a little - the British ironclad Aetna is left in Quebec, from where sailing to the lakes would be easy, and at least one merchant ship in American use has a suspiciously small cargo hold for her displacement (along with mounting points for large slabs of iron along the side and a small room which currently holds spare coal but which would be an ideal powder magazine). It is good enough, however, and the Lakes return to being - technically - a demilitarized zone.


17 July
The fleet sails for Bermuda.
Although the Admiralty does not currently believe convoy is an appropriate use of ships, nevertheless the fleet headed for Bermuda has some of the dimensions of just such a convoy - the ships carrying troops or munitions are accompanied by plenty of ships, including the Superb, Great Eastern, Royal Oak and Pisces.
Many of the merchant ships are also towing gunboats, and the whole has a transit speed of some ten knots sustained with the generally good winds. They are expected to make Bermuda around the end of July.

Also on this date, the Alabama boards a slave ship by the name of St John just off the Alabama coast. The St John is captured and taken into port in Mobile, and the crew arrested.
The Confederate Navy makes much of this, publicizing it to show the world (successfully or not) that they do consider slave trading illegal and will police it themselves.




(n.b. the above list of guns is actually the historical number of guns delivered as of just after Gettysburg; a few days off but it seemed close enough.)