alternatehistory.com

19 November

PGT Beauregard and his staff produce "Plan 64".
The first of the yearly numbered plans produced by the Confederate States war department, and later retroactively labelled "Plan 64-Blue" when the colour system comes in, this plan outlines how the Confederate armed forces should proceed if a war with the US was to develop in 1864 along with changes to be made to make this plan work better or fix vulnerabilities.

It divides the confrontation line into five sectors - "Pacific","Mississippi","Ohio River","Coast" and "Atlantic". The level of development of these plans varies - for example, the "Pacific" section describes in detail how a single powerful armoured unit should be pre-positioned at San Diego in order to cut off gold shipments to the Union, while the "Mississippi" section covering land warfare largely consists of the instruction "Leave it to the Indians".

Also of note is the plan to cut the neck of the Delmarva peninsula and occupy it, which (coupled with an attack on New York by heavy vessels) would replicate the Royal Naval blockade of the late war to an extent, by closing all major rivers of the Union. (Such is the plan, anyway - the 'heavy vessels' described are not available given what the plan requires elsewhere).

As of now there is only a plan for dealing with the Union, as this is considered the most likely enemy to need a plan; the Mexicans are seen by Beauregard as a relative pushover and both Britain and France unstoppable naval juggernauts, so the unspoken assumption is that the plan for dealing with a British declaration of war is to promptly apologize and give them what they want!


22 November

A preliminary mobilization order goes out in Prussia, standing up four divisions of the army to form III. Corps. As per previous planning, the regular brigades will incorporate three brigades of landwehr (those currently training with them and the two cohorts who had their refresher course most recently) to form their divisions - though the organizational structure of the divisions varies, specifically in what level the regular infantry brigades are broken down to before being mixed with the landwehr. In one case this is at brigade level - i.e. no breakup - while in the other extreme companies have a mix of regular and landwehr platoons.

(The general view in the Prussian military is that this campaign will not be especially taxing, but that there may be important lessons learned.)



23 November

Ushidoshi Maru and her tow stop off at the Cape for resupply and recoaling.
While there, several of the locals come aboard - interested in looking at a Zodiac, even if it is not one which fought the Union or the Confederacy.