alternatehistory.com

4 November

The Confederacy commissions the first of their new class of cruising sloops, the Elizabeth.
The other names for the ships are already chosen - the Charles, George, Great River, Resting Place, Land of Flowers, Louis, Mary, Meeting Place, Downriver and Ally are all either on their way or planned, though the Colored as a name has been killed in committe before even reaching the ears of the Confederate congress. In an effort to avoid obviously leaving one of the names out, Red River has been tentatively proposed.
The Elizabeth is a ship much like later US steam sloops, though with a preference for medium-calibre rifles of the Brooke type instead of the massive smoothbores favored by the United States.


6 November

Rather than an edition of the Peninsular Campaign today, the regular column is encompassed entirely with an election advertisement. It touches on all sorts of topics, from the Nevada Scandal to the policies of the old Republican government, and ends with an exhortation to vote for McClellan as the "friend to all" rather than Fremont - and to vote Democratic down-ballot, of course.


9 November

The last of the Enfield-armed regiments of the British Army exchanges their weapons for the Snider-Enfield. Their relinquished weapons will go back to the Tower for refurbishment, and then be passed on either to India (to equip trusted Indian Army regiments) or to be modified into Snider-Enfields, or in some cases sold on as too old for military usage.


10 November

The 20th Quadrennial Presidential Election takes place in the United States. The total popular vote is a little over four million in a surprisingly high turnout election, with Gen. George B. McClellan winning 154 electoral votes and 54.4% of votes cast. His rival Gen. John C. Fremont wins 45.6% of votes cast and 56 electoral votes.
McClellan's performance has been especially strong in the states which have suffered badly from the Trent War and the Civil War, although much of New England still remains as a Republican stronghold - apart from this the other major base of Republican support is in the western areas of the country.
McClellan will be the 17th President of the United States when he takes office in March.


12 November

The French Army launches a bidding process for breechloading field guns, with any contenders to produce five pieces in calibres from 50mm to 120mm of their choosing. Any successful bidder will be expected to produce large numbers of their pieces in order to equip at least some of the batteries of the French Army, so should not rely on artisanal production techniques.


16 November

As part of the same modernization plan for the French army, breechloading rifles for the infantry are requested for testing. The production capacity of the bolt-action Westley-Richards has been lower than expected, so priority will be given to any conversion that can be done on existing rifles - though, perhaps fortunately, there are too few Tbis rifles (converted twice, first from flintlock to percussion and then again from smoothbore to rifle - most of them having been sold subsequently to the American nations) to be worth converting again - despite how interesting a Tter rifle would be.


17 November

McClellan requests that General Grant take up the position of Secretary of War, replacing Stanton. Grant is warned that it will be hard work, but this does not deter him - indeed, it excites him to some extent, as he has been feeling as though there is relatively little to do these days and there are persistent rumors he has begun drinking again.


20 November

With the situation in Mexico largely solidified, the Consultative Assembly elections are announced. The scheme which is to be followed (one which Maximilian I has been personally involved in the drafting of) is a system of state-by-state at-large elections, where the population of the state determines the number of representatives and where multiple candidates of the same party run on the same ballot.
Oddly, the formula used is what is described by Maximilian as the "Tercero" formula - after the votes are tallied, the highest scoring member of the highest scoring party takes the first seat. That party's votes are then reduced by a third, and the process repeats until the whole bench for this state is fulfilled.

The assembly is expected to contain roughly two hundred members, or about six to seven on average per state. The only restriction on the parties is that "they may not question the right of the Emperor to hold his position" - Maximilian wants a genuine debate, so essentially everything else is up for discussion.


22 November

A naval incident takes place on the rivers of Paraguay. A Brazilian ship is sunk by a Paraguayan gunboat, which puts two shells into it when the Brazilian vessel refuses to heave to.


25 November

It is somewhat belatedly realized that nobody is quite sure where to hold the Presidential inauguration - or, indeed, where McClellan will be taking up office. The Lincoln presidency has already been doing business out of a leased building in Philadelphia for roughly two years, but this seems the kind of issue which cannot be left indefinitely.


27 November

As part of Grant's preparations for the position of Secretary of War, he beings planning a major military campaign.
This is not a campaign against the Confederacy or the British, however - rather, it is a campaign against the United States itself from the point of view of the aforementioned powers, attempting to determine the ideal logistical routes to use.
He is well aware that the British defensive preparations for the protection of Montreal involved disabling rail lines and placing forts on the River Richelieu, and feels that a similar fortification campaign to secure logistics routes into the US is a necessity - for example, it would be possible to protect a rail line by building an earthwork fort across the line, so that the rail line enters the fort at one side and exits it the other side.
(Perhaps oddly, McClellan - something of a specialist on logistics - occasionally assists his SecWar nominee with the planning, as a relief from his other tasks.)


30 November

HMS Waterwitch is laid down. One of three armoured gunboats, she is also unique in that her design incorporates not screws but waterjets - that is, she is to be propelled by water jets generated by an engine onboard. The Vixen and Viper, her half-sisters, are to try out twin-screw propulsion and the Vixen is to be an experimental composite construction ship (planked over iron frames).

Also on this date, armour and gun trials are performed with an Armstrong-Elswick gun of 8 inches using a similar breech to the 7" gun. The armour tested against is an 8" piece intended for the conning tower of Bellerophon, and three forgings are examined - showing once again that the temperature of the armour specially heated before testing allows it to resist much more impact than the armour which is kept cool.
The results of the tests are about as expected - it is confirmed that backing is extremely important in a protective system (the heated system rejects close range 8" shells with the backing though not without damage, but can be pierced at 1,000 yards without), and that the conning tower armour is a little less resistant than should be expected based on calculation from the known muzzle velocity and properties of the 8" shell. This is blamed on the difficulty of annealing thick metal, though it does not appear to be a major problem for 8" thick armour as yet.