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Update time! I'll get a map of the fronts up in the next couple days.

Part One Hundred Twenty-Six: Wrapping Up the American Front

Reaching the Golden Gate:
Through 1909 and 1910, the United States' advance into California steadily rolled on as the two armies skirmished in the sparsely populated Californian frontiers. The rugged terrain of northern Espejo that separated the First Western Army from the Salt Lake basin proved a difficult crossing point, and the local Mormon settlers were reluctant to help the American forces. Given the legacy of Mormon persecution that led the religion's exodus from the United States 70 years prior, it is understandable that the Mormons of Espejo would be worried of an American occupation. Because of this, the First Western Army did not reach Vanguardia on Zion Lake until September of 1909.

After the occupation of Vanguardia, the area around the Great Salt Lake and Zion Lake at last started to become restless and call for independence from Califonria. OUtside of the thin area captured by the American forces, Mormon uprisings broke out in the town of Brigham in the far north and Youngstown in the far south of Espejo. From Vanguardia, the First Western Army continued sothwest into the Sevier River basin. The army reached as far as the Escalante Desert before having to turn back to replenish supplies after reaching the abandoned Fort Juniper[1].

With much of the state of Espejo occupied by the First Western Army, the Second Western Army launched another offensive into northwestern California in the early months of 1910. The army was bolstered by the transferrence of much of the First Western Army west during the months prior, and the offensive went much better than in the beginning of the war. Trinidad on the northern coast fell in February of 1910, and the Second Western Army crossed the ridge into the Sacramento Valley shortly after. The Pacific Squadron harrassed the bays and small towns north of San Francisco, while the army advanced south in the interior. The Battle of Santa Teresa thirty miles north of Sacramento[2] was the only major battle of the Second Western Army's campaign. The American force of 15,500 won out against the Californio army of 12,000, and entered Sacramento on June 5, 1910. A month later, with assistance from a blockade of the Golden Gate, the American army captured the city of Yerba Buena. Accounts by American soldiers reveal much of the city was still destroyed after the great 1906 earthquake. General Randolph Lee set up command in the Presidio on the northern edge of the peninsula. A meeting between Lee and Admiral Henry Mayo, commander of the Pacific Squadron, in the Presidio is the source of a famous photograph from the American participation in the war. While the economic center of California had been taken, the capital of Monterey was still out of reach as the Second Western Army and Pacific Squadron now coordinated a final coastal offensive.


A Fortuitous Town:
While the American invasion of California kicked up, the Great Lakes campaign continued to crawl at a slow pace. The American naval presence in the Great Lakes stifled much of the waterborne trade along the northern shores of the lakes, but the transcontinental railroad still carried numerous goods across British North America. The icy winter climate also stymied movement into the Dominion of Canada during the winter months. The blockade of Nipigon on Lake Superior, the westernmost port on the route of the Laurentine transcontinental railway, ended after a fierce storm blew in in February 1910 as the four United states corvettes had to make a hasty retreat into the open water to avoid getting stuck in the ice as it built up on Nipigon Bay.

While there was brief action at Nipigon as well as at Thunder Bay in Canada and Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan, most of the fighting on the Canadian front remained around the more densely populated areas in southern and eastern Canada. As the winter thawed into the spring of 1910, the Union advanced from both Detroit and Buffalo into soutern Ontario. Moving around the southern side of Lake St. Clair, the American forces took Glencoe in May and captured Port Huron in June. From the east, the Americans encountered more resistance, but kept their slow advance. Hamilton, Ontario fell in August. Rather than turning north toward Toronto, the eastern army continued west and joined with the western army at London. From London, the combined army marched north and met a British defensive encampment in the hills south of Waterloo on October 19, 1910. The Battle of Waterloo was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the American theater of the war. Ten thousand Americans and over seventeen thousand total men died in the battle, and it ended in a significant American defeat. Having failed to even capture the town, the American army retreated back to London to secure its position for the coming winter. No later offensive toward Toronto would be made for the remainder of the war.

Along the Saint Lawrence, the Canadian army made their only notables incursion into American territory. After the failure of the Quebec campaign, the American army had fallen back to Fort Montgomery on Lake Champlain just on the American side of the border. In a daring winter assault in December 1909, the Canadian army attacked Fort Montgomery and captured it. The Americans fell back further south to Plattsburgh, while the British secured the fort and the surrounding area. After a failed attempt to recapture the fort in the summer of 1910, the British advanced on Plattsburgh, New York. In early 1911, in one of the last offensives on the Canadian front, the American army launched a grand offensive across the entire front after routing a British attack on Plattsburgh. The United States recaptured Fort Montgomery in March of 1911, and at last achieved a breakthrough across the Saint Lawrence at Ogdensburg in April. A naval assault on the capital of Kingston and a blockade of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence capped off the campaign, and ended much of the fighting on the Canadian front.

However, there was still some action in the Atlantic between the United States and Great Britain. Further blockades were instituted against British Honduras, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas throughout 1910 and 1911. The town of Freeport on Grand Bahama was seized by three American naval vessels in June of 1910, and a battle off the coast of Key West marked the end of an attempt by the Royal Navy to harrass Aemrican trade leaving the Gulf of Mexico. Further north, however, comes a more interesting story. During the last months of the war, the United States sent several hundred Irish soldiers, known as the Dubliner Regiment, were sent to land just west of Halifax in Saint Margaret's Bay. The next day the regiment assisted pro-independence groups in Halifax to incite a riot among the Acadians, a large majority of whom originated from the Irish diaspora. After the navy shelled the British ships in the harbor, the Dubliner Regiment "liberated" the city of Halifax from the British, ending in the storming of Fort George[3] with the Acadian independence militia.

[1]Fort Juniper is Cedar City. After the ironworks closed in the fort, it was abandoned in TTL with no direct connection from there to the California coast.
[2]Santa Teresa is approximately at the location of OTL Yuba City.
[3] Fort George is now Citadel Hill in Halifax. In TTL it is symbolic as a site of internment for many Irish Acadians.