1815 Napoleon's affect on an extended War of 1812

POD Sometime in 1814 American forces at Sacketts Harbor become aware of the shipment up the St. Lawrence of heavy cannon destined for the HMS St. Lawrence. Gen. Isard sends a brigade under Brigadier General Edmund Gaines to Ogdensburg, NY in preparation to seize the cannon below Prescott, Ontario. The attack goes as planned and the Americans end up taking or destroying 20-32 pounder cannon and a similar number of less size. James Yeo decides against putting the St. Lawrence to the lake without her full armament.

Oct. Americans storm Ft. George, occupy Burlington Heights, and York.

Dec. American peace negotiators refuses treaty without specific British renouncement of the practice of impressment.

Spring 1815 with deadlock on Lake Ontario and the Americans in control of Lake Champlain and Lake Erie no invasion from Canada seems practicable until naval supremacy on the lakes is restored. Raids on American coastal towns and cities get mixed results as some assaults succeed while other a are repulsed.

Mar. 1815 Napoleon returns from Elba panic spreads across Europe. American negotiators see their chance to pressure the British into renouncing impressment.

Does the threat of Napoleon push the British into making concessions to the Americans.
 

67th Tigers

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Want to guess the number of battalions withdrawn from America for European service in 1815 OTL?

As a clue, it's three.

If the US continues the war of 1812 after Napoleon is exiled, then the British suddenly have a large (75,000 men, 10 Infantry Divisions, 7 Cavalry Brigades and their artillery, obviously excluding Spanish and Portuguese) disposable force to send to America rather than disband, and this hardly effects the Army of the Low Countries since, as mentioned, only Lambert's Brigade was withdrawn from America, and they were mauled to 3rd New Orleans.

Had the US not thrown in the towel, they would have been utterly crushed by 140,000 British regulars.

Oh, and impressment simply never happened.
 
Well, in OTL, Britain sent exactly 4 brigades from their European forces to America. 3 went into the drive down Lake Champlain. The 4th assaulted DC and Baltimore and then went south to New Orleans.

There is no report stating that Britain thought to send any more troops to America, even while Napoleon was still in exile.

Also, What was the HMS St. Lawrence???:confused: The British had exactly 4 ships for their drive down Lake Champlain - Confi(d)ence, Linnet, Finch, and Chub. The first 2 were of reasonable strength, especially the Confidence - aptly named. In any case, there was no HMS St. Lawrence anywhere in that fleet. If it was meant for Lake Erie/Ontario, then it really doesn't matter. The commanders on both sides for Lake Ontario just wanted to build more and bigger ships, and didn't really want to attack each other if at all possible to avoid. In any case, the loss of 1 potential ship for the British does not really change the balance of naval power. Lake Erie, meanwhile, was firmly under US control after Put-in-Bay, and the British had no designs to re-establish control here.

In any case, by after the Niagara campaign of 1814, the Americans had no more plans for an offensive. By this point, the first British re-enforcements were already arriving, which was one reason why they fought the Americans to a stand-still at Lundy's Lane. Also, the Federalists were seeing red, they did not want to attack anymore.

IMO, the best way to extend Wo1812 is to have the second bullet miss Winfield Scott at Lundy's Lane. Then in the twilight attack, he can hold his line, get out of the cross-fire, and when Brown is wounded and turns command over to Scott, instead of Ripley, Scott will hold on to the field and the British cannon. Then, after resting for a few days, and finally co-operating with the navy on Lake Ontario, the Americans can capture Fort George. Then they will be getting somewhere on land, forcing the Niagara Campaign to last until autumn.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
HMS St Lawrence was a ship of the line built on the Lakes. Unlike the US vessels building, she would have been available to the RN and given them a 9:4 advantage over the USN.

The reinforcements were sent while there was still a need for major forces in Europe. By late 1814 this was no longer the case and additional major reinforcements were planned. Murray had gathered over 20,000 regulars (of 53,000 in theatre) into a field army for the Spring 1815 campaign, and expected major reinforcements as navigation opened.

The forces sent: http://www.warof1812.ca/redcoats.htm
 
POD Sometime in 1814 American forces at Sacketts Harbor become aware of the shipment up the St. Lawrence of heavy cannon destined for the HMS St. Lawrence. Gen. Isard sends a brigade under Brigadier General Edmund Gaines to Ogdensburg, NY in preparation to seize the cannon below Prescott, Ontario.

The British would respond, especially since Ogdensburg is pretty much under their control.

How do the Americans overcome the gunboat escort that the supplies travelling south will have.

There is a reason the Americans didn't try to capture the supply convoys in OTL even though it was obvious that they carried vital war materiel.

The attack goes as planned and the Americans end up taking or destroying 20-32 pounder cannon and a similar number of less size. James Yeo decides against putting the St. Lawrence to the lake without her full armament.

So he strips the guns off Niagara and launches HMS St Lawrence making him the master of the lake.

At least he certainly has enough of a force to cause Chauncey to not challenge him.

Oct. Americans storm Ft. George, occupy Burlington Heights, and York.

In August 1814 the British had 29,437 effectives in Canada.

The US had less than 11,000 throughout the US.

Brown had 3,500 for his proposed action against Canada in August 1814 (he was supposed to have 8,000 but the troops simply couldn't be found).

Spring 1815 with deadlock on Lake Ontario and the Americans in control of Lake Champlain and Lake Erie no invasion from Canada seems practicable until naval supremacy on the lakes is restored. Raids on American coastal towns and cities get mixed results as some assaults succeed while other a are repulsed.

By this point we likely see successful British offensives against Sacketts harbour and the retaking of the Niagara peninsula (in the unlikely event it fell).

What follows is a build up on Champlain and Erie.

Mar. 1815 Napoleon returns from Elba panic spreads across Europe. American negotiators see their chance to pressure the British into renouncing impressment.

The facts on the ground still wouldn't support such unreasonable demands.

In 100 days things are going to start looking very unhappy for the Americans.
 
Want to guess the number of battalions withdrawn from America for European service in 1815 OTL?

As a clue, it's three.

Thanks for the link

If the US continues the war of 1812 after Napoleon is exiled, then the British suddenly have a large (75,000 men, 10 Infantry Divisions, 7 Cavalry Brigades and their artillery, obviously excluding Spanish and Portuguese) disposable force to send to America rather than disband, and this hardly effects the Army of the Low Countries since, as mentioned, only Lambert's Brigade was withdrawn from America, and they were mauled to 3rd New Orleans.
Well even if they could transport and supply those numbers its not like the stragtegic situation in Canada would permit their movement against the American frontier.

Had the US not thrown in the towel, they would have been utterly crushed by 140,000 British regulars.
I highly doubt that they would be able to sustain that many troops so far from home(Canada and the West Indies weren't even self suffiecient in food stuffs.

Oh, and impressment simply never happened.
Despite attempts by historical revisionists like you too marginalize the issue, yes it actually did happen

the British Admiralty admitted in 1815 that over 2,500 American sailors who refused to serve against their country after war was declared were sent to prison
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archiv...7123DE433A2575AC1A9649C94649ED7CF&oref=slogin
 
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