A Cold Day at Cold Harbor

From “World Naval Review”

. . . in 1864, at the termination of their War of Secession, the Federal Navy was contesting for the status of largest in the world. Today, it is but a wasted shadow of itself. The drawdown of naval forces in the aftermath of the War was to be expected. What was not was the lack of lessons learned therefrom.

The major navies of the world are increasingly turning to not only iron-clad but iron-built ships, whose principal method of propulsion is steam. The Federal Navy operates a tiny number of wooden sail frigates as its high seas fleet, backed up by a decreasing number of coastal monitors, incapable of operations on the open seas.

The increased scrutiny of the naval budget by the Federal Committee on the Conduct of the War has further impoverished this force. Heretofore, the Federal Navy had conducted a unique and expensive improvisation to evade the Congressional failure to allocate funds for the building of new ships. An existing ship would be docked for a refit. The ship would be scrapped, and a new one with the same name would be built in her place.

When this fell under the notice of Congress, the retaliation was severe. The affected navy yards were closed, the equipment sold, the officers responsible dismissed the service, and a very strict law mandating close oversight over the repair and refit of ships was passed. The few surviving seagoing ships are now in very poor condition, due to the high expense of repair and refitting, and the parsimony of Congress in allocating funds for those efforts.

As for the vaunted monitors, squadrons of them are supposedly posted at the principal ports. These are vessels built, often in haste, during the War of Secession, and in poor repair. The response to the sinking of one has been the commissioning of one that was laid up, and having been neglected, is often in worse shape than the vessel for which she is a replacement. This store of ships has run out.

The personnel are likewise in poor order. The enlisted men are underpaid and ill-treated. Of late, the Navy has been influenced by proposers of the doctrine of “Separate but Equal”, and begun assigning the Negro sailors to limited duties. As these men were often the most skilled on board, the quality of the fleet has suffered.

The officer corps is not much better. Such was the backlog of officers from the War of Secession that no officers were commissioned from the Federal Naval Academy for ten years after the conclusion of the war, and only a handful since then. The officer corps of the fleet is aging and many of the best men have left or are leaving . . .



. . . the Confederate Navy was forced to improvise, and under this pressure, produced many imaginative naval technologies. Once the war was concluded, the precarious nature of the Confederate finances, the nature of their commerce, and the conduct of their government meant that no funding for naval vessels was available. The most one may encounter is a state-controlled river gunboat here and there . . .
 

Free Lancer

Banned
Welll aside from the CSA from getting Independence and a third
political party things seem to be the same as the OTL.
 
Only worse.

Why the US in a timeline where it does have a more potentially problematic power on its southern border lets the military rot is a mystery to put it mildly.

And the idea that the Confederate militia cavalry would necessarily be better mounted is . . . rather hard to take seriously. I'm fairly sure that those would enter militia cavalry units would be those who would actually try to tell the difference between a good horse and a bad one.
 

Hyperion

Banned
I can see Grant's death having an effect in Virginia, but I fail to see it having such a radical effect in the Western Theater, unless Sherman was called to Washington to take Grant's place, or unless Sheridan ordered Sherman to hault.
 
I can see Grant's death having an effect in Virginia, but I fail to see it having such a radical effect in the Western Theater, unless Sherman was called to Washington to take Grant's place, or unless Sheridan ordered Sherman to hault.

How is Sheridan going to be ordering Sherman around? Sheridan doesn't have the authority.

And without Grant's decidedly partiality, he's likely to run into trouble with Meade wanting to throttle the insubordinate and incapable cavalry commander.
 

Hyperion

Banned
How is Sheridan going to be ordering Sherman around? Sheridan doesn't have the authority.

And without Grant's decidedly partiality, he's likely to run into trouble with Meade wanting to throttle the insubordinate and incapable cavalry commander.

I thought Sheridan was made General in Chief.

As far as Shermans performance, OTL it was brilliant. Why would Meade or whoever want to shaft such a capable general ITTL.
 
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