AH Challenge: Confederates Hold New Orleans

Anaxagoras

Banned
With a POD no earlier than January 1, 1862, how can the Confederates hold New Orleans? Bonus points if the Union fleet is heavily damaged in a failed attack.
 
With a POD no earlier than January 1, 1862, how can the Confederates hold New Orleans? Bonus points if the Union fleet is heavily damaged in a failed attack.

I also wonder if they could keep New Orleans without the "second wave" of secession occurring. I'm wondering if that would help them keep it. They could concentrate what forces they DO have on holding the city.
 
The workers on the CSS Mississipi are execused from military tasks and concentrate on the building the ship, so then the day comes, the ship is just available.

Admiral Farragut fleet is confronted by that monster. By the end of the day, the Mississipi runs aground and is destroyed, like the best part of Farragut's fleet. Among the US losses is Admiral Farragut himself.

General Butler tries to force his ways on land but he encounters a preview of what would happen a century later in Vietnam's rice fields.

After this twin failure, the project to conquer New Orleans is deferred to better times.

New Orlenans will surely fall later (taken by Grant) but for months its industrial capability will be fully availble to the confederacy.
 
The workers on the CSS Mississipi are execused from military tasks and concentrate on the building the ship, so then the day comes, the ship is just available.

Admiral Farragut fleet is confronted by that monster. By the end of the day, the Mississipi runs aground and is destroyed, like the best part of Farragut's fleet. Among the US losses is Admiral Farragut himself.

General Butler tries to force his ways on land but he encounters a preview of what would happen a century later in Vietnam's rice fields.

After this twin failure, the project to conquer New Orleans is deferred to better times.

New Orlenans will surely fall later (taken by Grant) but for months its industrial capability will be fully availble to the confederacy.

I like your idea of having the CSS Mississippi available. If the scenario played out as you described there are a lot of second and third order effects.
First New Orleans is too important to be left open and unconquered for long, but those ships and troops are going to have to come from somewhere, so who suffers in the short term and what are the effects from that?
Second the CSA Navy is going to take note of the damage that the CSS Mississippi did and the competent CS Navy Secretary will probably pour every resource into building ships like the CSS Mississippi. What are the effects of that?
 
Second the CSA Navy is going to take note of the damage that the CSS Mississippi did and the competent CS Navy Secretary will probably pour every resource into building ships like the CSS Mississippi. What are the effects of that?

Probably not good for the CSA in the long term. The armor for the ironclads was made of railroad ties because they were desperately short. If they push to finish then some other project is going to run short of metal. The Union can match them in ships so any temporary relief they get from the ironclads is going to be offset when they lose them.
 
Probably not good for the CSA in the long term. The armor for the ironclads was made of railroad ties because they were desperately short. If they push to finish then some other project is going to run short of metal. The Union can match them in ships so any temporary relief they get from the ironclads is going to be offset when they lose them.

Anything the CSA does will hurt them in the long term. The longer the war goes, the less likely the CSA is to win it without outside assistance. I have always believed that the only way the CSA wins the war is if they can win it quickly, in two years or less, or if the blockade can be broken allowing them to export their cotton and import manufactured goods. I believe that will give the CSA another 18 months to 2 years before they are defeated militarily. If they can look strong to the USA voters in the election of 1864 and Lincoln gets voted out that would help them to get a peace of Northern war weariness as well.
 
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