AHC American Civil War fleet action .

the Confederates would have helped themselves a lot more if they hadn't had their embargo the first year (when the blockade was more notational than actual) and had more necessities and fewer luxuries.


That is true, but listening to politically inept, hot headed idiots is what got the South in that predicament in the first place. The South had an inflated opinion of itself (particularly SC!) at the time and thus greatly overestimated the power "King Cotton" had.
 
Thanks for the links to these river ans sea battles. I had not heard of some of them and the Battle of Memphis reads like something out of a farce.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
The US won the Alabama Claims case and got $15.5 million in gold from the British postwar because it could demonstrate a harm to the US economy

Specifically, we went from neck and neck with the British merchant marine to much further down the list during and after the war because of reflagging and some pretty serious losses in shipping that caused that reflagging.

Granted the US domestic economy grew a lot, but consider what it could have done without losing vast chunks of our competitive advantage with the British merchant marine

Actually, the USA's claim against the British Empire was $US 2 billion! Allowing for a good bit of hyperbole on the part of the USA this is still an huge sum that shows very clearly just how badly the Union's economy had been badly hurt by the Confederate Commerce raiders. The $US 15.5 million is the considerably smaller amount awarded to the USA by the tribunal and even this was offset by the $US 2 million awarded to Britain as compensation for the illegal blockade practices of the Union Navy.
 
Actually, the USA's claim against the British Empire was $US 2 billion! Allowing for a good bit of hyperbole on the part of the USA this is still an huge sum that shows very clearly just how badly the Union's economy had been badly hurt by the Confederate Commerce raiders
The British estimated the indirect US claims at $4.5bn: however, that was because the US was claiming Britain should pay the whole of its war costs post-Gettysburg. The US couldn't push that claim too forcefully, as they were dependent on British capital to roll over its war debt at a sustainable rate of interest. The actual direct claim the US submitted to Geneva was $19.7m; the British counter-offer was $8m.
 
Actually, the USA's claim against the British Empire was $US 2 billion! Allowing for a good bit of hyperbole on the part of the USA this is still an huge sum that shows very clearly just how badly the Union's economy had been badly hurt by the Confederate Commerce raiders. The $US 15.5 million is the considerably smaller amount awarded to the USA by the tribunal and even this was offset by the $US 2 million awarded to Britain as compensation for the illegal blockade practices of the Union Navy.


It was still not enough to slow down US economic growth any meaningful extent.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
The British estimated the indirect US claims at $4.5bn: however, that was because the US was claiming Britain should pay the whole of its war costs post-Gettysburg. The US couldn't push that claim too forcefully, as they were dependent on British capital to roll over its war debt at a sustainable rate of interest. The actual direct claim the US submitted to Geneva was $19.7m; the British counter-offer was $8m.

So if I go to the USA's Statistical Abstract of 1878 which was the first one they published I can look at the outstanding principal of the public debt for the war years and do a bit of (linear) interpolation between the Battle of Gettysburg and May of 1865 and I get a figure of $US 2,551,000,000 (4-sig fig) suggesting that the USA's Govt. had a fairly good idea what the war had cost them given their negotiating figure of $US 2 billion. Given your British estimates (where did you get them by the way?) it suggests the British were rather holding a finger in the air and guessing. Also worth mentioning that the principal on the public debt did not peak until 1866 at ca. $US 2.773 billion.

Whilst I think about the 1878 SA mentions (pp 4-5) additional British payments made 'upon the Judgement rendered by the Court of the Alabama claims' over and above the $US 15.5 million paid in 1874. These sums being ca. $US 6.6 million in 1876 and ca. $US 2.7 million in 1877. Does anyone know anything about these payments I had always considered the 1874 payment to be the totality of the award?
 
So if I go to the USA's Statistical Abstract of 1878 which was the first one they published I can look at the outstanding principal of the public debt for the war years and do a bit of (linear) interpolation between the Battle of Gettysburg and May of 1865 and I get a figure of $US 2,551,000,000 (4-sig fig) suggesting that the USA's Govt. had a fairly good idea what the war had cost them given their negotiating figure of $US 2 billion. Given your British estimates (where did you get them by the way?) it suggests the British were rather holding a finger in the air and guessing. Also worth mentioning that the principal on the public debt did not peak until 1866 at ca. $US 2.773 billion.

Whilst I think about the 1878 SA mentions (pp 4-5) additional British payments made 'upon the Judgement rendered by the Court of the Alabama claims' over and above the $US 15.5 million paid in 1874. These sums being ca. $US 6.6 million in 1876 and ca. $US 2.7 million in 1877. Does anyone know anything about these payments I had always considered the 1874 payment to be the totality of the award?

In any case, whatever it was it clearly barely slowed down the US economy. You can't have both "It devastated the economy" and it had "Clinton-like growth rates" at the same time.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
In any case, whatever it was it clearly barely slowed down the US economy. You can't have both "It devastated the economy" and it had "Clinton-like growth rates" at the same time.
Actually, you can - if the economy take a dip, then recovers to natural levels.

It's the same way the French economy went up like a rocket after WW2 - though not quite on the same scale, of course.
 
Actually, you can - if the economy take a dip, then recovers to natural levels.

It's the same way the French economy went up like a rocket after WW2 - though not quite on the same scale, of course.

Except it went up during the war, not afterwards. Face it , in the end it did jack squat. Shipping insurance rates are hardly the be all and end all in an economy. It is only a small part of it.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Except it went up during the war, not afterwards. Face it , in the end it did jack squat. Shipping insurance rates are hardly the be all and end all in an economy. It is only a small part of it.
You seem to be taking this rather personally.

In any case.
The guerre de course doesn't actually have to do decisive damage - it just has to do worthwhile damage. And really, if the Confederacy had got the balance right, they'd have managed to make the Union send out the OTL number of vessels (fifty or so) to handle a dozen commerce raiders (a smaller number than OTL, but a larger number all at once than the Confederacy managed to surge OTL).

That does not by itself win the war - but if they did it and then sent out a couple of ironclads, then they could do some fairly reasonable damage. Or, more to the point, think they could do that damage - and hence lead to a fleet action of sorts.




Heck - have the Virginia be a slightly shallower draft vessel and there's all kinds of butterflies you can get from that. The limiting draft on the Potomac is 24 feet, only a few feet deeper than Virginia - though of course that involves less guns, thicker armour or a larger ship in general, so it doesn't solve everything.


I suppose I prefer trying to work out how to make something work, in general, rather than slapping a big "ALL WORTHLESS" sign on it and not bothering to consider possibilities.
 
Given your British estimates (where did you get them by the way?) it suggests the British were rather holding a finger in the air and guessing.

"Written by Assistant Secretary of State J. C. Bancroft Davis, the U.S. case included claims for the indirect/national damages inflicted upon the United States by the Alabama and other British-built Confederate cruisers. These indirect claims, first articulated by Sumner in his Senate speech in 1869, included damages to the American merchant marine from increased insurance
costs and transference to foreign flags, the cost of pursuing Confederate vessels, and the alleged prolongation of the war. 'The Tribunal will see,' the case read, 'that, after the battle of Gettysburg, the offensive operations of the insurgents were conducted only at sea, through the cruisers; and observing that the war was prolonged for that purpose, will be able to determine whether Great Britain ought not, in equity, to reimburse the United States the expenses thereby entailed upon them.'... Granville estimated that if the Geneva tribunal ruled in favor [sic] of the United States, the costs might amount to $4.5 billion."

Jay Sexton, 'The Funded Loan and the Alabama Claims,' Diplomatic History, vol. 27, no. 4 ( September 2003), pp.470-1

So, while it is an estimate, it's got more than just the post-Gettysburg cost in there- which explains why it doesn't tie through directly to the $2bn figure. I suspect Granville also expected them to go after the interest on the debt as well, and the US were paying 6%- 7% on it (hence the need to roll over to lower-yielding securities in the British market).

and above the $US 15.5 million paid in 1874. These sums being ca. $US 6.6 million in 1876 and ca. $US 2.7 million in 1877. Does anyone know anything about these payments I had always considered the 1874 payment to be the totality of the award?
Can't help you, sorry. The award specifically states how much should be paid:
"The Tribunal... awards to the United States a sum of 15,500,000 dollars in gold... for the satisfaction of all the claims referred to the consideration of the Tribunal... And... The Tribunal declares that 'all the claims referred to in the treaty as submitted to the Tribunal are hereby fully, perfectly, and finally settled'. Furthermore it declares that 'each and every one of the said claims, whether the same may or may not have been presented to the notice of, or made, preferred, or laid before the Tribunal, shall henceforth be considered and treated as finally settled, barred, and inadmissible'."

It's possible that it had something to do with the devaluation of the dollar, as the British paid in bullion, but I don't see why you'd spread an accounting treatment across three years. Needs a word with management and a review of IFRS, I think.
 
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