AHC: Thai elephant offer accepted by Lincoln

I'm wondering if they might be more useful in the southwest and west where army outposts are remote and heavy labor is more valuable than actually using them in combat.
 
I'm wondering if they might be more useful in the southwest and west where army outposts are remote and heavy labor is more valuable than actually using them in combat.

Probably not. The average Asian elephant needs to eat 150 pounds of food and drink 21 gallons of water to survive. Just the logistics alone would make this impractical.
 
Leaving aside combat uses, elephants could pull much heavier loads than horses or mules. Maybe this would have made heavier artillery practical?
 
Lincoln isn't totally correct...by all accounts Tennessee is practically similar to many parts of Indochina. Elephants will have no trouble adapting to the climate of the southern US. Heck, there's even an elephant sanctuary in TN, and the elephants seem to be quite happy with their environment.

Convincing Lincoln of this would help :p But there's the more pressing matters of training people to work with elephants.

Not sure how Americans would take the usual method of training them (hint: it involves a stick with a very big hook) but considering how circus trainers had no problem I guess they won't either.

Elephants would be an insane logistical advantage, no arguments there. I wonder what cultural effects it would have. Was the elephant a mascot for Republicans back then?

Someone please make this a TL.
 
Is there a possibility to add some sort of armor to them, enough to stop regular bullets used in the ACW? Coupled with making them deaf, it could be a real asset in breaking up all those Confederate lines packed with men. Assuming it is technically possible in the first place that is.
 
There is no practical battle use at this stage in history, much less in the most modern war being fought at the time. We can drop the elephants-in-battle idea because obviously we can drop the elephants-in-battle idea.

Using elephants to kill soldiers is really hard. Even in classical times they sometimes proved worse than useless. They had to be used carefully a century and a half earlier to be at all useful in areas without access to the best in drill and artillery.

By the 1860s about the only use an elephant could be in violence would be through absurd luck. For example, a night raid on a supply train accidentally spooking an elephant, causing it to go on a rampage. Even then the odds would be ten to one that the violence would be against the side owning the elephant, not the enemy. They would be, after all, closer to the animal. It could be a bizarre wartime anecdote, but that's about it.

Elephants would only be worth discussing as pack animals with a sideline in heavy labor. They could be effective in the southeast, probably, especially away from rail lines.

As for the environment, elephant bodies are quite good at heat storage. I recall reading that denizens of a zoo in upstate New York love to play in the snow. They will do just fine in the Deep South. I suspect that they'd have a good chance at being co-opted for labor during Reconstruction. From there.... Who knows?
 
The southern US looks just fine for them - climate wise, it's similar to the natural range of Asian elephants today. Florida in particular, but also the southern portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi etc.

Imagine Sherman's March to the Sea with elephants as pack animals. No doubt the marchers would hate having to feed elephants, given the volume of food they consume, so many of them would be left to go wild.

Then the elephants start breeding in Georgia...

I wonder how many elephants it would have been? You'd need a decent herd to be much use, so I assume the King wasn't thinking of just twenty or thirty animals.

I know people did ship the things in that era, but it is hard to imagine.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Elephants would only be worth discussing as pack animals with a sideline in heavy labor. They could be effective in the southeast, probably, especially away from rail lines.

Yeah, they're going to be incredibly useful when hauling siege artillery like Parrott Rifles and seacoast Mortars. Using them in pretty much any other role, aside from logistical support is a pretty massive waste of an animal.
 
OTL jingal elephants
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were in use for centuries in India and the neighboring area; never as numerous or widespread as zambereck camels
army_camels5.jpg

and not in so extended use
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but not uncommon. So it would be theoretically possible to mount a gatling on elephants' backs, and seemingly they could be accustomed to the noise. Indeed it was experimented during WWI
Elephant-mounted%2Bmachine-gun%2C%2B1914.jpg

But of cource facing 19th C. massed infantry fire they would be sitting ducks.
More sensibly in India the British army used them to haul heavy artillery pieces
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or to carry heavy packs
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(as propagand for the war effort circus & zoo elephants were even photographied in such a role in Europe during WWI
_72260802_ulls235842_topfoto_elephants.jpg
)
so to use Thai elephants for logistics during the ACW would not have be insane.
Note that in India artillery towing elephants were often substituted with oxen when reaching the actual battlefield, the jumbos being easily panicked by thunderous noise - elephants don't breed in captivity hence are not really domesticated, it's a matter of personal relationships with their mahout. He can teach them a *lot* of things and accustom them to almost any environment, but has to start when they are very young.
 
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And possibly a good idea at that, provided you have trained handlers.

Combat, however, would probably be pretty bonkers.


Can you imagine the absolute havoc that an invasive elephant population could wreak on southern US farmland? If they don't stick to the forests and the untamed parts of the South, elephant hunting might be an increasingly popular pasttime. They'll be 'extinct' in no time.
 
So, having found the time and gone to re-review the offer something I had forgotten came up. The elephants aren't for military use AT ALL. The King of Siam thought it was a shame there were no elephant herds in North America and wanted remedy this by sending over a number of breeding pairs to the United States to be released into the wild here. He also mentioned that they would be useful to haul significant amounts of goods, which is where my earlier incorrect note that the elephants were for logistical use came from.

Bottom line, these animals would never see combat, they would not even be used to haul military supplies.

The letter was actually addressed to James Buchanan, or to his successor (it was sent in early 1859).
 
The King of Siam thought it was a shame there were no elephant herds in North America and wanted remedy this by sending over a number of breeding pairs to the United States to be released into the wild here. He also mentioned that they would be useful to haul significant amounts of goods, which is where my earlier incorrect note that the elephants were for logistical use came from.

Can you imagine the absolute havoc that an invasive elephant population could wreak on southern US farmland?

:eek: Holy crap.
 

Puzzle

Donor
It would be kind of neat if some random rich and bored English guy had decided to establish a breeding population of elephants in the 17th century. I remember hearing once about a group that tried to bring every animal mentioned in Shakespeare's works to America so it wouldn't be entirely unprecedented.
 
It would be kind of neat if some random rich and bored English guy had decided to establish a breeding population of elephants in the 17th century. I remember hearing once about a group that tried to bring every animal mentioned in Shakespeare's works to America so it wouldn't be entirely unprecedented.

Eugene Schieffelin and the American Acclimatization Society. He managed to introduce both starlings and house sparrows to N. America.
 
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