BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL: A History of the Great War (Foreward)

[TFSmith121]

Generally, as follows:

I forget what is the foreign view of Britain's war with the US again? At least among the major powers?

Generally, as follows - the 1860s in the West were an era of realpolitik that predated the alliance system; the concert of Europe had broken down, of course, and the US and the Latin American republics generally opposed European adventurism, while the scramble for Africa was two decades away, more or less.

In Europe proper, the great issues are the consolidation, unification, and rise of Germany and Italy; the confrontation between Prussia and Austria over the future of Central Europe and "Germany"; between Austria and Russia over the future of the Balkans; the pending face-off between France and the German sucessor state over Western Europe; Britain's desire to avoid further involvement in Europe per se, and yet still maintain its interests in the Mediterranean and its littoral; and the efforts by the Ottomans (especially) to hang on to what they had ... and all this was happening against the background of "democratized" government (even in the more autocratic European states) in an era of popular nationalism and mass movements, all at a time when industrialization and urbanization is going full bore.

So, with all that in mind, basically one would expect the European powers to look after their own interests - none of them owe the British anything, obviously. The Russians are friendly to the US (as they were, historically) and the Prussians are planning their contest with the Austrians for the future of Germany, with - in BROS - the reality the British are not in a position to intervene; and the Prussians and Russians are in their historical alliance of the moment against the Polish rebels. Otherwise, the Austrians and Spanish are trying to hold on to what they have, and the Italians want to unify, generally in the face of opposition from the Austrians.

In BROS, the US has offered to broker a deal between Mexico and France that allows the French to recognize reality and re-focus their energies in Europe and the Med; the Spanish are flailing away on Hispaniola, so reality will intrude there as well, presumably sooner rather than later.

In Latin America, the Granadines are in the middle of their civil war, and the other Latin American states are selling what they can for whatever the traffic will bear.

Around the world, various alarms and excursions are underway or pending in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.

Any specific questions?

Thanks

 

[vl100butch]

Do the events of BROS butterfly away the deaths of Reynolds and Macpherson?

 

[TFSmith121]

Yes and no

Do the events of BROS butterfly away the deaths of Reynolds and Macpherson?

I flipped a coin, considering it is still (in BROS) only April, 1863; so...

McPherson (USMA, 1853), serving as chief engineer in Grant's Army of the Saint Lawrence, was killed in action at Sorel in September, 1862; John F. Reynolds (USMA, 1841,) is "currently" serving as commanding general, 2nd "Pennsylvania Reserves" Division, I Corps (McDowell), Army of the Potomac (McClellan).

If and when the Army of the Potomac goes on the offensive, Reynolds is certainly a likely choice for a corps command... if he is still around. Given McDowell's education in France, he might be a reasonable choice for an administrative command in Lower Canada at some point.

Best,

 

[Xenophonte]

Brazil and especially in the States

Brazil and especially in the States in forming of the River Plate were not then the best places to invest in agriculture or trust so they could help meet the demand than the sudden absence of food exported from the United States to the British Empire, would create on the stage established this thread.

Since in 1852 the Guerra Grande (Great War) had ended with its political and social implications determinants of political instability and mutual interference in the political conflicts of other nations and in turn the loyalties of the factions in power or aspiring to recover in Rio Plate in especial, were transnational.

With regard to Brazil a small list of civil and international conflicts in that period:

Lift of the Hornets - Pernambuco (1852)
Revolt of Finance Ibicaba - São Paulo (1857)
Boneless Meat Riot - popular uprising, Bahia (1858)
War Aguirre - Brazil and Uruguay government against Uruguayan rebels (1864-1865)
War of Paraguay - Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay Against Paraguay (1865-1870)
Revolt of the Muckers - popular-messianic uprising, Rio Grande do Sul (1868-1874)
Quebra-pounds revolt - popular uprising, Northeast (1874-1875).

[ Revolta do grunt Abelha - Northeast (1851-1854)
Hold up two Marimbondos - Pernambuco (1852)
Revolta da Fazenda Ibicaba - São Paulo (1857)
Osso da Carne Motim week - popular Insurreição, Bahia (1858)
War Aguirre - Uruguaios rebels contra Brazil and Uruguai (1864-1865)
Guerra do Paraguai - Brazil, Argentina and Uruguai contra Paraguai (1865 -1870)
Revolta two Muckers - popular-messiânica Insurreição, Rio Grande do Sul (1868-1874)
Revolta do Quebra-Quilos - popular Insurreição, Northeast (1874-1875).
Revolt Ronco Bee - Northeast (1851-1854) ]

For those who may be interested in the contemporary British vision on the situation of the the River Plate and its people recommend the works of W.H. Hudson and especially The Purple Land http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7132.

 

[TFSmith121]

Thanks ... Interesting points.

Brazil and especially in the States in forming of the River Plate were not then the best places to invest in agriculture or trust so they could help meet the demand than the sudden absence of food exported from the United States to the British Empire, would create on the stage established this thread.

Since in 1852 the Guerra Grande (Great War) had ended with its political and social implications determinants of political instability and mutual interference in the political conflicts of other nations and in turn the loyalties of the factions in power or aspiring to recover in Rio Plate in especial, were transnational.

With regard to Brazil a small list of civil and international conflicts in that period:

Lift of the Hornets - Pernambuco (1852)
Revolt of Finance Ibicaba - São Paulo (1857)
Boneless Meat Riot - popular uprising, Bahia (1858)
War Aguirre - Brazil and Uruguay government against Uruguayan rebels (1864-1865)
War of Paraguay - Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay Against Paraguay (1865-1870)
Revolt of the Muckers - popular-messianic uprising, Rio Grande do Sul (1868-1874)
Quebra-pounds revolt - popular uprising, Northeast (1874-1875).

[ Revolta do grunt Abelha - Northeast (1851-1854)
Hold up two Marimbondos - Pernambuco (1852)
Revolta da Fazenda Ibicaba - São Paulo (1857)
Osso da Carne Motim week - popular Insurreição, Bahia (1858)
War Aguirre - Uruguaios rebels contra Brazil and Uruguai (1864-1865)
Guerra do Paraguai - Brazil, Argentina and Uruguai contra Paraguai (1865 -1870)
Revolta two Muckers - popular-messiânica Insurreição, Rio Grande do Sul (1868-1874)
Revolta do Quebra-Quilos - popular Insurreição, Northeast (1874-1875).
Revolt Ronco Bee - Northeast (1851-1854) ]

For those who may be interested in the contemporary British vision on the situation of the the River Plate and its people recommend the works of W.H. Hudson and especially The Purple Land http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7132.

Thanks ... Interesting points, and appreciate the link.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL: A History of the Great War (Chapter 15, Part 2)

BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL: A History of the Great War
By T.F. Smith
Copyright (c) 2013-2016 by the author. All rights reserved.

Chapter 15 – After the ball…

Part 2 – … And we’ll all raise hell

iii. War is cruelty

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into my country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war with England; the English made this war, by siding with rebels and traitors, and by invading the United States and waging war against it … but you cannot have peace in the Canadas and a division of my country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, or Europe, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power, and now, wherever our flag flies; for, if we relax one bit to pressure, the United States is gone… you must surrender, or suffer the consequences. We will continue this bombardment, and propose to move immediately upon your works." – Major General William T. Sherman, United States Volunteers, Commanding General, XV Army Corps, Army of the Saint Lawrence, letter to the Commanding Officer, British Forces, City of Quebec, March, 1863

Excerpt from Chapter 23, “Roll on, Columbia, roll on!” in Contested Waters: A Naval History of the Anglo-American War, by Irene Musicant, HarperCollins, New York, 1995

By the spring of 1863, the British war effort in the Pacific had been stalled for eight months, since the defeat at the Golden Gate in July and the subsequent operations on Puget Sound that ended in the burning and occupation of Olympia, in Washington Territory. Given the available resources, little more should have been expected. When the war began in April of 1862, Britain’s forces in the entire Pacific, split between China, Australia and New Zealand, the west coast of South America, and British Columbia, had amounted to 10 battalions of infantry (four in China and six in New Zealand), plus naval forces in Chinese, Australian, and American (eastern Pacific) waters that amounted to some 20 ocean-going warships (three steam frigates, seven steam corvettes, nine steam and one sailing sloop - the 18-gun HMS Calypso was the last sailing warship on active commission with the Royal Navy), as well a dozen smaller steam gunboats; and several of the smaller vessels were sidewheel paddle steamers, not screw/propellers.

As in the 1854-56 war with Russia, from London, the North Pacific was seen as a secondary, even tertiary theater; little of significance other than blockade and commerce protection was expected to occur. The rather ad hoc attack on San Francisco was initiated, it appears, largely because of the bellicosity of the governor of the British Columbia colony, Sir James Douglas, and the commander of the Pacific station, Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Maitland, CB. Douglas, an appointee without any military experience, had worked in the Northwest for some 30 years for the Hudson’s Bay Company, rising to chief factor and governor of Vancouver Island and the mainland territories. There was an elected Legislative Assembly, but all executive power was in Douglas’s hands, who administered the mainland colony in absentia from Victoria; the system was derided as a “family-company compact” by more than a few colonists, of both British and American ancestry.

Other than the ships of Maitland’s Pacific Squadron – responsible for protecting British interests from Victoria to Valparaiso – the regular military presence in the colonies was minimal; the British Columbia Detachment numbered less than 200 Royal Engineers, commanded by Col. Richard Clement Moody, 49, a professional soldier who doubled as both chief commissioner of lands and lieutenant governor of British Columbia. In the event of trouble – whether with the Indians or the Americans - his force could be augmented by 150 Royal Marines from the squadron, the detachment on San Juan Island, and the naval depot at Esquimalt Harbor on Vancouver Island, plus any sailors who could be spared, all under the command of Captain George Bazalgette, RM. Douglas could also call out the colony’s few companies of volunteer militia and the police; together, there would be enough to secure the government buildings at Victoria on Vancouver Island and New Westminster on the mainland, but little more.

In the summer of 1861, there had been a proposal in London to ship an infantry battalion from China to British Columbia, but the Admiralty disagreed, arguing troops were unnecessary since the colony could be defended by the squadron. Across the Pacific, the British forces stationed in China had already been reduced from their height during the 1860-61 campaign because of the needs of India, but now faced the potential of involvement in the raging Taiping rebellion, and so found themselves overextended. Hong Kong, like other British colonies, including Australia and New Zealand, where a nasty little bush war with the Maori had just ended, also clamored for protection from potential American commerce raiders.

This paucity of resources was mirrored by the size of the “British” population on the western coast; the Americans could draw on population and economic resources – in California, Oregon, and the Washington and Nevada territories – that outnumbered those of British Columbia, Vancouver Island, and the marginally-administered interior by close to 9-1. In the 1860 census, for example, California’s “settled” population was listed as 380,000; Oregon’s, 52,000; Washington’s, 12,000; and Nevada’s, some 7,000. In contract, the equivalent in the British territories was 51,000, a decrease of almost 10 percent since 1851.

San Francisco’s population alone, some 57,000, was greater than that of the entirety of British Columbia; the largest “British” city in the colonies, Victoria on Vancouver Island, had a population roughly a tenth of the American city. The mainland capital, New Westminster, was even smaller, and industry was so limited that ore mined in British Columbia was smelted in San Francisco. In addition, of the 51,000 “settled” population within the British colonies, a significant percentage were actually American citizens; at least 12,000 were in the colony by 1862, searching for gold in the Fraser River valley or otherwise working, from Victoria to Cowichan. Similar patterns held true in the U.S., of course; of the 130,000 voters in the 1860 election in California, for example, some 50,000 were from northern states, 30,000 from southern states, and another 50,000 were foreign born, mostly Irish, British, and German. The percentages were different in Oregon and the two U.S. territories west of the Rockies, but the patterns were similar.

That being said, despite rumors of secessionist plots and alarmist headlines, in 1860 Lincoln carried California comfortably with 32 percent of the vote; Douglas and Bell voters totaled 40 percent, putting the “loyal” vote at more than 70 percent, while Breckinridge’s “Southern Democrats” only won about 28 percent. Significantly, in January, 1862, California elected its first Republican governor, Leland Stanford, one of the leading businessmen in the state; he joined Oregon’s John Whiteaker, a Democrat elected in 1858, and the appointed territorial governors of Washington, William Pickering, and Nevada, James W. Nye, both Republicans named by the president. All four men supported Washington’s calls for troops; almost 20,000 volunteers, organized into ten regiments and two battalions of infantry, four regiments and a separate battalion of cavalry, were raised on the Pacific Slope. These troops – eight regiments of infantry, three of cavalry, and a separate battalion in California, two regiments (one each of infantry and cavalry) from Oregon, an infantry regiment in Washington, and a battalion each of infantry and cavalry in Nevada – were entirely separate from the part-time state and territorial militias (split between organized and unorganized elements) and the regulars of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Revenue Marine who remained at posts from Puget Sound to San Diego. In September, 1862, Whiteaker was replaced by Addison Gibbs, an attorney and legislator who was elected as Oregon’s first Republican governor; the Democrat, a volunteer officer during the Mexican War, was then named adjutant general for the state.

When the British launched their attack on San Francisco, not surprisingly, and similarly to other poorly-planned peripheral campaigns (the attack on Petropavlovsk in 1854 and the 1859 attempt on the Taku Forts in China), it failed. Both the British and the Americans suffered heavily in the Golden Gate battles, both afloat and ashore (the Americans more heavily than the Russians or Chinese had, for that matter), but the British took greater losses off San Francisco than the Americans did, and had to retire absent Admiral Maitland, his flagship - the frigate Bacchante - the gunboats Hecate and Devastation, and about half of the 67th (South Hampshire) regiment.

After the British occupation of Olympia, however, the conflict in the Pacific had settled down to a desultory war that included commerce raiding, the occasional raid or bombardment of a timbered village on the shores of various American or British territories, and halting efforts at reinforcement by both sides. To that end, by the winter of 1862-63 the British had drawn heavily on the New Zealand garrison, including its commander since 1861, Lt. Gen. Duncan Cameron, and his staff, as well as replacing the late Rear Admiral Maitland with the commander of the Australasian Squadron, Commodore Sir Frederick B. P. Seymour, CB, who came across the Pacific with his flagship, the corvette HMS Pelorus (21).

Cameron, 54, was the only son of the late General Sir John Cameron, and had been commissioned as an infantry officer in 1825, rising to colonel by the time of the Russian war and commanding the Black Watch (42nd) at the Alma and Balaclava, and afterwards the Highland Brigade in the Crimea, including during the siege of Sebastopol and the failed assault on the Redan in 1855. Despite the embarrassing defeat (the French carried their objectives at the same time) Cameron was commissioned brigadier and then major general in Russia, and lieutenant general for the New Zealand command; along with the general, two more of the four remaining regular battalions in that colony were sent north. Seymour, 41, came from a military family; his father was an army officer, a grandfather an admiral, and an older brother had been killed at Inkerman. The commodore had joined the Royal Navy in 1834, served in Burma and the Black Sea during the Russian war, and then had taken the New Zealand command in 1860, serving ashore as naval brigade commander against the Maori in 1861.

Over the autumn, Cameron and Seymour had taken hold of their respective commands; Seymour’s cruisers successfully ran down several of the troublesome American commerce raiders, while Cameron had brought the regiments that had suffered casualties in California up to strength with a mix of drafts from the remaining British battalions in New Zealand and volunteers from Australia and British Columbia. By the winter, in part because of London’s strategy to try and make claims on American territory that could be used as bargaining chips, the British were ready to strike again at the U.S. west coast.

None of the British, even Douglas, was eager to try a second time at San Francisco, however; the memory of the debacle in 1862 was too fresh, and the reinforcements were not available to mount a second, stronger effort (akin to the 1860 attack on the Taku Forts) in an effort to redeem the defeat. There was little elsewhere in California worth the effort - the only other city with more than 9,000 people in 1860 was Sacramento, far inland and even more difficult to get at than San Francisco; the towns of Monterey (5,000), Los Angeles (4,000), and Santa Barbara (2,000) were vulnerable enough, but would require spreading Cameron’s troops in a number of enclaves. Instead, the British planned a combined assault on Portland, the largest settlement in Oregon. As Douglas, rather hopefully, had written: “with Puget Sound, and the line of the Columbia in our hands, we should hold the only navigable outlets of the country – command its trade, and soon compel it to submit to Her Majesty’s rule.”

How that would work out, of course, was a different matter. Portland, founded in 1851 at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, had some 3,000 residents in the 1860s census; in large part because of the location, the town was larger than Oregon City (1,200), Eugene (1,100), and Salem (1,000), the state capital. In addition, just north across the Columbia was Fort Vancouver, the largest military installation in the Pacific Northwest and headquarters of the United States Army’s Columbia District, a subordinate command of the Pacific Department, itself centered in San Francisco. When the Anglo-American war broke out, the resources of the Columbia District had been slender; the District’s commanding officer, Col. Albemarle Cady (USMA, 1829, infantry) had fewer than 3,000 federal troops in the District, which included both Washington Territory and Oregon. By necessity, Cady’s troops were scattered across the District when the British landed at Olympia; with the defeat there, and the occupation, essentially, of the Puget Sound country, the senior American officers on the Pacific Slope - Flag Officer John B. Montgomery and Major General George Wright, (USMA, 1822, infantry), both with headquarters at the Mint in San Francisco and within walking distance of the Union Iron Works, largest foundry on the West Coast of the Americas – reorganized their forces, both to continue the defense of San Francisco Bay and provide stronger defenses for the Columbia River.

Given the importance of San Francisco, the majority of the Navy’s efforts remained with the squadron on the bay, commanded by Flag Officer Charles H. Bell and refitted after Golden Gate at the Mare Island Navy Yard, and with the commerce raiders operating across the Pacific. About all that could be spared for the Columbia was a small naval staff, led by Captain James F. Schenck. Schenck, commissioned as a midshipman in 1825, had served in the Mexican War and commanded the Mare Island-built gunboat Saginaw in Chinese waters in 1860-61, returning to California when war with the British threatened. He had then commissioned and fit out the Pacific Mail merchant steamer California as a commerce raider at Mare Island, and had taken her – now USS California, and known as one of the “three pirates,” along with her sisters Oregon and Panama – on a cruise across the North Pacific as far as Japan and back. Schenck had captured half-a-dozen British merchant ships before running into the Columbia with the sidewheel sloop HMS Leopard (18), Captain Charles Keckie, in hot pursuit. Keckie, absent a bar pilot and knowing nothing about the river, prudently remained off-shore, while Schenck took his cruiser upstream to the Willamette.

Schenck was named commanding officer on the Lower Columbia, and started converting a half-dozen river steamers into gunboats; he was joined by Cdr. Edward F. Beale, who had served in the Navy from 1837-51. Beale was a singular character; son of a naval officer and grandson of Captain Thomas Truxtun, he had served at sea and ashore during the Mexican War. Beale had served in various federal posts after leaving the Navy, including as surveyor general of California and Nevada in 1860-61, and had offered his services when war with the British threatened in the winter of 1861-62.

Montgomery had ordered Beale north to Portland, and he worked alongside Schenck to try and provide some sort of defense of the big river; resources were extremely limited, however, and included little beyond a variety of log booms and fire rafts to be pushed by the river steamers; these included the iron-hulled side-wheeler Belle of Oregon City, built with iron produced at Smith’s foundry in Oregon City, and commissioned as the USS Oregon City, Schenck’s flagship. She was joined by the steamboats Multnomah, Clark, Buck, Ladd, Barclay, and Wasco, and the iron-hulled propeller launch Eagle; none had more than one or two small guns, however, and their crews were a mix of riverboat men, merchant sailors,, and a tiny cadre of experienced naval and Revenue servicemen.

Given the above, the defense of the Columbia country was to be largely an Army effort. The field force in the north would be under the command of Brigadier General Benjamin Alvord (USMA, 1833, infantry), 49, who had served against the Seminole and in Mexico under both Taylor and Scott, earning brevets at Resaca delaPalma and Churubusco, before staff duty and teaching at West Point; Cady, 56, who had won a brevet at Molino del Rey, would serve as Alvord’s chief of staff, assisted by Major Pinckney Lugenbeel (USMA, 1840, infantry), a recipient of brevets for gallantry at Churubusco and Chapultepec.

During the autumn, Alvord’s forces were sustained by the occasional fast steamer run north from San Francisco to Portland with supplies and the slow but certain overland route, 600 miles north from Benicia Arsenal to Fort Vancouver. By the time winter set in, the Columbia District would essentially be on its own, and Wright – assisted by Alvord’s successor as chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Lucius H. Allen (USMA, 1839, artillery), a successful merchant in San Francisco who had served as commanding general of the California Militia before returning the federal service – wanted the command to be as strong as possible. The Americans were assisted in this by the successful conclusion of the New Mexico campaign at Glorieta Pass in March, 1862, when 1,300 U.S. soldiers had stopped a force of 1,100 rebels, mostly Texans, high in the Sangre de Cristos, and sent them reeling back southeast, back across the desert.

Glorieta Pass had secured New Mexico, and the New Mexican volunteers had demonstrated their loyalty; likewise, Major General Alexander Doniphan’s appointment to command of the Department of the Southwest had defused any potential problems with the Mormons in Utah. Enough Utahans and New Mexicans had joined the colors to free up the California Volunteers previously assigned to the Great Basin and New Mexico; those troops, hardened by active service in the field in 1861-62, and under experienced commanders, were what allowed Wright to send enough troops north to Alvord over the autumn to face the British in the winter.

By the spring of 1863, Alvord had an experienced staff in place, and was working closely with the Washington Territorial government (based in Centralia since Olympia’s occupation) and the Oregon state government and forces, headquartered in Salem. Alvord’s headquarters was at Fort Vancouver, midway between Centralia and Corvallis, where he could oversee what amounted to several garrisons and two reinforced infantry brigades. At this point, the command staff of the Columbia District was as follows:

Commanding General, Columbia District, Department of the Pacific:
Brigadier General Benjamin Alvord (USMA, 1833, infantry)
Chief of Staff: Col. Albemarle Cady (1829, infantry)
Assistant Chief of Staff: Major Pinckney Lugenbeel (1840, infantry)
Assistant Adjutant General: Lt. William B. Hughes (1856, infantry)
Chief of Ordnance: Capt. Theodore J. Eckerson (direct commission, 1853, ordnance)
Attached from Oregon state forces:
Adjutant General: Col. (OR) John Whiteaker
Chief of staff/ADC: Lt. Col. (OR) Thomas D. Johns (1848, infantry)
Commissary General: Col. (OR) Joel Palmer
Surgeon-General: Capt. (OR) David S. Maynard

Setting aside the garrisonsscattered across the Northwest, including those at Fort Vancouver and the fortified post at the Cascades, between the Lower and Middle Columbia, the field forces amounted to two mixed brigades, each with a volunteer cavalry regiment, three volunteer infantry regiments, and a regular Army field artillery battery. Alvord’s brigade commanders included two veterans of the regulars, brigadier generals James H. Carleton and Patrick Connor.

Carleton, 48, had been born in 1814 in Lubec, Maine, five months after his parents had fled nearby Eastport after the British occupation. He had served as a Maine militia lieutenant in the Aroostook Crisis in 1839 and received a direct commission to the regular 1st Dragoons the same year. Carleton had served on active duty for the next two decades, across the west and in Mexico, where he had served on John Wool’s staff and been brevetted for gallantry at Buena Vista. In 1861-62, Carleton had raised the 1st California Volunteer Infantry, serving in the New Mexico Territory, and then taking his brigade north to the Columbia after the Golden Gate.
Connor, 42, was born in Ireland and came to the U.S. as a child, enlisting in the regulars in 1839 and serving against the Seminole; during the Mexican War he had been commissioned in the Texas volunteers and saw action with Taylor’s expedition at Palo Alto, Resaca, and Buena Vista. After the war he had moved to California and raised the 3rd California in 1861, serving at the Golden Gate battle in July and then being sent north to form a brigade in the Columbia District.
The two brigades were organized as follows:

1st Brigade, Columbia District: Brigadier General James H. Carleton
1st California Infantry – Lt. Col. Joseph R. West
2nd California Infantry – Col. Francis J. Lippitt
1st Oregon Infantry – Col. Reuben F. Maury
1st California Cavalry – Maj. Edward E. Eyre
Battery A, 3rd U.S. Artillery – Capt. John B. Shinn, (1856, artillery)

2nd Brigade, Columbia District: Brigadier General Patrick Connor
3rd California Infantry – Lt. Col. Robert Pollock
4th California Infantry – Col. Ferris Forman
1st Washington Infantry – Lt. Col. Thomas C. English (1849, infantry)
1st Oregon Cavalry – Col. Thomas R. Cornelius
Washington Militia Company – Maj. (WA) Joseph L. Meek;
Snoqualmie Company - Capt. Patkanim
Battery B, 3rd U.S. Artillery - Lt. Augustus G. Robinson (1857, artillery)

Along with the volunteers and regulars of Carleton’s 1st Brigade, based at Fort Vancouver, and Connor’s 2nd, headquartered at Centralia in Washington Territory, were the part-time soldiers of the Washington Territorial and Oregon State militia. The small number of Washington militia remained under the command of Adjutant General Frank Matthias, with two mounted companies - one “white” under Major Joseph L. Meek and an “Indian” company under Chief Patkanim of the Snoqualmie. Meek was a former trapper and mountain man who had crossed the Rockies in 1829, marrying into the Nez Perce, and a Northwestern pioneer who had settled in the territory in 1841. Meek had served as a sheriff, territorial marshal, and fought as an officer of territorial militia during the Yakima war; among the American’s allies had been Patkanim, known universally among the Americans as “Pat Kanim,” who had led his warriors alongside Meek. In 1862, the old chief had brought his men to Connor when the British occupied Seattle.

The Oregon militia, however, were organized into a paper brigade under the command of one of the most singular officers on the Pacific coast, Brigadier General (OR) Joseph H. Lane, former brevet major general of United States Volunteers, U.S. senator, and a Democratic candidate for vice president in the 1860 election.

At 61, Lane was among the oldest field commanders, but was a tough, hard-bitten individual who in many ways was an exemplar of the men who had made the American west in the decades before the Civil War. Son of a Revolutionary War veteran, Lane was born in North Carolina and moved to Kentucky and then Indiana, where he worked flatboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and made a small fortune. He was elected to the Indiana legislature and served in the state militia, rising from captain to colonel of an Indiana volunteer regiment during the Mexican War.

Lane was commissioned a brigadier general and served as such in Mexico, was wounded twice, led his brigade with distinction at Buena Vista and Puebla, and was brevetted to major general in 1847. He served as governor of Oregon Territory in 1849-50 and again in 1853, before becoming the territory’s delegate in Washington and then the state’s first U.S. senator in 1859-61. Between stints in Washington, he had served as adjutant general of the state and led troops against the Cayuse, Takelma, and Rogue River Indians. Lane was nominated for the vice-presidency on Breckinridge’s “Southern Democrat” ticket in 1860; he left office after Lincoln’s election, and withdrew to his home in Roseburg, Oregon, completely unapologetic for his southern and pro-slavery sympathies but - although one of his five sons served the Confederacy – a loyalist at heart. When the war with the British broke out in 1862, Lane had offered his services, and the former governor, Whiteaker, also a Democrat, appointed him adjutant general. When Gibbs was elected, Lane offered his resignation; instead, he was replaced by Whiteaker and – with Alvord’s endorsement – took command of what amounted to a regiment’s worth of separate companies of Oregon militia from Portland and points south to provide a defense for the south side of the Columbia.

When the British attacked, then, the U.S. forces included Alvord’s headquarters and Carleton’s brigade at Fort Vancouver, north of the river; Connor’s brigade was 80 miles north at Centralia. All of the above, some 8,000 men, were north of the Columbia; Lane’s command, some 1,000 Oregon militia, were south of the Columbia, headquartered up the Willamette at Portland. Schenck’s small squadron was on the Columbia itself.

Cameron and his staff, for their part, assembled the available troops into a light division of two brigades; the force was organized as follows:

British Columbia Division - Commanding General: Lt. Gen. D.A. Cameron
Chief of Staff: Maj. G.S. Whitmore, 62nd F;
Dep. Adjutant General: Lt. Col. Robert Carey, 40th F.;
Asst. Quarter Master General: Lt. Col. Dominic J. Gamble
ADC: Capt. John C. McNeill, Bengal Infantry

1st Brigade - Col. Richard C. Moody, RE
1st Btn, 12th Regiment (East Suffolk) – Lt. Col. Henry M. Hamilton
2nd Btn, 14th Regiment (Buckinghamshire) – Lt. Col. Sir James Alexander
2nd Btn, 24th Regiment (2nd Warwickshire) – Lt. Col. Charles H. Ellice, CB
Royal Engineers Company; British Columbia Mounted Volunteers
1st Section, Royal Artillery & Naval (Artillery) Brigade

2nd Brigade - Col. Thomas Edmond Knox, CB, 67th F.
40th Regiment (2nd Somersetshire) – Lt. Col. Arthur Leslie
57th Regiment (West Middlesex) – Lt. Col. Henry J. Warre
67th Regiment (South Hampshire) – Lt. Col. John Wellesley Thomas, CB
2nd Section, Naval (Artillery) Brigade & Royal Marines

The plan that Cameron and Seymour arrived at was simple; the Pacific Squadron would convoy Knox’s 2nd Brigade, made up of the veterans of Golden Gate and with the most experience cooperating with the Navy, south to the Columbia River mouth and then up the river to Portland and Fort Vancouver, which they would assault under the guns of Seymour’s squadron. At roughly the same time, Moody’s 1st Brigade, reinforced by the engineers and the only horse in the British order of battle, the British Columbia volunteers, would more overland from Olympia south to the Chehalis and then the Cowlitz, overrunning most of the Washington Territory west of the mountains.

Plans and operations in war, of course, rarely coincide; so it was for the British offensive into Washington Territory, from north and south. The northern column, commanded by Cameron, left Olympia early in March, 1863. The advance, despite the cold, went relatively well; although the 1st Brigade’s three battalions were new to the theater, Moody knew the Northwest well and was a skilled engineer (although a senior colonel, Moody’s experience was almost entirely as a staff officer, rather than with the line, which is why Cameron rode with the northern column). The force made relatively good time initially on the march from Olympia to Tumwater; the Americans were little in evidence, and the country – a mix of farms and fields fallow in the winter and woodlots, was flat and frozen; despite the occasional flurry of snow or rain, by the end of the first day’s march the brigade had reached Salmon Creek, and camped.

That afternoon, however, the Americans struck, beginning with (appropriately enough) a volley of flaming arrows that set some of Cameron’s wagons on fire. Meek’s frontiersman and Patkanim’s Indians had been following Cameron’s trains as they trundled south from Tumwater to Salmon Creek, using the Deschutes Breaks to snipe from cover. The only mounted men the Cameron had, the British Columbia Volunteers, were mostly scouting ahead and did not know the country like the Washington militia did: the end result was when Cameron’s rear-guard, the 2nd Btn, 24th Regiment, deployed to drive the raiders off, the Americans and Indians could just mount up and ride away, leaving the occasional dead soldier, sailor-turned-gunner, or civilian teamster behind.

From Salmon Creek, Cameron continued moving south, through the more rugged country north and south of Beaver Creek, where his column took fire from 200-foot-tall Castle Hill; the British stopped again, deployed the 2nd Btn, 14th Regiment into line of battle, and the rifleman – who having thrown off their overcoats, were resplendent in scarlet tunics - moved up the hill with support from the brigade’s battery of Armstrong 12-pounders. The gunners, a mix of Royal Artillerymen and Royal Navy sailors, were firing blind, however, and the Americans, yet again, rode out of range, leaving a few more red coated infantry dead among the pines. The British camped closed up along Beaver Creek with the guns arrayed outward in the wagons providing some cover; Cameron’s men enjoyed a mostly quiet night and stood to in the morning.

Meek and Patkanim had withdrawn south of Scatter Creek overnight, but as the British moved into the open country south of the creek and north of Grand Mound, they re-appeared to harry the advance. At the same time, another American unit entered the fray; this was Col. Thomas R. Cornelius’ 1st Oregon Cavalry, raised in 1861. Cornelius was an amateur soldier; an early Oregon pioneer (he came by the overland route in 1845, settled, and farmed and cut timber); he had volunteered for the Oregon militia for the Cayuse and Yakima war, rising to colonel in 1856. When the war broke out in 1861, Cornelius had been commissioned colonel of the 1st Oregon, which initially served as garrison troops across the state and Washington Territory; when the British took Olympia, Cornelius had concentrated the regiment at Centralia to provide a mounted regiment for Connor’s brigade.

The combination of the cavalry and the mounted irregulars kept Cameron’s brigade busy, moving in and out of column repeatedly, and suffering again from American marksmen on the high ground, notably Grand Mound itself and the hills north of Prairie Creek. When the British went into camp that night on the banks of Prairie Creek, Cameron’s force – which had marched out of Olympia with more than 4,000 men, infantry, mounted volunteers, artillery, and engineers, had left almost a quarter of its strength behind, either as casualties or guards for the supply train.

The next morning, the brigade marched into the Chehalis Valley, crisscrossed by creeks that fed into the river, which hugged the flanks of the hills on the western side of the Valley; the hills and mountains that overlooked the farmland and woodlots of the Valley itself rose abruptly from the valley floor to heights of 400 feet and above. The American mounted troops had withdrawn south toward Centralia, but scouts watched the British the full length of the march down the Valley. By nightfall, Cameron’s brigade had reached Ford’s Prairie, at the north end of a wide plain formed by the mountains on two sides where the Chehalis took a wide swing to the east and its confluence with the Skookumchuck; the town lay to the southeast, protected by the two rivers to the north and west. Fort Borst, a mix of wooden blockhouses and entrenchments dug in the summer, lay to the northwest, across the Chehalis, and effectively blocked any drive against Centralia. The fort would be Cameron’s objective in the morning, and he planned a deliberate assault, with two battalions up, one in reserve, and artillery support.

The Americans, for their part, did not waste the night; the militia, Indians, and troopers kept the British in action all night, while Connor’s California and Washington infantry and the regular artillery remained fresh and rested. In the morning, the American mounted troops, under Cornelius’ command, fell back into the hills, and Cameron mounted his attack.
Men from the 12th, 14th, and 24th regiments were organized into two lines, with a detachment of the 24th in reserve. A storming party of Royal Engineers carrying ladders and planks was poised for action. The naval and Royal Artillery gunners led by Capt. Henry Mercer were ready to shell the American entrenchments.

The British moved forward, and the Americans – three regiments of volunteer infantry raised in 1861-62 and a battery of regular artillery, dug in both north and south of the Skookumchuck – waited for the British, opening fire as the men of the East Suffolk regiment assaulted the fort, held by the men of the 1st Washington and led by Lt. Col. Thomas C. English, an 1849 graduate of West Point who had been stationed in the Northwest since 1856. As the British drove forward, the two regiments of California volunteers and the regular artillery, dug in south of the river, were well placed to fire enfilade into the British lines.

The 3rd California had been raised in 1861 by Connor; Pollock, his executive officer, had been a major in the state militia prewar and was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the volunteers when the regiment was raised. The 4th had also been raised in 1861, initially under the command of then-Col. Henry Moses Judah, a regular and West Pointer; when Judah was re-assigned to the east late in the war (to serve as chief of staff of the XIV Corps, Army of the Ohio, under Thomas), Foreman – who had commanded an Illinois volunteer regiment with distinction during the Mexican War, moved to California in 1849 and served as a postmaster, judge, secretary of state, and in the militia, and had been executive officer of the 4th under Judah – was an obvious choice to take command. The Californians were well supported by Robinson (USMA, 1857), whose regular artillerymen were able to fire from cover as the British attacked the fort.

The result, not surprisingly, was a bloody repulse; in the afternoon, the British tried again. All available men – including Mercer’s gunners – were mustered for a final assault. Strong resistance continued. Mercer was shot in the face and dragged to a ditch where 20 other men lay wounded or dead. Assistant Surgeon William Temple disregarded his own welfare in attending to the wounded. Lt. Arthur Pickard showed similar courage by running through enemy fire to seek help from Moody, and both Temple and Pickard received the Victoria Cross for their efforts, but by nightfall there was a stalemate. The entrenchments around Fort Borst had proven too difficult an objective, and the approaches were “littered with dead and wounded.” The British had never even reached the Skookumchuck, much less the Chehalis, and Centralia itself was unscathed.

Plans were made for a renewed assault at dawn, but the American cavalry and mounted irregulars engaged again that night, their presence marked by arrows that – yet again – targeted the supply train and ammunition wagons. Cameron had expected the Americans would be forced to withdraw because of Seymour’s and Knox’ movement up the Columbia, but there was no word from the south – and if the general had heard of the debacle at Battle Ground, it would have been even more disheartening, even after the “victories” at Goose Hollow and Fort Vancouver and the burning of Portland.

Instead, at noon the next day – six days after the British had marched out of Olympia – Cameron sent an emissary to Connor asking for a truce to care for the wounded and bury the dead; the American agreed. When the truce expired, the British withdrew to the north, and the Americans – equally exhausted and with only the thinnest of supply lines to the south via Fort Cascades on the Middle Columbia – did little more than follow them back to Tumwater. The largest campaign on the Pacific Coast was over.

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An Occurrence at Chinook Creek - From Liberipedia, the free encyclopedia
Author - Ambrose Bierce
Country - United States
Language - English
Genre(s) - short story
Published in - Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
Publication date - 1890

"An Occurrence at Chinook Creek" or "A Dead Man's Dream" is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published by The San Francisco Examiner in 1890, it was first collected in Bierce's 1891 book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The story, which is set in the Pacific Northwest during the Anglo-American war, is famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is considered an early example of experimentation with stream of consciousness. It is Bierce's most anthologized story, and appears to have been inspired both by Bierce’s own service in the 9th Indiana (he rose from private to major, and saw action in Upper and Lower Canada and New Brunswick before being wounded) and stories he heard about the “Indian war” in the Pacific Northwest during the conflict.

The story is that of Farquhar Peyton, a British officer condemned to death by hanging from Chinook Creek Bridge. In the first part of the story, Peyton, a young officer in his early twenties, is standing on a half-built bridge in Washington Territory. Six American militiamen, including a “general” named Old Joe Law and a half-breed called “Chief” Cannon, are present. The setting is the aftermath of the British expedition to Oregon and Washington Territory; the burning of Portland and the battles of Goose Hollow (referred to as a skirmish) and Battle Ground, are referenced, and the surrender of the British “Hampshire Regiment” (a reference to the 67th Foot, apparently) at Battle Ground is mentioned as well. Peyton, the British officer, is to be hanged from the bridge because rather than surrender with his regiment, he changed into civilian clothes and tried to escape to the British forces at Fort Vancouver. Captured by the militia at "Chinook Creek," he is condemned as a spy in a drumhead court-martial by “General” Law, described derisively as a renegade and the “victor of Goose Glen.”

As Peyton is waiting, he thinks of his parents, but is distracted by a tremendously loud noise that “sounds like the clanging of a blacksmith's hammer on the anvil.” Peyton cannot tell if it is coming from far away or close by, and finds himself nervously waiting each clang, which finally is shown to be the ticking of his watch. Then, an escape plan flashes through Peyton’s mind: "throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, take to the woods and get away." His thoughts stray back to his home in England.

The soldiers put a noose over his head and push him off the bridge, but the rope snaps. Peyton finds himself in the rushing waters of the creek and escapes, despite gunfire from the militiamen. Somehow he survives and struggles ashore, and after what seems to be days struggling in the wilderness, he appears to find his way to back to England. Although in the story, Peyton accepts this, it appears to the reader that he is hallucinating due to exposure.

In the penultimate scene, Peyton stumbles across the sunny lawn of his family estate, groping toward his parents, who are sitting on a terrace, absorbed in reading letters; as he reaches him and starts to speak, they turn, but Peyton’s words are suddenly cut off by a sudden thunderous crack. He feels a searing pain in his neck; a white light flashes, and everything goes black.

It is revealed that Peyton never escaped at all; he had imagined the entire “escape” story during the time between falling from the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck. The letters his parents were reading were from his commander, detailing how Peyton was executed.

-30-​

 

[Shadow Knight]

I was just wondering this morning how the next update to this most excellent story was coming along. And here we are another wonderful update.

So just how badly has this fighting in the northwest depleted British strength in the Pacific?

 

[sloreck]

Yay..it's baaack!! Hope all is well with the author.

Burning Portland...that's not a good move. Even if it was an accident it won't sit well with the USA. Every incident like that will build up resentment. IMHO whatever bits of the Northwest the British may still hold when the fighting stops are unlikely to be ceded to the UK - if the US restarts the fighting they can probably get them back easily and the British could end up losing Vancouver...

Love Sherman's letter, will the British commander in Quebec see reality or will his command be sacrificed to no useful end? Either way Britain will be cleared out of most of Canada east of the lakes pretty soon.

 

[Unknown]

It's back...

Like the Owl Creek ATL story.

Man, the burning of Portland will not end well for the British, at all...

 

[MrBill]

Glad this is back!!

I have enjoyed this TL very much and glad it has returned.

I appreciate the time and effort that has been made insure the details and facts are there in OTL to support what you have written iTTL. The amount of detail for the military units amazes me.

Good west coast update, I assume there will be one or more to follow. Then, I would like to see how the battles in Maine and Canada are shaping up.

As I was reading the update, I was wondering to myself if my great grandfather and his brothers or father would have joined the California troops, I believe they were in the militia at that time.

Thanks again for making my day with the update and looking forward to the next.

MrBill

 

[TFSmith121]

Very kind of you...

I was just wondering this morning how the next update to this most excellent story was coming along. And here we are another wonderful update.

So just how badly has this fighting in the northwest depleted British strength in the Pacific?

Very kind of you...

Pretty significantly, all in all.

The thing to keep in mind about the Pacific coast of North America in any Great Power confrontation in the mid-Nineteenth Century is how far away from the Atlantic it is, most significantly in a world without the Panama Canal.

As an example, in the days of the Spanish Empire, it took longer to get from Spain to California than anywhere else in the Empire, including the Philippines... and that had not changed in any significant way by 1860.

It is also worth remembering that as significant a military presence the British maintained in the Cape and points east in the 1860s, the strategic focus was India. The Royal Navy's East Indies and China, African, Australian, and Pacific squadrons existed, essentially, to defend the trade routes, but especially those to and from India; while the British Army's garrisons outside of India in the (northern hemipshere) winter of 1861-62 amounted to (essentially) four battalions of regular infantry in the Cape; two in Mauritius; one in Ceylon; four in China; six in New Zealand; and no less than 50 (+ 9 "white" EIC infantry battalions).

The forces in India were essentially locked in place, both because of the realities of the Mutiny/Rebellion (which had only ended in 1858), plus the demobolization and reorganization of the Bengal Army, the absorption of the EIC army into the British service, and the demands of various campaigns in India proper; in China, the British had finished the 1860 expedition roughly a year earlier, and were facing the reality of the Taipings; while in New Zealand, the British had finished one Maori war in the same year and started another in 1863 (historically).

So, realistically, six battalions - one each from Mauritius and China and then four, in two separate detachments, pulled from New Zealand - is about all that seems likely in the world of BROS before later in 1863, and those same units (presumably) have to pick up Oahu along the way.

My model for the "Columbia River" campaign was sparked by the quote attributed to Douglas in the DCB; shows that, as always, various imperial and colonial officials were thinking with their hearts, not their heads, especially given the differential in population and industry between what the British could, literally, scare up for a Pacific Northwest in 1862 and the latent resources of the United States in the same theater.

It's really not a contest, especially when one considers the British track record on the offensive against the Russians at Petropavlovsk and the Chinese at the Taku Forts, in the same theater and only a few years before.

Having said that, I have not spelled out what Knox and Seymour might have accomplished on the Columbia and Willamette in the event of a dual pronged operation as has been sketched out - which, conceptually at least, is based on Cameron's actual plan of operations in the Waikato war in 1863; an overland movement coupled with a maritime/riverine arm.

As it was, the British came close to stalemate at Rangiriri, which is where most of the "British" details of the attack on Fort Borst and the Chehalis/Centralia position comes from, down to the VC winners.

My take is professionally educated officers in a Western army, with men who know their ground, modern small arms and artillery, and months to entrench and make their plans, presumably could do slightly better than the Maori - who came close to stopping Cameron et al as it was...

Having said that, there's presumably enough hints as to the aftermath, but it will be revisted in Chapter 16; the last section of Chapter 15, however, will go to the other side of the continent...

As always, thanks for reading, and the comment; they are appreciated.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Nope, not a good move, although it seems to be the "default"

Yay..it's baaack!! Hope all is well with the author.

Burning Portland...that's not a good move. Even if it was an accident it won't sit well with the USA. Every incident like that will build up resentment. IMHO whatever bits of the Northwest the British may still hold when the fighting stops are unlikely to be ceded to the UK - if the US restarts the fighting they can probably get them back easily and the British could end up losing Vancouver...

Love Sherman's letter, will the British commander in Quebec see reality or will his command be sacrificed to no useful end? Either way Britain will be cleared out of most of Canada east of the lakes pretty soon.

Nope, not a good move, although it seems to be the "default" for some who suggest the RN would conquer all in such a conflict; why burning or shelling undefended towns is seen as somehow a gamechanger in an Anglo-American conflict, when it didn't exactly drive any Western power to the negotiating table otherwise, is generally left unexplained.

The rebels burned Chambersburg, for example, and that did little but give the US yet another rallying point...

The Northwest is a secondary or even tertiary theater for both the US and the Uk in the event of an Anglo-American conflict in this period, but given the resource differential, even a tertiary American effort is going to be able to stand off (most) of a British tertiary effort; given the results of 2nd Taku Forts and Petropavlovsk, and the much more significant level of defense forces the US could generate than the Chinese or Russians, San Francisco would have been essentially unassaible ... which leaves the British to Puget Sound and the Columbia, or raids on places like Monterey and Santa Barbara, which accomplishes nothing other than driving "white" women and children from their homes.

As far as exactly what happened on the Columbia and Willamette, and at Portland/Goose Hollow, Fort Vacouver, and Battle Ground, tried to provide some hints, but left it open for some speculation.

My take is the British would be looking for claims to trade at the negotiating table by this point (11 months into the Anglo-American conflict, about two years into the war as a whole); and that, of course, ties to the strategic realities in the Canadas...

As suggested by Cump's letter, as you point out. (which is basically an espy of his to the mayor and council delegation of Atlanta in 1864, so moved up a year and with some slight edits...)

As far as the author goes, work, family, life, etc.; but I am still enjoying this, and its nice to see that others are as well.

Thanks again for reading and the comment; appreciate it.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Um, more or less...

The Brits just shot their bolt. If the 2nd Brigade was as roughly handled as the first(implied surrender of the 67th), I expect the US will be taking a counter offensive later in the year. Once Mare Island and the foundries in San Francisco get going, the US can outproduce the British on the west coast by a massive margin. There won't be much British Pacific Northwest remaining by year end.

Um, more or less... Lt. Gen. Cameron isn't quite Pyrrhus, but he's not Hannibal, either.

The overland/amphibious-riverine attempt at a double envelopment is (essentially) what the British tried in the Waikato war in New Zealand in 1863-64; they won, but it took roughly ~14,000 troops against maybe 4,000 Maori, with roughly ~700 British casualties vs. ~1,100 Maori.

Same commanders, same staff, many of the same units, but against a Western enemy with professional officers, modern artillery and small arms, a tenous but useable supply line to what amounted to an integrated industrial center (Benicia, Mare Island, Union Ironworks, and the Mint, for example), and with locally-raised troops who knew the country? I'm not seeing a romp for the British here.

Without giving too much away, Cameron's column was turned back with significant losses (a failed Rangiriri and then some); Knox's force, covered by Seymour, achieved its initial objectives (north and south of the Columbia) but got (as one might expect in a conflict where there were facing a mix of regulars, volunteers, and militia who know the country and aren't exactly shrinking violets) got roughly handled, and then overextended in the pursuit ... in response, "things" (like Portland) tend to get broken.

As far as what happens in the Pacific Northwest between "now" (March, 1863) and the end of the year, wait and see.

As always, thanks for reading and the comment. Glad you are enjoying it.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Thanks!

It's back...Like the Owl Creek ATL story. Man, the burning of Portland will not end well for the British, at all...

Thanks! I thought of laying out the fate of Seymour and Knox's expedition against Schenck and Alvord and all, but thought I'd leave some room for speculation ... and the Bierce element just sort of suggested itself while looking at google maps in terrain view; cripes, every other watercourse in Washington and Oregon is named Salmon Creek.

Nope, burning "western" cities/towns generally did not, in this era; but given the personalities and frustrations inherent in an enemy who doesn't sit still to be squashed, I can see it.

It also seems to be the default for those who see the RN as an irresistible force, which is interesting given the results of 2nd Taku Forts and Petropavlovsk.

As always, thanks for reading and the comment; it is appreciated.

Best,

 

[vl100butch]

As always, well written...the last bit about the young lieutenant was a tear jerker

Logistics, logistics, logistics....will Henry Haupt be getting the railroad out to Denver and beyond?

 

[galveston bay]

be honest, you just don't like "Portlandia"

I am looking forward to the British move up the Columbia. That will be exciting

 

[TFSmith121]

Thanks very much!

I have enjoyed this TL very much and glad it has returned. I appreciate the time and effort that has been made insure the details and facts are there in OTL to support what you have written iTTL. The amount of detail for the military units amazes me. Good west coast update, I assume there will be one or more to follow. Then, I would like to see how the battles in Maine and Canada are shaping up. As I was reading the update, I was wondering to myself if my great grandfather and his brothers or father would have joined the California troops, I believe they were in the militia at that time. Thanks again for making my day with the update and looking forward to the next. MrBill

Thanks very much; one of the tasks in this was to get the military details as close to reality as possible; all of the orders of battle and personnel assignments are based on various official and semi-official records, including the Navy List and Army List for 1861-62 for the British and the Official Records and Dyer for the US. If you're willing to go through them, it gives you a reasonable understanding of the actual - as opposed to mythic - military balance, which makes it clear such a conflict would not be a walkover for any of the combatants.

That being said, the realities of demographics and economics and the inherent resources of the US and UK actually in North America makes the likely outcome pretty close to undeniable.

Some updates on Maine and Canada will follow in the final section (IV) of Chapter 15, hopefully by this weekend; updates/explainers on some of the other "fronts" in BROS will follow.

As far as the California militia goes, if you know where they lived or what local unit they were part of, it would be interesting to know and try and figure out "where" they'd be in BROS.

As always, thank you for reading and commenting.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Appreciate the kind words...

As always, well written...the last bit about the young lieutenant was a tear jerker ... Logistics, logistics, logistics....will Henry Haupt be getting the railroad out to Denver and beyond?

Appreciate the kind words...

I thought of actually trying to write "this" version of Occurrence, but that seems a little preumptive; Bierce did a pretty nice job of it, after all.

Logistics are coming; there is a line from California north through Oregon, and by way of the Cascades/Dalles, one up into Central and Western Washington. The Oregon Trail is still open, as well; something like 12,000 emigrants came west via that route in 1861 - of course, both are very limited during winter, but it is not impossible to get couriers through.

The USMRR is, in fact, running a basic road west from Elwood, Kansas toward Denver, as sketched out in Chapter 11:

...Col. George W. Cass, (USMA, 1832) a former infantry officer and topographical engineer who had left the army for a business career, serving as president of the Adams Express Company, the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne, and Chicago Railroad in the 1850s. Late in 1861, when war with the British threatened, Cass had offered his services, and had been appointed commander of the U.S. Military Railroads in the Department of Kansas, where he was responsible for building the Transcontinental Military Railroad west from Elwood to Denver.

Completion date for the Elwood to Denver line is approaching; at that point, the wagon roads north and west and south and west will be a slow but unbreakable link for supplies, along with the telegraph for communications. In BROS, Haupt is serving as chief of the USMRR in the Canadas, under Grant as commanding general in the Department of the St. Lawrence. Should be useful.

Thanks for reading, and the post; appreciate it.

Best,

 

[MorningDew]

I forgot, Did the Americans already capture Trois Reveres and are currently seiging Quebec City, or are they still stuck in Lac st. Pierre?

 

[Xenophonte]

The initial extract

Glad to see that this is back ... I thought I was the only impatient, I see it was not so ... !!

The initial extract attributed to Sherman reminded me of the 'spirit' of something that could have told a Roman general in similar circumstances ... Speaking of which, may Quebec or another Canadian city to suffer a similar fate suffered by Atlanta in OTL.
Maybe the first step for introduce the British to the type of war waged by the Union and the secessionist Southerners or at least that, starting perhaps to understand what kind of war in which they are struggling.

British Army logistical difficulties and to deploy troops to meet the need arising in their interests around the world and the growing need to prioritize from their political and military leaders, given its finite material and human resources.

Something that is obvious, besides the increasing and obvious disproportion in population between the two sides, is also almost uniform existence among American Officers with experience in combat... regular or irregular.

It's nice to see mentioned in the context of this TL, that Battle key in southwest theater of the American civil war ...

*The first of many appearances in defense of their new nation of the Hispanic New Mexicans.

This is quite relevant given the relative oblivion ,politically motivated perhaps, and given current US political climate.


** Of course, they were neither the only nor the first Hispanic to do of the Unionist side, as well as there were Hispanics whose regional loyalties and geopolitical circumstances led them to organize regiments and fight for the South.

With regard to my earlier statement about the Battle and '' historical forgetfulness '' I apologize to divert the discussion
but just in case be useful, leave this link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/30/hispanic-activists-pushing-for-glorieta-pass-recog/