Chapter 2, Part 2 – On Canada's fair domain…
BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL: A History of the Great War
By T.F. Smith
Copyright (c) 2013-2014 by the author. All rights reserved.
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Chapter 2, Part 2 – On Canada's fair domain…
i. The gem of the ocean…
When war wing'd its wide desolation,
And threaten'd the land to deform,
The ark then of freedom's foundation,
Columbia rode safe thro' the storm;
With her garlands of vict'ry around her,
When so proudly she bore her brave crew;
With her flag proudly waving before her,
The boast of the red, white and blue.
- taken from “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," written and composed by David T. Shaw, arranged by Thomas á Becket, as published 1843 and 1862
Continental Iron Works
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York
February, 1862
The black ship – if one could call her that – lay alongside the finishing wharf, rising slightly and tugging against her mooring lines as the peak of the afternoon tide flooded along the East River. The brackish stretch of water – actually a tidal strait connecting Upper New York Bay to Long Island Sound – was a bluish-black, rimmed with ice along the shore and the usual detritus of every harbor: seaweed, foam, bits of cordage and paper and wood, and the occasional dead fish. The briny smell of the sea rose, even in winter, and gulls and mergansers fought over what they could find at the shoreline, their squawking echoed by the rattle and slam of machinery ashore. Noise echoed from the Continental yard’s workshops and the barnlike ship house where the object of inspection had been housed, only the week before. Inside, iron rang as a new keel was laid, replacing the one that now hung, unseen, a few feet below the water.
“Not exactly sparkling,” observed John Hay, who had come north - at the presidents’ direction and with the designation of “personal observer” – with a delegation from the Navy Department. The Navy men included Undersecretary Gustavus Fox, a veteran of 18 years in the service before his appointment as Secretary Welles’ number two; Flag Officer Joseph Smith, who as chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks had been appointed chair of Navy’s Ironclad Board in September; and Captain Charles Davis, who had served as secretary to the Blockade Strategy Board in 1861, joined Smith on the Ironclad Board, and been seconded to Lincoln’s “War Room” staff as naval representative.
The group had left Washington by train the previous morning for New York, and even with a need to change lines in Baltimore, they had arrived in Jersey City this morning, taken the Cortlandt Street Ferry across the Hudson to Manhattan, cross the island, and then the Fulton Ferry across the East River to the Navy Yard. They had met several officers and civilians at Navy Yard, inspected the ships undergoing refit or under construction there, and then come to the Continental works in Greenpoint, two miles away by streetcar.
In little more than a day’s travel, even dodging troop trains and freights, they had covered more than 200 miles; now the entire group stood at the water’s edge, adjacent to the slipway and the fitting out wharf, looking at yet another version of the future that steam had brought into existence. Something to think about, Hay thought; when Smith had been born, that same trip by stage could have taken a week. What God hath wrought, indeed…time and distance are fast disappearing…
Fox, at 40 the youngest man other than Hay, spoke up, and in a tone of command generated by years at sea:
“She’s not meant to be pretty, Mister Hay, although by God she’s hard enough,” he said sharply. “Looks more like a flint blade, from this angle, than a gemstone, certainly…”
The real object of the trip lay before them: 172 feet long, with a boxy 41 foot beam, and just over a 10 foot draft, perfect for coastal and inshore waters. The vessel’s keel had been laid October 25, and she had been launched January 30; she was set for commissioning in February – less than four months after she had been approved for construction.
She looks like a cheesebox on a raft, Hay thought, but didn’t dare speak it aloud.
Officers, sailors, and workmen, both from Continental and the Navy Yard, bustled about the 950 tonner, readying her for the passage to the Yard for fitting out and trials. Thin lines of smoke drifted skywards from the ship, like pencil tracings across the cloudy gray sky; the stokers were warming up the boilers. The little ship had only a few feet of freeboard – even just off the ways and unloaded, the water was well within a fathom of the ship’s deck.
“At sea, loaded with men and stores, she’ll be awash,” said Smith, who had entered the service as a 19-year-old midshipman in 1809 and still stood ramrod straight, even at the age of 70. “Quite a change from the days aboard Independence or United States, eh, Captain Davis? Will she be able to fight her guns?”
“True enough, sir, she will be down in the water – not as low as the initial design for Stevens’ battery would have been, but a similar idea – use the sea itself as protection, along with her armor; not unlike the alligator,” Davis, who had spent two years at Harvard before his midshipman’s appointment in 1823 and had been granted a bachelor’s of arts in 1841, was one of the most educated line officers in the service. He tended to show it, and not always to his listeners’ appreciation, Hay thought, as a nearly bald civilian with flamboyant muttonchops snorted.
“The elevated and revolving mount should help,” Davis continued, blithely. “When they all do their trials, we’ll see how she does in comparison with the broadside designs, Merrick & Sons’ at Philadelphia and Bushnell’s at Mystic….and Franklin, up in Portsmouth, and…whatever we finish Stevens’ hull as, I suppose…”
“And, perhaps, some other shipyard’s designs…” offered Hay. “Like Warrior? Or what did the British call their steam batteries for the Crimea? The Aetnas?”
“Mr. Hay, you’ve been reading … perhaps we’ll make a sailor of you yet,” Fox said, with a hint of humor. “Hell, Warrior is too damn big to operate close to shore – we think she can’t even enter the harbor at Bermuda because she draws too much water. Plus, she’s still doing her trials; not even in commission yet, and the steam batteries can’t cross the North Atlantic in winter. They could only manage three knots when they were brand new, six years ago. Let ‘em come.”
There was silence, broken only by the sounds of the yard, the river, and the birds. After the Administration’s refusal of the British terms after Christmas, Lincoln, determined to have the decision for war or peace fall on Palmerston’s shoulders, had Seward offer to submit each nation’s cascading pile of disputes with the other to international arbitration. Arbitration, presumably by one or more of the neutral nations, was a slim chance for a settlement; but the offer had been enough to keep Lyons in Washington for another month, awaiting an answer from London.
All sides understood the question of war or peace was on a knife’s edge; the reality of winter in the North Atlantic was the only thing delaying reception of the British response. Whether arbitration would be refused, and if that would result immediately in conflict, was as yet unknown. The question had 60 million people on two continents in suspense, even as Britain’s North American squadrons – absent some ships still on watch outside of the major American ports – were concentrating at Havana and Bermuda, while troops from Britain and Ireland came ashore in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
In the meantime, the United States was preparing for war; soldiers moving from the eastern and western fronts in Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri to the northern border, by train, steamboat, and on foot; militia had been called out by every coastal state and those along the northern frontier, and engineers wearing Army blue or militia grey were feverishly overseeing improvements and repairs to every fortification from the Chesapeake to San Francisco Bay.
At the same time, the Navy was rushing to complete every warship under construction, either for harbor defense or deep water service; those already in commission were busy covering troop movements, shepherding merchant ships in from the Atlantic, or preparing for duty at sea. Before coming to Continental, the delegation had inspected two such at the Navy Yard; one was the 3,300 ton side-wheel steamer S.S. Vanderbilt, a fast liner chartered for service as a trooper in 1861 and now slated for commissioning and conversion for duty as a cruiser; the other was the 2,600 ton screw sloop USS Richmond, which had been in the yard for a refit after service in the Gulf. Now the once-graceful sloop of war was being converted for coast defense duties, losing her towering masts and yards and gaining extra protection to her hull, as what had already been dubbed a “chain-clad.” Her conversion and those planned for her sisters was just the beginning, however; there was an entirely new generation of steam warships in the offing, and the black monster in front of them was one of the first fruits of the effort.
Hay spoke up.
“So, what’s she going to be called?” he asked no one in particular.
“Well, Mr. Hay, we have been naming the new gunboats like Unadilla after rivers,” began Fox, “but there are only so many of those, and they aren’t the most impressive names-“
A booming voice, with a pronounced Scandinavian accent, came from the balding civilian standing in line with the naval observers.
“Vell, she is going to empress and admonis’ those who ‘tink der only vay to build an ironclad steam batt-ree is by spending three-and-a-half millions on vat amounts ta’ a ship of the line,” the Swede, Captain John Ericsson, artillery officer and naval architect, half-visionary and part entrepreneur and part gadfly, said emphatically.
“Dey vill be monitoring us closely, von’t dey? Ufter all, dere’s an English varship, von of der vuddin valls, in New York Bay today, as we speak…sauce for the gunder, eh? I ‘tink we shud propose to call her the Monitor. Give her a special name, eh, Mister Focks?...she’s der furst of her type, after all. She deserves a name wort’ bein’ remember…”
And so she did.
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Excerpt from
The Great War: a compilation of the official records of the United States and confederate armies, along with material from other official sources of the combatants.; Series 1 - Volume 7
Published Under the Direction of
The Hon. W. W. Lincoln, Jr.
Secretary of War
By
Brig. Gen. Frederick Crayton Ainsworth
Chief of the Record and Pension Office, War Department
Washington, Government Printing Office, 1902
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Headquarters,
Fort Donelson,
February 16, 1862
SIR: In consideration of all the circumstances governing the present situation of affairs at this station I propose to the commanding officers of the Federal forces the appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of capitulation of the forces and post under my command, and in that view suggest an armistice until 12 o’clock to-day.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
SB Buckner
Brigadier-General, C.S. Army
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Headquarters Army in the Field
Camp near Fort Donelson,
February 16, 1862
SIR: Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No term except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant.
U.S. GRANT
Brigadier-General, Commanding
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Headquarters,
Dover, Tennessee, February 16, 1862
SIR: The distribution of the forces under my command incident to an unexpected change of commanders and the overwhelming force under your command compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant success of the Confederate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms which you propose.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
SB Buckner
Brigadier-General, C.S. Army
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The Executive Mansion
Washington City, District of Columbia
February, 1862
Rain was beating against the windows, the sound penetrating even through the shutters, thick glass, and drapes of the East Room. Another day, another meeting in the war room, Nicolay thought. It seems like we had the same discussion almost two months ago… and Seward, yet again, was speaking.
“To sum up, Mr. President, we have yet to hear the British response to the arbitration offer, because Lord Lyons has yet to receive it, presumably because of the weather on the North Atlantic. Whatever Palmerston and Russell have to say to us, at the moment, they may as well be in Peking than London,” Secretary of State William Seward said.
“But with that, the fact remains that anything less than an agreement to arbitration amounts to British intervention, an attempt to create within our territory a hostile state by overthrowing this Republic itself. The result would be a great war between our people and theirs, a war to the end,” he said, gloomily. “I have impressed this upon Lord Lyons, and on Mercier, and on Adams, but I am afraid London still does not understand our resolve…they continue to believe we are posturing; they do not know us, at all, it seems.”
“You’d think after the Revolution, and the last war, and the Aroostook, and the Oregon Country, they would have realized we won’t knuckle under to them,” Secretary of War Montgomery Blair interrupted; he had been under severe strain the past month, cleaning up Cameron’s mess and re-organizing the Army to face threats north and south, and it showed.
“And despite the Queen’s so-called neutrality declaration last year, there are still British ships lined up ten deep at Bermuda and Nassau, ready to run guns ashore and take cotton out. Did they really think they could keep pushing us, with our people being killed by British bullets and powder, and still pretend to be neutral? What kind of people do they think we are?” Blair went on. “Makes one wish the cable was still in operation. We could tell them what we really think of them, and their `ultimatums,’ and be done with it…at least it would spare us this infernal waiting…”
“Patience, Friend Blair,” the president offered. “As you and Mr. Stanton and Gen. Mansfield have all told me, every extra day we get is a benefit to our preparations … but we also all know the winter gives us advantage over the British. So if war is to come, better now than this summer. So, Secretary Blair, are we prepared? Is the Army prepared?”
The lean, hatchet-faced Marylander, who had stood with the President against the entire Cabinet in favor of reinforcing Fort Sumter back in’61 and still looked every inch the Army officer he had been, stood up.
“Yes, by God, Mr. President, yes, the Army is ready,” Blair said, walking to a wall map, dotted with a mass of blue pins. The map showed the northern border from Maine to Minnesota and the spider’s web of railway lines in black, tracing from Bangor south and west to Missouri. Blair raised his hand toward the scarlet-tinted borders of British North America, where the black lines and pins (red, this time) were much thinner, and all clustered around Montreal, Quebec, Saint John, or Halifax.
Then he stopped, and West Point won out. Protocol, as always.
Blair turned toward the white-haired soldier with two stars on each of his shoulders. “Major General Mansfield, if you please?”
The general-in-chief, Major General Joseph K. F. Mansfield, stood, nodded at the secretary of war, and moved toward the maps. He opened a notebook and read:
“As of February 15, our forces present for duty numbered 498,153 officers and men. These include 23,062 regulars and 467,910 in the volunteer service; it does not include those sick, absent, or on detached duty, or any state troops, militia, or auxiliaries – or the Navy, Revenue Marine, and Marine Corps, for that matter,” Mansfield said, nodding toward Secretary Welles, who gravely nodded back. The general continued:
“These numbers are from before the troop movements that began this past week, but on the 15th, the Department of the Potomac reported 212,000 present for duty; the Missouri, 109,000; the Ohio, 73,000; and Western Virginia, 17,000. The rest were split between New England, the East Coast, and the departments of Virginia, Kansas, New Mexico, and the Pacific, along with the various expeditionary forces on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts…”
Mansfield stepped to the map of New England.
“Currently, however, our dispositions are as follows … Sumner, with Stone as chief of staff, is in Boston and has better than three divisions, either already in position or detailed for the New England Department. These include his own, now under Richardson, and Stone’s old division, now under Sedgwick, both detached from General McClellan’s command. The Department also has the troops Butler was raising for the Gulf expedition, and General Sumner also has some departmental troops for the forts and batteries, and the enrolled militia of Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and those from southern New Hampshire. The service militia can be called in time of need, of course, and the railroads will be useful if they need to be concentrated; Col. Scott and his staff have been very efficient. The states’ responses have been very gratifying; the numbers and action are quite impressive, actually. Many men with active field experience but who are not in the volunteer service have come forward, some of them very distinguished; President Pierce, for example, has taken up a commission in the New Hampshire militia…”
Seward spoke up:
“That old dough-face? Frank Pierce understands one thing about gratification, and it is the gratification of Frank Pierce!” the New Yorker interjected.
Mansfield scowled, but Lincoln cut in:
“Seward, I understand your point, but let us judge the president a patriot, after his own lights; he was a brigadier in Mexico when you and I were practicing law at home…” the Illinoisan said softly. “General Mansfield, please continue.”
The general, who like most of his peers was a Whig through-and-through, even after the party’s demise, cleared his throat.
“Very well, Mr. President – west of New England we have formed the Department of the North, covering northern New Hampshire, Vermont, and northern New York; Heintzelman is in command at Albany, with his old division, now under Hamilton, as well as Hooker’s division, and now Blenker is also on the way…all three are detached from the Potomac Army. General Kearny has a cavalry brigade; given his ability with French, it seems an inspired choice. The department’s forces also include the appropriate state militia units, including brigades from New York and Vermont, and Col. De Trobriand’s special force at Plattsburgh.
“Farther west is the Department of the Lakes, currently under Major General Sherman; he may not be the man for active service, but he's a West Pointer and is well-regarded in the Midwest. Headquarters are in Detroit. He has a mass of green troops, who were mostly earmarked for Kentucky or Tennessee, but he has some good brigadiers, with experience in the militia, Mexico, or active service in ‘61 – Hurlbut, Prentiss, and J.J. Reynolds, for example, who is also a West Point graduate and had a brigade in West Virginia under McClellan.
“Farther west is the Department of the Northwest, headquartered in Saint Paul; given the ruggedness of the territories to the east and north, your suggestion of Major General Fremont as its commander was well-taken, Mr. President,” Mansfield said.
Ruggedness? More like remoteness…the old general may have been a soldier first and foremost, but he was no fool, and understood the politics, Nicolay thought. Offering the Republican Party’s first presidential candidate and its foremost abolitionist an active command in the field, after relieving him in Missouri, but in a region where nary a slave was to be found, had been a stroke…
The general continued, striding about the room and pointing at each map in turn.
“On the Pacific Slope, General Wright is in command, with Colonel Alvord as chief of staff; in the Southwest, Colonel Canby commands, but it is my belief that with General Doniphan now offering his services as a volunteer, Doniphan should take the departmental command, with Canby in the field. As we have discussed, on his way west Doniphan will stop in Denver, travel into New Mexico, and then up into the Utah country; he should get a friendly reception there. I’ve suggested he set up his headquarters in Salt Lake, for the obvious reasons. In Kansas, General Hunter continues in command; in Missouri, General Halleck, with Pope in southeastern Missouri and Curtis in the southwest.
“East of the Mississippi, General Grant commands the District of the Tennessee, and has his force of three divisions ready for action, with the cooperation of Flag Officer Foote’s squadron; after their great victories at Henry and Donelson, Nashville is their next target, along with the troops in Kentucky under General Buell,” Mansfield continued. “Buell is assembling a force of six divisions, currently in two detachments, under Thomas and Crittenden; Major General Thomas commanded the force that beat Zollicoffer’s rebels in Kentucky last month. A sharp little action, there, and a good example of what the volunteers can do when led resolutely – as was Donelson, of course.”
“Who is the senior divisional commander in Grant’s force, general?” the president broke in.
Mansfield thought for a moment.
“I’d have to check their dates of rank, but the most experienced by far is Charles F. Smith; a regular, West Pointer, and served at the Military Academy, including as commandant of cadets . . . and he won three brevets in Mexico,” Mansfield added. “Well suited for high command, Mr. President.”
“Very well,” Lincoln said. “John, please note the name. General, please continue.”
“Buell’s force is smaller than we had planned, however, because he has provided a strong detachment under General McCook to reinforce the Department of the Lakes. McCook’s headquarters are in Buffalo. General Rosecrans remains in command in western Virginia,” Mansfield said. “That brings us to the Potomac army, under General McClellan; he currently has eight strong divisions, with the equivalent of four more being organized by spring; he also has a strong cavalry force under Cooke, siege and reserve artillery, engineers, and the like; he should be able to take the field at any time against Johnston-“
“And if he does, what troops are available to defend Washington, and the Chesapeake?” Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase broke in. “We don’t want to give the rebels, or anyone else, an opening like they had after Manassas last year…”
“We have taken every due precaution, Mr. Secretary,” Blair interrupted, barely hiding his frustration. “Major General Porter has a strong force on the upper Potomac and around Harper’s Ferry…moreover, General Ord has responsibility for the Washington defenses and Maryland, including Baltimore, and has the equivalent of three divisions of infantry and heavy artillery, plus the District and Maryland militia – and Marylanders defeated the British at Hampstead Hill in 1814; we know how to protect our cities…please excuse me, General Mansfield. Continue.”
Mansfield pointed to a map of the eastern seaboard, running from the Chesapeake north to Maine.
“As has been said, Ord is responsible for the defense of Maryland and the capital district, along with General Dix at Baltimore and Flag Officer Goldsborough and the Chesapeake squadron; farther north, Major General Cadwalader is responsible for the Delaware, along with Flag Officer DuPont and his squadron; Major General Wool is in New York, and has responsibility for northern Jersey, southern New York, and Connecticut, along with Flag Officer Farragut and his ships. Flag Officer Wilkes commands in Boston, alongside Major General Sumner.”
Mansfield stood still, and turned to face Lincoln squarely.
“The Army – the troops – are ready, Mr. President,” he said, simply.
“And arms and powder?” asked the commander-in-chief.
Mansfield nodded his head toward one of the staff officers sitting in the middle of the room, older, but still lean and one of the few completely clean-shaven. Brigadier General James Wolfe Ripley, at 67 one of the few serving officers born in the previous century, had been on inspection duty abroad when the war broke out; he had immediately taken ship for home, promising “every drop of blood in me” to the Union cause. Over the past ten months as Chief of Ordnance, he had provided arms, artillery, ammunition, and most everything else needed for an Army of a half-million men, and done it with zeal and incorruptibility. He stood and spoke.
“Mr. President, when the war began, there were 550,000 long arms, rifles and muskets and carbines, in the government’s arsenals and armories; the rebels took about 110,000 with them, but the remainder – along with new production, including at Springfield Armory, other factories here, and purchases from Europe - have equipped every man currently in the Army and then some. That does not include what the states had on hand or have procured on their own accounts, or the Navy, of course,” Ripley said. “We are also well provided with artillery, and the arsenals and factories are running flat-out; same for the Navy. As far as powder goes, in March of last year Ordnance had more than one million pounds in store, along with almost four million pounds of nitrate – saltpeter – for additional manufacture. We have continued to purchase both powder and nitrates overseas, as have the states and the Navy, and the stockpile of both remains in the millions of pounds.”
Lincoln spoke up; as always, the country's resources and manufacturing remained a great interest of the president.
“And if we could not, for example, continue to purchase and ship these materials in from overseas, what then?” he asked.
“We have been considering that, along with Commander Dahlgren, and the appropriate people at du Pont, Hazard, Laflin and Rand, and Oriental Powder; we can draw both upon cave niter, which is found in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Western Virginia, and niter beds, whose raw materials are found - well, everywhere,” Ripley said. “The French Method uses manure and urine, while the Swiss Method uses urine, solely; the beds will produce useful amounts of niter in 24 months or less. The chemistry is simple, and with the Army and Navy working together with industry, we can set up the necessary facilities quite quickly – they are not complex.”
“Well, colonel, let us do so – find some capable officers, from both branches of the service, and put them to it, along with whatever help you need from the powder companies, and any other necessary experts, from Secretary Smith’s department, the patent office, or the colleges – and do it now; we may need our first crop sooner rather than later,” Lincoln said, with a small grin. “I presume we can find plenty of ‘raw materials’ here in Washington; at least whenever Congress is in session…”
There was general laughter in the room, even from the senior officers and Cabinet members; the tycoon always knew how to break the tension, in a way that was almost refreshing, Nicolay thought. Something so simple, and so easy for his foes to underestimate … yet so useful. We’ll need that a lot, these next weeks and months…and years? he thought with a start.
“And how so the British, general?” Lincoln asked, serious again. Mansfield motioned to another older officer, a full colonel with white hair and beard and spectacles that made him look more like a preacher or schoolmaster than a career Army officer. Yet Richard Delafield was just that; graduating first in his class from West Point in 1818, he was the first cadet awarded standing for academic merit. He had served as an engineer for more than 30 years, on the northern boundary commission, as superintendent of the Academy, and as chief of the American military mission to Europe in 1854-56 that had observed the Crimean War, including the siege of Sebastopol. He now served as chief of military information for Mansfield.
“Mr. President, the British are in difficulties,” Delafield said simply. “Their order of battle numbers some 220,000 officers and men in their regular forces, which include their active forces, depot and garrison troops, and their overseas `local and colonial’ forces; this does not include what they call `foreign and colored’ troops, who number some 175,000. Given their policies toward using colored troops overseas – as evidenced in the Crimea – I do not expect those forces can be counted in the balance.”
“Why not?” Chase asked.
“Simply because the British, in order to control an empire populated largely by the colored races, cannot afford to use them against us; the risks are too high. The Crimea was fought as a `white man’s war’ by the British, for that very reason, and given the realities of the Indian Mutiny, they are not going to open that particular box – not as long as Cambridge is their commander in chief,” Delafield said. “Similar issues are in play in their use of West Indian, or – arguably – even Irish troops here in North America. Empires are not simple things, gentlemen, and the British have been running one for centuries…”
“Even if they lose part of it from time to time, general?” Lincoln asked. “Like us? Please continue.”
“Thank you, sir; yes, even if they lose part of it from time to time – my father came here from England in 1798, just before I was born. Of course, I would have been lucky to be a sergeant major in the Queen’s Army, if he had stayed. That was something that amused the British to no end in ’56 when we were with them in Russia,” Delafield continued. “Remember that the local and colonial forces in British North America amount to one regular battalion, and about 5,000 volunteer militia, who could be compared to the New York state militia, before the war broke out, in terms of organization and training – not the NYSM of today. Remember, British militias cannot be used outside of their recruiting areas, other than as volunteers; and even during the Russian war, they only used the volunteer units as garrison troops, in Britain, Ireland, and the Mediterranean. So they will defend where they are raised, but anything more would require a significant change in their policy – and their politics.
“So, based on their available forces in British North America, Britain and Ireland, and some of the units they currently have in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, our best estimate is that by spring, they could have 30,000 men in the field against us in Lower Canada, and another 30,000 in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, mostly drawn from Britain and Ireland. In total, that is actually twice the size of the Army of the East they initially sent to the Crimea in ’54, so we have an idea how long it will take them to be able to organize and move those forces,” Delafield said. “At the same time, they might have 10,000 men in the field in Upper Canada, a mix of British regulars and local volunteer militia, and another 10,000 service militia for secondary duties. They could have a few thousand in British Columbia, if they pull troops from China, New Zealand, India and the Indian Ocean, and South Africa.”
“How confident are you in those numbers, colonel?” Lincoln asked.
“Very confident, sir; these estimates are based on the best information we have, plus the experience that Major Mordecai and I had with them in the Crimea, and some assistance from – uh – other informed parties. Admiral J. – uh, the admiral, for example, has been very generous with his knowledge of the British,” Delafield said, delicately. “And the British are very obliging in publishing information; we have up to date copies of Hansard, of course, and The New Annual Army List and Militia List for 1862, which is corrected to 30 December . . . they are far more obliging than the rebels, actually, in telling us what they are all about.”
Ho, that’s interesting, Nicolay thought. We have useful friends from Europe, apparently … I suppose not all of them are the fops and sods Fremont and McClellan saddled themselves with…
“How will they fight, colonel? Especially compared to our people?” Lincoln asked, sounding a little like the Illinois militia officer he had been, three decades earlier.
“Their company and battalion officers, and their enlisted, will fight well; some are among the finest professional soldiers in the world … but they suffer greatly from the purchase system; whatever the weaknesses of our system, theirs has it in spades. Men like Lucan and Cardigan would not have risen to the positions they had in the Crimea without it,” Delafield said. “Their militia is no better or worse than ours, and our volunteers have been on active service for months; theirs have not. Overall, their general officers have little experience with large formations, brigades, divisions, or corps, in action or otherwise, and it is very unclear if their service and supply elements have absorbed the lessons of the Russian war. They are a capable foe, but they are not unbeatable, not by a long shot. The Redan is evidence of that … as were Hampstead Hill, and Plattsburgh, and New Orleans.”
“Very well, colonel. Thank you for that summary, and thank Major Mordecai as well, for his work; I know it was not an easy decision for him to return to the colors ... I hope we do not have to put your knowledge to the test,” Lincoln said, and sat silently for a moment before speaking up:
“And how so the Navy, Neptune?” the president asked Welles, who responded in kind:
“Afloat and at sea, Mr. President, just where it should be … we are not, it is true, in a condition for a war with Great Britain just at this time, but England is scarcely in a better condition for a war with us.” Welles said. “Despite all their strength, there are new tools coming to hand … we can’t really get at them at sea, but they will have a hard time getting at us, either. Wooden walls couldn’t defeat us in 1815, and they’re even less useful now… we are entering a world of steam and iron, and the British don’t have a monopoly on either…”
There was pounding on the doors of the East Room, and a sentry came in with one of Seward’s messengers in tow: “Mr. Secretary – the British response has arrived…Lord Lyons wishes to see you immediately.”
Outside, thunder rattled the windows; it sounded a little like distant artillery, Nicolay thought.
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(more to come)
