Britain at this date has a bigger population, bigger land army, and bigger industrial base than the US, so it's not really lion vs. whale so much as lion vs. bigger lion.
How Would An 1840s Anglo-American War Go?
- Thread starter AltoRegnant
- Start date
Some outcomes are much more historically likely than others.
The U.S. made 2 attempts to conquer Canada, that's hardly proof of long-term inability to do it. The British themselves understood that the relative balance of power between their position in Canada, and American power was shifting against them. From the economic history of Canada on Wiki.
The timber industry also created large peripheral industries, the most important of these being agriculture. Unlike the fur trade, the timber trade saw large numbers of men in one location for a substantial period of time. The lumber camps, and the lumber towns needed to be supplied with food and other provisions. In the early years of the trade, much of the food, mostly barrels of pork, was shipped from the United States. Mostly coming from around the Cleveland area, shipping costs were high, creating a market for locally produced goods. As the loggers pushed ever westwards, farmers followed to take advantage of this captive market. Some of these farms failed after the loggers moved on, but many found new markets and became permanent settlements. This process formed the basis of many communities in what is now Ontario.[13]
To encourage the settlement of the best land in the region, the government created the Canada Company. It was given much of the land in Western Ontario and Southwestern Ontario and tasked with selling it off to immigrants. It was successful in this, but it also became deeply unpopular for its monopolization of the land. This was an important trigger of the 1837 rebellions.
So, Canada's economy was tied into the U.S. and needed food imports. The stronger U.S. economy was already a magnet for population and business especially after the preferential tariffs were lifted in 1842.
Yes, and a country with no army or navy to speak of successfully wresting territory off the world's largest empire is, historically speaking, very unusual.
Britain does not have a bigger army than the United States can quickly mobilize, it has a larger standing army. It also can't use most of it in NA. Effectively they have a smaller army. Their population may be bigger but not the population available for land warfare. The RN has a far larger share of the demand for manpower than the army does. And that's not counting the merchant fleet. England was never a country of soldiers, it's a country of sailors.
The British army in Canada alone from 1838-42* was either equal to or stronger than the whole US Army of the period. In 1842 the British forces in Canada numbered 12,442 men of all ranks (irrespective of any Canadian militia formations) while the US Army numbered only some 10,700 men in the same period. Thanks to the rebellions of 1837-38 Britain had increased its total troop count in Canada alone to the point it matched any potential US incursion fairly handily.
More to the point of course is that while the British are primarily stationed in Canada and the Maritimes, the US professional army is scattered around the continent on various postings and cannot be concentrated quickly in the event of war, meaning that the US army official size is pretty moot. Even worse from the hypothetical perspective is that the Canadians themselves have more immediate experience and training in the period because, in addition to the troops sent from the UK, they had mobilized 33,000 militia to defend and police Canada in the same period. So in the immediate 'short of war' period in a hypothetical sweet spot for conflict, Britain could put about 45,000 men under arms almost immediately and would be able to begin to muster or transport more, while the US would have to spend some time moving soldiers and raising/arming militia formations who have yet to get any experience. That's a large problem right away.
That's not to say the US can't muster a larger force eventually, but that eventually can mean the difference between success and failure. However, all this said, this is pretty much why despite a few incidents, the US never sought to settle accounts by force or even with the threat of force post 1815. The military situation was never so imbalanced (and this was by design from London) that the US ever had something approaching local superiority over British forces until the 1860s and the mass mobilization of the Civil War.
There isn't really a period between 1815 and 1861 where the US could muster some immediate local superiority to the British military on land or sea in this timeframe, but that is because of Britain's larger peacetime military establishment and forward defence policies in the region. It's those exact same policies which would give the British a leg up in early mobilization and fighting as well, especially in relation to some of their assumptions of how any conflict would be carried out and that the strategic geography is the exact same as it was in 1775 and 1812.
*This date is key as that's when the Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed which, effectively, nullified any longstanding contentions between the two sides making any military confrontation exceedingly unlikely, which allowed the British to drawdown their garrison. Similar to when Britain drew down its garrisons in Canada after signing the Treaty of Washington in 1871.
St Louis Bay is not a vital economic node but politically letting Britain occupy it undisturbed or any one of a score of similar locations along the US coast line would be unacceptable. Forces would have to be mustered to drive the British back into the sea. The manpower would as you say be drawn from the local area but the cannon, the rifles, the powder, the ammunition, the pay to which as mobilised militia they would be entitled and the trained staff officers that would give them a chance would all come with opportunity costs. Clamour from every other coastal community along the entire eastern shore for all of the above to establish defences after the first two or three British raids, even if successfully driven off, would be enormous.
Compared to the pre war US Army it was a highly trained long service force and as you say it did not have form of using masses of men as cannon fodder by the standards of European warfare. Though Wellington's mother famously did say that he was fit only for cannon fodder. But it also had form in putting very large forces by American standards (though small by European) into the fields and accepting the casualty rates that were common for the era.
The abolition of the Corn Laws is slightly more complicated than that, as are the finances of the landed gentry but that is a completely different thread. With regards to the opinion of the House of Common on what the chief concern of England should be while they might privately think the wealth of England is the most important thing publically they would have to say that the honour of England has primacy and furthermore they know that a considerable portion of the wealth of England is dependent on the perception of the strength of England. Folding when pushed does not help.
Regardless can you explain why you think Britain would be more motivated by the cost of a war of choice (which this would be for both sides) than the US?
Opportunity costs. The US has limited foundry capacity and limited import capability. If they are casting heavy cannon for shore defense batteries they are not making field artillery. The same applies for the powder, shells, trained manpower etc. Remember the UK alone, before you consider the Empire, had a GDP that was between 2 and 3 times larger than the US. Those opportunity costs are going to bite much harder on one side than the other.
Let me get this straight: you complain that responding in detail would take too much effort, and then make another seven posts in the thread. Responding to one post is too much for you, so your solution is for us both to write entire timelines, which the other would presumably have to critique? Yeah, nah. My post is there: respond to it if you want, leave it if you can't. I mean, if it's as full of patent distortions and half-truths as you suggest, that should be pretty obvious to everybody who's reading, shouldn't it?
I appreciate the detailed stuff is not everybody's cup of tea, but it's only when you really get into the details that you start to appreciate who understands the period and who's making it up as they go along. Witness:
The British blockaded the bay during the second phase of the war, which began when Governor Dunmore departed from the Chesapeake in August 1776. Initially, the British only assigned a few small ships to watch the region. In February 1777, however, the Royal Navy imposed a close blockade on the bay... Parker was to deploy the Emerald (32), Solebay (14), and the new Otter (14), commanded by Captain Richard Creyk, “at and near to the Entrance of Chesapeak Bay . . . to intercept all Supplies and Military Stores attempted to be introduced.” The type of close blockade called for by Lord Dunmore again proved effective. “The trade of this state is almost annihilated,” wrote Governor Patrick Henry. The blockade persisted into the spring of 1778. “Chesapeake Bay is guarded by one English 64 Gun Ship & four 36 gun Frigates. They lord it here at present,” Henry advised Benjamin Franklin. (C. Thomas Long, 'Britain’s Green Water Navy in the Revolutionary Chesapeake: Long-Range Asymmetric Warfare in the Littoral,' International Journal of Naval History Volume 8 Number 2 (August 2009))
The British navy was unable until 1782 to effect a close blockade of much of the eastern seaboard. This only came about, oddly enough, by Parliament’s post-Yorktown refusal to authorize major land operations in North America. Free to blockade, the navy experienced many successes against American trade in the last two years of war. (Julian Gwyn, 'Poseidon's Sphere: Early Naval History in Atlantic Canada,' Acadiensis Vol. 31, No. 1 (Autumn 2001))
On 27 November 1812, Great Britain implemented "the most systematic, regularized and extensive form of commerce destruction known to war." Wary of the small but deadly American navy, the RN resorted to the slow, inglorious tourniquet of close blockade. America's 2000 miles of coastline and thousands of bays, river mouths and harbours made this a difficult assignment. Lacking the men and ships to enforce a blockade of the entire coast at once, Admiral Warren opted for a gradual extension of British control.
His strategy was based on the generally lukewarm attitude toward the war in the northern states and the continued willingness of many American merchants to participate in licensed trade. By sparing New England from the initial impact of the blockade, Warren hoped to keep the inhabitants uncommitted for as long as possible. When Southern Democrats complained that the British blockade had been extended to all ports south of Connecticut, the Halifax Gazette carried a typical New England response: "Boston-folks have no notion of blockades any more than they have of embargoes, non-intercourse and war" and the southern "meddlers" should trouble themselves no further...
The blockade of the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay area began in late December 1812. Part of the grain-growing hinterland serving the major cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, the Chesapeake was where a clampdown on American trade would have the most immediate effect. By February 1813, Warren was preparing amphibious raids "to frighten American politicians into withdrawing troops from the Canadian border to defend the rich and vulnerable plantations of the Chesapeake," not to mention Washington itself... Within weeks, raiding parties and naval vessels seriously disrupted traffic and seized shipping up and down the James, York, Rapahannock, and Potomac rivers. Merchants and citizens felt the pinch as trade plummeted and insurance rates and commodity prices steadily rose.
In March, the blockade pushed southward from Rhode Island to the Mississippi River. Viscount Melville reminded Warren privately that "We do not intend this as a mere paper blockade, but as a complete stop to all trade and intercourse by sea with those ports as far as the wind and weather, and the continual presence of a sufficient armed force, will permit and ensure."... The presence of British reconnaissance vessels off Ocracoke, North Carolina, and the reported capture of a sloop by HMS Highflyer, a former American privateer, greatly alarmed inhabitants of the Carolinas. In a letter captured aboard the brig Orion in May, 1813, Gordon Mumford of Charleston confirmed that the blockade had successfully shackled trade out of Charleston and Savannah. (Faye M. Kert, 'The Fortunes of War: Commercial Warfare and Maritime Risk in the War of 1812,' The Northern Mariner, vol. 8 No. 4 (October 1998))
to the Admiralty’s leaders, the more important war measure for Warren to undertake was a close blockade of the American coast, in order to throttle the enemy’s trade and confine its privateers and public warships to port. To this end Warren issued a proclamation in February 1813 declaring the Chesapeake and Delaware bays under a state of blockade. Two subsequent proclamations promulgated later that year extended the blockade to include the Eastern Seaboard south of New England and the mouth of the Mississippi River Charles E. Brodine Jr. 'War Visits the Chesapeake,' Naval History Magazine Volume 28, Number 5 (October 2014)
In plain sight of this overwhelming force Decatur feared the results of trying to slip out to sea, and therefore beat back to New London. The enemy followed, and, having now this division securely housed, instituted a close blockade. It was apprehended even that they might endeavor to take it by main force, the defences of the place being weak; but, as is commonly the case, the dangers of an attack upon land batteries were sufficient to deter the ships from an attempt, the object of which could be attained with equal certainty by means less hazardous, if less immediate. The upshot was that the two frigates remained there blockaded to the end of the war...
Further evidence of the control exerted by the British Navy, and of the consequent difficulty under which offensive action was maintained by the United States, is to be found in the practice, from this time largely followed, of destroying prizes... Recourse to burning to prevent recapture was permissible only with enemy's vessels. If a neutral were found carrying enemy's goods, a frequent incident of maritime war, she must be sent in for adjudication; which, if adverse, affected the cargo only. Summary processes, therefore, could not be applied in such cases, and the close blockade of the United States coast seriously restricted the operations of her cruisers in this particular field...
regard being had only to successful cruisers, the achievement of the naval vessels was to that of the private armed nearly as three to two. These results may be accepted as disposing entirely of the extravagant claims made for privateering as a system, when compared with a regular naval service, especially when it is remembered with what difficulty the American frigates could get to sea at all, on account of their heavy draft and the close blockade; whereas the smaller vessels, national or private, had not only many harbors open, but also comparatively numerous opportunities to escape. (A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Volume 2)
But my work here wouldn't be done without leaving you all with the December 1842 report of the Secretary of the Navy. Half of you will be completely unsurprised, half of you will argue desperately that it doesn't say what it patently does:
The squadron in the Pacific... is much too small to render all the services expected of it in that remote region. Every part of that vast ocean, is traversed by our trading vessels, and in every part of it the protection of our naval flag is consequently required. The few ships allowed even to the largest squadron that we have ever sent to the Pacific are not enough to guard our whaling interest alone. It can scarcely be expected that five or six vessels, most of which are of the smallest class, can properly protect our commerce and our people, along a coast of three thousand miles in extent, and throughout an ocean four thousand miles wide.
I respectfully suggest that too little attention has heretofore, been paid to the important interests of our country in the Pacific ocean. There is at this time, a stronger necessity than ever, for more strict vigilance and more active exertion on our part, to prevent other nations from subjecting our trade to injurious restrictions and embarrassments. The English settlers have, by their enterprise, nearly engrossed the trade from the Columbia river to the islands, so that our countrymen are as effectually cut off from it as if they had no rights in that quarter. The people of various countries are rapidly forming settlements all along the shores of the Pacific, from Columbia river to the Gulf of California; and this, too, will the countenance and support of their respective Governments. In the mean time, we are doing literally nothing for our own interests in that quarter. To those of our people who are inclined to settle. there, we do not even hold out the encouragement of a reasonable expectation that we will protect them against the violence and injustice of other nations. A few small vessels, scarcely as many as we ought to keep constantly upon the coast of each of the South American nations on the Pacific- these, too, charged with duties which twice their number would not be able to perform- can offer but little aid or support to the infant settlements of our people, remote from each other, and demanding the constant presence of some protecting power...
In the East Indies we have only two ships... It is owing more to our good fortune than to our strength, that our commerce has suffered no material interruption...
it may be assumed that two-thirds of the most valuable article of our commerce, foreign and coastwise, is shipped in the ports of the Gulf of Mexico... The tobacco, the iron, the lead, the sugar, the hemp, and the provisions, of that great and rich region, (and in a few years we may add also its coal,) find their way to market chiefly through that single channel... Without pretending to perfect accuracy, we may safely assume that not less than two-thirds of the entire commerce of our country, exclusive of the whale fisheries, passes through the Gulf of Mexico... nearly all this valuable trade is carried on through the Gulf of Florida. I had the honor to present my views upon this subject in a report which I made to the Senate, during the last session of Congress, but which was not acted on by that body... I repeat here only the well-known fact, that, in consequence of the strength of the Gulf stream and trade winds, there is virtually no passage for our trade eastward, on the south side of the island of Cuba. It must, of necessity, pass through the Gulf of Florida, a narrow strait, which can be effectually blockaded by two active steam frigates, and probably by one. Even if a trading vessel should pass such a blockading force in the night, it would have but one path open to it for a great distance, and might of course be pursued with a certainty of being overtaken. It would not enjoy even the ordinary chances of a vessel escaping from a blockaded port, into a wide and open sea. The facts to which I have thus adverted, show a striking peculiarity in our condition. The greatest portion of our commerce, confined to a single channel for some hundreds of miles, is exposed in a peculiar manner, to any enemy having possession of the sea; and—what would render our condition still worse--if we be without a naval force, that commerce may be annihilated at a cost which would not be felt by any tenth-rate maritime Power!...
the best ship of war is powerless when un- skilfully commanded. We build fleets for our enemies when we put them in charge of incompetent men. In order to carry out this idea, it is necessary not only that we should keep more ships in commission than heretofore, but that we should employ them in a different manner. Our squadrons on foreign stations have been generally kept too much in port, have been too little employed in cruising, and too seldom exercised in squadron maneuvres… The personnel of the navy is a subject of much deeper interest, although it presents no greater difficulties. That abuses exist, and that the public eye is occasionally offended with displays of disreputable behaviour, is not surprising... For twenty years past the navy has received from the Government, little more than a step-mother's care. It was established without plan, and has been conducted upon no principle fixed and regulated by law. Left to get along as well as it could, the wonder is, that it retains even a remnant of the character which it won so gloriously during the last war...
In copper, the frauds which have been practised upon the Government have been gross and enormous. Pure copper ought to last upon a ship's bottom twenty years; and yet that which we have used upon our ships of war has not lasted, upon an average, more than seven. Upon examining a portion of the copper recently taken from the bottom of the Columbus, I found that it exhibited the appearance of worm-eaten wood; the reason of which is, that it was full of impurities, which corroded and fell out. Even that which remained, instead of possessing the toughness which belongs to pure copper, would not bear to be bent, but broke short off, like a piece of cast iron.
Last edited:
That's actually crazy how much of America's goods come off the Gulf, presumably the bulk of which is from the Mississippi. I would have thought the eastern seaboard would have at least made half of the total.
Posted an earlier section from this a while back:
'the commerce of the United States, which finds an outlet through the Gulf of Mexico, for many years past, cannot be computed at an annual export, and a returning import, of less, united together, than $100,000,000. To illustrate this, take the exports of cotton alone for the year 1840, and, comprehending the amount transported coastwise to the North, as well as that consigned directly to a foreign market, you will find that Alabama, through Mobile, and Florida, with part of Georgia, through Pensacola, St. Joseph, Appalachicola, and Port Leon, of Tallahassee, supplied very near, or quite, six hundred thousand bales, averaging in weight more than four hundred pounds each, and worth, at the reduced rates of that period, more than $20,000,000. If to this be added the one thousand bales shipped from New Orleans, and, to all this vast Southern staple, the metals, provisions, sugar, and tobacco of the South and Northwestern States, you will find, alter computing two-thirds of the outward cargoes, to obtain their returned value, through the same channel, that I have not overrated the annual commerce of the Gulf of Mexico.
'If you desire to measure the hazard to which a maritime war with a formidable naval Power would expose this commerce, you have but to consult the testimony of experience. Rather than incur the hazard, in the last war between the United States аnd Great Britain, of shipping the tobacco of James river coastwise to Boston or New York, it was transported over land at a cost, for carriage only, equivalent to its ordinary value of ninety dollars per hogshead, being one hundred per cent. paid, as a substitute for insurance, from Hampton roads, above which the British never ascended, to New York, which they neither regularly attacked, nor blockaded. Whatever war might add to the ordinary rates of insurance against the risks of the sea, in the intercourse between the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of the world, must be charged upon the insecurity of American commerce, arising from the absence of adequate naval protection. If it be but a moiety of what has been stated, then the annual loss upon a trade of one hundred would be $50,000,000. How much of that commerce would bear such an additional charge, I have not the means of estimating; but that much of it would not, while rival supplies can be had from other quarters, is very apparent. The American debt, contracted in the war of 1812, though it endured but two years and a half, exceeded $120,000,000; but this sum was not a moiety of the private and personal losses sustained in that war, from the prostration of American commerce and agriculture. And this leads me, sir, to the purpose of this letter, which is, to call your attention to the defenceless condition of the coast and commerce of the Gulf of Mexico at the present moment.
'Pensacola is the only naval station where an American ship of war, of any description, can seek shelter from a pursuing enemy of superior strength; and Pensacola, not merely the city, but the fleets that might lie in its harbors, are defenceless against a coup de main from the land side, while the harbor itself is shut, by the bar at its entrance, against the the admission of a frigate of the second class, in many states of the wind and tide, but is at all times inaccessible to a frigate of the largest dimensions… there is not a port on the Gulf of Mexico where the most humble of all conceivable repairs of a ship, the renewing of the caulking of its bottom, can be effected, the tide rising and falling there less than three feet; so that, by means of it, she cannot be laid low enough on her side... In a successful naval conflict on that gulf, which floats annually one hundred millions of American property, the immediate fruit of the returned value of American labor and enterprise, what would be the result of the inability of the victor to bring his prizes into port ? What, if obliged to fly from defeat, of his incapacity to find shelter from pursuit, or to refit his dismantled or shattered squadron? Should he be obliged to double Capes Sable, Florida, and Hatteras, and to navigate the most dangerous coast in the world, to reach Gosport, and there, probably, to be locked up, by a fleet, in Lynhaven bay for the residue of the war, if, indeed, it should let him pass into Hampton roads?'
Last edited:
You get to a point in a debate when things just get too convoluted to go on with. In 1782 as they say the blockade moved from one place to the next burning shipping but could never cover everywhere at the same time. After retreating from Baltimore in 1814 the RN left the Chesapeake. A few months later Cockburn showed up off Georgia and was there at the end of the war. After the Battle of New Orleans, the RN left for a few months, and came back in March to Mobile, and were there at the end of the war. I liked the comment about not wanting to go against land batteries even in a small port. If sailing into NYC is no problem what's the big deal about a small port? In 1842 he's lamenting the RN didn't have the ships to have an overwhelming presence in the Pacific. The British were reaching the limit of their power, which is why they never tried to take over Hawaii or use force in Oregon. No one can do everything they dream about doing.
I would think that third party intervention in an Anglo-American war would be unlikely. France's Louis Philippe was not the sort to seek adventure through war and it's doubtful that French and American forces even together could challenge Britain's dominance of the seas, so it would be a very risky endeavor. None of the other Continental powers had much capacity to intervene, even if they wanted to. That's not to say that Russia and perhaps other might not advance their interests in other parts of the world at the expense of Britain's, but they would not and could not meaningfully actually join such a war.
One situation that might cause exception to this, though would be Britain's imposition of a Napoleonic era "paper blockade" on the United States, perhaps in frustration at the difficulty of a close blockade. France still felt strongly about its maritime rights and would not take kindly to interference with its shipping or ability to import American cotton. It's a situation where small incidents on the high seas could easily occur and escalate into more serious matters.
One situation that might cause exception to this, though would be Britain's imposition of a Napoleonic era "paper blockade" on the United States, perhaps in frustration at the difficulty of a close blockade. France still felt strongly about its maritime rights and would not take kindly to interference with its shipping or ability to import American cotton. It's a situation where small incidents on the high seas could easily occur and escalate into more serious matters.
When one side allies with a foreign enemy, it usually means either things have already boiled over into civil war (like the ARW) or said foreign enemy appears very close to victory (ethnic minorities rising up in Austria-Hungary during WW1). If you want the USA to fight Britain while also fighting a civil war, it would help to have the civil war break out first.
Britain can blockade the east coast, but there's one other difference from the ARW and the War of 1812. The North American interior was much more heavily settled, which would put the US economy in a much better position to withstand a blockade. There's much more internal trade that doesn't rely on the oceans.
Not entirely. The rest of the British Empire would fight for Canada, but when it comes to will to fight, if things go badly for Britain, they're much more likely to to yield than the Canadians are. For the record, I don't think it would be a cakewalk for either side. I'm just pointing out who's going to keep fighting when the going gets tough and who's going to be less inclined to do so. Canadians would have much more incentive to continue fighting than the rest of the empire.
Britain does, but even with the Royal Navy the logistics of bringing that power to bear are not trivial. They're not insurmountable, but they're not trivial either. Of course if the USA decides to go for all of Canada, then the US Army has to manage to logistics of projecting force (albeit over land) while Britain/Canada can focus on defense. If the USA just focused on the Maine/New Brunswick boundary, then America wouldn't have to project force as far. Regardless of what sets the war off, I think fighting around Maine and the Maritimes would be a major theater. It's not just an area with a territorial dispute; it's a key area for Britain to get troops and supplies to the Canadian interior.
Also keep in mind that war goals might not be static. They could change depending on what happens during the war.
Honestly you can have the war go whichever way one wants since while some events are easily quantified, others like who dies, disease, lack of communication, and so can go however one wants.
Although it probably won't matter since the entire conflict would probably be decided by diplomacy over who gets what in the end.
Although it probably won't matter since the entire conflict would probably be decided by diplomacy over who gets what in the end.
That's what happens when you're out of your depth in a debate: all the intellectual threads become too much for you to handle. For instance:
When you read this document and concluded it was talking about the Royal Navy's weakness in the Pacific, did you not think it was the tiniest bit odd that it contained the phrase 'a report which I made to the Senate, during the last session of Congress'? Was the British 'Secretary of the Navy' (not the First Lord of the Admiralty) in the habit of making reports to the Senate? When I said 'half of you will argue desperately that it doesn't say what it patently does', I have to admit this wasn't quite what I was expecting.
I don't know, if the fighting takes place in Canada, that should make the Canadians more inclined to want peace, at least in theory.
Britain during this period sent troops to Europe, the Americas, Africa, India, China, the Crimea... Trans-Atlantic logistics aren't trivial, but Britain's shown itself plenty capable of transporting men and supplies over large bodies of water.
No, that's what happens when so much of what you've said is distorted. It's also what happens when it breaks down into so many minor points that the main thread is lost in a maze of trivia. Some people like to use the debating tactic of trying to overwhelm the other side with data points in an effort to show how much they know, and somehow this will prove they must be right. "Your position is just based on ignorance, while I know all these details. Everyone see how smart I am." That's why I asked you to come up with a scenario that would put your thesis together in a TL that would make sense.
So, the British can burn New York City and the Americans can't stop them, so show us how that would work? It not enough to say reports to Congress showed the officers in charge thought the defenses were inadequate so the city would've been destroyed. There's a lot more to it than that. What kind of attacking force do they send? What measures have the defenders taken, and what forces have they assembled? How does your scenario square with real historical experiences? How does a battle for NY fit in with the strategy for the rest of the war? I've pointed out how Civil War experience showed how hard it was to overcome shore batteries and take a city from the sea. You think the reports to Congress settle the whole question, and any counter argument is just being obtuse because your data point is irrefutable.
You got me there. I should've reread it to understand the context. Sorry after a few pages it kind of becomes a blur. That's one of the reasons brevity is a virtue, it makes things easier to follow.
Good question. Texas would be in an interesting place. Britain put a lot of investment into Texas and had good relations with her. Most Texans wanted to join the Union, but the war would certainly put a hold on that for the time being. Texas would be another hole in the British blockade, with American cotton coming in, and imported goods going back to the USA. Texas traders would make fortunes as middlemen. The funny thing would be British businessmen eagerly paying high prices for Texan, and American cotton, and selling industrial goods for transshipment to the U.S. Sometimes war makes good business.
Yes, the idea guys always hate the detail guys for knowing things:
Grubman didn't care about Enron's earnings. He wanted to see a balance sheet, which would have far more detailed information than the income statement Enron put out the day before.
Skilling: "We do not have the balance sheet completed. We will have that done shortly when we file the Q. But until we put all of that together, we just cannot give you that."...
Grubman: "You're the only financial institution that cannot produce a balance sheet or cash-flow statement with their earnings."
Skilling: "Well, you're - you - well, uh, thank you very much. We appreciate it."
Grubman: "Appreciate it?"
Skilling: "Asshole."...
Even owners of Enron stock thought Grubman's questions were perfectly valid - and if they hadn't been, Skilling should have dealt with them more adeptly. "Any CEO should be able to handle the hardest of questions from the most aggressive of shorts," says analyst Meade. (Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room)
"The Americans would be selling lots of cotton, and lots of blockade runners from Europe will get as much out as they can because it's worth the risk to bring it to a neutral port to sell it. The irony is that British traders will be in those ports buying that American cotton at high prices funding the American war effort." is an idea that is helpful to the pro-American side (so helpful, in fact, that you repeated it here.) Unfortunately for you, the detail - that contemporaries were clear that trade from the Gulf of Mexico could be stopped up by two frigates; that the extensive blockade running in the American Civil War of which you are no doubt thinking was possible only because the power with the largest merchant marine in the world and the greatest capacity to construct fast steam blockade-runners was neutral in the conflict, rather than fighting America; that moving cotton into Texas with the rail network of the 1840s is going to be as hard as moving it to Mexico with that of the 1860s; that the bulk commodity cotton is dramatically easier to ship than to move by land; that the Union's blockade cut 95% of cotton exports from the Confederacy; and that any hypothetical profit from 'high prices' paid by British traders in European ports would accrue to the European merchants who bought cotton at low prices from American growers unable to sell because of the blockade, not to the Americans themselves (in the Civil War South 'cotton and tobacco were the only ones of the enumerated commodities which did not keep pace with the rise of the gold premium,' i.e. the price of these goods fell from their pre-war level when adjusted for inflation, though 'tobacco and cotton were practically the only leading commodities whose prices in the world's market, during the war, rose above the 1860 level to any considerable degree': John Christopher Schwab, 'Prices in the Confederate States, 1861-65,' Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun., 1899), pp. 281-304) - is both extremely unhelpful to the American side and much longer than the original idea. There is so much detail because there is so much that is obviously wrong with the idea; it is not the fault of the detail guy for knowing this "trivia" but the fault of the idea guy for not knowing it.
Yes, because 95% of the time I post a document from the time under discussion, written by someone with direct experience of the issue at hand, saying something that completely contradicts what you have said, without having provided any evidence to support your assertions, I generally feel they settle the question. Do you really expect me to take your word for the state of New York's defences over Robert E. Lee's?
There is indeed a lot more to it than that. Your position is that, if there is any chance the British cannot burn New York City, the entire concept can be disregarded. But what is almost as significant as what the British would do to American ports is what the Americans fear the British might do to American ports. We know from the extensive literature which I've quoted that the Americans in the early 1840s are well aware that their ports are inadequately defended thanks to generations of under-investment, as well as because gaps in the original defence scheme have emerged (e.g. the 1842 request to replace the two batteries at Sandy Hook with a full fort; although 'its immediate commencement is urged,' this fort was still incomplete by 1867, 25 years after it was requested). Consequently, we can seek to understand how this knowledge might affect American decision-making in any conflict. In the perfectly-defended America which you posit, a situation you neglected to support with any actual evidence, there is no distraction from the main war effort. In the historical America, men who are kept to protect against potential British landings (e.g. that "expensive, harassing and uncertain" strategy of "arraying a large body of militia upon Harlem and Brooklyn Heights") cannot be sent against the British; money sunk into coastal defences to compensate for pre-war deficiencies increases the overall financial burden during the war, in the same way that building up credit card debt causes problems when the roof needs mending; guns which are installed in coastal defences cannot be fitted to privateers or used to besiege Canadian fortresses (how fortunate that the Army of the Tennessee didn't turn up at Vicksburg with nothing but field guns on the assumption that they could just go round Confederate fortifications). A sense of vulnerability has further consequences in the political sphere: just as the over-emphasis on the power of the bomber forced WWII Britain to spend on anti-aircraft defences instead of anti-tank guns, it also contributed to an unwillingness to confront Germany until preparations were in place. Here, with war already on the Americans, and given the prominence which the burning of Washington occupies in cultural history, we might anticipate weakness in coastal defences encouraging a willingness to settle, concede, or come to terms rather than to hold out, continue to fight, or press for territorial gains.
This of course is a lot of that pesky detail you've protested against, but then history does tend to be considerably more complicated than the typical pro-American poster would like it to be.
Last edited:
Let's say that the British send a smaller force, like 5 thousand men much less than they sent to China in the First Opium war. First they entrench themselves, they build their defenses, scout their surrounds, upgrade their harbor. The Americans could attack with what they have at disposal or wait.
If the Americans attack they will attack regular troops, trained, well equiped and in entrenched positions. The US needs a very big number of troops and artillery to achieve their goal, and they will suffer heavy losses, and even then it is possible that they fail at capturing the British position. If the Americans lose too many troops or weaken their garrisons to fight the British in the Bay the British could use this chance to take the forts protecting New Orleans.
If the Americans don't attack right away is because they are waiting, the British on the other hand will be reinforcing their position and landing more troops. Soon the place will become a military port, a depot and a logistics hub for Sea and Land operations.
If the Americans attack on a later date they will find the place even more fortified, if instead they choose to keep waiting there will come a time that the British will finally feel their position as strong enough and the Americans too shy, the British will finally move a big force inland numbering the tens of thousands, aiming at Baton Rouge or other settlement north of New Orleans so that they could cut the Mississippi River and start the siege of New Orleans.