How Would An 1840s Anglo-American War Go?

[Belisarius II]

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)

My friend you were born to be a prosecuting attorney or forensic accountant. But that's not what we're doing. We're having a discussion about what might happen in an Anglo/American War in the 1840's. People want to set it in the years before the Mexican/American War, and 1843 seems the popular start time because of the confrontation in Hawaii. So, your idea is that what would happen is the RN would just sail into any port city it wanted to and burn it to the ground. You present as support for your argument reports to Congress that harbor defenses had been shamefully neglected, and the militia forces of the various States were not properly trained or ready for service on a short notice. You go on that those reports are all anyone needs to know on the subject, and no other outcome or course of events is realistic.

My counter argument is that the war wouldn't start as an attack out of the blue but would be the culmination of a crisis of many months. In that time defenses would be shored up, new earthen works batteries constructed, guns mounted, militia drilled, and volunteer regiments raised. In defense of my argument, I talked about how such defenses proved very formidable both in the past and later in the Civil War. You dismiss my argument as an abstract piece of guess work, with no basis in reality because I can't tell you how many guns of what caliber would be put in place, and what places they be, and even if they did have guns the gunners would be poorly trained.

Well, I can't give you documented details about something that never happened only what I think is likely to have happened, because similar things happened in the past, and did happen again in the near future. So, if we were both there at the time as officers ordered to defend NYC, I would be thinking of ways to impede an attacker, and shore up defenses, and come up with plans of action. Would you be saying "Your just an idea man. This job is impossible because we didn't make the proper investments over the last 10 years, and nothing we do now will work. I know this to be a fact because I'm a detail man, and the reports to Congress by competent officers a lot smarter than you said our defenses wouldn't hold. I also know the British know this and will act boldly, aggressively and without fear or hesitation to just rush past our defenses and destroy the city."

"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.

Well, the experts at the time may have thought it would be easy to block all the commerce of the Gulf Coast with a couple of frigates, but it turned out they were wrong. Britain wasn't the only country that could build fast steamers or sailing ships, the U.S. was very good at that. From the Maritime History of the United States

In the United States, the term "clipper" referred to the Baltimore clipper, a topsail schooner that was developed in Chesapeake Bay before the American Revolution and was lightly armed in the War of 1812, sailing under Letters of Marque and Reprisal, when the type—exemplified by the Chasseur, launched at Fells Point, Baltimore, 1814— became known for its incredible speed; a deep draft enabled the Baltimore clipper to sail close to the wind (Villiers 1973). Clippers, outrunning the British blockade of Baltimore, came to be recognized as ships built for speed rather than cargo space; while traditional merchant ships were accustomed to average speeds of under 5 knots (9 km/h), clippers aimed at 9 knots (17 km/h) or better. Sometimes these ships could reach 20 knots (37 km/h).


"The Prinz Albert," 1897, by Antonio Jacobsen
Clippers were built for seasonal trades such as tea, where an early cargo was more valuable, or for passenger routes. The small, fast ships were ideally suited to low-volume, high-profit goods, such as spices, tea, people, and mail. The values could be spectacular. The "Challenger" returned from Shanghai with "the most valuable cargo of tea and silk ever to be laden in one bottom." The competition among the clippers was public and fierce, with their times recorded in the newspapers. The ships had low expected lifetimes and rarely outlasted two decades of use before they were broken up for salvage. Given their speed and maneuverability, clippers frequently mounted cannon or carronade and were often employed as pirate vessels, privateers, smuggling vessels, and in interdiction service.

These ships would be perfect for shipping cotton though the blockade. In the early 1840's ocean going fast steamers were coming online, and the U.S. was building large numbers of them. At the same time French, Spanish, German, Dutch, and other entrepreneurs would be flocking to the job just like they did in the Civil War because the profits were well worth the risk. It's also highly likely British entrepreneurs would be ordering fast steamers to be built in British yards to be used by 3rd party shippers to run the blockade, and then share in the profits.

No one would argue that the volume of cotton exports wouldn't go down, just that it would continue on a large scale, and at higher prices. Your "detail" about the relative value of Confederate cotton sales in real terms considering inflation assumes the USA will have similar rates of inflation in this conflict. Nothing would actually suggest that would happen. First off it didn't happen in 1812. Second the American Economy of the 1840's would be less effected by a blockade than in 1812. Third the CSA was under far greater economic stress from food, and other chronic shortages that only got worse as the war went on which is what caused their high rates of inflation. In this case your "detail" falls flat.

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.

You are again distorting what I've said by grossly overstating my argument. I've never said America would be perfectly safe, or that ports like NY couldn't be attacked. Again, what I said was taking cities from the sea was very difficult, and the idea of the British shipping an army large enough to take NY at this time is unrealistic. You stated the British at this time had 46,000 troops in the UK & Ireland. Do you really think all those units were war ready on day one? Do you think at the start of this war the British would mass the shipping necessary to transport them all over the Atlantic, sending 10,000 to Canada, and the rest to NY? Sorry, that is not serious thinking.

Now if you want documentation to support that no one would ever do that I can't help you. Only common sense informed by reading military history tells me no British strategist would ever do such a frankly crazy thing. It leaves no trained reserves for any other global contingencies, or cadres to train new recruits, and none for domestic security. Respectfully if you really think this strategy makes sense, I can't help you because beyond what I just wrote I don't know where to begin to explain it.

Now yes of course the USA would never enter into a war with Britain lightly, which is half of the reason it never happened. However, they were never paralyzed by fear of Britain, or thought their position hopeless. The burning of Washington did have a profound effect on American thinking but not in the way you're thinking. In 1843 there was no clammer for the conquest of Canada, an invasion would only be launched because of the military logic of a war with Britain. Any territory taken would most likely be used as a bargaining chip at peace talks, and not permanent additions to the USA.

As for the defense of Canada the British had 3 strong points in Upper Canada. Quebec, Montreal, and Kingston, with Quebec being by far the most important. The strategy you suggest is as long as these 3 points can hold out under siege, along with the Maritimes than Canada is fine. Well actually no. Even if those cities can hold out for a long period of time if the rest of the country is occupied than Canada has effectively fallen. Sure, fighting could go on in the Maine/Brunswick border, and more troops could sail to Quebec but to drive the Americans back across the border would require army of at least 50,000 men or more.

With most of Upper Canada's population under occupation most of the militia is gone, so the army would have to be almost all British. Now you're talking about a commitment to a long-term ground war on the scale of Wellington's war in the Peninsula. So, will the British say, "At whatever the cost no peace talks till Canada is liberated." That's highly unlikely. The fall of most of Upper Canada would be a strong incentive to enter into peace talks.

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.

So many pesky details, but how many of them are relevant?

 

[Belisarius II]

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.

If you consider 5,000 men a much smaller force, what were you thinking about originally? Considering the size of the British army that would be assigned to NA how many would go to the Gulf against what goes to Canada, or any action on the East Coast? So, if 5,000 troops land in St Louis Bay and build a fortified camp what would the American do?

Ok, first off looking a St Louis Bay if you land there, you're on the end of a peninsula so you need to hold a front about 3 miles long. It would make military sense to take the other side of the Bay at Henderson Pt, so the Americans don't use that against you. That means holding a second front about 1.75 miles long. That's a lot of ground for 5,000 men in that time period to cover. Remember you're talking about a period where infantry weapons have an effective range of 100 yards, and most field guns have a range of 500 yards. I assume RN ships would control the bay so the Americans can't land behind you.

So, given about 2 weeks the militias of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, could probably bring up 15,000 men to the area, along with maybe 1 regular army regiment. So, what they might do is concentrate against one side or the other. If most of the British are in St Louis Bay, they could demonstrate in front of the main force, and overwhelm the troops around Henderson Pt. Or they could send enough troops to keep the garrison at Henderson Pt busy, and attack St Louis Bay with the main force. Either way the British would be seriously outnumbered and holding an extended front that the Americans could concentrate against at a given point.

If the Americans breakthrough the line the British could end up having most of the army captured. "With a rebel yell." We Yankies know what a furious charge Southern boys are can make. Even if the line held casualties would be high, and the British would be shaken like they were at Bunker Hill, or New Orleans. Would they want to stay around for another attack? You can bet another attack would follow, that was just the thinking of the age, and the psychology of the officers and men of the time, and region. Chances would be high that the whole operation would be called off, and under cover of darkness the men would retreat back to the boats at the beaches.

The idea that the British would be able to build an impregnatable fortress that the American army would bleed to death in front of is not realistic. The terrain is low coastal ground, with no real high ground. There are some creeks that could help, but it's just not a naturally strong defensive position. The army would be vulnerable there, and not some huge threat to the whole Gulf Coast.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

If the Americans breakthrough the line the British could end up having most of the army captured. "With a rebel yell." We Yankies know what a furious charge Southern boys are can make. Even if the line held casualties would be high, and the British would be shaken like they were at Bunker Hill, or New Orleans.

At Bunker Hill and New Orleans, the Americans were on the defensive, the complete reverse of the situation here. If those battles are any guide to how this hypothetical battle would go, the US would be the side losing demoralising numbers of troops, not the British.

The idea that the British would be able to build an impregnatable fortress that the American army would bleed to death in front of is not realistic.

Nobody's saying that, just that, by launching descents on the coast, Britain can draw American manpower away from the important front in Canada. If the US sends 15,000 men to winkle out a British force of 5,000, that's still to Britain's advantage, as the US are having to divert three times as many men as the British are. And of course, if the Americans come in such numbers that the British defences look untenable, the British can always embark, sail up the coast however many miles, and attack somewhere else, forcing the Americans to chase them up and down the area. Meanwhile the war is being decided thousands of miles away in Canada, where the US army is 15,000 men fewer than it might otherwise have been.

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

My counter argument is that the war wouldn't start as an attack out of the blue but would be the culmination of a crisis of many months. In that time defenses would be shored up, new earthen works batteries constructed, guns mounted, militia drilled, and volunteer regiments raised. In defense of my argument, I talked about how such defenses proved very formidable both in the past and later in the Civil War. You dismiss my argument as an abstract piece of guess work, with no basis in reality because I can't tell you how many guns of what caliber would be put in place, and what places they be, and even if they did have guns the gunners would be poorly trained.

I don't see any mention here about the other harbor defenses, that don't involve guns, troops, and forts. I'm speaking of underwater obstructions, so blockships and other stuff easily put in place, to catch and sink/immobilize invading warships. How often will the British need to run their ships onto such unseen obstructions before they won't risk trying to enter an American port? Blockships are a cheap, and deadly surprise when thinking you can race into an enemy port perhaps under the cover of darkness, only to get impaled by a sunken ships masts, or other similar quick and dirty underwater defenses that can (and would) be quickly improvised and emplaced in case of such a war as this thread's hypothesis.

It isn't a simple question of guns, troops, and forts. How often have harbors and ports, shipyard and naval bases been denied to an enemy by underwater defenses over the years, after all.

So no, even without giant garrisons, manning huge fortresses, bristling with cannons, the US coastline isn't just naked and hopelessly vulnerable to the RN's depredations, and the more time the US has to hastily put these underwater obstacles in place (and improve/upgrade them for the duration of the war), the less and less the British will physically be able to even try to force entry. The best part of this type of defense, is the properly done ones will not be visible to the enemy, until they run their ships into this, and either sink or get stuck. As the British will never know if a given port has had a blockship recently sunk in the entry, it will always be a question about what they don't know and can see, so...

Early war, the attempts at underwater obstructions will be haphazard, and likely there won't be attempts to make it look like there are no restrictions/obstructions in the way, but later on, when this type of thing gets to be more commonplace, I could see effort going into making sure there nothing gives away their existence, in hopes of luring in an unsuspecting British warship or two.

Barbed wire, and minefields are a couple well known type of land denial defenses, but it is rather shocking that no one is talking about the easiest and quickest defenses to emplace, to deny an enemy access to your ports/harbors/shipyards/naval bases.

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

If you consider 5,000 men a much smaller force, what were you thinking about originally? Considering the size of the British army that would be assigned to NA how many would go to the Gulf against what goes to Canada, or any action on the East Coast? So, if 5,000 troops land in St Louis Bay and build a fortified camp what would the American do?

I have to ask, just where are these notional Invaders getting their fresh water, for all these troops, in their heavily fortified little base? Ever hear about Typhoid and Dysentery?

I'm looking at the maps, they are surrounded by salt water. Where are they getting their fresh water, one wonders? Perhaps the US side doesn't overlook this obvious possibility?

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

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 in 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.

I remember reading this with great amusement at the time, see the above post for why this is going to be easily made into a disaster for the British. My only hope would be that the US somehow realized that the British are thinking along these foolish lines, and wait to start dumping their gifts to the invaders until they have spent much time and effort on these camps, only to be routed and destroyed once the effects are widespread among the troops based there.

 

[Belisarius II]

I don't see any mention here about the other harbor defenses, that don't involve guns, troops, and forts. I'm speaking of underwater obstructions, so blockships and other stuff easily put in place, to catch and sink/immobilize invading warships. How often will the British need to run their ships onto such unseen obstructions before they won't risk trying to enter an American port? Blockships are a cheap, and deadly surprise when thinking you can race into an enemy port perhaps under the cover of darkness, only to get impaled by a sunken ships masts, or other similar quick and dirty underwater defenses that can (and would) be quickly improvised and emplaced in case of such a war as this thread's hypothesis.

It isn't a simple question of guns, troops, and forts. How often have harbors and ports, shipyard and naval bases been denied to an enemy by underwater defenses over the years, after all.

So no, even without giant garrisons, manning huge fortresses, bristling with cannons, the US coastline isn't just naked and hopelessly vulnerable to the RN's depredations, and the more time the US has to hastily put these underwater obstacles in place (and improve/upgrade them for the duration of the war), the less and less the British will physically be able to even try to force entry. The best part of this type of defense, is the properly done ones will not be visible to the enemy, until they run their ships into this, and either sink or get stuck. As the British will never know if a given port has had a blockship recently sunk in the entry, it will always be a question about what they don't know and can see, so...

Early war, the attempts at underwater obstructions will be haphazard, and likely there won't be attempts to make it look like there are no restrictions/obstructions in the way, but later on, when this type of thing gets to be more commonplace, I could see effort going into making sure there nothing gives away their existence, in hopes of luring in an unsuspecting British warship or two.

Barbed wire, and minefields are a couple well known type of land denial defenses, but it is rather shocking that no one is talking about the easiest and quickest defenses to emplace, to deny an enemy access to your ports/harbors/shipyards/naval bases.

Your right my friend these things would be done. New York has only a narrow channel deep enough for big ships going out into the lower bay. The way from Long Island Sound is a more tortures route with strong currents, and easily blocked narrows, which is why no one really talks about attacking NY from that side. Putting obstructions in the water is a basic defense, that only local pilots would know how to work around. Another idea is placing a chain, or removable boom across the Verrazano Narrows. If they could put in a chain boom to keep the British from running up the Hudson past West Point in the ARW they could build one in New York City. Naval mines known as torpedoes at the time had been invented and were available. From Wiki

In 1812, Russian engineer Pavel Shilling exploded an underwater mine using an electrical circuit. In 1842 Samuel Colt used an electric detonator to destroy a moving vessel to demonstrate an underwater mine of his own design to the United States Navy and President John Tyler. However, opposition from former president John Quincy Adams, scuttled the project as "not fair and honest warfare".[15] In 1854, during the unsuccessful attempt of the Anglo-French fleet to seize the Kronstadt fortress, British steamships HMS Merlin (9 June 1855, the first successful mining in history), HMS Vulture and HMS Firefly suffered damage due to the underwater explosions of Russian naval mines. Russian naval specialists set more than 1,500 naval mines, or infernal machines, designed by Moritz von Jacobi and by Immanuel Nobel,[16] in the Gulf of Finland during the Crimean War of 1853–1856. The mining of Vulcan led to the world's first minesweeping operation.[17][18] During the next 72 hours, 33 mines were swept.[19]

That would give the RN a nasty surprise. As we know mines were a major hazard in the Civil War. When Farragut shouted damn the torpedoes, he was running a big risk. several torpedoes were hit by his ship but failed to explode because they'd been in the water too long, and water had leaked in, or the detonators failed. Those were simple contact torpedoes, these electric models would blow up from ether contact, or by an operator on shore. I should've brought this up myself, but it would just be another annoying detail from an idea guy. Thanks for bringing up this important dimension of naval warfare.

 

[TRH]

Nobody's saying that, just that, by launching descents on the coast, Britain can draw American manpower away from the important front in Canada.

Isn't that exactly what Diego was saying? Either the Americans must attack a fortified position or they lose New Orleans, apparently.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

I don't see any mention here about the other harbor defenses, that don't involve guns, troops, and forts. I'm speaking of underwater obstructions, so blockships and other stuff easily put in place, to catch and sink/immobilize invading warships. How often will the British need to run their ships onto such unseen obstructions before they won't risk trying to enter an American port? Blockships are a cheap, and deadly surprise when thinking you can race into an enemy port perhaps under the cover of darkness, only to get impaled by a sunken ships masts, or other similar quick and dirty underwater defenses that can (and would) be quickly improvised and emplaced in case of such a war as this thread's hypothesis.

If it's really that easy, I wonder why anybody bothered with guns, troops, and forts at all.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Isn't that exactly what Diego was saying? Either the Americans must attack a fortified position or they lose New Orleans, apparently.

How does that equate to "the British would be able to build an impregnatable fortress that the American army would bleed to death in front of"?

 

[TRH]

How does that equate to "the British would be able to build an impregnatable fortress that the American army would bleed to death in front of"?

Before I answer, I'd like some clarification. Are you denying that he was asserting exactly that? Because that's what it sounded like to me. Which, well, it's not like you can just plop down the Lines of Torres Vedras anywhere you want.

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

If it's really that easy, I wonder why anybody bothered with guns, troops, and forts at all.

Because of course, the underwater defenses are not a replacement for the guns, forts and troops, but merely another, additional, part of the defensive works, right?

Put another way, no amount of troops, forts or guns are going to physically obstruct enemy vessels from entering, all these land based defenses do is exact a toll on the enemy, but the water based defenses CAN stop enemy ships from physically entering American ports, so...

How many times would the RN be willing to lose it's ships when they get hung up on a sunken ship, or other wartime underwater defensive works, before the lesson sinks in? Once the British realize that they cannot "bombard the US coastal cities off the face of the earth", then what are they going to do then? The US shipyards are going to still exist, they are still going to be able to build and expand the USN, and the Blockade is going to get ever weaker, and the UK is going to realize that such a blockade winning them this war is a hopeless task.

 

[Insane Ranter]

At the peak the US/CSA put in the field about 750,000 troops. Why could this not push to 1 million and unite an already on a war footing USA? Can the UK bring this many over? Canada might be lost?

 

[TRH]

At the peak the US/CSA put in the field about 750,000 troops. Why could this not push to 1 million and unite an already on a war footing USA? Can the UK bring this many over? Canada might be lost?

Well, the US population nearly doubled between 1840 and 1860, from 17 million to 31 million. So pushing to 1 million would be way more taxing.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Before I answer, I'd like some clarification. Are you denying that he was asserting exactly that? Because that's what it sounded like to me. Which, well, it's not like you can just plop down the Lines of Torres Vedras anywhere you want.

That's not how it read to me, but I'm sure he can explain his own post better than I.

Because of course, the underwater defenses are not a replacement for the guns, forts and troops, but merely another, additional, part of the defensive works, right?

In which case the US would still have to divert a large number of troops, guns, and other such supplies to shore up its coastal defences.

 

[Insane Ranter]

Well, the US population nearly doubled between 1840 and 1860, from 17 million to 31 million. So pushing to 1 million would be way more taxing.

True very very true.

 

[TRH]

That's not how it read to me, but I'm sure he can explain his own post better than I.

It was framed as a binary choice between attacking immediately or letting it become a launching point for an army in the tens of thousands. I'm guessing you'd at least agree that if that much manpower was landed, evacuation would no longer be quick or riskless should they find themselves outmatched by the defenders.

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

In which case the US would still have to divert a large number of troops, guns, and other such supplies to shore up its coastal defences.

Of course, the USA isn't going to go to war with the UK and NOT defend it's coasts, right? It is just that, the UK isn't going to be leveling the US coastal cities, one after another, and crushing the US into a peace treaty on British/Canadian terms. Instead, they'll be forced into fighting a long war, and committing the bulk of their fleet to American waters in an attempt to blockade us into submission, and this will not be just in 1843, but likely into 1850 or longer.

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

It was framed as a binary choice between attacking immediately or letting it become a launching point for an army in the tens of thousands. I'm guessing you'd at least agree that if that much manpower was landed, evacuation would no longer be quick or riskless should they find themselves outmatched by the defenders.

See post #145 for why a large concentration of troops, in a small, seaside fortified position, might just not be an ideal (to say nothing of war winning) strategy, and how that might just cause the British severe losses, even without a pitch battle taking place.

 

[Belisarius II]

At Bunker Hill and New Orleans, the Americans were on the defensive, the complete reverse of the situation here. If those battles are any guide to how this hypothetical battle would go, the US would be the side losing demoralising numbers of troops, not the British.

In both those defensive battles the area being defended was very small, on good defensive terrain, and the attackers had no great numerical advantage. At New Orleans the British couldn't even see the American line because of fog and walked into a kill zone. In this situation the British would be defending an extended line dependent on trenches, and some earthen works in pretty flat terrain. The situation would be far more favorable for the attacker.

Nobody's saying that, just that, by launching descents on the coast, Britain can draw American manpower away from the important front in Canada. If the US sends 15,000 men to winkle out a British force of 5,000, that's still to Britain's advantage, as the US are having to divert three times as many men as the British are. And of course, if the Americans come in such numbers that the British defences look untenable, the British can always embark, sail up the coast however many miles, and attack somewhere else, forcing the Americans to chase them up and down the area. Meanwhile the war is being decided thousands of miles away in Canada, where the US army is 15,000 men fewer than it might otherwise have been.

Where do you think these American troops would be coming from? There only coming from around 50 miles away. There not coming from the Canadian front. Sure, when they see a large force arrive, they can leave, and try to attack someplace else, so the whole enterprise is just a raid. Nothing more than giving the American troops sore feet, while the British get seasick. Attack another fort, maybe win, land, setup defenses, Americans arrive, retreat to the ships. Burn small towns, and sink small coastal trader craft, sail away. Chase blockade runners. Go back to Jamaica to rest, and resupply. That's how the war would go. No decisive land battle would happen on the Gulf Coast.