So the US is hammered, the South wins the North is left with nothing but regrets.
I'm afraid it does seem to be the inevitable outcome of the Trent war.
A sure path to a US that hates England, the South and France.
Not necessarily - no more than Prussia and Austria were sworn enemies for decades after 1864.
All the US generals are unfit for command and all the Southern and English ones are always winners.
Actually, the US generals have been doing rather well, considering - they're outnumbered in pretty much every single important battle, because the Union Army is 200,000 troops
smaller and is facing 150,000
more enemies (in addition to the extra Confederates freed up from the coast being cleared, or the troops armed with weapons that OTL were sold to the Union instead of the Confederacy).
Grant's held out for months in Kentucky despite heavy outnumbering, McClellan just saved over half his army from a superior enemy who pulled a major strategic surprise on him, and even the generals in the New England area have avoided giving up much ground (apart from Maine, which Totten gave up as indefensible).
When you compare how they're doing TTL with a heavy numerical disadvantage, and juxtapose it with how they did OTL with a numerical advantage, they've acquitted themselves well compared to OTL! It would have been very easy to justify, for example, any one of the defeats during the period from March to June resulting in no Union troops between an attacker and a major industrial city...
Oh and California and Oregon as well as Washington will become part of Canada?
Where did you get that idea from? The British might press the British version of the Oregon claims at the peace conference, but no more than their OTL claim (the north of the Columbia, IIRC).
I guess Grant, Sherman and Meade become outcasts.
Not really, no. Grant's a respected if not especially important general, Sherman's not done anything especially noteworthy one way or the other, and Meade's saved DC from capture.
McClellan may not be vilified by history, though - his picture's more nuanced than OTL.
Sorry but I find this story line a little to far out there in never, never land.
I'm sorry you feel that - I've aimed for realism, or verisimilitude, as much as possible. The core of my thesis is the point that TTL the Union is roughly five to six hundred thousand small arms poorer and the Confederacy is much more able to arm and equip
their troops, due to the reversal of who's blockaded - this leads in turn to the perennial Union problem with troop numbers compared to their Confederate counterparts. It also means that in pretty much every battle the Union troops are overwhelmingly armed with smoothbores, while over the course of the first half of 1862 the Confederacy is rearming with Enfields, Brunswicks, Minies, and all manner of actual rifles they never had enough of OTL.
In fact, I could sum it up roughly like this.
OTL Union army enlistments in first half of 1862 (June 30) was 700,000 nominal, 600,000 after desertions.
OTL they were facing about 425,000 troops after desertions (April 1862). So OTL was 600,000:425,000.
TTL the Union army is more like 430,000 after desertions due to lack of small arms (number approximate, could be lower and unlikely to be higher).
TTL they're facing about 450,000 Confederates (small net benefit due to better small arms, and this is measuring to June 1862), 50-60,000 British regulars, 100,000 Canadian militia, and the prospect of amphibious attacks on the coast.
So TTL is 430,000:610,000, and the average quality of the 610,000 is higher due to those British regulars. (So very roughly the relative number of Union soldiers compared to their enemies has halved.) Again, remember this is total enlistments being counted minus only desertions, and every battle lost for want of numbers or morale makes it worse for the Union - they can't replace what they lose because they also lose the muskets.
The funny thing is - I actually wondered if the Union would make it to June at all at one point, and so ignored some of the things which could have caused a collapse.
I'm no economics expert, but the Union at this point has been operating without any foreign trade save a much-reduced grain trade for over six months, and it's also lost all their gold from California - this is
not a healthy economy, especially since OTL there was a bank run on the threat of war with Britain. The Union's done well TTL to keep going for six months... and what's really the killer here is that their gunpowder supplies are getting critical.
(For those wondering what happened to the DuPont purchase, the Confederates took what they could of it and are very happy with the results!)
