If they will not meet us on the open sea (a Trent TL)
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Saphroneth
Banned
Pretty much, yes - it's the royal delegate component of the system, which may be superseded in the late 19th century when cross-Atlantic communication is fast, easy and reliable... but these days the cables break easily, and after a decade or two having a GG is just tradition for a constituent kingdom.
Also you need a GG on the spot to open schools/hospitals/Parliamentary sessions etc.
Letter from Grant to McClellan on establishment strength
Saphroneth
Banned
Letter from McClellan to Grant, late November 1864
"...one of the disadvantages that I discerned during the late war was the lack of precision in the systems of account for troops. You know of course, as do I, that a regiment consists of so many companies each of so many men - that is the establishment. But the establishment is so much more than the fighting strength that it quickly becomes hard to evaluate the true abilities of a regiment, or a brigade, or an army.
I commend to you the example of the British Armies which we latterly fought across the Northern States. In a British Army, a battalion is a formation of so many men - and that is the number of men who fight in the army. If they suffer casualties, their depots make up the numbers; their extra duty men are not accounted on the strength; they have no need to detach men for the duties of the army. So a battalion, unless recently harmed by a particular battle or cut off from replenishment, is a stable organization for which only the sick list (and that is a small list these days) impedes their effective functioning as they are supposed to be.
Conversely, in an Army of the United States, a Regiment is provided by the State with a set enlisted strength and then is left largely to fate. If it suffers from desertion - a problem which affects many regiments of Volunteers who sign up under an excess of zeal - then it is quickly diminished closer to 700 men of 1,000; if it has faced enemy fire, it may be down to 600; the men who are sick may diminish it to 500; then with the men who are detailed to bring the supply wagon for each company one may see a further reduction; even our own artillery makes draws upon our strength to make up the numbers for manning the gun, until what is supposed to be one thousand men can barely bring three hundred bayonets to the battle and so we create brigades to give the strength of an old regiment.
It seems to me that this system is inefficient; further, that it promotes imprecision. In the late war I recall more than once that the Commander-in-Chief asked of me why your own army was not able to defeat their foes, for it seemed to him that your strength was nearer forty-five thousand - for your number of regiments - than the twenty-two thousand you could place upon the battlefield. It further seems to me that this problem is one that bears considering for any future re-organization of the armed forces of the Republic - at the very least one could hope that a regiment should be replenished, to allow the new men to gain experience from their experienced peers..."
"...I would have the Present Under Arms be the strength measure by which we judge a regiment, or the Present for Duty equipped, not anything more and certainly not some nebulous Grand Aggregate of all the men who once signed a piece of paper..."
"...one of the disadvantages that I discerned during the late war was the lack of precision in the systems of account for troops. You know of course, as do I, that a regiment consists of so many companies each of so many men - that is the establishment. But the establishment is so much more than the fighting strength that it quickly becomes hard to evaluate the true abilities of a regiment, or a brigade, or an army.
I commend to you the example of the British Armies which we latterly fought across the Northern States. In a British Army, a battalion is a formation of so many men - and that is the number of men who fight in the army. If they suffer casualties, their depots make up the numbers; their extra duty men are not accounted on the strength; they have no need to detach men for the duties of the army. So a battalion, unless recently harmed by a particular battle or cut off from replenishment, is a stable organization for which only the sick list (and that is a small list these days) impedes their effective functioning as they are supposed to be.
Conversely, in an Army of the United States, a Regiment is provided by the State with a set enlisted strength and then is left largely to fate. If it suffers from desertion - a problem which affects many regiments of Volunteers who sign up under an excess of zeal - then it is quickly diminished closer to 700 men of 1,000; if it has faced enemy fire, it may be down to 600; the men who are sick may diminish it to 500; then with the men who are detailed to bring the supply wagon for each company one may see a further reduction; even our own artillery makes draws upon our strength to make up the numbers for manning the gun, until what is supposed to be one thousand men can barely bring three hundred bayonets to the battle and so we create brigades to give the strength of an old regiment.
It seems to me that this system is inefficient; further, that it promotes imprecision. In the late war I recall more than once that the Commander-in-Chief asked of me why your own army was not able to defeat their foes, for it seemed to him that your strength was nearer forty-five thousand - for your number of regiments - than the twenty-two thousand you could place upon the battlefield. It further seems to me that this problem is one that bears considering for any future re-organization of the armed forces of the Republic - at the very least one could hope that a regiment should be replenished, to allow the new men to gain experience from their experienced peers..."
"...I would have the Present Under Arms be the strength measure by which we judge a regiment, or the Present for Duty equipped, not anything more and certainly not some nebulous Grand Aggregate of all the men who once signed a piece of paper..."
Wait, really, that was the system (or rather, lack of it?) Regiments raised as essentially feudal entities, brought to muster then left to the mercy of the campaign?
I... what?
I... what?
Saphroneth
Banned
Mostly, yes. It was rare for a regiment to be replenished, which is why by the end of the war New York alone had generated 194 numbered regiments but certainly did not have anything close to 194,000 New York men in the field at any one time. Some regiments OTL put under 200 men into the line (the famous 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg had about 250 men with the colours at the start).
The exception was Wisconsin - Wisconsin regiments were replenished, which is why there were so few of them comparatively speaking but why they were often considered to basically be the equivalent of brigades.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fMZWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=regiments+equivalent+to+a+brigade+civil+war++wisconsin&source=bl&ots=qGSmyMbrw8&sig=z7zq-KcElMJ5ThdMxcN5yeYE6H8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfl5HT0oDSAhVJ4WMKHbGBBA0Q6AEIODAF#v=onepage&q=regiments equivalent to a brigade civil war wisconsin&f=false
The US system had some pretty critical disadvantages - you think McClellan's sour TTL, you should see OTL when he wrote on much the same topic. Heck, it's one reason "outnumbering" is so hard to track in Civil War battles, because often the numbers for one side account very differently to the other. (Antietam has one side measured by Engaged - Rebels - and the other by Present For Duty - Union troops). It's been manipulated to do things like damn McClellan (for not winning when he outnumbers the enemy - because he has 100 regiments and "should" have 100,000 men, say, while his foes have fewer men by a different measure) or praise the South (the Lost Cause argument where they're constantly heavily outnumbered).
Lincoln didn't really understand the difference OTL, often reverting to Grand Aggregate (1,000 men per regiment regardless of actual regimental strength).
Saphroneth
Banned
Oddly enough, the otl Civil War may be the only big war in history when 'garrison troops' were often better than line infantry.
If you take a regiment that's been in garrison for two years and was of reasonable quality at the start, then since they've not been on campaign yet they're still fairly strong in numerical terms and they've had more drill time than anyone else!
If you take a regiment that's been in garrison for two years and was of reasonable quality at the start, then since they've not been on campaign yet they're still fairly strong in numerical terms and they've had more drill time than anyone else!
Saphroneth
Banned
Not sure why Wisconsin, but it was clearly noticed. It may just be that they noticed something everyone else missed when they organized their attempt to meet their quota. (The US system was pretty much built from the ground up for the ACW so some peculiarities might be expected. This one's just a positive one for the Badger State.)
Incidentally, you know those McClellan "overestimates" of OTL? Often they're Grand Aggregate, because that's how his own strength was seen in Washington, and should be compared with his own Grand Aggregate. Instead what often happens is that people say McClellan saw the Confederate Grand Aggregate (i.e. hysterical overestimate), give the real Confederate Effective, say (men able to form the battle line) as what he should have seen, and quote his own Aggregate Present (men not absent, so about 70% of his Grand Aggregate and considerably over his line strength) as "his army size".
RodentRevolution
Banned
For a second source that backs this up there is The Personnel Replacement System of the United States Army whose section on the Civil War outlines the problem as well.
Saphroneth
Banned
Not at all. There simply wasn't enough engagement by Wisconsin regiments TTL to really notice the comparison, but the British have (a) just kicked the Union up the St Lawrence and down the Great Lakes and (b) have this system in place army wide and to a much greater extent.
The only thing that makes Wisconsin regiments different is their continuous replenishment (which doesn't mean a huge amount in the short campaign seasons of TTL) but the British system is comprehensive, army-wide and a far better example to boot.
Of the reasons why a normal US regiment would be understrength, Wisconsin regiments are resistant to precisely one - death and other unrecoverable casualties are replenished for them - while a British regiment only suffers from one, which is the sick list. All the other causes are handled by the British (they have no need to detach men for logistics as they have a separate military train, their batmen and other servants are not on the list strength, their artillery does not require drafts from the infantry, they replenish from their permanent depot system which is more efficient than Wisconsin's system to boot, and finally they don't even have much trouble with the sick list.)
Basically McClellan is really jealous
Saphroneth
Banned
It's one of the things that also makes Trent discussions hard to do - often US strength is reported as Aggregate Present or even AP&A (meaning line troops, logistics troops, extra duty, those under arrest, those in the hospitals and on occasion deserters!) while it's not often recognized that a British battalion of 800 field strength is actually more like 1,000 to 1,100 by the same strength counts as they have a separate log train.
This is one reason I try to stick to PFD, which is usually the lowest number we have for the Union (and which still counts extra duty/under arrest/sick). It'd be nice if we had returns like the British did in the Crimea, though.
British returns use Present Under Arms, Detached On Command (extra duty etc.), Present Sick, Absent Sick, and count the officers/musicians/sergeants/rank and file separately too. (n.b. the follwing predates the establishment of the military train)
So in the Crimea the British Army had on 1 Oct 1854:
1087 officers
Present Under Arms
1341 Sergeants
512 Musicians
21187 Rank and File
Detached on Command
343 Seargeants
26 Musicians
4434 Rank and File
Present Sick
27 Sergeants
2 Musicians
277 Rank and File
Absent Sick
267 Sergeants
63 Musicians
6077 Rank and File
In US measures this is
28930 Present for Duty
29236 Aggregate Present
35643 Aggregate Present and Absent
(the CS measure of "effectives" would count this army as 24127 - that is, it's quite possible to see a disparity of 50% or more.)
Subsequently for the British (post Crimea campaign) the Detached On Command category shrinks considerably as the logistics is handled by the military train instead to a large degree, and the number sick is reduced by Florence Nightingale. One assumes McClellan would like much the same, which could lead to an interestingly shaped and rather more professional US army of later periods.
If Congress will stand for it, that is. Paying for logistics in a peacetime army without overseas commitments is a tough sell.
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Saphroneth
Banned
For a formation of a few regiments? "Bodge it together" was pretty much how they handled it as I understand it - you're not talking about a huge logistical footprint, especially since the men would all be Regulars (US Volunteers were much more prone to want civilian comforts than regulars were, as the Comte de Paris noted of 1862 - heck, he said a US army could often not function more than a day from their supply head because of their extravagant meals.)
Indeed, I imagine they could probably live off the land to at least some extent - it's easier to get forage in the field for a couple of dozen horses than it is for hundreds.
I'll admit I'm not an expert on the matter, though.
If you mean how they handled logistics manpower, the US used the same "use regular infantry on detached duty" method. It's just that in the Indian wars or the Mexican-American War the armies were fairly small so the impact was not huge.
Saphroneth
Banned
Not strictly an update - more of a test of a different writing style...
"You can't be suggesting that we give up on this! These... these... rebels have been captured by the Federal Government, and-"
"It is not the question of whether they are rebels which exercises me, Mr. Stanton-"
"Gentlemen," Lincoln said firmly.
The talk subsided, and all eyes turned to the tall man who was the President of the United States.
"Gentlemen, we have been about this for two days already," Lincoln stressed. "We have talked for all of Christmas Eve, and all of Christmas Day, and now we look fair to talk through all of Boxing Day as well. But the time we have for talk is not unlimited."
He left a pause, for anyone who wished to speak up, then continued. "Mr. Welles, the facts of the incident please."
"The facts, Mr. President," Welles confirmed. "On the 8th of November last, the sloop San Jacinto - under Captain Charles Wilkes - intercepted the British mail steamer the Trent in the channels between the Bahama banks and the island of Cuba. There he stopped the Trent and took off the persons Mason, Sliddell, and their secretaries, charging them to be contraband."
"So much for the facts of the incident," Lincoln agreed. "Mr. Seward, what of the response?"
"I have been informed by Lord Lyons that the action of Captain Wilkes has been seen as illegal by the British Government," Seward stated without preamble. "Lord Lyons is the British ambassador to the Union, as you all know of course, and he made this case to me earlier this week in forceful terms - it is clear to me that he is acting with the instructions of the British Cabinet. I have been shown his covering letter, for he had permission to do so, and it is clear that anything short of capitulation - of surrendering the aforementioned commissioners and their secretaries - would be grounds for Lord Lyons to immediately depart this country, and would mean war."
There was a moment of hushed silence, for this was a part of the response they had not heard yet.
"I cannot bring myself to believe that the British would give us only the options of capitulation or war," Lincoln stated. "We are well aware of the Rebel sympathies in some parts of the British government, perhaps, but I have been assured that the British position with regard to the Rebellion is to avow neutrality."
Seward began to speak, but subsided as Lincoln kept talking. "It is my opinion that the very harshness of the British dispatch is intended to ensure that we do not delay in announcing our official position."
"What position will that be?" asked the Secretary of War, Cameron. "There has been a great spirit of celebration throughout the land for the capture of the Rebel commissioners - I do not think we should lightly tell the country that it was all our mistake, and that the greatest and most admired victory of the War thus far must be abrogated."
Seward still looked uncomfortable.
"I have heard the opinions of a number of respected legal professors on the matter of the Trent," Bates spoke up. "From Theophilus Parsons of Boston to Richard Henry Dana and to the former Minister to Great Britain, Edward Everett, all are agreed that the seizure of the commissioners was a legal one."
"My thanks, gentlemen," Lincoln nodded. "I believe that this confirms my appreciation of the situation."
He nodded to Seward. "Mr. Seward. Please inform Lord Lyons that, on this issue, we feel that it is of the utmost importance to seek the best resolution for all concerned that comports with international law. As such, the persons of Mason and Sliddell will not be released, though we would not oppose any attempt at international mediation which the British Empire wished to organize, pursuant to a mutually agreeable selection of mediators which does not unduly bias the deliberations of the panel."
If I went with "book-izing" this TL (in the course of which I'd correct a few things, probably have more of a Montreal Offensive, and definitely change the West Coast!) then I'd probably start here, or rather anything before this would be OTL sources or very similar.
"You can't be suggesting that we give up on this! These... these... rebels have been captured by the Federal Government, and-"
"It is not the question of whether they are rebels which exercises me, Mr. Stanton-"
"Gentlemen," Lincoln said firmly.
The talk subsided, and all eyes turned to the tall man who was the President of the United States.
"Gentlemen, we have been about this for two days already," Lincoln stressed. "We have talked for all of Christmas Eve, and all of Christmas Day, and now we look fair to talk through all of Boxing Day as well. But the time we have for talk is not unlimited."
He left a pause, for anyone who wished to speak up, then continued. "Mr. Welles, the facts of the incident please."
"The facts, Mr. President," Welles confirmed. "On the 8th of November last, the sloop San Jacinto - under Captain Charles Wilkes - intercepted the British mail steamer the Trent in the channels between the Bahama banks and the island of Cuba. There he stopped the Trent and took off the persons Mason, Sliddell, and their secretaries, charging them to be contraband."
"So much for the facts of the incident," Lincoln agreed. "Mr. Seward, what of the response?"
"I have been informed by Lord Lyons that the action of Captain Wilkes has been seen as illegal by the British Government," Seward stated without preamble. "Lord Lyons is the British ambassador to the Union, as you all know of course, and he made this case to me earlier this week in forceful terms - it is clear to me that he is acting with the instructions of the British Cabinet. I have been shown his covering letter, for he had permission to do so, and it is clear that anything short of capitulation - of surrendering the aforementioned commissioners and their secretaries - would be grounds for Lord Lyons to immediately depart this country, and would mean war."
There was a moment of hushed silence, for this was a part of the response they had not heard yet.
"I cannot bring myself to believe that the British would give us only the options of capitulation or war," Lincoln stated. "We are well aware of the Rebel sympathies in some parts of the British government, perhaps, but I have been assured that the British position with regard to the Rebellion is to avow neutrality."
Seward began to speak, but subsided as Lincoln kept talking. "It is my opinion that the very harshness of the British dispatch is intended to ensure that we do not delay in announcing our official position."
"What position will that be?" asked the Secretary of War, Cameron. "There has been a great spirit of celebration throughout the land for the capture of the Rebel commissioners - I do not think we should lightly tell the country that it was all our mistake, and that the greatest and most admired victory of the War thus far must be abrogated."
Seward still looked uncomfortable.
"I have heard the opinions of a number of respected legal professors on the matter of the Trent," Bates spoke up. "From Theophilus Parsons of Boston to Richard Henry Dana and to the former Minister to Great Britain, Edward Everett, all are agreed that the seizure of the commissioners was a legal one."
"My thanks, gentlemen," Lincoln nodded. "I believe that this confirms my appreciation of the situation."
He nodded to Seward. "Mr. Seward. Please inform Lord Lyons that, on this issue, we feel that it is of the utmost importance to seek the best resolution for all concerned that comports with international law. As such, the persons of Mason and Sliddell will not be released, though we would not oppose any attempt at international mediation which the British Empire wished to organize, pursuant to a mutually agreeable selection of mediators which does not unduly bias the deliberations of the panel."
If I went with "book-izing" this TL (in the course of which I'd correct a few things, probably have more of a Montreal Offensive, and definitely change the West Coast!) then I'd probably start here, or rather anything before this would be OTL sources or very similar.
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Bully for you, I say! You write very well. Were this ever organised into a book, a combination of such scenes and the more factual extracts would be a wondrous and interesting experience, I daresay. Bloody good show, this whole timeline.
Saphroneth
Banned
Heh - this TL is a lot like fanfic, just fanfic for the real world. It adds to the number of settings I've done - and, really, the mid-Victorian period is not much more odd than the Pokemon world, or Lord of the Rings. (Fiction has to make sense, but the New York Herald is very real.)