If they will not meet us on the open sea (a Trent TL)

[Saphroneth]

2 May
Grant's forces attempt a breakout. The portion of the army for which small arms are unavailable is assigned to the artillery, serving as additional manpower, and this makes the guns much more mobile - letting them hit part of the Confederate lines with a high concentration of force, and break through to the north towards Goodlettsville.
A.S.Johnston reacts quickly, having the southernmost division of his army attack towards Nashville - which succeeds easily as most of the Union army has already left the city - and his men capture the bridge intact. Sending half his army this way, he has the remaining infantry concentrate to form two flanking columns and detaches his entire contingent of cavalry under Beauregard to head Grant off.

The running battle continues for several hours, with Confederate forces road-marching up behind the Union ones and the Confederate flanking columns interfering with any attempt by the Union to set up a blocking position. Beauregard and his cavalry are not able to make their way in front of Grant before Goodlettsville or to break into the column and scatter it, and Grant's vanguard set up at Goodlettsville as soon as they reach it - establishing a perimeter.
Johnston contemplates the situation, and decides to order a prompt attack - as little preparation time as feasible, so as to prevent Grant's men from fortifying their position or from retreating further north overnight. While driving them back to the mountains would be a significant achievement, he wants this army.
It takes until five in the afternoon for the Confederate artillery to be brought up, and - mindful of the time - Johnston has his men eat and recover their morale in the two hours of lull.
At ten past five, the Confederate guns open fire, bombarding a position on the crest of a shallow hill, and the infantry move in. Grant is trying to hold over five miles of front with 20,000 shooters, and has to keep some of them in reserve - so his line is thinner than he would like. (A two-deep firing line has two men per yard - he has enough for this, but it takes up well over half of his infantry.)


After the losses of the previous week, Grant has 35 smoothbore guns (mostly 6-lber) and 40 rifles, also mostly 6-lber. Those guns able to bear inflict many casualties on the Confederate attack, but the presence of the CS light guns being pushed forwards alongside their infantry (including many of the guns Grant's men had used last week) means that the Confederates keep coming longer than normal - they are heartened by their own artillery.

The first wave attack stops and ends up in a firefight at about 70 yards range, but the second wave twenty minutes later is Johnston's trick - it consists of the entirety of his cavalry, who charge home against a line already blasted by Confederate canister and all but unable to see them due to thick powder smoke. Several squadrons are nevertheless stopped by determined Union infantry, but the Third Division as a whole loses cohesion.

Grant's army is split in two by the collapse, and the main thing which will prevent a total surrender is the time. It takes long enough for Johnson to move in his own reserves to exploit the breach that evening is falling, and the Confederate general is denied his prize - two full divisions of Grant's army retreat on Springfield, with their Confederate opponents too disorganized to pursue, and fragments making up roughly one more division also filter out.
The impact on the Confederate army is considerable - their cavalry has been wrecked and will not be able to operate as a coherent arm for some time (the Confederate remount system is not able to supply remounts efficiently, consisting of the trooper providing his own horse) and the assault infantry have been badly chewed up, to the point that the total casualties exceed 4,000 killed and wounded.
The Union army, however, has been roughly halved in size. Grant now has 20,000 infantry left, around 9,000 of them without small arms, and the balance is mostly captured or wounded/killed. He has also lost most of his artillery.

Later historians will decide that both Grant and Johnston did not allow for their opponents making certain decisions, and that each missed opportunities. In particular, the Confederate cavalry should have been north of the river to begin with, while the Union would have been better served by setting up a narrower perimeter or perhaps, after all, arming some of their men with pikes to form anti-cavalry detachments.

 

[Saphroneth]

3 May

The second attack on Presque Isle bay begins. Libra, Scorpio, Pisces and Capricorn are present, along with a trio of gunboats (the Mackerel, Magpie and Ripple) as a second line for bombardment purposes.
Their arrival so soon after the first - failed - attack is a cause for some consternation, though fortunately the week's time has let the Union shipwrights work around the clock and complete the two modified Casco class monitors.
These two ships - Suncook and Tunixis - are much reduced from the original Casco plans, and in the process of reducing them down to a smaller size of vessel it was noticed that they would not have any bouyancy under combat load. As such, these ships of what will become known as the Suncook class do not share the problem which would have befallen the Cascos if any had been completed - they are, in fact, able to float.
Both vessels have lighter side armour than the original Monitor and are shallower in draft, though mounting similar guns - Tunixis mounts one 11" Dahlgren and one 8" Parrott, while Suncook has a pair of Dahlgrens sleeved down to about 9" and rifled.
Their armour is similar to that of the Monitor as well, though a mild alteration has been essayed in that the 1" plates are separated by thin laminates of wood to absorb shock. It was in adding these that the original bouyancy calculations were redone, and the problem discovered - to whit, the original Casco were designed assuming 15/16" plates and seasoned wood, and ordered with 1" plates and greenwood.

The Zodiacs open their broadsides and begin shelling the Union earthworks at about 3pm. This cannonade goes on for about an hour, with the gunboats moving in to find good arcs, and at the end of this time the fortifications - not fully repaired from last week - are essentially wrecked, no longer able to offer meaningful resistance.
While this is going on, Suncook and Tunixis move to the shallow bar of the bay and begin firing on the British ships, using their relatively long range (for monitor-type ships) to reload and fire with some of the gun crews outside the armour box. This speeds things considerably, and over the next hour Libra takes several hits and the Magpie loses her 68-lber main gun to a 9" ball. The sleeved 9" guns are proving reasonably effective - at this range they are causing some concussion, and are being more accurate than the previous guns the Union was using - but full charges are not being used yet, as there is a considerable risk associated.
At about ten past four, the British ironclads move in. After the problems of last week, they now move en echelon - with the gunboats forming a second angled line behind them, ready to react. The Union ships move to counter them, with both Suncooks ordering their crews back behind the armour, and there is something of a lull, as it takes about a quarter hour for the British squadron to get to battle range and the Union gunners are not willing to risk firing off their readied artillery (fifteen minutes is the reload time for the 11" gun).

A few minutes before 4:30, the engagement moves into a final phase. Mines are detonated in the bar, sending up two plumes of dirty water but missing all the British ironclads (as before only a few of the devices were able to endure their time underwater) and the Union formation moves in.
It quickly dissolves into a melee, with the Zodiacs running out their loaded guns from behind armour shutters for just long enough to fire on visible targets, and the Suncooks trying to get the much-coveted direct hit they require. Over the course of the battle the Mackerel is hit hard by shellfire and left disabled, while the Scorpio takes a penetration which disables two guns (via a heavily overloaded 9" gun which fired successfully) and Libra loses her smokestack which renders her unable to move. The Pisces and Capricorn both take more minor damage, including the effects of a shell shooting away the bowsprit on the Pisces.
The Union ships are in serious trouble, however. Between them the British ships carry 33 68-lber high velocity guns and sixteen 110-lber rifles, along with a few lighter guns on the gunboats, and this concentration of fire renders the wooden ships hors d' combat before battering through the turrets of Suncook and Tunixis to force them to strike.

Battered but triumphant, Yelverton (flying his flag in the Capricorn) demands the surrender of the dockyards. This is met with stonewalling and silence, and ultimately he simply has his ironclads shell the fitting-out docks, slips and other shipbuilding equipment - thus destroying the Union's main naval construction centre on the Great Lakes at a stroke.
This task done, his flotilla puts hot shot into the grounded American vessels (Hunter and Chippeway) to destroy them, and leaves for Windsor.

 

[Saphroneth]

4 May
In response to an overture originally made in March by Kamehameha IV, the Kingdom of Hawaii becomes a formal protectorate of the British imperial crown. HMS Chesapeake is the local ship of force for now, and the HMS Lion is fitting out in Pembroke to be the nucleus of a Central Pacific station.
The Kingdom of Hawaii maintains full domestic authority, and in return for protection subordinates her foreign policy to Imperial policy - though the existing treaties the Kingdom has with other powers will be respected in most particulars.
Historians will note that the event which likely clinched the deal was when the American Lancaster was reported off Oahu - this was included in the dispatches which also carried Kamehameha's offer, and made the Admiralty press for the acquisition of the magnificent Pearl Harbour to allow better coverage. (Now they have Pearl, they are unlikely to easily give it up - indeed, plans are already drawn up for the coastal defence batteries, which are currently slated to include around forty 68-lbers in the channel, twenty facing south into the sea, and dozens of Armstrong guns. They will in the event be completed with Armstrong-Elswick heavy breechloaders - the minimum requirement is to be able to stand off attack from any two ocean-going vessels in the possession of any power.)
Also on this date, a number of troopships make landfall off the Californian coast (having reprovisioned in Hawaii in early April). The troopers carry six battalions of infantry from India (one British battalion, one Gurkha battalion, one Sikh battalion and three battalions from the Bengal army) and this force will garrison San Francisco for now - it is hoped to eventually have up to 20,000 troops from the Indian Establishment in the area, though this is largely mission creep from the Indian department as the original plan was simply to ensure bullion shipments stopped. (This has been achieved - the Union government is in dire financial straits, though not quite as bad as it could be simply because they are unable to buy anything overseas.)

 

[Saphroneth]

5 May
The War Department issues an order for 20,000 troops (as in actual troops in numbers - this is specificed as 20,000 present) to be withdrawn from the Department of the Northeast in order to reinforce the Army of the Potomac and hence break the siege of Washington.
This seriously worries the American commanders on the ground - this will require stripping the forces facing Canada (by around 10,000; as this is the locus of the largest Canadian armies and the border is long it is considered highly risky to remove more) and 10,000 from the coastal fortifications. Ultimately the selection is made to strip troops from New York and New Jersey to make up the numbers.

This means that the total force facing the 160,000 strong British + Canadian armies is around 80,000 strong, and the forces preventing amphibious attack are about 60,000 strong - most of these in the forts or directly protecting cities and towns on the coast.
As around 6,000 infantry march out of NYC to the railway station, Mayor Wood (an antiwar Democrat) delivers a fiery speech about how the Republicans are unwilling to admit defeat. He highlights the severe economic problems hitting New York over the last couple of months as trade is cut off by the blockade, and his reference to "fine Irishmen and Germans" being inducted into regiments armed with pikes and shotguns, while an exaggeration of the true situation, sparks fury in the audience - rumors of the awful weapon situation of the Union's infantry are widely circulated by now, and his words have the ring of truth.
Wood also hints at the possibility of New York making a separate peace with the British, something which is noted with alarm by the Federal government, especially as he mentioned (then backtracked on) the concept of a 'Republic of tri-Insula'.
It is decided it would be completely unsafe to remove any more troops from NYC - indeed, emergency plans are drawn up for the Federal troops remaining to take control of the city if the Mayor makes good on his suggestion.

As a curiosity, on this date 5,000 uniforms arrive in Savannah by ship. Ordered from a Limerick firm, they are sufficiently good quality that the Confederate army will eventually clothe itself entirely of the products from this one company.

6 May
The Sarissa, a powered ram, sallies out of Buzzards' Bay in Massachusets. Built with an oak sheath and cased with four 1" layers of iron, she carries one gun (a 6.4" rifle) and is built mainly as a ram ship - indeed, she has an impressive speed at full power of eleven and a half knots.
She makes for the frigate sustaining the blockade of Buzzards' Bay at this time, the Melpomene(51), and her attendant gunboats. The Melpomene at first opens fire, scoring some hits with her shell guns and one with her 68-lber pivot (racking off some plates from the Sarissa), not realizing the Sarissa's intent.
The Sarissa is closing so fast that Melpomene only has the time for two broadsides (one at long range and one close) and the captain of the Melpomene (belatedly realizing Sarissa is intending to ram) makes a sharp turn to alter the angle of contact - something the Sarissa's steersman cannot compensate for in time as he has very poor visibility, due to the lack of a conning tower.
Sarissa's ram scrapes along the underside of Melopmene near the stern, making a few small holes, and her 6.4" rifle fired at point blank range causes several casualties for what has already been something of an unlucky ship in the Trent War. Once past, however, the Sarissa has trouble turning about quickly, and the British gunboats begin firing on her in earnest. While she manages another pass on the Melpomene, she does not inflict significant additional damage, and a full broadside from Melpomene renders her hors d'combat - the hail of shell and shot shattering several plates, and riddling her smokestack. The low-draft ram is in a sinking condition as she attempts to turn for home, and the order is given to abandon ship near Penikese Island.
Melpomene is fothered, and the damage is judged severe enough (there was working of the structure) that she should head to Halifax for repairs. HMS Mersey will replace her.

On the same date, General Pennefather (commanding British forces on the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers) orders a reconaissance in force across the St. Clair river. In a three-hour battle, his well-trained British battalions drive American pickets from the riverbank and defeat the local reaction force (about 5,000 Americans ultimately being involved in the battle) with accurate rifle fire across the 300-yard width of the St. Clair at Sarnia, before a crossing is made by 15,000 British and Canadian infantry and 4,000 cavalry, along with two batteries. Their orders are to identify the main American army in the area in preparation for a future attack with ironclad support.
What Pennefather does not know is that the St. Clair river line was the main American resistance line - his reconaissance in force has defeated 20% of the Union forces in Michigan without really breaking a sweat, and there is no way for Austin Blair to set up any additional defensive lines without either pulling forces out of Detroit or effectively abandoning most of the peninsula. He and his advisors deliberate into the evening about whether to fort up in Detroit, try to stop this offensive, or retreat to the west and to Grand Rapids.

 

[Saphroneth]

7 May

The Superb, one of the few remaining unconverted sail liners of the Royal Navy, is taken into Chatham for modification. In addition to recieving an auxiliary engine, she will be stripped of many of her guns and converted to a mortar ship for the mammoth 36" Mallet's Mortar, a weapon capable of firing one-ton shells. She will also be supplied with compartments to carry replacement sections for the mortar (which is modular and can have broken parts swapped out for new).
Pisces and Capricorn reach the Detroit river and begin to sail up, with the gunboat Ripple going ahead. Ripple comes under fire from a Union battery on the shore, and returns fire - soon being assisted by the heavy rifles of Pisces firing at a range of 300 yards.
The battery is quickly neutralized, and the surviving gunners ride west - they were intended more as a delaying action than anything.

The Union Army of the Detroit is pulling back from the Canadian border, choosing to fall back into the western section of the Lower Peninsula in order to avoid being encircled and destroyed. Grand Rapids is considered far enough from the border that the British-Canadian attackers cannot easily reach it without setting up new logistics lines, and Blair sends sulfurous telegrams southeast demanding reinforcement. (One of the phrases he uses is "due to the great peril of the region in a military sense compared to the inactivity elsewhere", a deliberate twisting of the words used to get him to give up troops two weeks ago.)

Unfortunately for him, there are relatively few options. Taking troops from the Army of the Potomac is simply impossible due to the Confederate presence in Maryland and DC, Kentucky barely has the troops to keep Johnston in check, and removing troops facing the British in the Northeast is considered unacceptably risky. (The Niagara frontier has already suffered a serious reverse and has no surplus troops to give, the army near the St Lawrence was raided for troops only a few days ago and there are worries that a further drawdown on the eastern coast would cause other mayors and governors to contemplate Wood's hinted-at plan.)
As such, the reinforcements Blair demands are to be taken from Missouri - the one area things seem reasonably under control. 20,000 troops are detached from this army and begin the laborious process of railing north.


8 May
The Great Eastern undocks from Pembroke, modified for war service. She now mounts twenty 8" shell guns and a dozen 110-lber Armstrong guns along her sides, with strengthening to assist her frame in taking the recoil of these weapons, and has been outfitted to carry military stores.
In this configuration, she can carry three battalions complete with stores, artillery and ammunition, along with large quantities of supplies. Her first run will be to take replacments across to Canada, carrying three thousand troops plus 9,000 tons of supplies at an average passage speed of 14 knots.
The reason for her radical up-arming is that she is considered to be too valuable a target for commerce raiders to go unprotected.

A raiding force (three British battalions and 5,000 Canadian militia, ferried in lakes shipping and supported by the Scorpio) attacks Cleveland, Ohio. The raid sinks those local armed ships which do not flee, overwhelms the few defending troops (a couple of thousand infantry, poorly armed), destroys or captures the ships undergoing conversion into armed vessels, and troops destroy the railroads for several miles around Cleveland in both directions.
When combined with Confederate advances in Maryland, this in fact limits the entirety of the rail traffic to the western Union to one rail line passing through Pittsburgh. Logistic bottlenecks result, making it even harder for the Union to manage their limited resources.
At about the same time, Pennefather discovers the American withdrawal from the Detroit. He begins making preparations for a general advance, leaving around one third of his force to garrison the river line - capturing Detroit will be very prestigous, and as it is an important industrial city will have deleterious effects on the Union.


A small skirmish takes place some miles outside San Francisco between Union infantry (effectively mounted infantry due to their use of horses to get around) and a platoon of Gurkhas. The Gurkha infantry are using the Brunswick rifle, not the Enfield (this is deliberate policy after the Indian Mutiny; less reliable troops are given the .656 smoothbore, though none of those are in the California expedition) and deliver a terrifying Kukri charge which routs the Union platoon.

 

[Saphroneth]

9 May

Confederate guns bombard the Rock Creek line. By now nearly a dozen large Dahlgrens are emplaced north of the creek, and their fire is proving destructive.
Despite this fusillade, however, the Confederate assault which goes in as the afternoon becomes the evening is not aimed to cross Rock Creek - instead, supported by the now-battle-scarred Virginia and two big 10" guns, as well as a trio of 7" Brooke rifles emplaced two weeks ago, 12,000 troops launch an attack on Fort Lyon in Virginia.
The earthwork fort has already been severly damaged by the shells bursting inside it, causing derangement of the walls and rendering many of the rifle pits unfightable. The four defending regiments are well aware of their difficult situation (for example, gunpowder stores are low - it has not been possible to resupply in any systematic way since the Virginia arrived a month and a half ago) and are on the whole not battle experienced or very well trained. They are also armed with chiefly unserviceable muskets - around fifty of which have broken just in the time since the Virginia arrived.
Though they resist well at first, after the death of the colonel commanding the 26th NY that portion of the defence suffers considerable disruption. Roughly three thousand infantry - a mix of formations from all over the Confederacy - reach one of the breeches in the walls, passing through the field of fire of disabled flank guns, and the fort's commander hastily surrenders.
The casualties from the battle were high on both sides, with the total Union killed/wounded being lower than the Confederate total but the captured Union troops reversing this.

The loss of Fort Lyon unhinges the defence of Alexandria, and there is worry in Washington that this success will - if followed up - result in the collapse of another section of the fort ring around DC. It would also clear out one of the last Union footholds on Virginia soil, and as such is important for propoganda purposes. It is nigh-impossible to do anything about it, though - the Potomac is interdicted by the Virginia, and Eads' gunboats which might be able to alter this are still at least a month from completion.

Confederate purchasing agents in France are hinted that the Ville de Nantes - a steam line-of-battle ship currently about to go into Ordinary - might be available for purchase if the price is right. This suggestion comes from Napoleon III, though he is not directly involved in the negotiations.


10 May
Further west, Smith attacks Morgan's division of the Army of the Ohio. The Confederate army (designated as the Army of Kentucky, a recent redesignation) is not much larger than Morgan's force, but possesses somewhat better weapons and an extremely important advantage - Patrick Cleburne.
An ex-British soldier, Cleburne's service in the 41st Foot has made him well aware of the importance of discipline, and he has also obtained a copy of the Hythe musketry manual and managed to put some of it into effect. As such, the Army of the Ohio runs into a screen of picked troops roughly as proficient with the rifle as third-class British infantry, all of whom have been given the Enfields Smith has been able to scare up.
The result is devastating. At three hundred yards more shots are hitting than missing, and Morgan's 7th Division is unable to counter this heavy and accurate fire - indeed, the sheer number of casualties incurred from what is a relatively small force about three regiments strong leads the Union army to believe they are heavily outnumbered.
Morgan's force pulls back to a small hillock, and Smith orders an assault. With Cleburne's rifles firing over the heads of the assaulting troops to suppress the defenders, Smith's men push through the (not) beaten zone and shatter Morgan's force.
There are now no cohesive Union armies between the Cumberland Gap and Lexington. As news of this military calamity spreads, Buell orders some of the reinforcements headed for Michigan diverted to form up at the closest rail junction to the Cumberland Gap - his hope is that they will form a nucleus that Morgan's sundered division can reform around.
As Smith's cavalry are pursuing Morgan's damaged force, capturing all their artillery and harrying them until nightfall, this hope may be a forlorn one.

 

[Saphroneth]

11 May

The Passaic and the Casco are launched in Pittsburgh, both ironclads constructed in a city not connected to the Eastern Seaboard and as such not caught in the slipyard by Milne's forces.
While the Passaic (renamed after the destruction of the original on the slips) is a serviceable ship that is essentially a straight upgrade on Monitor (and slated to be armed with a 15" Rodman gun as soon as one becomes available later in the summer), the Casco's launch is seriously problematic. For unknown reasons, the problems discovered at Erie were not communicated to Pittsburgh, and the Casco has barely three inches of freeboard when unarmed and uncoaled - indeed, the waves produced by her own launching nearly swamp her.

Pennefeather enters Detroit. He will leave behind Canadian militia units to garrison the city and secure his line of communication, and push west for Grand Rapids.

12 May
The Prince Consort launches at Pembroke. Originally a 91-gun second rate, she has been converted on the stocks to an ironclad and will mount 24 68-lber guns and 9 Armstrong 110-lber guns, with her belt and battery armour being of similar construction to that of the Warrior. Much work has been done on her insides on the slips, and she is expected to enter commission late in the year.

Also on this date, the French la Gloire arrives off Veracruz. She begins bombardment of San Juan de Ulúa with three steam frigates and one battleship in support - with the British fully engaged in attempting to bring the United States to surrender by way of coastal attack, Napoleon III wants to demonstrate French prowess.

13 May

Six mortar gunboats arrive off the Eastern Seaboard. Milne is not sure what to do with them, as he has already in fact done most of the work without the use of mortar ships, but spreads them out and assigns two to the Great Lakes instead.
As he is seeing to this, one of the sloops with his force (the paddle wheeler Styx) orders a potential blockade runner to heave-to. Taking advantage of his speed against the wind, Styx's captain stops and searches the American merchant vessel, the Golden Eagle. The ship, a clipper, claims to be carrying a cargo of non-contraband silk and tea, but Styx's captain orders a full search - and discovers two thousand Belgian rifles concealed under the floor.
This cargo is a large enough consignment that Milne has Golden Eagle sent to Halifax with a prize crew (and the escort of a gunboat) for the courts to determine whether the whole ship is forfeit.

 

[Saphroneth]

15 May
A Confederate attempt to cross the Mississippi at New Madrid is turned back with heavy casualties - several hundred lost. The aim had been to decoy the Eads Boats upriver and then gain a point with which to launch a raid, but the local defenders use their few cannon effectively to sink the assault boats as they cross.

16 May
Pennefather's troops reach the outskirts of Grand Rapids. His cavalry get into a skirmish, and he orders the army to close up and deploy - planning to attack the Union positions the following day.

17 May
Austin Blair is dug in on the Grand River and the Rogue River with around 20,000 troops, and plans to defend tenaciously - he knows the British supply line has to be under some strain, as his men tore up the rail line from Detroit to Grand Rapids where practical, and he believes that his 20,000 reinforcements from Missouri are en route (in actuality the number is nearer 10,000 than 20,000 given diversions to the Kentucky problem). As such he hopes to hit Pennefather from behind with the reinforcements.

For his part, Pennefather elects to begin with a long-range cannonade, making use of counter battery with his 12-lbers while bringing up his 40-lber siege train. Few Union guns are identified (perhaps partly because not a great deal are present) but any which make the mistake of firing and hence giving away their position are subjected to a counter-battery shoot at a range of considerably more than a mile.

Blair's reinforcements detrain over the course of the day at Ann Arbor, and begin a march for Detroit. They are spotted at 7 in the evening by a Canadian militia cavalry unit, which races to inform the new Detroit garrison.

 

[Saphroneth]

18 May

At 10am, the Battle of Moulin Rouge begins in drizzling rain about halfway between Ann Arbor and Detroit proper. The Union attackers number roughly 10,000, mostly infantry - the demands of their relocation having led to a reduction in the number of cavalry - and with around two batteries of artillery totalling eleven Napoleon smoothbores.
Defending are 4,000 Canadian militia infantry and a single British battalion (the sole battalion of the 49th Regiment of Foot, Princess Charlotte of Wales' Herefordshires) plus some militia cavalry squadrons and a few guns. In command is a Canadian militia brigadier, who - unlike his Union opponent - has focused his reading not on Napoleon but on Wellington.
Accordingly, he deploys his troops behind a reverse slope. Owing to what he feels to be the superior training of his men in rifle-musketry compared to the muskets of Wellington's time, they are further behind the ridge than the soldiers were at Waterloo, with more like 150 yards between the shallow crest and the Canadians waiting in their ranks.
The 49th opens the battle, four companies deployed in extended skirmish order on the western side of the hill and the rest just behind the lip as a reserve. Their best shots begin careful firing at nearly half a mile, causing consternation from Union troops mostly ill-equipped to face this kind of ranged attack, and the Union assault force mills about for a few minutes before bringing their artillery to bear.
What follows is a slow-motion duel. The British forces are not as accurate at the long range at first, especially in the poor weather, but their dispersed formation serves very well to limit the casualties from the American artillery fire as well - though as the engagement progresses the Union commander has his infantry and artillery advance at the same time in an attempt to recreate the famous 'artillery charge'.
Over the course of about half an hour, the 49th suppress the guns and inflict further casualties on the Union for the cost of about eighty dead or wounded of their own. By this time, however, the Union infantry are close enough (about two hundred yards from the British force) that Morris - the 49th's colonel - sounds the withdrawal.

The sight of retreating British troops heartens the Union commander, who sounds the charge - producing a cheer, as his 6,000-strong assault force rush up the hill. By the time they reach the crest, however, they discover that the 49th has already reformed on their reserves - and taken a place in the line.

Roughly 2,000 rifles fire at once as the first rank of the British force opens fire.

The next few minutes are an increasingly confused, smoky engagement over less than two hundred yards of ground. Most of the infantry involved in the battle are not very experienced, many of them are aiming high, and the veterans of the 49th are soon unable to use their rifles to the fullest due to the confusion of smoke. Worse, the ground is turning to mud, and very few troops can tell what is going on beyond that they are to keep firing and reloading as fast as possible.

It is very hard to tell which units break. What is known is that at least two Canadian militia regiments are driven to fall back from their own fire, and that the Union end up retreating a hundred yards downslope before forming square in an attempt to get a grip on the situation. Once this is done, the American troops are reluctant to advance again, and it takes at least ten minutes for either side to sort out an effective response.
The Union reserves start up the slope, at which point the 49th - having extricated themselves from the still-complex situation behind the ridge - open fire. This drives the Union commander to signal a more general retreat, his reserves switching to covering this withdrawal, and the Canadian brigadier is unwilling to throw away his victory by having the 49th go off on their own (and he is well aware his own now-blooded troops will need a while to reorganize).

Late in the afternoon, as the weather worsens, the two armies have a tally of the results. The relative casualty rates have been relatively close to even, with about 1,500 Union dead or wounded and 600 British/Canadian, though the impact on the Union morale has been worse as their artillery has been all but destroyed. (The Canadian militia artillery was not involved in the battle, and two 40-lber Armstrong guns being made ready to head up to Grand Rapids have also been diverted towards the defence).


Pennefather dispatches one of his cavalry regiments to the east on hearing of the battle, sending the fastest troops he has available as reinforcement, and also removes 2,000 militia and two infantry battalions to ensure the situation at Detroit remains under control. Some of the militia will be spread out as pickets for the Detroit - Grand Rapids road, to prevent it being cut behind him.
Meanwhile, his opposite number - Blair - has discovered a serious problem. The powder stores were shipped to Grand Rapids in a tearing hurry, and several of the barrels have become damp in the rain - thus he does not have nearly as much available to defend as he had hoped.
Despite this, he is hopeful that Pennefather will not discover the weakness.

Spoiler

(as a mostly-green-troops battle, I drew on Waterloo for some of this. Notably the bit where the French Middle Guard and a force of British infantry exchanged volleys and then both fell back from each other!)

 

[Saphroneth]

19 May

The French consul at Guadeloupe respectfully informs Mississippi's captain that his ship will be unable to recoal again in Guadeloupe - it would be a breach of French neutrality to allow an American ship to recoal there so frequently when the same facility is not offered to British ships.
Of course British ships do not require recoaling at French ports - they have their own - but it is a pointed reminder to Mississippi that she is imposing overmuch on the hospitality of the French Caribbean. This is a major concern as Mississippi has already overstayed her welcome at Havana, and indeed rather unpleasant conversations have been taking place regarding her pre-Trent captures of Forest King and Empress (both British ships carrying cargoes of coffee, a substance with no particularly justifiable military value).

The captain of the Mississippi determines to sail further afield, preceding on sail alone to some suitable coaling port, and then sail back north in order to use steam strictly in a tactical sense.


20 May
With the British heavy Armstrong guns delayed to the east, Pennefather continues a waiting game approach for the most part. His riflemen occasionally pick off a Union soldier who shows himself for too long - the forward pickets are only a few hundred yards from the Union positions on the other side of the river.

Meanwhile, near Detroit, it is noticed that a substantial number of the small-arms collected from the field where the Battle of Moulin Rouge took place are clearly substandard - while some percussion rifles are present, there are many percussion smoothbores as well.

Replacement gunners arrive in Ann Arbor, granting the Union troops there use of their artillery once more - fortunately for them, the pieces were all recovered after the battle.


21 May

The Wachusett sallies from the Hudson, and engages in battle with a gunboat of the Royal Naval blockading squadron (the Sparrow). Larger and somewhat better armed, the American sloop wins the duel after about twenty minutes, though is forced to scuttle Sparrow rather than tow her in as a capture when the Princess Royal comes steaming over. After a long chase, Wachusett retires successfully upriver - though the addition of a shallow-draft corvette to the close section of the blockade suggests she will not be permitted to get away with it twice.
The victory over Sparrow is hailed as a great one in the US, which has little enough to celebrate.



Evaluation of the bombardment of Vera Cruz has been completed, and the French are quite pleased with the performance of Gloire. She took some fire and a few casualties from the many heavy guns of San Jose de Ulua, but was able to stay outside the range any of the guns could pierce her and as such suffered no major injury. As such, the conclusion of the French admiral is that Gloire is quite equal to any British ironclad.

At about the same time, in the United Kingdom, the first Palliser shells are successfully tested. Blunt nosed, chilled iron projectiles with a small gunpowder cavity inside pierce through the armour of the Warrior target at a range of 100 yards, and burst in the wooden backing.
This is the first armour-piercing shell in the world, and it is agreed that they should be rushed into service - they effectively obsolete the old shot or solid shot, and only specialized cast-steel bolts are now required (to penetrate thick armour) with everything else being shell.
A point of curiosity is that these shells have no fuze as such - the friction of penetration causes the gunpowder to explode.



(Something I can't find out is whether these Palliser tests - OTL summer 1862! - were with the 7" Armstrong gun or a 7" RML gun. The former would mean that a non-armour-piercing piece had been upgraded to AP by this new shell, the latter would mean that the RN put a completely new weapon into service in a very short space of time.
While I'm at it, the French confidence in Gloire is a little misplaced - her guns and her armour are both less potent than those of Warrior, though she's certainly a fine ship by most standards of the time.)

 

[Saphroneth]

22 May

An elaborate system involving telegraph wire run from the site of Fort Lyon south through Virginia, west, around and then across the Potomac into Maryland - then down to the Confederate forces on the Pipe Creek Line - is used to spot fall of shot for an ex-Union 9" shell firing gun. The gun fires rarely, but it aims specifically for the White House.
While the actual damage done is minor - the shell flight time is so long that most of them burst in mid-air and those which do not are not well controlled - the effect on morale in the capital is devastating. A few members of Congress raise the subject that has been taboo up until now - a negotiated peace.
This discussion collapses in accusations of defeatism and foolishness, and nothing is done.
Meanwhile, McClellan requisitions the entire products of Springfield with their ad-hoc construction methods (some of which involves taking broken weapons and re-forging them, which has negative implications for barrel life) along with everything that has filtered through the blockade in the last month. He uses the results to replace his own breakages and gain around a 10,000 increase.
The army - now the Army of the Potomac in name only as it is currently if anything closer to the Susquehanna - is being put through training McClellan hopes will give them the will to fight, despite the string of reverses they suffered earlier in the year.


23 May
Lightened of her guns (following separately) the City-class ironclad Louisville completes passage through the Illinois and Michigan canal. It has been a tight squeeze and the ironclad vessel grounded several times, but with her present the Union has an ironclad unit on the lakes.
There is some celebration of this fact, though it is moderated by the observation that there are British ironclads also on the lakes.

As the Passiac class ironclad built in Pittsburgh is too large to follow the same route, there are arguments about what to do with her. Notable suggestions include keeping her in Pittsburgh to protect the city, sending her down the Mississippi to thence come around the west coast, and even disassembling her completely and rebuilding her at a port of greater convenience.

The CSS Mississippi and Louisiana are declared complete at New Orleans. Low powered as they are, they are still considered useful, and begin sailing up the Mississippi with tugs beinging them upriver. When combined with the Arkansas and the Eastport, as well as the Tennessee when she is finished, the Confederacy hope to be able to push upriver and neutralize the Union's river navy.

 

[Saphroneth]

24 May

Slocum's division (screening Lexington and bolstered by fugutives from the Cumberland Gap) engages Smith's army some miles south of Hall's Gap. The engagement is small and indecisive, but prevents Smith from route-marching his way to Lexington - he must now lean on Cleburne's rifle companies to slowly work his way forwards.
Slocum's men are galled by the accurate (though light) rifle fire, and he begins to have the men from Morgan's division prepare a series of fall-back positions. Unfortunately, the fall line is not far to their north, and once they are forced to abandon this higher ground they will need to retreat some miles or come under artillery fire from the top of the bluffs.

25 May

Great Eastern arrives at Quebec. She unloads her supplies over the course of the day (and the next few) including three entire battalions of infantry. These men will be sent south to reinforce the position on Lake Champlain, while the supplies are destined for all over Canada.

26 May

An engagement between the Capricorn and the Louisville develops, some way west of Grand Rapids.
Unfortunately for the American vessel, it proves to be critically underarmoured compared to the British-built ironclad. Not only is the armour thinner, but it is more poorly laid out and of lower quality - and Capricorn carries 68-lber guns, well above the firepower required to pierce.
Despite this poor armour - compounded by substandard armament, with only one 8" rifle that can be really described as an armour piercing gun - the Louisville nevertheless fights herself gallantly. Her speed is higher than that of her opponent, which she uses repeatedly to attempt to engage from the fore or aft (areas with no guns) and her armour does mean the British ironclad cannot simply use shell. While those rounds which do hit penetrate with ease, they are deflected by the casemate armour - and, as such, Louisville does not suffer from a boiler penetration as might have otherwise been the case. In effect she is about as vulnerable as a wooden ship was in the days before armour or shell.

After an engagement lasting half an hour, however, the Eads boat runs out of luck. Capricorn's latest salvo penetrates her waterline, and Louisville already has too many compartments open to the lake - as such her heel, already bad, worsens to the point one of her open gunports begins letting in water. Once this begins, she quickly founders, and a total of about sixty of her crew do not make it out (whether due to injuries or due to the rapid flooding).

Perhaps strangely, the Louisville becomes a major part of the Union national psyche in the following months and years. Her endurance against what is recognized as a superior vessel is inspirational, and - though ultimately defeated - she becomes known as the Louisville Slugger.


(...sorry.)

 

[Saphroneth]

27 May

The sloop Marion is brought to bay. Her attempt at raiding British commerce in the Mediterranean, while extremely courageous (and somewhat effective, due to the diversion of resources to North America) has finally resulted in her luck running out, and the HMS Leopard engages her in the Adriatic.
Both ships are not the newest vessels in their respective navies by any means - indeed, the Leopard is a paddle frigate, and carries the same number of guns as Marion (though a greater throw weight - Marion carries 18 32-lber guns, Leopard is armed with no fewer than nine heavy Armstrong rifles) - but the Marion has no engine, rendering her at a significant disadvantage under normal conditions.
The two ships engage repeated broadsides as they head towards the Croatian coast, following a fresh wind which minimizes the disadvantages of the American vessel, and Marion attempts to duck through the islands to gain escape - unfortunately for her, Leopard's captain guesses correctly on the route Marion is attempting to take and manages to hammer her with an accurate rifle salvo from the starboard quarter which dismasts her.
After this, the Marion strikes - unable to manoeuvre at all now, it would be trivial for Leopard to get a position on Marion's bow or stern for a rake. Nevertheless, Marion's action was well fought against a much heavier vessel and her captain is commended by that of Leopard.



28 May

Union troops fall back from Ann Arbor in the face of superior artillery.
At about the same time, the Mound City is engaged by the CSS Mississippi south of St Louis.
The unusual design of the Mississippi means that the projected top speed of the Confederate ironclad is not in fact attainable - she can only make 10 knots instead of the intended 14 - but this merely makes her no faster than the Mound City, and the Eads boat finds herself at an overall disadvantage as the Mississippi is enormous.
Half again as long and with more than twice the draft, the 3,800 ton Mississippi carries eight 9" smoothbores in each broadside and four 7" Brooke rifles as her chase guns in addition to 3.75 inches of layered armour specially made in an Atlanta foundry.
By comparison the Mound City is small and poorly protected, with a 2.5 inch casemate, and carries only 14 guns total (three 8" smoothbores, 4 42-lber rifles and six 32-lber rifles, as well as a lone 12-lber rifle). Her main advantage is her shallow draft, but this is not initially realized (the Mississippi does not look as fearsome as she is, as her unconventional 'house' construction gives her an unusual and deceptive profile, a problem exacerbated by the drizzling rain) and the Mound City gets closer than she should.

For the first quarter hour of the engagement, there is little major damage done by either side - Mound City's guns are mostly unable to penetrate the shield of the Mississippi, and Mississippi's crew are quite new at their task - but Mound City is unable to disengage easily, as (like all City class ironclads) her stern is unprotected and hence she cannot steam directly away.
Some minutes into the engagement, Mississippi scores a hit on the hull of Mound City. As this is also unprotected, it causes a major problem of incoming water - not as serious as it would be on a no-reserve-bouyancy monitor, but Mound City begins to list. This skews off the angle of her casemate, and the Mississippi's next salvo with the smoothbore guns scores two hits which penetrate the relatively thin iron.
Mississippi's fire hits the steam drum of the Mound City's engine, and steam bursts through the crew, transforming the ironclad into a catastrophe in moments as hot steam fills the entire casemate - the only crew to escape with relatively few injuries are the ones who jump straight into the water.
Mississippi is hardly unscarred - her own armour has had plates racked off in places, and several small injuries took place due to inexperience with the heavy guns - but her defeat of Mound City is an important one for control of the Mississippi River.




(This is a slight potential handwave - I'm not sure if Mississippi would in fact have been finished by this time - but she was launched and the person building her thought there were only a few weeks in it. Chalk it up to less pressure on New Orleans' defences and hence less militia drill if you have to.
As for the success of Mississippi, well, she was quite a beast (and OTL the Mound City was basically killed by a solid shot from an old 32 lber gun in pretty much this fashion, just from shore guns.) Another of the nearly-finished CS Ironclads which seem to show them going for quality over quantity - a reasonable approach, given their situation.)

 

[Saphroneth]

29 May

In Mexico, the Battle of Tepeaca takes place. The delays imposed by the use of Gloire have allowed for Charles de Lorencz to be reinforced and resupplied (while also making it clear that no French withdrawal will take place).
Mexican troops hold the high ground to the northwest of the town, and Zaragoza attempts to use his superior numbers to outflank the French attackers. However, de Lorencez - a veteran of the Malakoff - follows adjusted tactics from those used at the Malakoff battle. His men take a formation suggesting that he will send up one or two regiments, then he unleashes a sudden bombardment with his entire gun line as the signal for a full charge up the hill. Only one regiment of infantry does not take part in the sudden assault, remaining deployed in line and using their Minie rifles as a suppressive component.
Zaragoza attempts to react to this, but the thunder of French gunnery impedes his ability to quickly relay commands. Many of his troops are out of position (and those who are able to fire find the majority of their musketry going over the heads of the fast-moving French regulars) and several of his artillery guns are hit early on by the accurate French rifles (though the French guns are not being used to their fullest effect, being held within smoothbore artillery range).

Zaragoza's cavalry are sent in to retrieve the situation as the main French assault force come to blows with their bayonets. They are hit by flanking rifle fire from de Lorencez' reserve regiment, disordering their charge, and the situation degenerates into a confused melee with the lower half of the French assault snap-firing or bayoneting Mexican cavalry and being speared or sabered in return.
While this is going on, the upper half of the French assault - spearheaded by the elite Foreign Legion - break Zaragoza's line. Some of the Legionnaires reach Zaragoza's artillery and begin turning it on the defenders, at which point the Mexican general calls a retreat to save his remaining guns and men.

The Battle of Tepeaca leaves a bloody legacy, with hundreds dead on both sides. It is seen as an example of how the Mexican Republicans are willing to fight hard, but that their men are not the equal of the French regulars one-on-one.



30 May

Confederate troops are repulsed from an assault on Fort Corcoran, part of the Arlington Line. Despite the hundreds of casualties that resulted, the Confederate army claims victory - the assault allowed Fort Woodbury (an outlying lunette) to be captured when it ran low on powder, and this will provide a close base for siege guns to bombard Fort Corcoran directly (supplementing the ever-present Virginia, which has already disabled Fort Haggerty).

Battle of Chambersburg, in which (after much harranguing) McClellan is persuaded to attack Confederate positions with his right wing. The battle has few casualties, with the Confederates withdrawing in good order, but the victory is an important morale boost for the Army of the Potomac and the Union in general.
Upon hearing of this success, Lincoln orders McClellan to follow up on the victory - pushing south into Maryland, then into Virginia, and (if possible) to force the Confederate Army sieging Washington to shift troops and meet the threat.
McClellan agrees to do so, but points out it will take at least a few days to shift the axis of his army to march this route - and that he needs to leave troops to cover the gap between the sea and the Blue Mountains. With this understanding, he begins the staff work.

Meanwhile, the CSA is preparing how it will react. While much of the Confederate Army in the east is tied up in the Washington siege, some preparations are made to pull veteran regiments out of the line and replace them with newly raised ones - and to give the veterans better rifles as well, as several tens of thousands of good rifles (such as Enfields) have arrived since these now-experienced formations were first raised. About half these newly arrived rifles are earmarked for the 'field army' veterans.
Joseph Johnston, knowing that he is not especially well liked by the Confederate president, suggests his classmate for command of the 'field army' to oppose McClellan - Robert E. Lee. This is both a professional and political suggestion, as he feels Lee is a good choice and also that the choice is likely to be successful - and that by not nominating a personal crony he will demonstrate his professionalism and hence rehabilitate his position in the eyes of his President.
No matter the backroom calculations that take place to support it, Robert E. Lee's nomination is accepted - he will take command of what is to be the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on the 1 of June, with the army sieging Washington redesignated to the Army of Maryland.








(Tepeaca was basically alt-Puebla, a few weeks later due to the French using Gloire at Vera Cruz. de Lorencez had a couple of thousand more troops than OTL, and more guns - there were extra supplies and troops sent over with Gloire. I'm not an expert on the Mexican intervention, but hopefully this holds together.
Interestingly, this means no Cinco de Mayo.
As for Lee... well, can you blame me?)

 

[Saphroneth]

1 June

The first of Eads' coastal ironclads, the Pennsylvania, is launched upriver of Baltimore. As yet uncased, she floats well and seems to be essentially to spec - good news after the Casco debacle.
Part of Eads' design for the ironclads is that they feature a 'modular' armament design - the Pennsylvania, for example, is to mount two 15" guns as her primary armament while the New York (next to launch) is intended to carry sleeved 11" Dahlgren guns rebored to 10" rifles as hers.
Obstacles sunk in the river are intended to keep the shipyard free from British intervention, and there is also a clampdown on news relating to the Eads ironclads.

At about the same time, Confederate agents purchase the Ville de Nantes in Brest. The deal includes a lump sum and several payments to be made later, and the ship is formally renamed the Charleston - she will be sailed to Norfolk Virginia where she will be fitted with armour (and possibly undergo the process of being transformed into a Razee so as to free up displacement for the armour).


2 June
Lee requests the services of Cleburne for his Army of Northern Virginia. This request will take a day or so to be confirmed, with Lee's clout at Richmond ultimately proving successful.


3 June

Cairo, Carondelet and Pittsburgh engage several ships of the Confederate River Defence Flotilla. The ironclad vessels cause significant damage to the Confederate squadron, sinking four gunboats and causing another to strike, and take relatively little damage in return.
When news comes of the CSS Louisiana approaching, the City-class boats retreat upriver - they have not yet obtained the heavier guns judged necessary to pierce the Confederate ironclad.




4 June
Richard Gatling trials his shell-firing Gatling Gun. Results are poor, with the mechanism unable to endure the repeated shock of firing and the gun only manages to fire about a dozen shells.
At about the same time, Dahlgren trials sleeved 11" Dahlgren guns rifled down to 10", 9" and 8" against his Warrior target. The results are somewhat odd as far as his estimation is concerned - the key point is that the 8" gun is able to endure the largest powder charge in absolute terms (though it is still made to rupture when firing the charge which burst the original 11" gun) and as such with more power focused into a smaller area the 8" version has the best penetrating power.
As it seems superior to the Parrott rifle in terms of endurance, though also considerably heavier, the sleeved 8" gun is recommended for adoption (thus meaning a change to the design of ships like the New York). One concern is the number of 11" guns available to use, though a reasonable number have been produced since March.

 

[Saphroneth]

5 June

A trial takes place at Hythe, examining the various small arms available to the British Army - comparing muzzle loaders with breech loaders, and also using recently-captured Union smoothbore percussion muskets and percussion rifles as a comparator.
Among the muzzle loaders being put to the test are the old Minie and the new Enfield - with the two-band and three-band compared separately - and the Whitworth rifle. The P1861 short Enfield and Lancaster rifle fill out the muzzle loaders.
For the breech loaders - the true purpose of the trials - a Sharps rifle is present from the many the British government purchased before the Trent War, as are the Terry, the Westley-Richards, the Leetch, the Prince, the Nuthall and the Boileau.

The testing regimen is intended to minimize the relative impact of familiarity with the rifle - a cohort of eighty men have been put through the full Hythe course. None of the men have used a firearm before, and they have been randomly separated out into groups of five and each one trained using just the weapon they are assigned. They have been issued eighty shots for training, which has been completed by the date of the trial.
The aim of this is to compare the relative utility of the weapons by recently trained men - the kind of men who would be supposed to use the weapons in battle. This has led to complaints from Boileau, who holds that his weapon is superior once additional training has taken place, but the rules are not changed.

The results are interesting, especially as there is at the same time a trial taking place of a form of lubricated cartridge for a smoothbore gun (this forming the sixteenth and final group of five). This method is discovered to be able to achieve accurate hits at ranges of several hundred yards, though the time taken to fit the tight-fitting cartridge compares unfavourably with the reloading time of the Enfield rifles which are being used as the benchmark.
Of the muzzle loaders, the Lancaster scores highest on accuracy but lowest on reloading speed, with the Whitworth somewhere between the Lancaster and the Enfield. The reliable P1853 performs as expected, but the 1861 short Enfield slightly exceeds it in reloading speed while being comparable in accuracy at range.
Interestingly, the Springfield rifle-musket is judged to be of the same rough capability as the British Enfield rifles, but that the sights are insufficient to use this capability at long range.

Of the breech loaders, the results are mixed and the source of much debate. Many of the inventors present cite the best-of-five rate of fire combined with the best-of-five accuracy results, though this tends to obscure the actual results obtained - which are duly noted in neat columns to be published in RUSI. Each rifle is touted as being easy to fire, quick to fire, accurate over a comparable range to the Enfield and to be hard to foul; in large part these are borne out, though to different degrees.

After much data is considered, the verdict of the trials is to purchase 3,000 each of the Boileau, Terry and Westley-Richards - and, crucially, to give them to infantry regiments in place of Cavalry ones. Two regiments each will trial these new breechloaders, and the data will be added to the results of the cavalry comparisions (which have not yet come in).


(It seems perfectly appropriate for the result of the trials to be "more trials!")

 

[Saphroneth]

7 June

After a delay due to engineers being sent to Canada to work on the Grand Trunk, the first train journey the full length of the London Metropolitan Railway takes place. The journey from Paddington (Bishop's Road) to Farringdon Street takes place without incident, and William Gladstone is heard to remark to Charles Pearson (the original promoter of the concept) that the convenience is marvellous - though it is rather smoky.

At about the same time, Cleburne arrives at the camp of the Army of Northern Virginia. He has twenty or so of his Rifles with him (men referred to as cronies or apprentices, depending on who is doing the describing) and asks to see the shooting figures of the regiments of Lee's army.
When he is informed no such records exist, he has his Rifles pick a half-dozen regiments at random and run them through basic shooting evaluation - twenty rounds each, including file firing and individual firing at both single and area targets. This consumes much of the day (including a half-hour argument with the quartermaster over providing ~70,000 rounds for the evaluation) and when the results are in Lee and Cleburne examine them.

8 June

The Kentucky's keel is laid in Gosport. This ship is part warship and part prestige project, intended to be the greatest ship ever built in the Americas, and is based off the Franklin class frigates with some alterations. In particular, her draft is reduced slightly from the original Franklin class, and she is also designed from the start as a broadside ironclad - one to be fitted with both sail and steam. She is also slated to receive Tregedar iron and engines, and Brooke rifles - in short, to be an entirely domestic product.
The Kentucky will not complete under that name, and will undergo a total of three alterations before becoming simply the Confederacy. Changes made while she is under construction will also give her a total of eight 110-lber Armstrong rifles purchased from Great Britain, thus slightly marring her domestic credentials.

Cleburne makes a suggestion to Lee, which is accepted. The Army of Northern Virginia does not have time to put the entire force through the wringer, nor can Lee be certain of getting the ammunition - however, training a subset of the army is considered quite possible. As such, Cleburne's Rifles will each test a regiment a day, identifying the men who are good at guessing ranges already, and once the top ten percent or so are identified in each regiment they will be quickly trained to deliver accurate aimed fire at 200-300 yards. (MacGruder, also present, comments that this is 'better than the Yankees, anyway'.)


For his part, McClellan is insisting on better artillery - and more of it - to counter his perceived (and, indeed, real) inferiority in small arms quality. The conflicting demands of the Union's war effort (needing to provide guns to the Eads boats, to coastal forts, to the armies facing the British and others facing other Confederate forces, and to build inland forts to improve the strategic situation in general) mean that he is not getting as many rifled artillery pieces as he would like.

 

[Saphroneth]

9 June

Dahlgren is still attempting various trials with his 11" gun and the modifications and improvements thereof, to attempt to find a way of reliably penetrating the side of a British ironclad.
On encouragement from a local inventor, he has attempted the use of guncotton - from a batch produced with great difficulty and which resulted in several small accidental explosions - on the grounds that it has been observed that unburned powder exits the barrel of the Dahlgren gun when it is fired. The faster burning guncotton is supposed to alleviate this.
In the event, the result is not encouraging. The faster burning powder produces pressure at the breech much faster than gunpowder, and the metallurgy of the 11" gun is simply not up to it - Dahlgren is lucky to escape injury as high velocity fragments go everywhere.

Dahlgren writes up his conclusions - which are, essentially, that the 11" gun as it exists is not capable of regularly withstanding an explosion of the power required to launch a projectile through the sides of a British ironclad (at least in anything more than the most marginal way). He also enquires as to where better iron could be obtained - since he feels part of the fault is with the gun metal - and is told that the best quality of iron used at Springfield was mainly sourced from England pre-war. (They are currently 'improvising', which has led to a noticeable decline both in numbers and quality of Springfield rifles.)

A curiosity about the result is that, as the tests are being done in Pennsylvania in June, they are giving a rosier picture for the armour than an identical test in Febuary would. This is due to the transition temperature of iron, a subject not well understood at this time.

McClellan hears about the tests, and they are the source of a letter complaining about how many guns Dahlgren is destroying in his tests while the Army of the Potomac goes under-armed. This prompts a rather acerbic exchange of letters.


The weather becomes stormy towards the afternoon, and by nightfall at New York there is 10/10 cloud with the occasional squall of rain.
Under cover of night, the Vanderbilt slips out of New York harbour. She is using mainly her sails, with her paddles used primarily for steerage (with the best clean Pennsylvania coal to reduce the smoke and flame she produces) and manages to evade detection.
Armed with several naval guns, she is to be a commerce raider in an attempt to pressure the British into giving up on the war (having been given to the US Navy months earlier by her former owner). The main thing to recommend her as a commerce raider is her extreme speed (fourteen knots dash, faster than the Mersey and the Orlando - themselves extremely fast British frigates), though some in the US Navy called for her to be made a blockade runner instead. (The US is not well provided with very fast ships, and obtaining them from the Clyde or other British shipbuilders is obviously not possible.)

 

[Saphroneth]

10 June

As dawn breaks, Pennefather launches his assault on the Union positions north of the Grand river.
Four 40-lber Armstrongs arrived on the 8th, and he has spent the 9th registering them in on their targets - firing one round every half hour or so, to obscure his motives. Now these, and all his 12-lber Armstrongs (in specially built earth-ramp cradles which cause them to return to battery under their own gravity) deliver a snap bombardment at maximum rate.
Also adding to the general cacophany are the Pisces, Capricorn and gunboat Ripple, all bombarding the western end of the line. The storm of bombardment is incredible, with over a hundred shells bursting over or in the Union defences per minute for five minutes, and it also serves as a signal - three battalions British and Canadian infantry begin their crossing of the river, using assault boats built over the last three weeks supplemented by the small boats they have managed to capture.
To his credit, Blair defends tenaciously. The guns he has managed to preserve are well masked at the level of the river, and open up on the British assault boats - sinking several, mainly by use of the 'skip' technique to hole the boats. This leads to the loss of several hundred British and Canadian soldiers, but roughly two battalions make it over the river and begin to advance.
Pennefather's artillery retargets a little slowly, the cradles making it hard for the gunners to lay their pieces on the new targets, and it is a Canadian battery armed with smoothbore 9-lbers (the Loyal Company of Artillery) which disables three of Blair's guns - earning them much praise and a much-deserved spot in the history books. (Their time-fuzes are set with great precision, and the hail of shrapnel renders the weapons impossible to effectively use until Armstrong fire can concentrate on and destroy the gun carriages.)
Somewhat disorganized by the river crossing, the British/Canadian brigade reverts to training and spreads out in skirmish order. They advance slowly, gaining a portion of the defences against Union infantry still reeling from the opening bombardment, and hold on against two fierce counter-attacks (both of them repelled bloodily by well-aimed rifle fire, though on one occasion the commander of one Canadian militia battery requests permission to perform a bayonet charge!)
Pennefather has the two Zodiac ironclads brought in close to the southern shore to load reinforcements onto them (an evolution aided by their very low draft) and the 2/6th are ferried across to reinforce the penetration.
As they disembark, however, Blair raises the white flag.

It turns out that the Governor of Michigan's forces were simply stretched too thin. Needing to cover several miles of the Grand River, as well as defend his rear in case of a British landing on the long coasts of Lower Michigan, has resulted in a position given the appearance of strength more than the reality - with the second counterattack repelled, the closest fresh Union troops are four miles away (an hour's march) and he knows he will not be able to prevent Pennefather shipping his entire army over.

As a point of curiosity, the 17th Wisconsin do not surrender with the rest of the army. Their commander, Col. John L. Dornan, marches them up Michigan and across to Upper Michigan, and thence to Wisconsin - an impressive feat of logistics. (It is not reported if he had read the Anabasis).

Pennefather makes the preparations for some of his Canadian militia to garrison Lower Michigan - relying on the Royal Navy to protect the coasts - and marches for Detroit the next day. Union prisoners march along with the column, to go into captivity at or around Windsor.

 

[Saphroneth]

11 June

Grant abandons Tennessee, pulling back along the rail line to Bowling Green. His army - now largely recovered in morale if not size from their defeat the previous month - arrives over the next two days, and defends the town from a Confederate attack by a small army under Hardee.
They manage to protect the rail line (although it is a near thing), and Grant makes the point that had he not taken this action his army would have been forced to surrender - whatever happened, Hardee's offensive move would have cost the Union their last foothold in Tennessee, but this way Grant's army is kept intact.
Buell pulls back into Kentucky as well up the Cumberland, no longer needing to extend his southernmost corps to cover Grant's northern flank - oddly, the two have swapped places compared to six months ago.


The Old Dominion, a Confederate ironclad, commissions in Gosport. Built to a similar design as the Virginia, she is less well armed but substantially shallower of draft - there is debate whether to leave her defending Hampton Roads (which is now quite well armed, with batteries north, south and in the middle of the channel) or to sail her up the Potomac to join Virginia.

Pope orders an attack on Island Number Ten, to gain this important defensive position for the Union. Unfortunately for him, his correspondence has been intercepted (this attack having been in planning some days in advance) and Union ironclads are not the only ones about to arrive.


12 June
Battle of the New Madrid Bend.

Pope has had every ironclad he can get his hands on concentrated for the attack, which is intended to secure the upper Mississippi for the Union by capturing this chokepoint. In addition to the remaining City-class ironclads (Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis), he has managed to obtain both Puritan and the hastily-redesigned Casco (which now mounts two guns behind a thin gunshield, and is to be towed to battle to save coal weight) as well as the Benton and a few unarmoured gunboats.
For his part, Brown (who has put in over three months of strenuous effort to finish the Arkansas and Tennessee, thus making them available for this battle) has been appointed to command the Confederate fleet, and has obtained access to the Eastport, Mississippi and Louisiana. Rounding out his force are a few small unarmoured gunboats, as well as the Mobile (ex-Tennessee) whose powerful engines have made it possible for Mississippi and Louisiana to make it this far upriver in good time.


The first phase of the battle involves Pope moving several thousand infantry across the river, with the ironclads and gunboats in support, thus driving the Confederate defenders back from the river's edge and allowing the Union Army of the Mississippi to cut off Island Number Ten from the landward side.
Before the main siege operations can begin, however, the Benton reports that "many cased ships" are approaching from downriver.
Pope determines that to withdraw would be disastrous - with half the Army of the Mississippi on the eastern bank, it would result in the loss of troops the Union can ill afford to lose as well as surrendering much of the lower river. Foote disagrees, with the point that it is more important to preserve the Union's ironclad fleet in the Mississippi (an asset which cannot be replaced).
In the end the distinction quickly becomes academic - the Benton is slower than the approaching enemy fleet, and none of the Union's captains want to countenance the further humiliation that would obtain from the loss of the Benton. (Foote also admits to himself that the Benton is actually one of his toughest ships, so losing it to capture or defeat would seriously worsen the position of the Union's ironclad fleet on the Mississippi anyway.)
As such, Pope demonstrates against the forts on Island Number Ten, drawing off the gunners to defend against this attack, and Foote transits past the guns to engage in battle.


The first exchange of fire comes between the Benton and the Tennessee. Tennessee is the newest of the Confederate ironclads, having been finished just in time, and indeed there is boilerplate in place of some of her curved armour - but she is well armed, mounting a mix of 7" and 6.4" rifles. She is slightly more powerfully equipped than Benton, and this (combined with her better armour) means that over the first ten to fifteen minutes of the battle she begins to gain the upper hand.
Arkansas arrives at about the same time as the Casco does, and is prevented from delivering a fatal blow to the Benton by the intervention of the other ironclad.
Despite her deeply flawed construction (her guns are shot away by the first hit, the 1" silicaceous iron providing little benefit as it shatters under the force of the impact), the Casco nevertheless makes a game attempt at ramming the Tennessee and the Confederate ironclads come close to being hit (the Casco heading downstream is the fastest ironclad in the river at this point).
Mobile casts off her tow to steer clear, and takes a glancing blow from the Casco - which loses control due to the shock of ramming, and has to deal with water coming in through started seams (a major concern for a ship whose freeboard is measured in inches) before being hit hard by the Mississippi and Louisiana as she continues downstream.

Meanwhile, the Eastport - fastest of the Confederate ironclad ships - steams upriver to lend assistance to the Tennessee and Arkansas. The two Arkansas-class ships have guns fore, aft and on both broadsides, and they are having to use all of them as Foote sends in the City-class ships - all five of them.
In the cacophany of gunsmoke and heavy shot going everywhere, it is hard for Brown to exercise tactical control (or indeed tell what is going on) but the slugging match that has developed is to his advantage - Eads' City-class gunboats suffer from weak casemates, and the heavy rifles at close range are able to repeatedly pierce (ironically, the primary benefit of the armour is that the Arkansas-class are not using shells, though in fact some shells could probably penetrate).

After an hour's battle, the two Arkansas-class ships are heavily battered (Tennessee's chimney is shot away and she has had to drop anchor to maintain position, and Arkansas is taking on small quantities of water), but their opponents are as well - Cairo has ruptured her steam drum, and Cincinnati is in flames while the other three City-class ships are now only firing intermittently with one or two guns.
Eastport is also damaged, with only one gun left operational, and Brown signals for her to go back downriver and fetch the Mississippi and Louisiana (the pair of New Orleans ironclads can barely make headway against the Mississippi and will need a tow, and the Mobile has been driven into the mud by her evasive manoeuvres). Before Eastport has gotten halfway to the Mississippi, however, there is a sharp retort as the Passaic opens fire. She is using her 11" gun to aim (this is necessary as the gunport is completely obscured by the muzzle of her heavier gun) and the 11" round strikes home on Arkansas - ripping away some of the curved armour around the pilot house, which is promptly evacuated for understandable reasons!
Her 15" gun - a Rodman converted to turret firing, one of the only 15" guns in the Union - belches a colossal cloud of powder, and hammers a deep dent into the casemate of Arkansas, and her turret then turns away to reload - the Confederate rifle fire striking her turret at a range of fifty feet and cracking single plates, but unable to disable her as quickly as the 68-lbers of Warrior destroyed Monitor's turret.
Eastport turns about and charges, holding her fire to avoid drawing attention to herself. It works, with the crew of Passaic focused entirely on reloading drill (hard enough even without two Confederate ironclads firing on it, especially this close!) and on maintaining position in the Mississippi. As such, she only notices the incoming Eastport about a minute before impact, and a minute is not long enough for her to steer out of the way of the ramming attempt by the slightly-faster ironclad. She does make the angle more oblique, preventing the ram from doing instantly crippling damage, but a long scrape holes her below the waterline.
With only a couple of feet of reserve bouyancy, the Passaic is now on a time limit before sinking. She continues fighting for a quarter hour longer, thus buying time for the Carondelet, Pittsburgh and St. Louis to limp upriver (the Eastport damaged herself in ramming and cannot pursue) before finally abandoning ship. All three City-class make it past Island number 10, though they are significantly damaged.

At the end of the battle, the only ship the Confederacy manage to capture is the Cairo - the Cincinnati explodes, the Benton scuttles, and both the Passaic and Casco sink due to intermittent flooding. The battle has also effectively wrecked the two Arkansas-class ships for at least a month (Arkansas herself needs to be quickly towed to the riverbank to prevent her from sinking) and neither Mississippi nor Louisiana impressed with their low power - in fact, the result of the battle could be argued to have reduced both ironclad fleets to impotence.
Despite this, Brown and Foote share an opinion on who won the battle (and who will be able to deploy an ironclad fleet sooner), and Porter has to abandon ~4,000 infantry on the eastern bank of the Mississippi when the Confederate gunboats arrive late that afternoon.





(wow, that one ended up long...)