M79,
Yep they have to take New Orleans or the Union will be split in half by the Royal Navy and the Confederacy.
On balance of probabilities in a Trent war the Union will be unable to do this, the Royal Navy and Confederates will. Of course even if the Union take New Orleans there is nothing to stop the British Navy taking it from them.
The British Navy is formidable but even if they could hold New Orleans, there are two problems. The CSA can not hold its largest banking/financial center without international assistance and the Cajun population is likely to have concerns about British domination, one wrong move and we get a commander loathed by the locals. Also, the Union will have bases upstream, and there is plenty of potential for guerilla activity along the river. I doubt the UK will land enough people to do more than take the environs of New Orleans (why would they need to?) but the constant threat of taking the city is going to lead them to either station masses of troops around the city or have to blockade the port fiercely if they leave it in CSA hands. Unless the UK wants to land enough people to claim most of the state I think it becomes a quagmire, and it also represents a chance for Union folks to gian a serious propaganda victory if they can beat the British there twice in half a century.
HOW will the USA control the CSA? The USA will be short of weapons, powder and finance half of her troops will be using muskets! Her only advantage will be in manpower but that will fade as the quality of army life fades. The CSA will have access to powder, rifle muskets, rail stock, locomotives and good artillery. So how are the Union going to go about controlling the CSA?
CSA rail infrastructure is *very* limited in 1860, and in fact one of the reasons they were so dieihard about protecting Eastern Tennessee is that only three rail links at the time connect the upper south and lower south. Nashville-Louisville, Knoxville-Virginia, and another on the Virginia side. Northern rails link as far west as the Missouri river north of Kansas City and thoroughly connect the northern states east of the Mississippi. Union rifle production will improve as the economy turns for wartime priorities, and I wonder if we do not see an earlier introduction of the Spencer rifle on a larger basis. Civilian manufacturers will be horrified and yes there will be serious concerns about what happens but there is a war on, and this is the same UK that will have battered our door three times in a century. As for locomotives, do you think the UK is simply going to provide the CSA with trains? They do not have that many when the war started and many were wood-burning 4-4-0s...
I am not sure what you mean, perhaps you could explain? There is a good chance in a Britain intervenes scenario where as people are telling me the USA refuses to yield that Washinton ends up in the CSA.
Southerners are as proud of independence as anyone else. If they find themselves under the boot of London with redcoats on the ground and having to fight their battles London *will* extract a pound of flesh in exchange. Also, remember that several areas of the South are home to pro-Union populations (Arkansas, Eastern Tennessee, Northern Georgia, parts of North Carolina/Texas, northern Western Virginia, etc.). A concerted Union effort down from LExington KY to Knoxville TN would liberate a large area and put a pro-Union state in a position to deal serious damage to the interior of the Confederacy. Sherman actually was put in a position to do just this in 1862 and I think it went wrong somewhere around Moore's Mill, KY. Reinforce that position, use the forts in western TN to occupy Confederat strategists, then take Nashville and Knoxville away. There is serious coal and saltpetre in the hills along with a publication from about this time noting how to make it artificially anyway.
Yes as I have discussed in some of my previous posts but it not nearly enough to met Union saltpetre needs.
Are you sure about that? Take Nashville TN and the largest Confederate supplier of the early war falls into Union hands. Just as it did in 1862 OTL.
It is in Georgia isn’t it? How do the Union forces get there in Feb. 1862?
Not that tough, northern GA, eastern TN, and northern AL are home to some serious pro-union populations. There is also a pocket in south-central GA not far from Augusta. See above for moving people into those areas. It also puts them within striking distance of Jackson, Montgomery, Atlanta, Memphis (assuming they have not already been taken by a Union offensive down the river). Augusta will be hotly defended but will not be invulnerable to defeat.
If the French are in the war then the Union needs to worry about Plonguer a far more serious submarine than Huntly (have not checked names)
If the French are in a position to deploy the Plonger in wartime under this scenario, we've already made it to at least early 1863 and that is before sea trials. I doubt the French are also going to rush an experimental weapon into open combat, especially in the presence of the world's strongest navy and likely the major target it was designed for anyway. Either way it means the war has not ended quickly for anybody...
Where are all these troops coming from the Union simply does not have that many men. The Union and the British both estimated that the Union could field around 80,000 men in BNA and sustain them. How many of those do you want to send across the American Desert all the way to Mexico through hostile territory because that is all you have got?
Mexico can be dealt with later and via supplying insurgents, just as the UK can be irritated and distracted in much the same way. I've read letters from Palmerston et al who worried that the quality of UK troops in Canada was at best abysmal. Not to say that they would lack for courage, but that they were disorganized, fortifications were in dangerous states of disrepair, and there were problems with even basic logistics. The UK would probably be able to field about 10,000 troops initially, and though Halifax and Montreal might hold out, the rest of the area is like going to come under US control at least temporarily.
No, they burn something important and go back to their ships for tea, did it all the time in European wars
The UK recognized that the US would be a unique enemy for them to deal with because we could supply a lot of our own needs internally. This means their naval blockade will be able to do damage but not bring us to our knees the way it can with almost any other country. Yes, the British can burn down buildings or raid cities or even mints, but inevitably they will have to put *large* numbers of people on the ground in order to hold territory and ultimately win the war. Ireland, India, and other Imperial subject will be watching, and if London is amassing manpower in one place look for trouble to start elsewhere.
It would not be difficult to send plans for designs or technical assistance elsewhere during the war via spies and saboteurs. Bahadur Shah II is still alive in Burma, the crowned Mughal Emporer and a figure for leadership in the Indian Mutiny which id *very* fresh in the minds of India. Ireland is not terribly far away and terror-driven attacks will be problematic, especially after the very poor treatment recieved by the Irish over the last two decades with plenty of Irish living in Northern cities at the time. The (Boer) South African Republic is tired of British interference and would like its lands around the Cape Colony back, or if nothing else to be left alone. They are also sitting on one of the world's richest diamond deposits though that will not be known for another few years. Again, when the cat is away...
If you say so, I think he could be lynched before the 1864 election as the man that destroyed the USA.
We will have to agree to disagree on this. In a wartime scenario with the British coming into play I think you overestimate the British chances for knocking out the Americans and underestimate the USA chances in an awkward civil war with the UK having to defend a slave-holding nation and giving the #2 power in the world a chance to rally both public opinion and popular sentiment to bear against a foreign power.
Let's say the war drags on until 1863 when the Plougher might be deployed. For the US to hold out against the UK until then will make the British look potentially vulnerable, and the longer the war drags on the greater the chance for opportunistic powers to get involved (Prussia, Russia, Italy, Japan, maybe even China) and for rebellion to cripple the Empire elsewhere. Assuming the war does not end earlier with the UK selling the occupied areas of Canada to the US, I figure ultimately the war ends 1864-1865 with the US reclaiming the CSA and taking over Canada minus Newfoundland, PEI, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Mexico gets trounced as soon as their locals are able to cleanse the country and the US is left with a nasty memory of burning cities, torched factories, and dying civilians as a result of British incursions. It might even be seen this way in the South, how would the British react to a Union-held seaport in CSA territory? Could a Union soldier burn down a town there and blame it on British shelling or soldiers? Either way it sets up for further wars later and the US will become a naval power in 1880 to rival anyone on the globe. Look for an earlier naval arms race and improved battleship design much, much earlier.