The Dead Skunk
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Winter Retreat (2)
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Animé d’une grande colère (Filled with rage and fear as well)
Sachant qu’ils avaient peu de temps[1] (Knowing their time was soon to end)
Avec le feu blanc chaud de l’enfer (With the white-hot fires of hell)
Ils ont attaqué nos combattants (They tried to destroy our fighting men)
Gaines ordered the withdrawal from LaPlace as soon as he received the news of Wharton. He knew he did not dare remain and be cut off. The Grande Armée under Labatut[2] followed him, never coming close enough to engage but ready to strike at any time.
Gaines’ retreat was hampered by a number of factors. The presence of the Volonté meant that he was unable to use the river—or even approach it too closely. He was also slowed by rain, sleet, mud, and his own refusal to abandon anyone or anything that he might need later. By December 31, it was clear that there was no way to prevent the British from interposing themselves between him and the border. Faced with an approaching army of disparate elements which together would have him outnumbered, Gaines did what any competent commander in history would do—he tried to destroy the nearest element, with the ultimate goal of defeating the enemy in detail.
On New Year’s Day, 1838, near the little Spanish-Louisianan hamlet of Málaga[3], he ordered his forces to turn and attack the Grande Armée. He began this attack at about 3:30 in the afternoon, with an artillery and rocket barrage that expended most of his cannonballs and all his remaining rockets, including eight that were filled with the infamous Stabler’s No. 23 and had been reserved for emergencies. This done, he ordered a series of charges against the Louisianan position.
Caught out in open, flat fields, with little time to find cover and no time to make any, the Grande Armée suffered nearly two thousand casualties over the course of the next ninety minutes—heavier losses than Louisiana had taken in any single battle thus far, even the loss of Fort-Wellington. One in eight of the men who served under Labatut was killed or wounded in that battle. Benjamin Disraeli, then serving as treasury minister for Louisiana, observed in his correspondence that “I do not know one family in this city that has not lost a son, a nephew, or a cousin at Málaga.”
And yet they did not break. Labatut knew that if he and his army could survive and hold their ground for the next hour or so, Wellington would come and together they would have the Yankees at their mercy. No matter what Gaines tried to do, the Grande Armée held that open field until Wellington’s arrival. To this day, January 1 is celebrated in Louisiana as a day to honor the nation’s veterans and remember the Battle of Málaga.
At around 5:00, with Wellington approaching from the north, Gaines broke off the attack, hastily regrouped and ordered an attack on the left wing of the British army. Labatut’s army was, for the moment, too busy tending to its own wounded to pursue.
Seeing this unsubtle stroke, Wellington remarked, “So he is a pounder after all. Well, let’s see who can pound the longest.” He ordered the left wing to stand on the defensive while the right wing wheeled around to attack the exposed flank of the Americans’ left. Only the quick action of Col. William Lauderdale[4] and the First Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry prevented the British from rolling up Gaines’ whole army then and there.
By nightfall, Gaines was pinned against the ground to the northeast. This ground was a barrier to both sides—not wet enough for the waterdragoons to navigate, but too muddy for any other army unit to cross. He had taken even greater casualties than the Grande Armée, and it seemed that by morning he would have no choice but to surrender.
Chance saved his army—or at least a portion of it. A hard freeze overnight solidified the mud, giving him an escape route. Leaving the wounded and the spiked artillery (which by now he no longer had ammunition for) Gaines took this route and slipped away in the night, rejoining Davies two days later.
The Second Battle of Fort-Wellington was something of an anticlimax. The fort had been damaged in the original battle, and Col. Davies had been unable to do more than begin repairing the breach. Upon arrival, Gaines ordered him back to Mississippi, along with the rest of his cavalry under Col. Lauderdale. He then settled down into the fort, determined to slow Wellington down and allow at least part of the army to escape.
In this he succeeded, but he and what remained of his army were all captured when Wellington stormed the fort that was his namesake. American forces on this front had been reduced to scattered regiments, including Taylor’s forces on the far side of the Mississippi, with no one above the rank of colonel to command them.
At this point, Wellington was free to do as he would on the Louisiana front. The problem was a lack of suitable targets beyond the little republic’s borders. Biloxi was already being shelled by the Royal Navy. To go upriver and take Natchez and Coffeesburg, he would need to take Fort Adams, and his own army and the Grande Armée together were not yet prepared to undertake this—especially after the heavy casualties of Málaga. The rest of southern Mississippi was nothing but cotton plantations and the occasional small town.
Over the next two months, as the Grande Armée replenished its numbers and more regiments arrived, Wellington sent his cavalry on forays into Mississippi, armed with black powder charges. Their mission was to blast holes in the roads (which for the most part were mere dirt tracks) and destroy any supply depots they found. For the two waterdragoon regiments he had a special mission—go up the Pearl River and burn down the town of Columbia, which they did after midnight on January 24. (They also used black-powder charges to blow out the walls of the Pearl & Leaf Canal where it met the river, not realizing that this canal—a planned link between Columbia and Bouiemouth[5]—had been abandonded four years ago and came to a dead end two kilometers to the east.)
There was a method to all this beyond simply punishing the Americans. “The dirty-shirts have taken a thrashing,” he said to Keane, “but they’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers. The larger the army, the harder the logistics. I intend to confine them to a single usable invasion route—the Mississippi River itself.”
[1] The French lyrics, at least, are a deliberate reference to Revelation 12:12.
[2] General Isidore Labatut.
[3] OTL Gonzales, LA
[4] IOTL the man Fort Lauderdale is named for.
[5] OTL Hattiesburg, MS
Sachant qu’ils avaient peu de temps[1] (Knowing their time was soon to end)
Avec le feu blanc chaud de l’enfer (With the white-hot fires of hell)
Ils ont attaqué nos combattants (They tried to destroy our fighting men)
-from La Nouvelle Année, national anthem of the Republic of Louisiana
Gaines ordered the withdrawal from LaPlace as soon as he received the news of Wharton. He knew he did not dare remain and be cut off. The Grande Armée under Labatut[2] followed him, never coming close enough to engage but ready to strike at any time.
Gaines’ retreat was hampered by a number of factors. The presence of the Volonté meant that he was unable to use the river—or even approach it too closely. He was also slowed by rain, sleet, mud, and his own refusal to abandon anyone or anything that he might need later. By December 31, it was clear that there was no way to prevent the British from interposing themselves between him and the border. Faced with an approaching army of disparate elements which together would have him outnumbered, Gaines did what any competent commander in history would do—he tried to destroy the nearest element, with the ultimate goal of defeating the enemy in detail.
On New Year’s Day, 1838, near the little Spanish-Louisianan hamlet of Málaga[3], he ordered his forces to turn and attack the Grande Armée. He began this attack at about 3:30 in the afternoon, with an artillery and rocket barrage that expended most of his cannonballs and all his remaining rockets, including eight that were filled with the infamous Stabler’s No. 23 and had been reserved for emergencies. This done, he ordered a series of charges against the Louisianan position.
Caught out in open, flat fields, with little time to find cover and no time to make any, the Grande Armée suffered nearly two thousand casualties over the course of the next ninety minutes—heavier losses than Louisiana had taken in any single battle thus far, even the loss of Fort-Wellington. One in eight of the men who served under Labatut was killed or wounded in that battle. Benjamin Disraeli, then serving as treasury minister for Louisiana, observed in his correspondence that “I do not know one family in this city that has not lost a son, a nephew, or a cousin at Málaga.”
And yet they did not break. Labatut knew that if he and his army could survive and hold their ground for the next hour or so, Wellington would come and together they would have the Yankees at their mercy. No matter what Gaines tried to do, the Grande Armée held that open field until Wellington’s arrival. To this day, January 1 is celebrated in Louisiana as a day to honor the nation’s veterans and remember the Battle of Málaga.
At around 5:00, with Wellington approaching from the north, Gaines broke off the attack, hastily regrouped and ordered an attack on the left wing of the British army. Labatut’s army was, for the moment, too busy tending to its own wounded to pursue.
Seeing this unsubtle stroke, Wellington remarked, “So he is a pounder after all. Well, let’s see who can pound the longest.” He ordered the left wing to stand on the defensive while the right wing wheeled around to attack the exposed flank of the Americans’ left. Only the quick action of Col. William Lauderdale[4] and the First Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry prevented the British from rolling up Gaines’ whole army then and there.
By nightfall, Gaines was pinned against the ground to the northeast. This ground was a barrier to both sides—not wet enough for the waterdragoons to navigate, but too muddy for any other army unit to cross. He had taken even greater casualties than the Grande Armée, and it seemed that by morning he would have no choice but to surrender.
Chance saved his army—or at least a portion of it. A hard freeze overnight solidified the mud, giving him an escape route. Leaving the wounded and the spiked artillery (which by now he no longer had ammunition for) Gaines took this route and slipped away in the night, rejoining Davies two days later.
The Second Battle of Fort-Wellington was something of an anticlimax. The fort had been damaged in the original battle, and Col. Davies had been unable to do more than begin repairing the breach. Upon arrival, Gaines ordered him back to Mississippi, along with the rest of his cavalry under Col. Lauderdale. He then settled down into the fort, determined to slow Wellington down and allow at least part of the army to escape.
In this he succeeded, but he and what remained of his army were all captured when Wellington stormed the fort that was his namesake. American forces on this front had been reduced to scattered regiments, including Taylor’s forces on the far side of the Mississippi, with no one above the rank of colonel to command them.
At this point, Wellington was free to do as he would on the Louisiana front. The problem was a lack of suitable targets beyond the little republic’s borders. Biloxi was already being shelled by the Royal Navy. To go upriver and take Natchez and Coffeesburg, he would need to take Fort Adams, and his own army and the Grande Armée together were not yet prepared to undertake this—especially after the heavy casualties of Málaga. The rest of southern Mississippi was nothing but cotton plantations and the occasional small town.
Over the next two months, as the Grande Armée replenished its numbers and more regiments arrived, Wellington sent his cavalry on forays into Mississippi, armed with black powder charges. Their mission was to blast holes in the roads (which for the most part were mere dirt tracks) and destroy any supply depots they found. For the two waterdragoon regiments he had a special mission—go up the Pearl River and burn down the town of Columbia, which they did after midnight on January 24. (They also used black-powder charges to blow out the walls of the Pearl & Leaf Canal where it met the river, not realizing that this canal—a planned link between Columbia and Bouiemouth[5]—had been abandonded four years ago and came to a dead end two kilometers to the east.)
There was a method to all this beyond simply punishing the Americans. “The dirty-shirts have taken a thrashing,” he said to Keane, “but they’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers. The larger the army, the harder the logistics. I intend to confine them to a single usable invasion route—the Mississippi River itself.”
Eric Wayne Ellison, Anglo-American Wars of the 19th Century
[1] The French lyrics, at least, are a deliberate reference to Revelation 12:12.
[2] General Isidore Labatut.
[3] OTL Gonzales, LA
[4] IOTL the man Fort Lauderdale is named for.
[5] OTL Hattiesburg, MS
Louisiana had earned laurels on the new year. But those losses, that is a bitter pill. And hopefully pushed through the conscription expansion and with it movement toward abolition. more on that later.
Wellington has done it again, the Iron Duke has not lost his edge Washington and London both can now see. The invasion has been beaten back and two commanders captured, and while artillery was spiked the Americans did lose a lot of it too harm their chances. It looks like the Canadian front will indeed be stripped down to supply men and artillery as it seems Berrien will be launching another attack within a year.
But when? Will Berrien try a spring invasion to strike before summer hits? Seems foolhardy but he would he be willing to wait until summer passes giving the Republic that long too breath? Wellington is playing the long game attacking infrastructure to influence the shape of the next clash. Though I feel those oh so vulnerable cotton plantations were a squandered chance. Burning and liberating them would not affect military matters much but stoking the paranoia of the Quids about slave revolts would give Berriens' government more fits ad maybe spur them into greater folly.
As for the Republic, they have gone from imminent disaster to time bought. So the question will be now what? The Republic is saved for now but only because of British might. And its not even good ol' Keane this time but the Duke of Wellington who is not going to stick around with Britain having bigger fires to put irons in.
So the Republic faces a choice. They either must get stringer so as to stop their slid into a de facto British Imperial possession or lean into that trend to get the best deal they can. The status quo is not an option, even their army's greatest hour has proven a Pyrrhic victory felt across the capital. As time goes on Britain's patience for slavery will wear mire thin and their commitments and ambitions elsewhere will make the question of maintaining the alliance more dubious.
Draw closer to Britain likely means abolition but they can use British might backing them to ensure abolition is mostly on paper with the letter satisfying most in London for the foreseeable future; not like Great Britain is some racial equality paradise after all. But it would mean surrendering their treasured independence. To go from allies to subjects who whatever bargain is made will still be subject to the Empire's will, obligations and interests. Their pride dented, perhaps irreparably.
Or try to strengthen themselves by turning the liability of half a population enslaved into an asset. Gradual abolition would be the way to go. Funding for compensation they might be able to get British aid for whether from the Empire or the private sector. And while equality won't be on the table there are other options. A sort of Jim Crow style with share cropping and segregation, segregation being parish by parish policy. Voting rights for the freed but very limited. In addition to French speaking hey have to have been born in the republic and meet a property/wealth requirement. Go a step farther maybe and have them need to remain above that line for say, five years? Some offices being barred and other restrictions.
The goal being to improve the lives of the Freedmen population enough vs Dixie to inspire loyalty, reduce chance of revolt, and give a path to citizenship to have them invested in the success of the Republic; and maybe a little divide and rule while they are at it? And so this plan is advertised seeing the Republic inspire loyalty however grudging and even win over some of its African-Louisianan population while ensuring Whites still remain the dominant force with most of them disenfranchised. And it also makes them more appealing as an ally to Britain so maintaining ties will be easier in the future, or even reaching out to New Spain possibly.
Great update.
Wellington has done it again, the Iron Duke has not lost his edge Washington and London both can now see. The invasion has been beaten back and two commanders captured, and while artillery was spiked the Americans did lose a lot of it too harm their chances. It looks like the Canadian front will indeed be stripped down to supply men and artillery as it seems Berrien will be launching another attack within a year.
But when? Will Berrien try a spring invasion to strike before summer hits? Seems foolhardy but he would he be willing to wait until summer passes giving the Republic that long too breath? Wellington is playing the long game attacking infrastructure to influence the shape of the next clash. Though I feel those oh so vulnerable cotton plantations were a squandered chance. Burning and liberating them would not affect military matters much but stoking the paranoia of the Quids about slave revolts would give Berriens' government more fits ad maybe spur them into greater folly.
As for the Republic, they have gone from imminent disaster to time bought. So the question will be now what? The Republic is saved for now but only because of British might. And its not even good ol' Keane this time but the Duke of Wellington who is not going to stick around with Britain having bigger fires to put irons in.
So the Republic faces a choice. They either must get stringer so as to stop their slid into a de facto British Imperial possession or lean into that trend to get the best deal they can. The status quo is not an option, even their army's greatest hour has proven a Pyrrhic victory felt across the capital. As time goes on Britain's patience for slavery will wear mire thin and their commitments and ambitions elsewhere will make the question of maintaining the alliance more dubious.
Draw closer to Britain likely means abolition but they can use British might backing them to ensure abolition is mostly on paper with the letter satisfying most in London for the foreseeable future; not like Great Britain is some racial equality paradise after all. But it would mean surrendering their treasured independence. To go from allies to subjects who whatever bargain is made will still be subject to the Empire's will, obligations and interests. Their pride dented, perhaps irreparably.
Or try to strengthen themselves by turning the liability of half a population enslaved into an asset. Gradual abolition would be the way to go. Funding for compensation they might be able to get British aid for whether from the Empire or the private sector. And while equality won't be on the table there are other options. A sort of Jim Crow style with share cropping and segregation, segregation being parish by parish policy. Voting rights for the freed but very limited. In addition to French speaking hey have to have been born in the republic and meet a property/wealth requirement. Go a step farther maybe and have them need to remain above that line for say, five years? Some offices being barred and other restrictions.
The goal being to improve the lives of the Freedmen population enough vs Dixie to inspire loyalty, reduce chance of revolt, and give a path to citizenship to have them invested in the success of the Republic; and maybe a little divide and rule while they are at it? And so this plan is advertised seeing the Republic inspire loyalty however grudging and even win over some of its African-Louisianan population while ensuring Whites still remain the dominant force with most of them disenfranchised. And it also makes them more appealing as an ally to Britain so maintaining ties will be easier in the future, or even reaching out to New Spain possibly.
Great update.
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Lycaon pictus
Donor
Great post. The only things I can add are:
• Málaga was such a bloody battle that, all by itself, it slightly shifted the demographics of this tiny nation. Those who fell there were all freeborn, and were mostly white or mostly-white. By my calculations, Louisiana lost something like one in thirty of its adult white males in one day, and it's not like that was the only battle the Grand Army lost men in. This war is going to create a void, and the likeliest people to fill that void will be freed slaves—but what's left of Louisiana society will be desperately trying to prevent that from happening.
• If there was any doubt in Washington that Louisiana had developed an identity of its own that they would fight to keep, the months of resistance to conquest before Wellington came, followed by the Battle of Málaga, would settle the issue.
Winter Retreat (3)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
“Our westernmost outpost, the guarantor of our future, lies naked to the foe, defended more by the inconvenience of its location than by the handful of cannon or the fewscore men charged with its defense. Should we act this day, we might in a year’s time make of Astoria City[1] a formidable fortress for liberty; should we neglect this matter and the British take it by force, we should be hard put to reclaim it.”
One of the nicknames of the 48th Regiment of Foot was “the Surprisers.” It would be hard to say who was more surprised by their arrival at the mouth of the Columbia on February 27—the American colonists under Stephen Austin, or the 48th themselves.
Sir Stephen Arthur Goodman, who had celebrated his 57th birthday in January on board HMS Revenge while crossing the North Pacific, had been promoted from brevet colonel to full colonel and given command of the regiment. His mission was, on paper, quite simple—seize Fort Clatsop and establish effective control over Astoria Territory, or at least the American link to the Pacific Ocean. Complications first arose when the fleet of old warships and East Indiamen carrying the regiment rounded Cape Clatsop[2], only to find that the fort was not there.
Goodman, whose maps of the area were vague to the point of uselessness (see Fig. 21). saw that the time had come for reconnaissance. He put both his own men and the ships to work exploring the large and complex river’s mouth.
It was the East Indiaman David Clarke whose men, going up the Lewis and Clark River from Youngs Bay, stumbled across Fort Clatsop—or rather, the ruins of it—on the west bank of the river. With American settlement concentrated in the Willamette Valley well to the southeast, the fort had been abandoned five years ago, and the natives had long since plundered and burned it. A cursory inspection revealed that even when complete, it could never have housed a full battalion, let alone a regiment.
Fortunately for the British, that was not necessary. HMS Aboukir had already spotted Astoria City, the port for which the territory was named and which was still officially the capital. As HMS Aboukir had more cannon in one broadside than the entire city and the population of the city was slightly less than the number of men in the 48th, the city authorities found it expedient to surrender.
Governor Austin, however, did not, because Governor Austin was not there. In January, while the Columbia was iced over along its full length, he had traveled the 100 km upriver by sled to Symmes’ Landing to adjudicate a boundary dispute. At the moment, the river was still too icy for boats or ships, but the ice was nowhere near thick or consistent enough to walk or sled on. He could not return to Astoria, and it would be some time before the British could approach him.
Nonetheless, Austin was well aware he was effectively on his own. The Rockies would be impassable until spring, and even then it would take well over two months for the couriers to reach Freedmansville at the other end of the Astoria Trail—though the Army had outposts at Fort Sublette and Fort Gentry[3], they did not yet have the chain of horse-stations that would allow equestrian couriers to make greater speed. Once at Freedmansville, the couriers would have to go to Washington, D.C. at the speed of steamboat, adding another three to four weeks to the journey.[4] It would be high summer before the War Department had any idea what had happened, and even if they had any sort of relief to spare they would be hard put to send it before the next winter shut down the passes again…
“Who’s there?”[5]
Rubisette crouched beside the stairs, in the pool of shadow formed by the lantern. She drew air into her lungs, slowly, slowly, fearing to breathe too loud. Her belly was so heavy that she scarcely dared crouch an inch lower lest she fall to to the hard marble floor; yet she could hear Miss Anne descending the carpeted stairs, and with every step the mistress of the house took, the light was shifting.
“Show yourself, I say!” And now the light was starting to fall on her, casting shadows from the balusters over her skin like prison bars. All Miss Anne had to do was look down and to her right, and she would see Rubisette. But her gaze seemed fixed on the open door, as if she knew Jean-Bernard were hiding behind it.
Miss Anne was holding the lantern in her left hand. With another step, her body blocked the light and Rubisette dared to look up. In Miss Anne’s right hand was a Colt revolver.[6] This was hopeless. Jean-Bernard, gentleman to the core, would die before he raised his hand against a woman; and even if he were willing to shoot, her weapon was already aimed very nearly where he stood.
“I warn you, I’ll shoot! This is the domicile of a Southern gentlewoman!” So close! The open door was so close! Another half a minute and they both would have been out the door and into the night, never to be caught! As if mocking her, the north wind blew through the open doorway, cutting through the stifling warmth of the Tarleton house with its raw and bitter edge, promising freedom that a minute ago had seemed certain and now seemed to be lost forever.
As Miss Anne took the final step onto the floor, the door moved. Perhaps it merely startled her, or perhaps she took it for a sign that the unknown intruder was preparing to attack. Whatever the case, Miss Anne fired the pistol.
Rubisette could not say what stirred her to act in that moment. Perhaps it was the horror of the thought that Jean-Bernard had just been killed. Perhaps it was the shame that he had come here on her behalf, and if he were injured or killed it would be, in some sense, on her account. It was certainly no cold calculation, no realization that the thunder of the gunshot in this marble hall would deafen every ear and silence all other noise for several crucial seconds.
Whatever the case, she stood up, took three steps forward faster than she ever would have believed possible in her condition, gripped the wrought-iron hatstand, lifted it off the floor and swung it. Miss Anne saw the movement out of the corner of her eye, turned and raised her arm—too late. The base of the hatstand passed over her upraised arm, and one of the metal legs struck her between the eyes.
Without a word, the mistress of the house fell to the floor, limp as a ragdoll. Revolver and lantern fell from her hands and clattered on the polished chestnut, the candle in the lantern flickering and guttering as its own wax spilled onto its wick. Now Rubisette dared to look at the front door, and saw that the bullet had gouged a path through the face of it, ruining the fine carving. But that was no matter. Jean-Bernard was unharmed. The bullet had passed well to the right of where he had been hiding.
Jean-Bernard rushed forward. “Rubisette! Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said, though she gasped a little with exhaustion as she spoke. “But if we’re going to be gone before Mr. Tarleton returns, we’d better leave now.” Yet he had already turned to crouch by Miss Anne’s head. The only source of light in the hall was the candle in the lantern, and its flickering light silhouetted rather than showed Miss Anne’s face. He knelt down and pressed his fingers agains the neck of the fallen woman.
“She is dead.” He looked up, and his face was horrorstruck. “Oh, what have you done, Rubi? What have you done?” Following his gaze, Rubisette turned, and saw what he had seen and she had not; they were not alone here. Looking down from the second-floor balcony were nine-year-old Lucretia, blue eyes wide with horror; six-year-old Henry John; and tiny Mary America, who could not possibly yet know about death.
The horror of this moment, like the disaster of her own capture, was too great for Rubisette to consider in the moment. She had struck down and killed a woman in her own home, in full view of her three children. What could she do now? What recompense could she ever make for this?
Rubisette was awakened from these thoughts by a kick from within her burdened abdomen, and she remembered why she had been willing to go to such dire lengths to escape. She feared she would be consigned to Hell for what she had done in this hall tonight, but her son would not be consigned to slavery.
At the same moment, Jean-Bernard roused himself. “We must go,” he said. “I know where they’re keeping our daughter.”
[1] IOTL just plain Astoria, Oregon
[2] ITTL the southern cape separating the mouth of the Columbia from the ocean.
[3] OTL’s Fort Laramie and Fort Kearny, respectively. (Neither of which had been founded yet IOTL. TTL’s larger Army, compared to the U.S. Army at the same time IOTL, can do this sort of thing.)
[4] If this seems long, it’s because there are many stretches of river—especially on the Missouri—you wouldn’t want to try to pilot a steamboat through at night.
[5] This is an excerpt from the epic novel Plaçage (Editions du Rue Dauphin, 1936), the story of the lifelong relationship between Rubisette Juneau and her part-time lover and full-time friend, Jean-Bernard Boutilier. The story so far:
• 17-year-old Rubisette Juneau, from a free family of color in New Orleans, goes to her first quadroon ball. She’s naturally worried she won’t land a rich young white man, because she isn’t as light-skinned or pretty as some of the other girls. (The very first words of the novel are “Rubisette Juneau n'était pas belle, mais…” mais when they eventually get around to making the K-graph you can be sure they’ll cast one of the loveliest women of her generation for the role.)
• At the ball, the older and more established white men ignore her. Then she meets 18-year-old Jean-Bernard and love comes to town. Her parents aren’t thrilled about this—Jean-Bernard is from a good family, but he’s a younger son with not so many prospects.
• To further summarize, Jean-Bernard Boutilier gets a job at a cotton brokerage firm, he and Rubisette hook up and have a daughter, he marries a white woman who hates Rubisette and resents the money he gives her, his firm goes bankrupt and he can’t keep giving her money, she marries a mulatto and moves to Batôn-Rouge… and then 1837 rolls around, the Yankees approach Batôn-Rouge, her husband decides they can’t leave because she’s pregnant, the Yankees take Batôn-Rouge, he stops a bullet, she and her daughter are captured and sold into slavery, and Jean-Bernard goes to their rescue, which is where we came in.
[6] This is a slight anachronism. Very few people in rural Mississippi would have possessed Colt revolvers at this point.
[7] If you’re really curious: they rescue their daughter and make it back to Louisiana, and Rubisette gives birth to a son. Then a whole lot more stuff happens, including but not limited to:
• Jean-Bernard’s wife dies in childbirth, and he and Rubisette start seeing each other again on the sly.
• The son of the woman Rubisette just killed, now an angry teenager, shows up in New Orleans and tries to kill her.
• The daughter grows up and gets into a plaçage relationship with Jean-Bernard’s best friend, who turns out to be abusive. Jean-Bernard calls him out on this, they fight a duel and his friend is wounded and paralyzed from the waist down, turning their two families into enemies.
• Then the daughter runs off with a legally-but-not-socially-white métis from Sabine Est.
• Not to be outdone, Rubisette’s son gets into a relationship with a white girl—specifically, the daughter of Jean-Bernard’s former friend that he shot in a duel—and Jean-Bernard and Rubisette have to help them escape an angry mob and get on a boat to Trafalgar.
• Eventually they get old, Jean-Bernard dies and Rubisette reconciles with his family and lives out her days in the home of one of his sons by his wife, with correspondence and occasional quiet visits from her own children and grandchildren. (No surprise that Plaçage will be graced with almost as many banning attempts as The Governing Elites or Story of My Captivity and Freedom. Many white parents will be terrified of the thought of their children being exposed to it, although any child strong enough to lift this tome off the shelf and patient enough to read all the way through it is probably doing okay.)
-Daniel Webster, “A Tide in the Affairs of Men,” April 18, 1837
One of the nicknames of the 48th Regiment of Foot was “the Surprisers.” It would be hard to say who was more surprised by their arrival at the mouth of the Columbia on February 27—the American colonists under Stephen Austin, or the 48th themselves.
Sir Stephen Arthur Goodman, who had celebrated his 57th birthday in January on board HMS Revenge while crossing the North Pacific, had been promoted from brevet colonel to full colonel and given command of the regiment. His mission was, on paper, quite simple—seize Fort Clatsop and establish effective control over Astoria Territory, or at least the American link to the Pacific Ocean. Complications first arose when the fleet of old warships and East Indiamen carrying the regiment rounded Cape Clatsop[2], only to find that the fort was not there.
Goodman, whose maps of the area were vague to the point of uselessness (see Fig. 21). saw that the time had come for reconnaissance. He put both his own men and the ships to work exploring the large and complex river’s mouth.
It was the East Indiaman David Clarke whose men, going up the Lewis and Clark River from Youngs Bay, stumbled across Fort Clatsop—or rather, the ruins of it—on the west bank of the river. With American settlement concentrated in the Willamette Valley well to the southeast, the fort had been abandoned five years ago, and the natives had long since plundered and burned it. A cursory inspection revealed that even when complete, it could never have housed a full battalion, let alone a regiment.
Fortunately for the British, that was not necessary. HMS Aboukir had already spotted Astoria City, the port for which the territory was named and which was still officially the capital. As HMS Aboukir had more cannon in one broadside than the entire city and the population of the city was slightly less than the number of men in the 48th, the city authorities found it expedient to surrender.
Governor Austin, however, did not, because Governor Austin was not there. In January, while the Columbia was iced over along its full length, he had traveled the 100 km upriver by sled to Symmes’ Landing to adjudicate a boundary dispute. At the moment, the river was still too icy for boats or ships, but the ice was nowhere near thick or consistent enough to walk or sled on. He could not return to Astoria, and it would be some time before the British could approach him.
Nonetheless, Austin was well aware he was effectively on his own. The Rockies would be impassable until spring, and even then it would take well over two months for the couriers to reach Freedmansville at the other end of the Astoria Trail—though the Army had outposts at Fort Sublette and Fort Gentry[3], they did not yet have the chain of horse-stations that would allow equestrian couriers to make greater speed. Once at Freedmansville, the couriers would have to go to Washington, D.C. at the speed of steamboat, adding another three to four weeks to the journey.[4] It would be high summer before the War Department had any idea what had happened, and even if they had any sort of relief to spare they would be hard put to send it before the next winter shut down the passes again…
Eric Wayne Ellison, Anglo-American Wars of the 19th Century
“Who’s there?”[5]
Rubisette crouched beside the stairs, in the pool of shadow formed by the lantern. She drew air into her lungs, slowly, slowly, fearing to breathe too loud. Her belly was so heavy that she scarcely dared crouch an inch lower lest she fall to to the hard marble floor; yet she could hear Miss Anne descending the carpeted stairs, and with every step the mistress of the house took, the light was shifting.
“Show yourself, I say!” And now the light was starting to fall on her, casting shadows from the balusters over her skin like prison bars. All Miss Anne had to do was look down and to her right, and she would see Rubisette. But her gaze seemed fixed on the open door, as if she knew Jean-Bernard were hiding behind it.
Miss Anne was holding the lantern in her left hand. With another step, her body blocked the light and Rubisette dared to look up. In Miss Anne’s right hand was a Colt revolver.[6] This was hopeless. Jean-Bernard, gentleman to the core, would die before he raised his hand against a woman; and even if he were willing to shoot, her weapon was already aimed very nearly where he stood.
“I warn you, I’ll shoot! This is the domicile of a Southern gentlewoman!” So close! The open door was so close! Another half a minute and they both would have been out the door and into the night, never to be caught! As if mocking her, the north wind blew through the open doorway, cutting through the stifling warmth of the Tarleton house with its raw and bitter edge, promising freedom that a minute ago had seemed certain and now seemed to be lost forever.
As Miss Anne took the final step onto the floor, the door moved. Perhaps it merely startled her, or perhaps she took it for a sign that the unknown intruder was preparing to attack. Whatever the case, Miss Anne fired the pistol.
Rubisette could not say what stirred her to act in that moment. Perhaps it was the horror of the thought that Jean-Bernard had just been killed. Perhaps it was the shame that he had come here on her behalf, and if he were injured or killed it would be, in some sense, on her account. It was certainly no cold calculation, no realization that the thunder of the gunshot in this marble hall would deafen every ear and silence all other noise for several crucial seconds.
Whatever the case, she stood up, took three steps forward faster than she ever would have believed possible in her condition, gripped the wrought-iron hatstand, lifted it off the floor and swung it. Miss Anne saw the movement out of the corner of her eye, turned and raised her arm—too late. The base of the hatstand passed over her upraised arm, and one of the metal legs struck her between the eyes.
Without a word, the mistress of the house fell to the floor, limp as a ragdoll. Revolver and lantern fell from her hands and clattered on the polished chestnut, the candle in the lantern flickering and guttering as its own wax spilled onto its wick. Now Rubisette dared to look at the front door, and saw that the bullet had gouged a path through the face of it, ruining the fine carving. But that was no matter. Jean-Bernard was unharmed. The bullet had passed well to the right of where he had been hiding.
Jean-Bernard rushed forward. “Rubisette! Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said, though she gasped a little with exhaustion as she spoke. “But if we’re going to be gone before Mr. Tarleton returns, we’d better leave now.” Yet he had already turned to crouch by Miss Anne’s head. The only source of light in the hall was the candle in the lantern, and its flickering light silhouetted rather than showed Miss Anne’s face. He knelt down and pressed his fingers agains the neck of the fallen woman.
“She is dead.” He looked up, and his face was horrorstruck. “Oh, what have you done, Rubi? What have you done?” Following his gaze, Rubisette turned, and saw what he had seen and she had not; they were not alone here. Looking down from the second-floor balcony were nine-year-old Lucretia, blue eyes wide with horror; six-year-old Henry John; and tiny Mary America, who could not possibly yet know about death.
The horror of this moment, like the disaster of her own capture, was too great for Rubisette to consider in the moment. She had struck down and killed a woman in her own home, in full view of her three children. What could she do now? What recompense could she ever make for this?
Rubisette was awakened from these thoughts by a kick from within her burdened abdomen, and she remembered why she had been willing to go to such dire lengths to escape. She feared she would be consigned to Hell for what she had done in this hall tonight, but her son would not be consigned to slavery.
At the same moment, Jean-Bernard roused himself. “We must go,” he said. “I know where they’re keeping our daughter.”
Marguerite Michel, Plaçage (Eng. trans.)[7]
[1] IOTL just plain Astoria, Oregon
[2] ITTL the southern cape separating the mouth of the Columbia from the ocean.
[3] OTL’s Fort Laramie and Fort Kearny, respectively. (Neither of which had been founded yet IOTL. TTL’s larger Army, compared to the U.S. Army at the same time IOTL, can do this sort of thing.)
[4] If this seems long, it’s because there are many stretches of river—especially on the Missouri—you wouldn’t want to try to pilot a steamboat through at night.
[5] This is an excerpt from the epic novel Plaçage (Editions du Rue Dauphin, 1936), the story of the lifelong relationship between Rubisette Juneau and her part-time lover and full-time friend, Jean-Bernard Boutilier. The story so far:
• 17-year-old Rubisette Juneau, from a free family of color in New Orleans, goes to her first quadroon ball. She’s naturally worried she won’t land a rich young white man, because she isn’t as light-skinned or pretty as some of the other girls. (The very first words of the novel are “Rubisette Juneau n'était pas belle, mais…” mais when they eventually get around to making the K-graph you can be sure they’ll cast one of the loveliest women of her generation for the role.)
• At the ball, the older and more established white men ignore her. Then she meets 18-year-old Jean-Bernard and love comes to town. Her parents aren’t thrilled about this—Jean-Bernard is from a good family, but he’s a younger son with not so many prospects.
• To further summarize, Jean-Bernard Boutilier gets a job at a cotton brokerage firm, he and Rubisette hook up and have a daughter, he marries a white woman who hates Rubisette and resents the money he gives her, his firm goes bankrupt and he can’t keep giving her money, she marries a mulatto and moves to Batôn-Rouge… and then 1837 rolls around, the Yankees approach Batôn-Rouge, her husband decides they can’t leave because she’s pregnant, the Yankees take Batôn-Rouge, he stops a bullet, she and her daughter are captured and sold into slavery, and Jean-Bernard goes to their rescue, which is where we came in.
[6] This is a slight anachronism. Very few people in rural Mississippi would have possessed Colt revolvers at this point.
[7] If you’re really curious: they rescue their daughter and make it back to Louisiana, and Rubisette gives birth to a son. Then a whole lot more stuff happens, including but not limited to:
• Jean-Bernard’s wife dies in childbirth, and he and Rubisette start seeing each other again on the sly.
• The son of the woman Rubisette just killed, now an angry teenager, shows up in New Orleans and tries to kill her.
• The daughter grows up and gets into a plaçage relationship with Jean-Bernard’s best friend, who turns out to be abusive. Jean-Bernard calls him out on this, they fight a duel and his friend is wounded and paralyzed from the waist down, turning their two families into enemies.
• Then the daughter runs off with a legally-but-not-socially-white métis from Sabine Est.
• Not to be outdone, Rubisette’s son gets into a relationship with a white girl—specifically, the daughter of Jean-Bernard’s former friend that he shot in a duel—and Jean-Bernard and Rubisette have to help them escape an angry mob and get on a boat to Trafalgar.
• Eventually they get old, Jean-Bernard dies and Rubisette reconciles with his family and lives out her days in the home of one of his sons by his wife, with correspondence and occasional quiet visits from her own children and grandchildren. (No surprise that Plaçage will be graced with almost as many banning attempts as The Governing Elites or Story of My Captivity and Freedom. Many white parents will be terrified of the thought of their children being exposed to it, although any child strong enough to lift this tome off the shelf and patient enough to read all the way through it is probably doing okay.)
Margaret Mitchell is rolling in her grave. Serves her right, too. Great update.
Thanks.
That will be an interesting crisis. Will they take the high road, he low road, or try and forge a third option? Aside from that it will be fascinating to see how the Republic's culture
But will that matter to them? Seems it would just be another factor in future plans of conquest.
XXX
Astoria has fallen! Though the Union won't know for some time so it won't affect the war until then. And what will Austin do now? He doesn't seem to have any cards o play, but the British I doubt will do much chase him down as they secure their position.
Ah the tragedy of the fact that the tyrants re also human eh? Still a great escape, hopefully more in RL ITTL inspired it, without the love story. Grand that such a story was written ITTL.
Well the Republic will be desperate for peace so I am guessing they will accept a peace that just preserves the border if that is what Britain brings. Some might want to take some nibbles but Roman and the majority I think will be hoping they can make a real peace out of this treaty rather than another decades long reprieve.
Hmm, the disaster of Malaga will help consciption reform. After all many will be wary of the impact of future wars where the 'young white man' must solely shoulder the burden of the facing the Yankee hordes.
So the clock is ticking then on the American public learning of their defeat in the West an how much that will affect Northern support for the war. It will be high summer when Washington gets word, so by then the heat will have ground offensives in the south to a halt and the action would likely shift north to the Canadian front. By then one assumes Brougham will have hammered out a new arrangement for the Canadas.
And of course we must consider how the War in Europe will affect things.
And of course we must consider how the War in Europe will affect things.
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I'm still in shock from "A Political History of Pre-Revolutionary Britain", I'll be honest...
Ah, forgot about that. Does lend itself open to the question as to when they'll take place, especially since the Whigs had instituted a lot of reforms that might ease the pressure somewhat and the wars, while harsh, aren't really the sort to push people to desperation. Might be a few decades down the line at the very least before it gets to that point.
Lycaon pictus
Donor
Yeah, the revolution—or rather, that particular revolution—isn't for a while yet.
By the way, I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I've had a lot of work in the past couple months, plus the book launch. (Check the links in my sig. I'm almost as proud of that book announcement as I am of the actual book.)
The next post will be about events in the Balkans.
By the way, I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I've had a lot of work in the past couple months, plus the book launch. (Check the links in my sig. I'm almost as proud of that book announcement as I am of the actual book.)
The next post will be about events in the Balkans.
Any hints as to the nature of that revolution? Maybe something to do with that Elmar fellow I've been hearing about?
No worries on that, real life comes first before all else. And congrats on the book launch as well!