The Dead Skunk
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I mentioned in the post just before the last one (#1654, not the threadmarked one) that Louis-Philippe was still teaching, but that does raise further questions. He and Maria Amalia had nine surviving children IOTL and have eleven ITTL, and it's kind of hard to raise that many children on a teacher's salary. So all their kids are given a loving shove out the door as soon as they're old enough. As of early 1838…
Ferdinand Philippe (born 1810) is Major Ferdinand d'Orleans, an officer in one of the British regiments serving in Louisiana. Pretty much everybody in Louisiana can speak English, but having someone fluent in French does make a good impression. His regiment is discreetly trying to keep him out of the way of bullets and things, in case the French suddenly change their minds about the monarchy.
The good news is that Louise-Marie (born 1812) married a Portuguese prince. The bad news—it was Prince Miguel. Now they're both in exile in Lima. She doesn't make much of an impression on anybody, but one day her writings will be a gold mine of information for historians researching Prince Miguel's War and the early Virreinato.
As it happens, Marie (born 1813) married Sebastian Gabriel de Bourbon y Braganza, and is the star of the not-really-a-royal-court in Lima, completely outshining her wallflower of an older sister. She's also a skilled artist and architect in her own right, and is doing a lot to improve the visual environment of Lima.
Louis (born 1814) is first mate aboard HMS Howe. Serving on one of the mightiest ships in the Royal Navy seemed like a good idea at the time—strengthening, but (until Sinepuxent) not too endangering. He was wounded by "splinters" (large chunks of wooden shrapnel) at Fort Severn, but survived and helped the ship make it back to Bermuda. The mauled Howe is now in Portsmouth being razeed and repurposed, and Louis is awaiting a new command.
François (born 1816) has been given a commission in a new regiment.
Antoinette (born 1817) is in the court of Vienna, basically looking for a husband.
Claude (born 1818) is in Sandhurst.
Charlotte (born 1820) is in the court of Madrid looking for a husband.
Eugène (born 1822) is at the Addiscombe Military Seminary.
Amalie (born 1824) is still in school.
Then there's Clémentine (born 1827), who isn't in school because she was born with what TTL will for a long time call sinoblephary[1] (giving birth at 45 is something of a crapshoot), but who is capable of assisting with the household chores and happy to do so.
I should mention that while Louis Philippe would very much like to be invited back to France and is certain he'd rule wisely and well, his wife is very happy where they are, minor celebrities safely outside the world of politics.
[1] Down syndrome. I should mention that "sinoblephary" is as racist a term as "mongoloid" if you happen to know your Greek and Latin roots.
We have heard a good bit on people who want the Republic reconquered for the Union; are there any prominent persons or groups that favor letting the Republic be or even reconciliation? Or are such views too career killing in the union too date?
How do Floridians feel about the Republic; as an ally that is also still a slaveholding nation?
How do Floridians feel about the Republic; as an ally that is also still a slaveholding nation?
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Apart from Quakers and other pacifist sects, who get a pass on this sort of thing, very few people were ready to say in 1837 that war against Louisiana was wrong. On the subject of Louisiana's secession, the most you were ever likely to hear was something along the lines of "Good riddance to those race-mixing crawfish[this being the pejorative of choice—sort of the American version of 'frogs']," "Good riddance—the last thing we need is another slave state," or "Good riddance to those idiots who traded their seats in Congress for the taste of the royal rump." Since the war started, people are getting letters home saying “Guys, these crawfish actually want to fight us and they don't care if they're outnumbered." It's very hard to argue against that without sounding like exactly the sort of might-makes-right bully that would, say, rip up the Treaty of Ghent before the ink is dry just because they can.
As for Florida, the thing to understand is that until the September '37 invasion, abolition there was a top-down thing. There were of course plenty of escapees in Florida, but for the immigrants from Asia, what the absence of slavery mostly meant was "hooray, we don't have to compete with unpaid labor." Everybody feels a lot more strongly about slavery now that they're being threatened with it, but Louisiana is still the enemy of their enemy, so they get a pass… at least for now.
Interesting, that is good to know thank you.
Crawfish, I see.
The increased anti slavery sentiment from Florida will hopefully be another factor to kickstart abolitionism in the Republic.
Dead of Winter (1)
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January 25, 1838
Oval Office
Executive Mansion
Washington, DC
Berrien rubbed his temples. He’d hoped that more information would dispel some of the more dire rumors coming from the Louisiana front. But the more he learned, the worse it seemed.
“What’s left of our forces on this front,” said Commissary General George Gibson, “is concentrated at Fort Adams. We’re building up a reserve in Coffeesburg.”
“I would think that Natchez would be the higher priority,” said President Berrien. “We defeated the British there once.”
“True, but we didn’t defeat Wellington there. He may move faster than we anticipate, or devise some trick that we are unprepared for. Under the circumstances, it seemed better to me to protect the most valuable target in the state.”
Secretary of War Poinsett lifted a finger. “Who commands these reserves?”
“General Harney. He should be there by now.”
“My intention,” said Berrien, “was that Harney should command at the front. Gaines captured, Wool paroled—we need a general at Fort Adams.”
“I’ve already given orders to secure the command structure of the front, Mr. President,” said Poinsett. “I’ve promoted Taylor and Lauderdale. Taylor is in command at Fort Adams.”
Berrien nodded reluctantly. This wasn’t too bad. Taylor and Lauderdale were both good Virginians, and if they lacked Harney’s fire, they were (he hated to admit it to himself) more competent.
“Very good,” he said. “Let us consider what to do next.
“My friend Roger[1] has informed me that given our financial situation—taxes, bond sales and so forth—it would be best for us to campaign on only one front at a time this year,” he said. “Summer is the best time to campaign in Canada, and the worst time to campaign in the South, and it will take some time for our forces on the Louisiana front to recover. It seems to me, then, that we should concentrate on Florida in the spring, Canada in the summer—by then we’ll know whether the Frenchmen of Lower Canada are on our side or not—and Louisiana in the fall. General Jesup?”
“Yes, Mr. President?” Berrien had invited General Thomas Sidney Jesup, head of the Quartermaster Corps.
“When Wool gets here, I intend for him to take up your duties. Joel is mustering fresh regiments from Virginia and the Carolinas. You will command those regiments.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I spoke with Robert[2] last week,” said Poinsett. “We will be ready for another assault on Louisiana in the fall. This all assumes, of course, that the British do not seize the initiative themselves and throw all our plans into the midden.”
“If they do,” said Secretary of State Tyler, “it won’t be at Louisiana. It seems that the campaign in general—and Málaga in particular—have been a particularly Pyrrhic victory for the Louisianans. I would look to them to stand on the defensive. And they represent half of Wellington’s force.
“Talking of the British, I’m afraid I have some news to impart regarding the prisoners at Trafalgar… and what Lord Brougham intends to do to them.”
From the look on his face, it wasn’t hard for Berrien to guess. “He’s ordered them killed.”
“Strictly speaking, they were already under sentence of death. Brougham has ordered that the sentence be carried out… on July 4 of this year.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. No. He wouldn’t dare.
But Tyler wouldn’t lie to him.
And Brougham absolutely would dare. Because what are we going to do about it? Declare war?
Berrien gripped the table and took several long, deep breaths before he spoke again. “That,” he said flatly, “is an insult.” To blazes with Canada. And Louisiana. And Beau’s little project. We must save those men or die trying.
“It’s more than that, I’m afraid,” said Tyler. “If all Brougham wanted were to set them to swing and be shot of them, it would surely have been done by now. I… I’ve interviewed every ambassador we ever sent to London, but to be quite honest, I can no more hope to outwit that man than Taylor or Harney can outwit Wellington. But I can think of two possible reasons he might have chosen to impose this delay.
“I hope his plan is to encourage us to seek an armistice before July, and to use their lives as a bargaining chip. Otherwise… he wants us to invade Florida, and to continue the campaign as far into the summer as necessary, either to rescue Fannin and his men or to avenge them. I have no doubt that the day he gave that order, he gave other orders as well. I have no doubt that even as we speak, regiments are being moved and prepared for deployment on the expectation that the Empire will be fighting the bulk of our army in Florida. In short, I have no doubt that whatever forces we commit to this front will be marching into a trap.”
Berrien winced. The first thought he’d had in his mind turned out to have been the thought the enemy had meant for him to have. And yet… “If this is a trap,” he said, “it is one that honor will not allow us to escape.”
“It occurs to me,” said Poinsett, “that Britain has other commitments overseas besides this war, and some of them depend on the goodwill of our allies. Perhaps a word or two from one of them in the Court of St. James? To hang prisoners of war like common criminals sets a dreadful precedent, after all.”
“Thank you, Joel,” said Tyler, “but I have already consulted the embassies of France, Italy, Gran Colombia, Argentina, and Tehuantepec.” The fact that he’d even bothered talking to anybody beyond France and Italy was already a sign of desparation. “They hold to the British position—that these particular men were proven in court to have engaged in conduct which… places them outside the protections normally granted to soldiers.”
“Permission to speak, Mr. President?” said Jesup.
“Granted.”
“I am of course prepared to give my life in the service of my country. I’d sooner not do it leading twenty thousand Americans into a Cannae and losing us the war. If your goal is to save those men, I’ll have more chance of success with a smaller and more mobile force, operating independently of Twiggs’ command.”
Poinsett nodded. “If this is a trap, best not to stick a whole hand in it.”
“My intention was for you to save them by taking Trafalgar, not raiding it,” said Berrien. He looked around the room, and saw that Jesup’s idea had more support. And of course he doesn’t want to be under Twiggs’ command.
“There is another way,” said Poinsett. “I appreciate what my colleague has said about trying to out-think Henry Brougham, but if he does expect us to commit our whole army to Florida, perhaps we should do otherwise—strengthen our position in Upper Canada and take the offensive in New Brunswick.”
“New Brunswick?” scoffed Berrien. “I do not need New Brunswick. I do not want New Brunswick. I do not see the point of New Brunswick. I thought we only invaded that place to secure the river line and prevent them from invading us that way again.”
“That was indeed the plan, Mr. President. But if we were to take it, don’t you think Brougham would trade Florida to get it back?”
Of course. Give up Florida for a province of white men—even those abolitionist maniacs in London wouldn’t say no to that, surely. We may not be able to take Louisiana, but we can at least take Florida.
And perhaps more than that, if Beau is successful. But that wasn’t something he could bring up in a Cabinet meeting… yet.
On February 1, General Twiggs launched his second assault on Fort Weatherford. This time, well-equipped with heavy artillery and with cavalry to watch the southern bank of the Suwanee for waterdragoons, even he could not lose. The Creeks were nonetheless able to withdraw from the fort in good order. On the same day, about forty kilometers to the west, Col. William G. Belknap[3]’s regiment was capturing Fort Menawa with much less loss of life. With the fort, he captured over 200 Creek prisoners, who he sent to a hastily-arranged prison camp at Autherley, Georgia. (After the war, Jesup would reprimand him for capturing Indians and keeping them alive.)
Belknap reported his success thus: “The Tenth of New York can defend this fort against any force on this side of the Suwanee. Two more regiments and a battery of artillery, and we can take Tohopeka[4] in a week. I hear of a new volunteer regiment being raised in Alpheus. They would be welcome here.” He did not know that this “regiment” was already preparing to depart, and not south. Meanwhile, Twiggs’ much larger force was marching downstream to cut the province off from the rest of Florida…
[1] Roger Taney is Berrien’s Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held under Jackson IOTL.
[2] Robert Y. Hayne, Berrien’s Secretary of Domestic Affairs.
[3] IOTL the father of William W. Belknap, Grant’s secretary of war.
[4] Capital of the province of Apalachicola. OTL Perry, Florida.
Oval Office
Executive Mansion
Washington, DC
Berrien rubbed his temples. He’d hoped that more information would dispel some of the more dire rumors coming from the Louisiana front. But the more he learned, the worse it seemed.
“What’s left of our forces on this front,” said Commissary General George Gibson, “is concentrated at Fort Adams. We’re building up a reserve in Coffeesburg.”
“I would think that Natchez would be the higher priority,” said President Berrien. “We defeated the British there once.”
“True, but we didn’t defeat Wellington there. He may move faster than we anticipate, or devise some trick that we are unprepared for. Under the circumstances, it seemed better to me to protect the most valuable target in the state.”
Secretary of War Poinsett lifted a finger. “Who commands these reserves?”
“General Harney. He should be there by now.”
“My intention,” said Berrien, “was that Harney should command at the front. Gaines captured, Wool paroled—we need a general at Fort Adams.”
“I’ve already given orders to secure the command structure of the front, Mr. President,” said Poinsett. “I’ve promoted Taylor and Lauderdale. Taylor is in command at Fort Adams.”
Berrien nodded reluctantly. This wasn’t too bad. Taylor and Lauderdale were both good Virginians, and if they lacked Harney’s fire, they were (he hated to admit it to himself) more competent.
“Very good,” he said. “Let us consider what to do next.
“My friend Roger[1] has informed me that given our financial situation—taxes, bond sales and so forth—it would be best for us to campaign on only one front at a time this year,” he said. “Summer is the best time to campaign in Canada, and the worst time to campaign in the South, and it will take some time for our forces on the Louisiana front to recover. It seems to me, then, that we should concentrate on Florida in the spring, Canada in the summer—by then we’ll know whether the Frenchmen of Lower Canada are on our side or not—and Louisiana in the fall. General Jesup?”
“Yes, Mr. President?” Berrien had invited General Thomas Sidney Jesup, head of the Quartermaster Corps.
“When Wool gets here, I intend for him to take up your duties. Joel is mustering fresh regiments from Virginia and the Carolinas. You will command those regiments.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I spoke with Robert[2] last week,” said Poinsett. “We will be ready for another assault on Louisiana in the fall. This all assumes, of course, that the British do not seize the initiative themselves and throw all our plans into the midden.”
“If they do,” said Secretary of State Tyler, “it won’t be at Louisiana. It seems that the campaign in general—and Málaga in particular—have been a particularly Pyrrhic victory for the Louisianans. I would look to them to stand on the defensive. And they represent half of Wellington’s force.
“Talking of the British, I’m afraid I have some news to impart regarding the prisoners at Trafalgar… and what Lord Brougham intends to do to them.”
From the look on his face, it wasn’t hard for Berrien to guess. “He’s ordered them killed.”
“Strictly speaking, they were already under sentence of death. Brougham has ordered that the sentence be carried out… on July 4 of this year.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. No. He wouldn’t dare.
But Tyler wouldn’t lie to him.
And Brougham absolutely would dare. Because what are we going to do about it? Declare war?
Berrien gripped the table and took several long, deep breaths before he spoke again. “That,” he said flatly, “is an insult.” To blazes with Canada. And Louisiana. And Beau’s little project. We must save those men or die trying.
“It’s more than that, I’m afraid,” said Tyler. “If all Brougham wanted were to set them to swing and be shot of them, it would surely have been done by now. I… I’ve interviewed every ambassador we ever sent to London, but to be quite honest, I can no more hope to outwit that man than Taylor or Harney can outwit Wellington. But I can think of two possible reasons he might have chosen to impose this delay.
“I hope his plan is to encourage us to seek an armistice before July, and to use their lives as a bargaining chip. Otherwise… he wants us to invade Florida, and to continue the campaign as far into the summer as necessary, either to rescue Fannin and his men or to avenge them. I have no doubt that the day he gave that order, he gave other orders as well. I have no doubt that even as we speak, regiments are being moved and prepared for deployment on the expectation that the Empire will be fighting the bulk of our army in Florida. In short, I have no doubt that whatever forces we commit to this front will be marching into a trap.”
Berrien winced. The first thought he’d had in his mind turned out to have been the thought the enemy had meant for him to have. And yet… “If this is a trap,” he said, “it is one that honor will not allow us to escape.”
“It occurs to me,” said Poinsett, “that Britain has other commitments overseas besides this war, and some of them depend on the goodwill of our allies. Perhaps a word or two from one of them in the Court of St. James? To hang prisoners of war like common criminals sets a dreadful precedent, after all.”
“Thank you, Joel,” said Tyler, “but I have already consulted the embassies of France, Italy, Gran Colombia, Argentina, and Tehuantepec.” The fact that he’d even bothered talking to anybody beyond France and Italy was already a sign of desparation. “They hold to the British position—that these particular men were proven in court to have engaged in conduct which… places them outside the protections normally granted to soldiers.”
“Permission to speak, Mr. President?” said Jesup.
“Granted.”
“I am of course prepared to give my life in the service of my country. I’d sooner not do it leading twenty thousand Americans into a Cannae and losing us the war. If your goal is to save those men, I’ll have more chance of success with a smaller and more mobile force, operating independently of Twiggs’ command.”
Poinsett nodded. “If this is a trap, best not to stick a whole hand in it.”
“My intention was for you to save them by taking Trafalgar, not raiding it,” said Berrien. He looked around the room, and saw that Jesup’s idea had more support. And of course he doesn’t want to be under Twiggs’ command.
“There is another way,” said Poinsett. “I appreciate what my colleague has said about trying to out-think Henry Brougham, but if he does expect us to commit our whole army to Florida, perhaps we should do otherwise—strengthen our position in Upper Canada and take the offensive in New Brunswick.”
“New Brunswick?” scoffed Berrien. “I do not need New Brunswick. I do not want New Brunswick. I do not see the point of New Brunswick. I thought we only invaded that place to secure the river line and prevent them from invading us that way again.”
“That was indeed the plan, Mr. President. But if we were to take it, don’t you think Brougham would trade Florida to get it back?”
Of course. Give up Florida for a province of white men—even those abolitionist maniacs in London wouldn’t say no to that, surely. We may not be able to take Louisiana, but we can at least take Florida.
And perhaps more than that, if Beau is successful. But that wasn’t something he could bring up in a Cabinet meeting… yet.
On February 1, General Twiggs launched his second assault on Fort Weatherford. This time, well-equipped with heavy artillery and with cavalry to watch the southern bank of the Suwanee for waterdragoons, even he could not lose. The Creeks were nonetheless able to withdraw from the fort in good order. On the same day, about forty kilometers to the west, Col. William G. Belknap[3]’s regiment was capturing Fort Menawa with much less loss of life. With the fort, he captured over 200 Creek prisoners, who he sent to a hastily-arranged prison camp at Autherley, Georgia. (After the war, Jesup would reprimand him for capturing Indians and keeping them alive.)
Belknap reported his success thus: “The Tenth of New York can defend this fort against any force on this side of the Suwanee. Two more regiments and a battery of artillery, and we can take Tohopeka[4] in a week. I hear of a new volunteer regiment being raised in Alpheus. They would be welcome here.” He did not know that this “regiment” was already preparing to depart, and not south. Meanwhile, Twiggs’ much larger force was marching downstream to cut the province off from the rest of Florida…
David Harvey Copp, Campaigns of the War of 1837
[1] Roger Taney is Berrien’s Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held under Jackson IOTL.
[2] Robert Y. Hayne, Berrien’s Secretary of Domestic Affairs.
[3] IOTL the father of William W. Belknap, Grant’s secretary of war.
[4] Capital of the province of Apalachicola. OTL Perry, Florida.
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Well now, Berrien is plotting.
New Brunswick is his target? Don't usually see that province get the highlight. But have the Americans out thought themselves in this choice of campaigning?
Hmm, hanging of Americans on July 4th, quite the statement Brougham.
So, do we know what Beau's plan is?
Rather hoping Jessup's plan fails.
And the Republic seems to have bought breathing room until September. Timer enough to reform conscription perhaps.
And Florida faces attrition to American numbers.
New Brunswick is his target? Don't usually see that province get the highlight. But have the Americans out thought themselves in this choice of campaigning?
Hmm, hanging of Americans on July 4th, quite the statement Brougham.
So, do we know what Beau's plan is?
Rather hoping Jessup's plan fails.
And the Republic seems to have bought breathing room until September. Timer enough to reform conscription perhaps.
And Florida faces attrition to American numbers.
Oh pleasepleaseplease yes. I could see such a thing causing Berrien to have an apoplectic stroke.At this rate, the US will gain New Brunswick as a state, lose Georgia (and points west) and vote to end slavery.
...Come to think of it, what does Berrien even plan to do with Florida even if he can get it? I mean, obviously he wants white settlers to come in and take over, the native groups would be displaced or... there is not polite way to say this; eliminated... even black freemen and -women could be disenfranchised and even reenslaved, but what does he plan to do about the Hindu, Indian Muslim and other non-white settlers the British have brought in? He could probably disenfranchise them, yes, but could he gather the legal clout to have them deported? Enslaved? Would Britain stand for having "their" colonists enslaved, even if they surrendered Florida?
Heck, would the Brits even be willing to trade away Florida even if they were in dire straits?
Probably not - but Berrien assumes that everyone else only cares about white people, because John Berrien only cares about white people.
I don't really think losing (most of) Georgia is in the books (IIRC most of Georgia's population is in the northern half of the state at this point). Losing Megassipi is more plausible, although still unlikely. However, the US gaining New Brunswick and Upper Canada seems rather likely, and I don't think there will be much expansion on the southern front, so 2 new free states to 0 slave states.At this rate, the US will gain New Brunswick as a state, lose Georgia (and points west) and vote to end slavery.
I still think relatively little territory will change hands. Brougham isn't that enthused on more NA lands and Berrien would at least be ready to trade New Brunswick to get Astoria back.
So my take is Berrien will give back most if not all the gains in Canada to secure the South and West, which will leave he North out for his and Quid blood in general. The Dead roses make a comeback in the next election but the Quids get even more entrenched in the South, the Populists increase their numbers with the DRP crumbling between the extremes as the Troubles sweep over the Union.
Meanwhile Britain and her allies pass the popcorn.
Also with he Canadas weathering another invasion and Brougham seeking some kind of accord between the establishment and rebels in Canada we might see Canadian identity really start to form. Helped by the union looking bad with the troubles in that time period.
I have trouble seeing how the Brits in Florida will hold, the Louisianans staying on the defense makes sense but I was looking forward to Wellington invading up the Mississippi.
It may be more the case that the Union can take forts and cities albeit at great cost, only to find how hard it is to govern when near every hand is against you. And the South is paranoid as we saw with the Haitian war posters; the longer the 'lesser' people of Florida resist unbroken the more they will fear it will inspire insurrection among their slaves.
Be a fine thing for the South to burn because its army is busy elsewhere no? And the North would be ever more indignantly at lives and treasure wasted in the swamps of Florida 'when the vastness of the Canadian heartland was begging for liberation'.
Dead of Winter (2)
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Donor
Good guesses, everyone. Remember that even if Berrien took Florida, he would need to deploy pretty much the whole wartime army to guard the coasts. The U.S. Navy isn't doing anything on the ocean, outside the strip of coastal water from Cape Hatteras to the Bay of Fundy.
On March 7, General Jesup led four regiments of light infantry across the Okefenokee Swamp.
That, by itself, shows how this campaign was different. Hitherto the swamp had been regarded as an obstacle by both sides. But Jesup had heard reports of the speed and effectiveness of waterdragoons in low-lying, heavily watered terrain where more conventional forces would find slow going. He decided that there was no reason the United States should not try its hand at this new style of warfare. Even before Berrien gave him his orders, he had set the War Department to purchase canoes. Now he had enough to equip the 9th of South Carolina, the 10th of North Carolina, the 14th of Virginia and the Richmond Zouaves. Of these units, only the Zouaves had seen combat before, and their experience consisted of being captured at Falmouth and escaping (see Chapter 5, “The Chesapeake Campaign—Virginia”), but since none of them had any experience at this sort of fight, that hardly mattered.
The St. Johns is a lazy river. Over the course of its 500 km in length, it drops some nine meters in elevation, flowing at 0.13 m/sec. It was possible for Jesup’s force to paddle upstream almost as quickly as downstream. Moving over land while carrying the canoes was of course slow and cumbersome, but once Jesup reached the St. Johns, he was able to make six kilometers per hour from dawn to dusk, traveling seventy kilometers from just above Sepharad to below Pilatakta in a single day. The finest cavalry in the world could not have kept up.
Jesup had learned the hard lessons of the first Florida campaign. His men, well-equipped from the beginning, did not stop to plunder and ignored the civilians entirely. When fired upon, they shot back while continuing on their way.
The next morning, they passed Pilatakta and came under heavy fire from Creeks and local recruits. Jesup, more meticulous than most American generals in keeping track of which bombhead in his possession contained which incendiary, discharged ten rockets containing a concoction of lard, pine rosin, and quicklime called “Pride of Milledgeville Original Greek Fire”[1] at the town docks and warehouse walls and kept moving under cover of the smoke.
That evening, while crossing what the British called Lake George and the locals called Lake Welaka and looking for a place to make camp, Jesup met a Seminole regiment under Col. George Miconaba. For the first time, two units of waterdragoons fought each other on the water itself—not the preferred battlefield for either of them. Seeing that he was outnumbered, Miconaba put up only a perfunctory fight before retreating.
Heartened by this apparent victory, Jesup went further up the river until the morning of March 9. There he cut across northern Seminolea, meeting no serious opposition for four days, and crossed the Withlacoochee unmolested. On the 13th, at Chefeeloafaheeree[2] he found that something was in his way.
The unit of men that blocked him—the First Regiment of the Queen’s Haitian Legion, recruited from that war-torn island on the orders of Henry Brougham himself—was, on paper, a regiment of three battalions, albeit one commanded by a lieutenant colonel. In terms of sheer numbers, it was closer to three regiments. Its officers up to the rank of captain were chosen by election from within their ranks, but the three majors and the lieutenant colonel were white, British officers.
Once Jesup had assigned one in six of his troops to guard the canoes while the rest advanced, the Haitians had nearly as many men as he did, and they held the high ground, such as it was. This was almost a purely infantry battle—neither unit possessed cavalry or artillery, apart from Jesup’s few rockets. But in addition to having those rockets, Jesup’s men were more skilled at open-field combat. The Haitian mercenaries, many of them veterans of guerrilla warfare, quickly retreated into bush or tall grass. Jesup tried to use rockets to flush them out, but it soon became obvious that the “anti-rigging”[3] incendiaries were less effective against damp, tall grass and green growing brush than they were against cloth and cordage.
On the British side, the commanding officer and the three majors suffered the fatal disadvantage of white officers placed in command of any body of nonwhite soldiers—if these officers dare command from the front, the enemy will know exactly where to shoot. Against them, Jesup deployed not only his riflemen, but his few remaining rockets. (The British were inside rocket range, but by now American rocketeers had learned how to strike a target inside the official range by firing the rocket at a high angle, like a mortar.) All three of the white majors were killed or incapacitated by rifle fire, and the commanding officer, Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Henry Browne, KCH,[4] was blown to pieces by a canister rocket going off perhaps a meter over his head.
What happened next is a point of controversy. Jesup maintained to his dying day that the South Carolina soldiers were “driven to madness by the sight of Negroes in arms against them” and that the rest of the army followed, while surviving infantrymen insisted they were acting under Jesup’s orders. Whatever the case, the army followed the Haitians into the brush, where formation was impossible to keep and the fight became the sort of low-visibility, close-quarter grapple with pistol and knife that the Haitian veterans excelled at.
According to Jesup’s writings, his decision at this point to retreat was motivated not by the heavy losses his men were taking (the Americans suffered 633 casualties at Chefeeloafaheeree) but by his certainty that any delay—such as was certainly happening—would doom the entire expedition. “If the enemy did not know our location, they could easily guess our destination. Morrison we knew to be a formidable foe, and from Brougham we could expect only the most cunningly laid traps. Our only hope lay in speed, speed, speed, and now that hope was thwarted. And so quickly had we moved through Florida that there had been little opportunity for reconnaisance. Who knew what reinforcements the enemy had over the horizon, waiting to strike our flank or rear?”
The greatest weakness of waterdragoons is the need to carry their boats over land on long missions, and this weakness was brought into sharp relief as Jesup’s army desperately tried to reach the Withlacoochee while carrying their canoes and fighting off Haitian attacks. The only thing that saved them was the Haitians’ command structure, or lack thereof. Although Captains Geffrard[5], Domingue[6], and Zalewski[7] had risen to prominence in the battle, they could not coordinate their attacks well enough to prevent the Americans’ escape.
But for Jesup, this was a reprieve of only one day. Miconaba attacked from downstream as he was trying to embark on the Withlacoochee. Jesup’s men were, at this point, exhausted and diminished in number, while Miconaba had two new regiments of fresh recruits from Oconee and Timuqua. Jesup was soon forced to surrender. His men were taken to Key West while he was kept in Trafalgar, still cursing “Seminole treachery,[8]” waiting to watch the execution of Fannin and his man.
Unauthorized, private military expeditions from one nation into the territory of another—what we now call “filibusters”—have happened before, although not generally in modern times. They were more often associated with the period before the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of West Florida, and were sometimes so poorly planned that there was no way to determine the ultimate target of the expedition. (Fessler’s book on Aaron Burr is highly recommended.) It was not only Americans who engaged in these adventures—in 1819 the Scottish Gregor MacGregor attempted to seize the Venezuela[9] region of Gran Colombia on behalf of the British Empire, but failed and ultimately died.
The important thing to understand is that they do not happen without at least the acquiescence, if not the cooperation, of the nation from which they are launched. A monopoly on the use of force is part of the definition of the modern state, and nowhere is this more true than in the use of military force against neighboring polities…
East of the Appalachians, it was called the Lamar-Quitman expedition, in recognition of Mirabeau Lamar’s role in coordinating with Berrien and keeping unfriendly eyes from the federal government away. West of the mountains, it was called the Quitman-Lamar expedition, because about two-thirds of the 581 men followed John Quitman. In New Spain, it was called the Navarro expedition, giving more “credit” to the traitor José Antonio Navarro than to the Yankees they invited in.
On March 30, Navarro and his followers met Lamar and Quitman with their men at the Anglo-American settlement of Granicus.[10] Although the nearest New Spain patrol was many kilometers away and true fighting would not begin for some days, the First Invasion of Texas had begun…
[1] Jesup doesn’t have any Stabler’s No. 23 on hand because, since it has to be stored under water, it’s too cumbersome to transport on a mission like this.
[2] OTL Zephyrhills, FL. From cefēhlófv hērē, “pleasant hill country.”
[3] The quote marks reflect the fact that this is a land battle, so these are antipersonnel incendiaries. Calling them anything else is a euphemism.
[4] IOTL, Browne made full colonel in 1837. IOTL, of course, he didn’t get duped by French agents in a way that embarrassed everyone anywhere near Whitehall and almost plunged the UK into civil war. Commanding a unit of Haitian mercs was basically his second chance in life, and he died trying not to screw it up.
[5] Fabre Geffrard.
[6] Michel Domingue.
[7] I invite you all to Google the story of the Polish soldiers who were sent by Napoleon to assist in Leclerc’s attempt to subjugate Haiti, but who mutinied and joined the revolutionaries. Even Dessalines was willing to declare them honorary blacks, they intermarried with the locals, and their descendants live there to this day. It’s got to be one of the most heartwarming stories in Haitian history.
[8] If you know Jesup’s history IOTL, you can appreciate the irony here.
[9] Although ITTL Venezuela doesn’t get to be a separate country, the name predates the POD.
[10] Texarkana, TX. The fact that it’s named after Alexander’s first big victory over the Persians should give you an idea of the ambitions involved.
On March 7, General Jesup led four regiments of light infantry across the Okefenokee Swamp.
That, by itself, shows how this campaign was different. Hitherto the swamp had been regarded as an obstacle by both sides. But Jesup had heard reports of the speed and effectiveness of waterdragoons in low-lying, heavily watered terrain where more conventional forces would find slow going. He decided that there was no reason the United States should not try its hand at this new style of warfare. Even before Berrien gave him his orders, he had set the War Department to purchase canoes. Now he had enough to equip the 9th of South Carolina, the 10th of North Carolina, the 14th of Virginia and the Richmond Zouaves. Of these units, only the Zouaves had seen combat before, and their experience consisted of being captured at Falmouth and escaping (see Chapter 5, “The Chesapeake Campaign—Virginia”), but since none of them had any experience at this sort of fight, that hardly mattered.
The St. Johns is a lazy river. Over the course of its 500 km in length, it drops some nine meters in elevation, flowing at 0.13 m/sec. It was possible for Jesup’s force to paddle upstream almost as quickly as downstream. Moving over land while carrying the canoes was of course slow and cumbersome, but once Jesup reached the St. Johns, he was able to make six kilometers per hour from dawn to dusk, traveling seventy kilometers from just above Sepharad to below Pilatakta in a single day. The finest cavalry in the world could not have kept up.
Jesup had learned the hard lessons of the first Florida campaign. His men, well-equipped from the beginning, did not stop to plunder and ignored the civilians entirely. When fired upon, they shot back while continuing on their way.
The next morning, they passed Pilatakta and came under heavy fire from Creeks and local recruits. Jesup, more meticulous than most American generals in keeping track of which bombhead in his possession contained which incendiary, discharged ten rockets containing a concoction of lard, pine rosin, and quicklime called “Pride of Milledgeville Original Greek Fire”[1] at the town docks and warehouse walls and kept moving under cover of the smoke.
That evening, while crossing what the British called Lake George and the locals called Lake Welaka and looking for a place to make camp, Jesup met a Seminole regiment under Col. George Miconaba. For the first time, two units of waterdragoons fought each other on the water itself—not the preferred battlefield for either of them. Seeing that he was outnumbered, Miconaba put up only a perfunctory fight before retreating.
Heartened by this apparent victory, Jesup went further up the river until the morning of March 9. There he cut across northern Seminolea, meeting no serious opposition for four days, and crossed the Withlacoochee unmolested. On the 13th, at Chefeeloafaheeree[2] he found that something was in his way.
The unit of men that blocked him—the First Regiment of the Queen’s Haitian Legion, recruited from that war-torn island on the orders of Henry Brougham himself—was, on paper, a regiment of three battalions, albeit one commanded by a lieutenant colonel. In terms of sheer numbers, it was closer to three regiments. Its officers up to the rank of captain were chosen by election from within their ranks, but the three majors and the lieutenant colonel were white, British officers.
Once Jesup had assigned one in six of his troops to guard the canoes while the rest advanced, the Haitians had nearly as many men as he did, and they held the high ground, such as it was. This was almost a purely infantry battle—neither unit possessed cavalry or artillery, apart from Jesup’s few rockets. But in addition to having those rockets, Jesup’s men were more skilled at open-field combat. The Haitian mercenaries, many of them veterans of guerrilla warfare, quickly retreated into bush or tall grass. Jesup tried to use rockets to flush them out, but it soon became obvious that the “anti-rigging”[3] incendiaries were less effective against damp, tall grass and green growing brush than they were against cloth and cordage.
On the British side, the commanding officer and the three majors suffered the fatal disadvantage of white officers placed in command of any body of nonwhite soldiers—if these officers dare command from the front, the enemy will know exactly where to shoot. Against them, Jesup deployed not only his riflemen, but his few remaining rockets. (The British were inside rocket range, but by now American rocketeers had learned how to strike a target inside the official range by firing the rocket at a high angle, like a mortar.) All three of the white majors were killed or incapacitated by rifle fire, and the commanding officer, Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Henry Browne, KCH,[4] was blown to pieces by a canister rocket going off perhaps a meter over his head.
What happened next is a point of controversy. Jesup maintained to his dying day that the South Carolina soldiers were “driven to madness by the sight of Negroes in arms against them” and that the rest of the army followed, while surviving infantrymen insisted they were acting under Jesup’s orders. Whatever the case, the army followed the Haitians into the brush, where formation was impossible to keep and the fight became the sort of low-visibility, close-quarter grapple with pistol and knife that the Haitian veterans excelled at.
According to Jesup’s writings, his decision at this point to retreat was motivated not by the heavy losses his men were taking (the Americans suffered 633 casualties at Chefeeloafaheeree) but by his certainty that any delay—such as was certainly happening—would doom the entire expedition. “If the enemy did not know our location, they could easily guess our destination. Morrison we knew to be a formidable foe, and from Brougham we could expect only the most cunningly laid traps. Our only hope lay in speed, speed, speed, and now that hope was thwarted. And so quickly had we moved through Florida that there had been little opportunity for reconnaisance. Who knew what reinforcements the enemy had over the horizon, waiting to strike our flank or rear?”
The greatest weakness of waterdragoons is the need to carry their boats over land on long missions, and this weakness was brought into sharp relief as Jesup’s army desperately tried to reach the Withlacoochee while carrying their canoes and fighting off Haitian attacks. The only thing that saved them was the Haitians’ command structure, or lack thereof. Although Captains Geffrard[5], Domingue[6], and Zalewski[7] had risen to prominence in the battle, they could not coordinate their attacks well enough to prevent the Americans’ escape.
But for Jesup, this was a reprieve of only one day. Miconaba attacked from downstream as he was trying to embark on the Withlacoochee. Jesup’s men were, at this point, exhausted and diminished in number, while Miconaba had two new regiments of fresh recruits from Oconee and Timuqua. Jesup was soon forced to surrender. His men were taken to Key West while he was kept in Trafalgar, still cursing “Seminole treachery,[8]” waiting to watch the execution of Fannin and his man.
David Harvey Copp, Campaigns of the War of 1837
Unauthorized, private military expeditions from one nation into the territory of another—what we now call “filibusters”—have happened before, although not generally in modern times. They were more often associated with the period before the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of West Florida, and were sometimes so poorly planned that there was no way to determine the ultimate target of the expedition. (Fessler’s book on Aaron Burr is highly recommended.) It was not only Americans who engaged in these adventures—in 1819 the Scottish Gregor MacGregor attempted to seize the Venezuela[9] region of Gran Colombia on behalf of the British Empire, but failed and ultimately died.
The important thing to understand is that they do not happen without at least the acquiescence, if not the cooperation, of the nation from which they are launched. A monopoly on the use of force is part of the definition of the modern state, and nowhere is this more true than in the use of military force against neighboring polities…
East of the Appalachians, it was called the Lamar-Quitman expedition, in recognition of Mirabeau Lamar’s role in coordinating with Berrien and keeping unfriendly eyes from the federal government away. West of the mountains, it was called the Quitman-Lamar expedition, because about two-thirds of the 581 men followed John Quitman. In New Spain, it was called the Navarro expedition, giving more “credit” to the traitor José Antonio Navarro than to the Yankees they invited in.
On March 30, Navarro and his followers met Lamar and Quitman with their men at the Anglo-American settlement of Granicus.[10] Although the nearest New Spain patrol was many kilometers away and true fighting would not begin for some days, the First Invasion of Texas had begun…
Charles Cerniglia, The Road to the Troubles: The American South, 1800-1840
[1] Jesup doesn’t have any Stabler’s No. 23 on hand because, since it has to be stored under water, it’s too cumbersome to transport on a mission like this.
[2] OTL Zephyrhills, FL. From cefēhlófv hērē, “pleasant hill country.”
[3] The quote marks reflect the fact that this is a land battle, so these are antipersonnel incendiaries. Calling them anything else is a euphemism.
[4] IOTL, Browne made full colonel in 1837. IOTL, of course, he didn’t get duped by French agents in a way that embarrassed everyone anywhere near Whitehall and almost plunged the UK into civil war. Commanding a unit of Haitian mercs was basically his second chance in life, and he died trying not to screw it up.
[5] Fabre Geffrard.
[6] Michel Domingue.
[7] I invite you all to Google the story of the Polish soldiers who were sent by Napoleon to assist in Leclerc’s attempt to subjugate Haiti, but who mutinied and joined the revolutionaries. Even Dessalines was willing to declare them honorary blacks, they intermarried with the locals, and their descendants live there to this day. It’s got to be one of the most heartwarming stories in Haitian history.
[8] If you know Jesup’s history IOTL, you can appreciate the irony here.
[9] Although ITTL Venezuela doesn’t get to be a separate country, the name predates the POD.
[10] Texarkana, TX. The fact that it’s named after Alexander’s first big victory over the Persians should give you an idea of the ambitions involved.
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This expedition has everything to go wrong, I have a feeling that this will come to bite Murica's ass.
Berrien just picked a fight with New Spain at a time like this.
To quote the mighty Minmax: "This guy's an idiot."
To quote the mighty Minmax: "This guy's an idiot."