It's finally done! I'll get a map of the North American side of the war up soon. Also any use of British and Canadian interchangeably is the fault of the TTL writer.
Also I refer to locations on
this map in this update so I'm linking it again for now.
Part One-Hundred Twenty-One: The First American Offensives
The Great Lakes Front:
The winter after the initial American attack on Kingston, the western end of Lake Erie started to see some fighting. A Canadian assault with both Canadian and British reserve troops set up a barrier along the east end of the Detroit River, while ships from the Canadian Navy blocked both sides of the Detroit River. While there was less traffic along the river than in the summer, the blockade of the river and the entrance to Lake Erie was effective. There was little attempt by the British to take the city of Detroit itself during 1908 or early 1909, the blockade was enough to provoke an American offensive. Union forces finally repelled the Canadian navy at the south end of the Detroit River in February, and cross to seize Amherstburg[1]. Pelee Island on the Canadian side of Lake Erie also fell to the Americans after a day of fighting and twenty-three casualties.
However, the fighting around Detroit still was not as concentrated as the fighting further east. At Buffalo, the Canadians invaded Grand Island, New York in early November. They held the island for three months until the Union forces in Buffalo finally gained an opportunity to take back the island. In one of the most celebrated wartime events in American history, an exceptionally cold winter in 1909 caused the Niagara River to freeze over. The six thousand men of the American army and New York Reserve Militia[2] stationed at Tonawanda launched an assault, running across the frozen river. The Canadian forces at Niagara Falls and on Grand Island were unprepared for the February offensive, and the Union forces took back Grand Island as well as Niagara Falls and Saint Catherines before the front line stalled. The Battle of the Niagara River has been the subject of many depictions over the years. The most famous of which is Crossing Above the Falls, a painting by Edward Willis Redfield, a member of the third generation of the Hudson River School[3]. The grand painting is primarily a landscape showing the entire breadth of the frozen Niagara Falls, but at the top of the canvas American soldiers are chasing a platoon of Canadian soldiers across the ice. While the frozen landscape was painted in 1914 after the war's end, it soon became a symbol of American patriotism. Crossing Above the Falls now hangs in the Museum of American Art in Washington[4].
Further east, the winter of 1909 saw the first full scale invasion in the American side of the war. As the British were being turned back on Grand Island, general Frederick Funston was drawing up plans for an American invasion to swiftly capture Montreal and Quebec. A tactic that featured in practically every war fought between the British and Americans, this was little different from the previous ones. In late February, an army of thirty thousand marched north from Plattsburgh, New York. By mid-March, the army had captured Napierville and Saint Jean-sur-Richelieu southeast of Montreal. Over the next month, the American army captured Chateauguay and Beauhamois before turning to Montreal itself. However without any support for a crossing of the Saint Lawrence, the American army was bombarded by Fort Lasalle on the south end of the Ile de Montreal, and a push by the Canadian army forced the Americans into retreat. From there the Canadian offensive gained strength, and by July 1909 the US had been pushed back all the way back to Fort Montgomery on the American side of the border.
Frontier Skirmishes:
After the Ponyville Raid and the drafting of the agreement with Laurier, the American army began operations in the front in the west against California. the main frontier outposts at Santa Fe and El Paso were further fortified and reinforced over the winter, while the forts near the 42nd parallel such as Fort Klamath in Champoeg and Fort Vazquez in Shoshone had troop concentrations in preparation for an offensive campaign. In order to avoid going through the harsh desert as much as possible, the United States' strategy was a two pronged attack from the north. From Champoeg, an army would move south into Trujillo and Sacramento, while the other army would move southwest from Fort Vazquez and liberate the Mormon settlers.
The invasion into Mormon territory began first in April of 1909. The intention was to scare the Californio government and possibly incite a full scale Mormon rebellion against California. The US army moved southwest from Fort Vazquez, and after the brief Battle of Vazquez Pass[5], captured the Mormon settlement of Vanderbilt on April 15. The 1st Western Army then continued to the Green River and followed it upstream where they met another Californio presence at Fort Juinta north of the Juinta Range[6]. Fort Juinta, only a frontier outpost with barely fifty men stationed there, fell to the Union after a two day siege in May. However, the Mormon revolt failed to materialize at first. Further south, the first movements along the Rio Bravo front began. After a Californio attack on Santa Fe, the army garrison in the town launched a counterattack and took Frijol across the Rio Bravo. Another offensive from Fort Garland took the town of San Luis.
On the west coast, the 2nd Western Army under general Randolph William Henry Lee[7] left Fort Klamath in early May of 1909 and moved south. While they were able to advance within five miles of Trinidad, the capital of Trujillo, the army had to be called back after native unrest. With support from the Californio government, the Modoc Indian tribes in southern Champoeg started an uprising and attacked the camps around the Klamath Lakes. After raids on Fort Warner on Goose Lake and Camp Gilpin south of Fort Klamath, the army was forced to turn back and pursue the Modoc. After a two months campaign against the Modoc after a native band raided Jacksonville, the army finally cornered the final Modoc resistance at Medicine Lake in Trujillo[8], the army captured Chief Cicatrizero[9] and imprisoned him in Fort Klamath. Finally in July, the army resumed the campaign against California's northern coast.
[1] South of Detroit across the river.
[2] The state Reserve Militias is similar to the OTL National Guard and was recently created ITTL.
[3] ITTL Redfield is a student of men like Albert Bierstadt and other renowned American landscape artists. There's still a shift to urban landscapes during the end of the 19th century as in OTL, but there is still a small group who keep Luminism and the Hudson School going into the 1920s.
[4] The Crossing of the Falls shows the fusion of the natural beauty of America with its fighting spirit. It's on par with how revered Washington Crossing the Delaware is in OTL, since that painting does not exist ITTL.
[5] Vazquez Pass is OTL Bridger Pass. I realized that OTL Fort Bridger's location is actually on the Californio side of the border, so Fort Vazquez is on the other side of the pass.
[6] Fort Juinta is a bit east of the southwest corner of Wyoming. There's no OTL equivalent as far as I know.
[7] Fictional grandson of Robert E. Lee.
[8] Medicine Lake is near Hoffman Mount about 20 miles south of Tule Lake.
[9] I am probably messing up native chief names, but Cicatrizero is an approximate Spanish name meaning One Who Scars.
