US Victory Against the CSA/Great Britain

Maybe the opposition in Britain changes the government. This included some progressive opinion formers, significant sections of the working class and a middle aged lady name of Victoria
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Maybe the opposition in Britain changes the government. This included some progressive opinion formers, significant sections of the working class and a middle aged lady name of Victoria
Unlikely. Palmerston suffered a Vote Of No Confidence in 1864 which he narrowly survived, but the cause for calling it was that he had been insufficiently belligerent over the Danish-Prussian War.

To make it clear - in the Trent War situation at the least, this is not a war over slavery or over supporting a slave state. It's a war over violation of British neutral rights, and the anti-slavery faction in Britain considers the Union hypocritical and far too preachy over antislavery for what they've been actually doing (which is to keep slavery except for enemy slave holders - something the British were using as a tactic in the 1770s!)
 
Maybe the opposition in Britain changes the government. This included some progressive opinion formers, significant sections of the working class and a middle aged lady name of Victoria
The opposition includes progressive opinion formers? The opposition in 1862 is the Conservative party: granted, they'd introduced a reform bill in 1859, but I doubt anybody would class the Fourteenth Earl of Derby and Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil as progressive. In case you hadn't noticed, John Bright and Richard Cobden voted for Palmerston in that 1864 no-confidence motion, largely because it was a choice between Palmerston or the Tories.

Oh, and the working classes don't have the vote yet. Neither does the Queen, of course, but she makes up for it in other respects. However, I'm not aware that she had significant pro-North leanings.

To make it clear - in the Trent War situation at the least, this is not a war over slavery or over supporting a slave state. It's a war over violation of British neutral rights, and the anti-slavery faction in Britain considers the Union hypocritical and far too preachy over antislavery for what they've been actually doing (which is to keep slavery except for enemy slave holders - something the British were using as a tactic in the 1770s!)
Whipping aside, Palmerston could probably survive a motion of no-confidence on the votes of pro-South Liberals like John Arthur Roebuck, William Schaw Lindsay, and William Gregory, plus the Conservatives (who, we're told, were all rabidly pro-South):

Britain was NOT a Democracy. Probably 70% of men and 100% of women were voteless.

We cannot be certain of the state of public opinion.

A significant proportion of the UK establishment (which certainly hated democracy) sympathised with the treasonous rebels who had refused to accept a lawful election.

But if Palmerston does get turned out, who's going to take over? Lord Russell, Palmerston's right hand man in foreign policy? Gladstone, the man who proposed mediation to the cabinet? Or Lord Derby? Neither of those are going to result in a significant change in government policy towards the Union.
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
Here's my attempt at solving that allocation problem.
The newly arriving troops for the next four months are 75 regiments of infantry. If we assume this means 75,000 troops total (which means roughly speaking assuming that the 70 Artillery companies and 15 Cavalry regiments match the deserters and washouts) then that's what we have to start with.

Reduce the Missouri force by 40,000 troops, that's 105,000.
Cut the Dept. of the Ohio by 20,000. That's 125,000.
Leave the defenders of Washington and the Shenandoah with about 100,000 between them (110,000 if you evacuate Burnside in time), and you've got to your required 200,000. This means essentially stripping away any offensive capability from the Union (among other things the entire Dept. of the Ohio has fewer Union troops than were at Shiloh), so the Confederacy more or less has a free hand to do what it wants...

...but then comes the other problem. What goes to the coast?
Fort Adams alone, if fully manned, would require 5,000 men just to serve the guns - more than are in the whole of New England. A very conservative estimate would mean putting an extra 5,000 men at Boston, Portsmouth and Narragansett bay, 10,000 extra for NY, and 5,000 extra to garrison Philadelphia... a difference of 30,000 men. (I think a more realistic distribution of resources would put at least another 20,000 to the coast.)
This leaves the Americans with roughly 170,000 men on the Canadian border by the end of April - roughly comparable to the British plus Canadian forces in numbers. (assuming 80,000 Canadian militia 20,000 Maritime militia 50,000 British regulars). It also leaves the whole US-CS front line very vulnerable - total forces facing the CSA are reduced to 250,000 plus whatever made it back from the overseas areas, as compared to OTL when the total facing the CSA was double that and the CS still made it to Antietam. In particular the Army of Northern Virginia managed a strength of about 92,000 at the Seven Days, and this allocation reduces the whole Union force from Shenandoah to the Potomac to 100,000!

(Given that the CSA can probably get several tens of thousands of troops freed up due to not needing to guard the coast, and that the Union's small arms crunch means their army will actually start shrinking as guns break down and are not replaced, the Union needs to do well to avoid going backwards let alone mount an offensive.)
 

Saphroneth

Banned
To follow that up, here's instead a look at the "minimal" approach to defence. Under this method the Union is trying to avoid a British force making a landing (such as a British force the size of the one which landed at Calamita Bay) or marching over the Canadian border. This would take perhaps a division - this can be seen as the minimum amount the Union would need to divert. For well fortified places this is the troops to fill the forts and provide minimal landward defences; for less fortified positions this is to contain any possible landing or attack. No attempt is made to actually attack Canada.

So:

Philadelphia 1 Div
Delmarva peninsula 1 Div (poss.)
NY 2 Divs (City and Long Island)
Boston 1 Div
Portsmouth 1 Div (poss.)
Portland 1 Div
Detroit 1 Div
Cleveland 1 Div
Pittsburgh 1 Div (poss.)
Buffalo 1 Div
Rochester and Syracuse 1 Div
Plattsburgh or Saratoga 1 Div

This is the pure defensive approach, and it means 10-13 divisions are required - call it a minimum of 80,000 troops with the amount possibly ranging up to 130,000. The consequences of not providing some of these forces range from the minor to the dire, and it also means that the Imperial army of ~150,000 is opposed by perhaps 80,000 Union troops - meaning a 2:1 force ratio.
In any case, this is the equivalent of a major victory by the CSA.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
As an incidental aside, the British approach to the job of coast defence was, in addition to forts, to handle it with a fairly substantial fleet. In addition to the mobile Channel Fleet and any ships brought out of reserve as war approached (and if the Trent Affair had been an equivalent war warning for Britain then they'd have about a dozen extra liners in full service by the time the war went hot) they had the Coastguard.
And that's literal - ships to guard the coast. Here's the liners - note that a blockship here is a 60-gun floating battery built out of an old ship of the line, capable of travelling under sail and steam at least as far as the Baltic.


Blockships
Ajax - Guardship Kingstown
Edinburgh - Guardhip Leith
Hogue - Coast Guard Greenock
Blenheim - Coast Guard Pembroke
Pembroke - Coast Guard Harwich
Russell - Coast Guard Falmouth
Cornwallis - Coast Guard The Humber
Hawke - Coast Guard Queenston


Other Liners
Colossus - Coastguard Portland
Majestic - Coastguard Liverpool
Vanguard (sail) - Coastguard Kingstown
Indus (sail) - Guardship Devonport
Asia (sail) - Guardship of Ordinary Portsmouth
Cumberland (sail) - Guardship of Steam Reserve Chatham

So that's 640 guns under steam plus four sail liners, just the line-of-battle ships for port protection time of peace.
 
As an incidental aside, the British approach to the job of coast defence was, in addition to forts, to handle it with a fairly substantial fleet.
Here's what I think they had in each port around 5th January 1862, including tenders to Coastguard ships but excluding tenders to training ships (which could still have been fitted with weapons for port defence) and gunboats preparing in the steam reserve.

Kingstown
HMS Ajax (blockship)
HMS Vanguard (sail battleship)
HMS Seagull (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Rainbow (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Highlander (Albacore-class gunboat)

Queenstown
HMS Hawke (blockship)
HMS Virago (paddle sloop)
HMS Magpie (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Blazer (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Rose (Albacore-class gunboat)

Leith
HMS Edinburgh (blockship)
HMS Erne (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Louisa (Albacore-class gunboat)

Greenock
HMS Hogue (blockship)
HMS Goldfinch (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Raven (Albacore-class gunboat)

Pembroke Dock
HMS Blenheim (blockship)
HMS Hyaena (Albacore-class gunboat)

Harwich
HMS Pembroke (blockship)
HMS Magnet (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Mayflower (Albacore-class gunboat)

Falmouth
HMS Russell (blockship)
HMS Hind (Dapper-class gunboat)

Humber
HMS Cornwallis (blockship)
HMS Fly (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Ruby (Gleaner-class gunboat)
HMS Surly (Albacore-class gunboat)

Portland
HMS Colossus (screw battleship)
HMS Biter (Dapper-class gunboat)

Liverpool
HMS Majestic (screw battleship)
HMS Emerald (screw frigate)
HMS Pandora (Philomel-class gunvessel)
HMS Lee (Philomel-class gunvessel)
HMS Goshawk (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Amelia (Albacore-class gunboat)
HMS Escort (Albacore-class gunboat)

Devonport
HMS Indus (sail battleship)
HMS Clinker (Dapper-class gunboat)

Portsmouth
HMS Asia (sail battleship)
HMS Traveller (Albacore-class gunboat)

Chatham
HMS Cumberland (sail battleship)
HMS Lively (Albacore-class gunboat)

Southampton
HMS Dauntless (screw frigate)
HMS Leveret (Albacore-class gunboat)
 
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