Don't You Know That Cotton's King!: Redux TL

An Affair is an Ugly Thing

By November of 1861 the war in America had been going on for seven months. Most in Richmond knew that the only real way that the Confederacy could defeat the US & gain its independence was through diplomatic or military intervention by Britain, France, or both. To try & obtain diplomatic recognition & support for their cause the Confederate diplomats James Mason & John Slidell were to be sent to Europe to try & achieve just that.

The Union steam frigate the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Charles Wilkes, arrived in St. Thomas on October 13. San Jacinto had cruised off the African coast for nearly a month before setting course westward with orders to join a U.S. Navy force preparing to attack Port Royal, South Carolina. However in St. Thomas, Wilkes learned that the Confederate raider CSS Sumter had captured three U.S. merchant ships nea Cienfuegos in July. Wilkes headed there, despite the unlikelihood that Sumter would have remained in the area. In Cienfuegos he learned from a newspaper that Mason and Slidell were scheduled to leave Havana on November 7 in the British mail packet RMS Trent, bound first for St. Thomas and then England. He realized that the ship would need to use the narrow Bahama Channel, the only deep water route between Cuba and the shallow Grand Bahama Bank.

Trent left on November 7 as scheduled, with Mason, Slidell, their secretaries, and Slidell's wife and children aboard. Just as Wilkes had predicted, Trent passed through Bahama Channel, where San Jacinto was waiting. Around noon on November 8, lookouts aboard the San Jacinto spotted Trent, which unfurled the Union Jack as it neared. San Jacinto then fired a shot across the bow of Trent, which Captain James Moir of Trent ignored. San Jacinto fired a second shot from her forward pivot gun which landed right in front of Trent. The Trent continued to ignore & tried to evade the San Jacinto. A third shot was then fired that disabled the Trent.

With armed guards in tow Wilkes second in command Lieutenant DM. Fairfax then boarded the Trent from a cutter. Fairfax, certain that Wilkes was creating an international incident and not wanting to enlarge its scope, ordered his armed escort to remain in the cutter. Upon boarding, Fairfax was escorted to an outraged Captain Moir, and announced that he had orders "to arrest Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell and their secretaries, and send them prisoners on board the United States war vessel nearby." The crew and passengers then threatened Lieutenant Fairfax, and the armed party in the two cutters beside Trent responded to the threats by climbing aboard to protect him. Captain Moir refused Fairfax's request for a passenger list, but Slidell and Mason came forward and identified themselves. With armed guards now on board fairfax was able to search of the vessel for contraband of which none could be found.

International law required that when "contraband" was discovered on a ship, the ship should be taken to the nearest prize court for adjudication. While Fairfax argued against this since transferring crew from San Jacinto to the Trent would leave San Jacinto dangerously undermanned, this was Wilkes' determination & the Trent was taken in tow.

The news of the actual capture of the Trent did not arrive in London until November 27. Much of the public and many of the newspapers immediately perceived it as an outrageous insult to British honor, a flagrant violation of maritime law, & an act of war. The London Standard saw the capture as "but one of a series of premeditated blows aimed at this country … to involve it in a war with the Northern States." A letter from an American visitor written to Seward declared, "The people are frantic with rage, and were the country polled I fear 999 men out of 1,000 would declare for immediate war." A member of Parliament stated that unless America set matters right the British flag should "be torn into shreds and sent to Washington for use of the Presidential water-closets."

Dispatches from Lyons were given to all in attendance. These dispatches described the excitement in America in support of the capture, referred to previous dispatches in which Lyons had warned that Seward might provoke such an incident, and described the difficulty that the United States might have in acknowledging that Wilkes had erred. Lyons also recommended a show of force including sending reinforcements to Canada. Palmerston indicated to Lord Russell that it was very possible that the entire incident had been a "deliberate and premeditated insult" designed by Seward to "provoke" a confrontation with Britain. After several days of discussion, on November 30 Russell sent to Queen Victoria the drafts of the dispatches intended for Lord Lyons to deliver to Seward. Though the Queen's husband Prince Albert would have normally been asked to review the matter, the typhoid that he had been battling had unfortunately taken his life on November 16. The dispatches covered that the actions of the San Jacinto were a breach in international law by the firing on & capture of the Trent, a neutral powers vessel, & its passengers, as a direct hostile action against Her Majesty's Government. The dispatches were shipped on December 1 via the Europa, reaching Washington on December 18.

While military preparations were accelerated, diplomacy would be on hold for the rest of the month while Britain waited for the American response. There had been unrest in the British financial markets since the news of the Trent was first received. Consols, which had initially declined in value in the early part of the month, fell by another 2 percent, reaching the level during the first year of the Crimean War. Other securities fell another 4 to 5 percent. Railway stocks and colonial and foreign securities declined. The Times noted that the financial markets were reacting as if war were a certainty.

In the early deliberations over the appropriate British response to the capture of the diplomats, there was concern that Napoleon III would take advantage of a Union-British war to act against British interests in "Europe or elsewhere". France quickly alleviated many of Britain's concerns. On November 28, with no knowledge of the British response or any input from Mercier in the U.S., Napoleon met with his cabinet. They had no doubts about the illegality of the U.S. actions and agreed to support whatever demands Britain made. Thouvenel wrote to Count Charles de Flahault in London to inform Britain of their decision. After learning of the actual content of the British note, Thouvenel advised the British ambassador Lord Cowley, that the demand had his complete approval, and on December 4 instructions were sent to Mercier to support Lyons.
 
Preparations

Dispatches from London to Washington were sent out on December 28. Three weeks later they would arrive in North America. While London waited on word regarding the dispatches, Palmerston would urge that Britain prepare for the possible unfortunate outcome of war as soon as possible.

On the land, at the end of March 1861, Britain had 2,100 regular troops in Nova Scotia, 2,200 in the rest of Canada, and scattered posts in British Columbia, Bermuda, and the West Indies. Lieutenant General Sir William Fenwick Williams, Commander in Chief in North America, did what he could with his small forces, but he wrote repeatedly to the authorities back in Britain that he needed considerable reinforcements to prepare his defenses adequately. Some land reinforcements were sent in May & June. However when Palmerston, alarmed by the blockade & the firing on & capture of the Trent, pressed for increasing the number of regular troops in Canada to 10,000.

From the beginning of the Trent crisis British leaders were aware that a viable military option was an essential part of defending the nation's interests. The First Lord of the Admiralty believed Canada could not be defended from a serious attack by the U.S. and winning it back later would be difficult and costly. Bourne noted, "After 1815 the ambiguity of Anglo-American relations, the parsimony of the house of commons & the enormous practical difficulties involved always seemed to have prevented adequate preparations being made for an Anglo-American war." Somerset suggested a naval war as opposed to a ground war. Military preparation began quickly after news of the Trent reached Great Britain. Secretary of War Sir George Lewis proposed within a week to send "thirty thousand rifles, an artillery battery, and some officers to Canada." He wrote to Lord Palmerston on December 3, "I propose to engage a Cunard Steamer & send out one regiment & one battery of artillery next week" followed as quickly as possible by three more regiments and more artillery. Given realities of the North Atlantic in winter, however, the reinforcements would have to land in Nova Scotia, since the St. Lawrence begins to ice up in December.

The current resources in Canada consisted of 5000 regular troops and about an equal number of "ill-trained" militia of which only one-fifth were organized. During December the British managed to send 11,000 troops using 18 transport ships and by the end of the month they were prepared to send an additional 28,400 men. By the end of December, as the crisis ended, reinforcements had raised the count to 924 officers and 17,658 men against an anticipated American invasion that could range anywhere from 50 to 200,000 troops. Including the units sent overland and the British forces already in the Province of Canada, British field forces in the province would have amounted to nine infantry battalions and four field artillery batteries by mid-March, 1862, a force equivalent to three brigades, with four infantry battalions and two field artillery batteries split between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. There were also 12 batteries of garrison artillery- six in the Province of Canada, three in Nova Scotia, two in New Brunswick and one in Newfoundland- and three companies of engineers in Canada, plus various headquarters, service, and support elements including two battalions of the Military Train.

In Canada, General Williams had toured the available forts and fortifications in November and December. To defend Canada, the British government estimated their manpower requirements as 10,000 regulars and 100,000 auxiliary troops, the latter forming garrisons and harassing the enemy's flanks and rear. Canada offered two potential sources of such auxiliary troops: the Sedentary Militia, which consisted of all Canadian males between ages 16 and 50, and volunteer organizations similar to the British Rifle volunteers. Williams' task in raising, arming and disciplining this army was not dissimilar to the one that the Union and Confederates had faced at the beginning of the Civil War, a year earlier. In the Province of Canada there were 25,000 arms, 10,000 of them smoothbores, & in the Maritimes there were 13,000 rifles and 7,500 smoothbores: though weapons were readily available in England, the difficulty was in transporting them to Canada. 30,000 Enfield rifles were sent on December 6 with the Melbourne, and by February 10, 1862 the Times reported that modern arms and equipment for 105,550 had arrived in Canada along with 20 million cartridges. On December 2, at Williams' urging, the Canadian government agreed to raise its active volunteer force to 7,500. The risk of war pushed the number of volunteers to 13,390 by May 1862, although the number of "efficient" volunteers was only 11,940. On December 20, Williams also began training one company of 75 men from each battalion of the Sedentary Militia, about 38,000 men in total, with the intention of raising this to 100,000.
 
Old Time There Were Not Forgotten

The British dispatch arrived in Washington on January 18. The next day Lord Lyons presented the dispatch to President Lincoln. The dispatch informed the president that Her majesty's government viewed the illegal and unjustifiable by international law. The "San Jacinto" assumed to act as a belligerent, by capturing the "Trent" & carrying into a port of the United States for adjudication as a prize &, under the circumstances, is considered an act in the breach of international law. It follows, that from on board a merchant-ship of the British Empire, a neutral power, pursuing a lawful & innocent voyage, certain individuals have been taken by force... Her Majesty's Government therefore, is justified in requiring reparation for the international wrong which has been on this occasion committed. The reparation that was demanded of the United States was a sum of $2 million for the attack on & capture of the Trent & the end to the blockade of the southern Confederacy to allow British ships to pass through. Lincoln not just wouldn't agree to Britain's demands, but he couldn't either & have a hope of defeating the Confederacy. On February 1 President Lincoln told Lyons that he refused London's demands. After receiving Lincoln's answer Lyons would forward it back to London the next day. It would take nearly three weeks for word would reach Britain.

Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant had recently delivered the United States its first important victory in the Western Theater in the war against the southern states. On February 6,1862 he had succeeded in capturing Fort Henry & its defenders along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Now just a week later his forces were heavily engaged in a battle to capture Fort Donelson from the Confederates & open up the Cumberland River to the Union as taking Fort Henry had done for the Tennessee River. Now on February 13,1862 three days into the Battle of Fort Donelson Grant was poised to gain such a victory again. General Grant had set up his headquarters behind Brigadier General Charles F. Smith's lines at Widow Crisp. Around 1600 in the afternoon shots rang out from Grants headquarters. The Confederate cavalry commander Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest & his forces had crossed Hickman Creek to the west of the battle attempting a daring raid behind Union lines. The battle lasted for an intense 150 seconds before the Confederate cavalry withdrew. The Union had suffered 21 casualties in the short skirmish of whom all but three would survive. One of the three however was General Grant who had taken a saber slash across the stomach & dying that night.*

The attack on Union headquarters & death of General Grant shook up the Union Army. Early the next morning Confederate forces launched a counterattack south of the town of Dover. The attack broke through the Union lines sweeping Colonel Richard Oglesby's brigade north up against the Cumberland River & forcing their surrender. Brigadier General John A. McClernand's division broke & began retreating. With Grants death General Smith assumed temporary command of the army & at 1410 issued the order of retreat. The Battle of Fort Donelson was a Union failure & Smith had the army retreat to Fort Henry before withdrawing back to Paducah, Kentucky.*

The stunning defeat at Fort Donelson severely hampered Union plans of action in the Western Theater of the war with both the Tennessee & Cumberland River's still in Confederate control the retaking of Tennessee would be much more difficult. President Jefferson Davis wanted General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of Confederate forces in the Western Theater, to launch an immediate counteroffensive into Kentucky to destroy the Union Army & bring Kentucky into the Confederacy. Johnston however would wait more than a month.
 
Well, now you are going for a bolder approach. A British supported confederacy. Interesting.


Around 1600 in the afternoon...

....With Grants death General Smith assumed temporary command of the army & at 1410 issued the order of retreat.

CAN YOU PLEASE STOPO USING 24 HOUR TIME. ITS ANNOYING AND IT BREAKS THE NARRATIVE!!!!

"Its is Four o'clock in the Afternoon " OR "At ten past two." Seriously, i am reading the last as Fourteen Ten.; That is so stupidly annoying and makes me roll my eyes.

So much easier to read.
 
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Well, now you are going for a bolder approach. A British supported confederacy. Interesting.

Yeah i've been trying to help him via PM with it. Main thing i'm trying to convince him is the CSA isn't gonna get rid of its slaves for at least two if not three generations. He seems to have bought into the states rights arguments for the civil war.
 
Wow, that was fast. I was thinking the reboot would take longer to arrive :p. So, a Trent Incident approach this time around. I like it, I don't think I've read a TL like that yet, looking forward to how you approach it. Obviously subscribed.
 
Yeah i've been trying to help him via PM with it. Main thing i'm trying to convince him is the CSA isn't gonna get rid of its slaves for at least two if not three generations. He seems to have bought into the states rights arguments for the civil war.

Hopefully the Confederacy industrializes at a stable rate this time.

Also hoping that the US actually is not handed the idiotball, and actually notices that it has to remain strong because it has two powers on its boarders that are against it.

Say what you want about Turtledove, but at least he had the industrialization happen slowly that by WW1 they were a considerably industrialized power. Sure, they could not go toe-to-toe with the US, but at least it felt plausible.

Wow, that was fast. I was thinking the reboot would take longer to arrive :p. So, a Trent Incident approach this time around. I like it, I don't think I've read a TL like that yet, looking forward to how you approach it. Obviously subscribed.

...:confused::confused:

I am amazed that you somehow haven't found a Trent Timeline on this site. Especially THAT Trent TL.
 
Hopefully the Confederacy industrializes at a stable rate this time.

Also hoping that the US actually is not handed the idiotball, and actually notices that it has to remain strong because it has two powers on its boarders that are against it.

Say what you want about Turtledove, but at least he had the industrialization happen slowly that by WW1 they were a considerably industrialized power. Sure, they could not go toe-to-toe with the US, but at least it felt plausible.



...:confused::confused:

I am amazed that you somehow haven't found a Trent Timeline on this site. Especially THAT Trent TL.

Yeah industrialization needs to happen real slow to be realistic. As for that Trent TL you don't like it i'm gonna guess?
 
...:confused::confused:

I am amazed that you somehow haven't found a Trent Timeline on this site. Especially THAT Trent TL.

I've read two, actually. One I stopped because I find it hard to read character-driven TLs (Though I'll go back to it so I can compare to this one), the other because it was way too smug
 
Yeah industrialization needs to happen real slow to be realistic. As for that Trent TL you don't like it i'm gonna guess?

*looks at join date*

Wow, you really missed all the fun of that didn't you. I actually figured you had been here longer.

I've read two, actually. One I stopped because I find it hard to read character-driven TLs (Though I'll go back to it so I can compare to this one), the other because it was way too smug

Was the smug one done by 67Tigers?
 
*looks at join date*

Wow, you really missed all the fun of that didn't you. I actually figured you had been here longer.



Was the smug one done by 67Tigers?

Oh I thought you were talking about the TFSmith Trent TL. I've heard about 67Tigers(mainly from the wiki) but i've never actually read any of his TL's.
 
I suppose its a stylistic thing, but 24 hour time really didn't come into fashion until WWII.

Previously, and for the longest time, people referenced time from circular watch and clock faces. No digital readouts. So the common parlance was 'half past six' or a 'quarter to two' or 'ten past three.'

Doesn't really matter. The latter might feel more authentic. The former may be jarring and anachronistic to some people.
 
I suppose its a stylistic thing, but 24 hour time really didn't come into fashion until WWII.

Previously, and for the longest time, people referenced time from circular watch and clock faces. No digital readouts. So the common parlance was 'half past six' or a 'quarter to two' or 'ten past three.'

Doesn't really matter. The latter might feel more authentic. The former may be jarring and anachronistic to some people.

In the real world I say 4 or 430 but that's it. The only time I say like in the morning after that is when someone calls me and I'm making it a point that is 3 in the damn morning so whatever they call about better be important
 
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