Peshawar Lancers Redux: North America

[Claudius]

Originally Posted by DarkAvenger

Then again, things did not go well for the Union in this story.
By the way, how is the medical situation in there?

Not sure I understand that.

To answer your other question, at the moment California is wholly concerned with avoiding becoming Provincia del Alta California.

[chris N]

It would appear that the US has slid back into the pre-Civil War process of selecting officers with political connections rather than putting in professional officers.

[DarkAvenger]

Originally Posted by Claudius

Not sure I understand that.

I was referring to whether the U.S. has its healthcare standards up to par.

I also doubt California would be able to prevent annexation by Mexico.

[Claudius]

Doubtful that there is anything going on that would be considered healthcare by our standards. The US is much poorer than IOTL. Most of the best hospitals and medical schools were in cities that were destroyed or abandoned after the Fall. The great emphasis on Public Health that burgeoned after the 1870's IOTL as a result of the work of men like Pasteur, Semelweiss and others has not occurred in this world and is probably forgotten even by the European Diaspora in many places. Contagious diseases go unchecked, except possibly by quarantine. Malnutrition among the poor won't help either. If you are lucky in this world you live in the vicinity of a country doctor who knows how to set bones and bandage wounds and will accept payment in farm produce.

Even in our world, it took until the 1880s for antiseptic conditions in operating rooms to begin to become standard and typhoid fever, polio and cholera were not uncommon in many places.

[Archangel]

Weathers and Gray's careers might not survive the fall of Burke, given their obedience to Burke and not to the law.

Keep it up, Claudius!

[chris N]

Without a doubt those two officers have violated their oath to the Constitution.

[Claudius]

Neither of them necessarily know what Burke is up to, and definitely don't know what Flores' gang is doing. Lots of officers have done bad things to other officers to further their own careers, (or to cover their own mistakes.)

[Claudius]

As it traveled southwards Colonel John Mosby’s band of mounted volunteers had grown steadily. Ranch hands, farm boys, even some refugees who had managed to acquire a horse or two attached themselves to the little command as it moved closer to the area of Mexican occupation Concerned about the logistics of his force. after a week of this Mosby decided to limit further recruiting for the moment and reorganized the unit (officially the 1st California Volunteer Cavalry, although most of the men and the general public simply referred to them as “Mosby’s Rangers”) He devoted considerable time to organization and training. He broke the outfit up into three companies and designated officers and non-commissioned officers for each. His past service with J.E.B Stuart and then later in his own independent command had given him a keen eye for natural leadership talent and he used it to good advantage. He was well aware that leadership and cohesion were vital to small unit warfare in operation against a larger and better-supplied enemy. As he conceived it, the tactical situation was analogous to what he deal with in the Shenandoah Valley back in ’63 and ’64.. The invading army, as with the Union army had the several tasks of gaining territory, dealing with a surly population and guarding its own supply lines. Genral Sandoval had the disadvantage of having little direct knowledge of the territory or local population. The advantages he had over the Union commanders in Virginia were that there was no California Army as a force in being. Meade and then Grant had a very well-tuned force by 1864. The Californians however did have many veterans joining its ranks and were eager to defend their homes, but were organizing under the pressure of an invading army.

General Sandoval had a second advantage: the shedding of civilian blood and the destruction of civilian property was of very little concern to him. His goal was complete conquest, all the way to the ice-clogged Columbia River. A cowed and conquered people would make his hoped-for role as Provincial Military Governor of Alta California that much easier. By now, Mexican forces had penetrated out to the Coast Range in several places and controlled the coastal towns south of San Bernardino. With the defeat of a force of Yankees at San Fernando, the way to the interior was opening up. He planned to take Bakersfield by August, laying thus open the great central valley. By the next campaigning season, the greatest city of the west coast, San Francisco would be threatened. His headquarters were even now relocating to Los Angeles, the better to conduct operations in the interior counties. Unknown to Sandoval, just outside of that town, John Mosby was quietly dispersing his forces in San Gabriel and the surrounding country.

Mosby’s strategic sense was neatly summarized in a talk he gave one evening to resistance-minded folk at a private home just outside of the town limits of Los Angeles, and later recorded in several memoirs.

“An enemy’s rear is the most vulnerable section of his lines. A small force, moving quickly and threatening many points on a line can neutralize an hundred times its own number. The enemy’s lines must be stronger at all points than the attacking points, or else it must be broken. The military value of a partisan’s work is not the number of men killed or property destroyed but the number he keeps watching.” --- A.P. Davis, Campaigning with Mosby (1908)

Within the fortnight, he was to make his first move.

[chris N]

Well done!

[Claudius]

Originally Posted by chris N

Well done!

Thanks Chris. Continue on with your new TL. Perhaps with participation by other authors, we can cover the rest of the hemisphere.

[CoomerREC7]

Mosby rides again!

[Shadow Knight]

Excellent stuff Claudius. Time for some partisan rampaging.

[Archangel]

Keep it up, Claudius!

[Claudius]

A little after nine o’ clock in the morning on July 13th, 1887 a rather ordinary-looking fellow dressed in working man’s clothes casually moved down a street not far from the President’s House and slipped into the alleyway between two commercial buildings. The people at the Mexican Embassy knew him as “el gato”, (the cat) for his ability to move quietly and strike quickly and mercilessly before disappearing with little evidence of his passage.

His actual name was Jean Laforge and he had grown up on the streets of New Orleans, orphaned by the Great Wave and living by his wits in the child gangs in the slums of that city. At the age of 16 he had been recruited by Ignacio Marquez and given certain bloody tasks which for political reasons were best not tied to Mexicans. He had proven to be both clever and discrete and had made a good living as a “.hired sword” A week earlier he had been given an assignment that placed him on a Memphis-bound riverboat, something Laforge could only have dreamed of a few years before. He had, for the past three days carefully observed the comings and goings of visitors to the Capital and to the President’s House. He also had determined several routes to follow to safety after his task was done.

Just inside the mouth of the alley, he waited. His quarry would be along shortly.

[Archangel]

Sounds like a planned political assassination (or staged attempt by Marquez to make the President act against his enemies).

[Shadow Knight]

It would serve Marquez right if this ill educated assassin actually killed the traitorous President. Too much goes his way.

[chris N]

I would be quite happy to second Shadow Knights Motion.
Claudius Great Story

[DarkAvenger]

That would make a pretty interesting twist if he accidentally killed Burke. All hell would break loose.
But in any case, Flores would still get what he wants, if not from Burke, then from his successor.

[chris N]

Ah but if I remember correctly there is no Vice President and that would mean that if Burke were to be killed the Speaker of the House would become President. This would mean a collapse of the Mexican plan in the US.

[Claudius]

But under the operative Succession Act of 1792 the President pro tem of the Senate is first in line and then the Speaker of the House is next An interesting potical butterfly, since the 1888 Succession Act never was enacted in this world. The Senate in this TL is of course controlled by Burke's allies.