AHC Britian and France join the ACW

[Saphroneth]

Goodness knows why everyone forgets the CSN - it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the Virginia could probably have sunk the Monitor if it had had UK-manufactured shot (wrought iron bolts) instead of mostly shell (which it was using OTL and still did some damage).

Certainly Monitor's 11" guns couldn't do any meaningful damage to the Virginia - which is a problem because the Warrior's armour is tougher and thus Monitor probably couldn't have pierced her armour at point blank.

 

[TFSmith121]

It took the French 44 months to resolve the Cochinchina

And here we see - an enemy is discounted, belittled, mocked if they don't produce their own munitions. If they do, then they're discounted instead because they're not at oceanic distances. And if they're both, like the Russians, they're discounted for the British and French taking a year to capture their strongest fortress.

It took the French 44 months to bring the Cochinchina campaign to a close, a campaign which began as a punitive expedition and expanded into a territorial grap that - if the United Service Magazine from July, 1863, as accurate - never involved an expeditionary force of more than 4,000 French troops.


https://books.google.com/books?id=u6tFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA361&lpg=PA361&dq=French+campaign+in+cochinchina&source=bl&ots=EaPpVIlD7N&sig=cODVv4MRvZaMUIUbuefELrICc_I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAoM_U8MDMAhUY0mMKHaAGAY8Q6AEINzAI#v=onepage&q=French%20campaign%20in%20cochinchina&f=false


So other than demonstrating the French could - after a fairly lengthy campaign (the entire Civil War lasted 48 months) - manage to force a small, poor, and entirely agricultural Asian kingdom to cede three provinces - and they still appear to have lost 25 percent of the expeditionary force, at least based on a really quick review of internet sources.

So it remains unclear what this example is supposed to demonstrate in terms of a putative conflict involving one or another European power with the US in North America in the 1860s...

At the same time, of course, the French were sinking ever deeper into the quagmire that was Mexico.

So again, it seems rather unclear how this applies to anything resembling the Civil War.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Can the RN break the USN's blockade of the rebels' ports?

- snip -

The Royal Navy can break the Union Blockade wherever and whenever it wishes.

- snip -

Can the RN break the USN's blockade of the rebels' ports?

Yes; who ever said they could not?

Imposing a blockade on the US ports is a different question.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Because in a conflict where the British were carrying the

Goodness knows why everyone forgets the CSN - it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the Virginia could probably have sunk the Monitor if it had had UK-manufactured shot (wrought iron bolts) instead of mostly shell (which it was using OTL and still did some damage).

Certainly Monitor's 11" guns couldn't do any meaningful damage to the Virginia - which is a problem because the Warrior's armour is tougher and thus Monitor probably couldn't have pierced her armour at point blank.

Because in a conflict where the British were carrying the slavers' water, why would Davis et al spend a dime on a navy they'd didn't need?

It does demonstrate that a US steam frigate, even one with engines that needed overhaul and that had been scuttled in a flooded dry dock, could be converted to be a reasonably useful ship for harbor defense, despite being converted by a navy with very little in the way of resources.

Interesting to consider what Merrimac's sisters might emerge from the Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and/or Portsmouth navy yards looking like...

As far as Warrior's armor goes, considering her bow and stern, including her quarterdeck and steering gear, were entirely unprotected, it would seem she has some vulnerabilities.

Best,

 

[Tanc49]

It took the French 44 months to bring the Cochinchina campaign to a close, a campaign which began as a punitive expedition and expanded into a territorial grap that - if the United Service Magazine from July, 1863, as accurate - never involved an expeditionary force of more than 4,000 French troops.

A campaign that was without much support except that initial force. Once the Opium war ended, the war ended really really fast. Plus, just taking your quote actually doesn't make it look too bad. With 4000 men and some boats they brought a modern enough country to heel.

I'll also point out that the French took the very well defended Saigon fortress with 800 men. The fortress had 10.000 defenders but with superior tactics and artillery, they stormed the place.

So other than demonstrating the French could - after a fairly lengthy campiagn (the entire Civil War lasted 48 months) - manage to force a small, poor, and entirely agricultural Asian kingdom to cede three provinces - and they still appear to have lost 25 percent of the expeditionary force, at least based on a really quick review of internet sources.

As pointed out again, again and again, most of those losses were due to diseases caused by tropical climate. Exact same cause as the military problems in Mexico. These are problems the French would not have in the US.

Vietnam was hardly poor and backward at the time, it had a solid administration, foundries and some industry. Maybe not at US level but they had good weapons.

Their fortifications in particular had been built during the reign of Gia Long in the early XIXth century by French engineers.

So it remains unclear what this example is supposed to demonstrate in terms of a putative conflict involving one or another European power with the US in North America in the 1860s...

It is supposed to demonstrate that if 4000 men dying from malaria by the score across the world with no decent supply base in sight were able to beat another country with good defenses, lots of manpower and good weaponry, surely France, combined with the UK, can destroy the US blockade on the CSA, blockade the US and send weapons and advisors to the CSA.
They would also very probably be able to be a threat on some US coasts, forcing the US to divert attention, funds, weapons and manpower to coastal defense rather than on the main front.
On the main front they'll now be facing better funded, better trained and better equiped soldiers than they did OTL.

Surely this must have some kind of minor impact on the US actions during the war?

 

[frlmerrin]

Because in a conflict where the British were carrying the slavers' water, why would Davis et al spend a dime on a navy they'd didn't need?

It does demonstrate that a US steam frigate, even one with engines that needed overhaul and that had been scuttled in a flooded dry dock, could be converted to be a reasonably useful ship for harbor defense, despite being converted by a navy with very little in the way of resources.

Interesting to consider what Merrimac's sisters might emerge from the Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and/or Portsmouth navy yards looking like...

As far as Warrior's armor goes, considering her bow and stern, including her quarterdeck and steering gear, were entirely unprotected, it would seem she has some vulnerabilities.

Best,

What naval yards? They are all on deep water and the RN will have pillaged or burned them or both long before the USN can razee a half decent frigate into a third rate ironclad raft. Oh wait it won't even be a third rate iron clad where are they going to get the iron from? The Union just did not produce enough in OTL never mind the Anglo-Union war over the vile Trent outrage scenario.

Just a reminder that the Royal Navy don't really need the likes of Warrior to defeat a third rate power like the Union (and even weaker in terms of naval power). In any case the big ironclads won't arrive until Mayish along with the mortar frigates and if Lincoln's cabinet had any sense they would have yielded by then.

 

[TFSmith121]

It's a lengthy colonial campaign against a non-Western power

A campaign that was without much support except that initial force. Once the Opium war ended, the war ended really really fast. Plus, just taking your quote actually doesn't make it look too bad. With 4000 men and some boats they brought a modern enough country to heel. I'll also point out that the French took the very well defended Saigon fortress with 800 men. The fortress had 10.000 defenders but with superior tactics and artillery, they stormed the place. As pointed out again, again and again, most of those losses were due to diseases caused by tropical climate. Exact same cause as the military problems in Mexico. These are problems the French would not have in the US. Vietnam was hardly poor and backward at the time, it had a solid administration, foundries and some industry. Maybe not at US level but they had good weapons. Their fortifications in particular had been built during the reign of Gia Long in the early XIXth century by French engineers. It is supposed to demonstrate that if 4000 men dying from malaria by the score across the world with no decent supply base in sight were able to beat another country with good defenses, lots of manpower and good weaponry, surely France, combined with the UK, can destroy the US blockade on the CSA, blockade the US and send weapons and advisors to the CSA. They would also very probably be able to be a threat on some US coasts, forcing the US to divert attention, funds, weapons and manpower to coastal defense rather than on the main front. On the main front they'll now be facing better funded, better trained and better equiped soldiers than they did OTL. Surely this must have some kind of minor impact on the US actions during the war?

It's a lengthy colonial campaign against a non-Western power with no industry and, if I read the USM article correctly, fortifications that dated from the 1700s.

It's not much different than the campaigns against the Chinese, which, notably, ended in utter defeat for the British in 1859 at the Taku Forts and required an Anglo-French expeditionary force of 18,000 men in 1860.

And seriously, you're comparing the Vietnamese kingdom of the 1860s to the United States in the same period? Seriously?

By that measure, the reality the US destroyed the Choshu fleet at Shimonoseki in 1863 suggests that Cherbourg is at risk from McDougal et al.

Put it this way - if 36,000 French regulars and 9,000 European mercenaries couldn't manage a win in Mexico in 1861-67, not sure how an extra 4,000 French are going to make a significant difference at the macro-scale against the United States in roughly the same period.

As it was, it seems quite clear the 2nd Empire had other places it chose to employ what limited military forces that could be spared for overseas expeditions in the 1860s than the US, and these other places promised - at least to those making the decisions in Paris - some gains worth the blood and treasure. What exactly the trade-off for France in a war with the United States is supposed to be remains rather vague, doesn't it?

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

May want to reconsider where the yards were, actually;

What naval yards? They are all on deep water and the RN will have pillaged or burned them or both long before the USN can razee a half decent frigate into a third rate ironclad raft. Oh wait it won't even be a third rate iron clad where are they going to get the iron from? The Union just did not produce enough in OTL never mind the Anglo-Union war over the vile Trent outrage scenario. Just a reminder that the Royal Navy don't really need the likes of Warrior to defeat a third rate power like the Union (and even weaker in terms of naval power). In any case the big ironclads won't arrive until Mayish along with the mortar frigates and if Lincoln's cabinet had any sense they would have yielded by then.

May want to reconsider where the yards were, actually; the British war planners in 1861-62 certainly did...

"...Somerset (first lord of the Admiralty, of course) eventually declared himself utterly opposed to attacking heavily defended places, probably because (RN war planner Capt.) Washington had told him that the only hope of success lay in the rather unlikely event of surprising them. "From the intricacy of the channels and the strength of the forts,' Washington believed, 'it is probable that Boston could not be attacked with any hope of success.''

Nor was he much more optimistic about bombarding New York: "This might have the effect of putting an end to the war, and if so it might be worth the risk. But the risk would be too great if the intention transpired and time were allowed the enemy to make preparations." The defences of New York had not yet been made impregnable but could readily be improved; a sudden dash, therefore, would be the ' only hope of success '. Milne, himself, hardly seems to have been much more daring..."

Source is, of course:

​

British Preparations for War with the North, 1861-1862, Kenneth Bourne, The English Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 301 (Oct., 1961), pp. 600-632

Everyone who cares has read Bourne, both the original article and the subsequent book; the evidence, analysis, and conclusions in both works make it clear that none of the "RN bolt-from-the-blue" scenarios and the quite frankly over-the-top concepts (RN bombards American cities, ports, etc.) advanced by many on this board were not regarded as anywhere close to the realm of the possible at the time by the British war planners themselves, and for good reason.

Because they were not.

Best,

 

[Saphroneth]

...oh for goodness sakes. You can't claim the successes of the CSA as a triumph for USA ironclad design. That is not how it works - the ships were ironclad to different specifications and following different design philosophies.

The US, if they ironclad-convert their scant few frigates rather than leaving them as they are, will be making them into Roanokes because that's what they did OTL and fits their design philosophy. This means:

Her conversion was not very successful as she rolled excessively and the weight of her armor and turrets strained her hull. Her deep draft meant that she could not operate off shallow Confederate ports and she was relegated to harbor defense at Hampton Roads, Virginia for the duration of the war.

Assuming that they survive (Roanoke's conversion took over a year and the New York coastal defences are seriously undergunned compared to design, a design which is based on technologies a generation behind those the Royal Navy can bring to the battle), then they will be coming out of the shipyards sometime in mid-1863, in a state where firing the guns means dismounting them completely.

Frankly it would be a significant disimprovement to the US Navy to put their only large warships out of action for a year to convert them into unstable turret ironclads like that.




So, let's put it this way. Hampton Roads is the USN sending out a new kind of warship against something converted from a sunken vessel by a navy with limited resources. The said navy with limited resources fights their brand new kind of warship to a standstill, and this is promptly framed as a ringing endorsement for the new kind of warship and they build almost nothing armoured but that new kind of warship for the next thirty years.

This tends to suggest that the US Navy considered the Monitor type highly superior to the Virginia type, in spite of the inconclusive results - either because it was or seemed easier to build in numbers, or for some other reason.

Now.

What would it look ike if the USN was basically Monitor obsessed in defiance of a rational consideration of what the best qualities of a ship were?
I think the answer is that it would build dozens of them, of varying quality, without proper scrutiny and without properly considering the design.


Now look again at that list of Monitors I compiled. Most of them have some kind of design problem, twenty of them didn't even float and nothing in service before 1864 has both a 15" gun and the ability to aim it accurately for more than one shot.

This is not what it looks like when a nation is able to rush build a large fleet of ironclads.


As such, we can effectively assume that for the first year of the war the USN's ironclad fleet will be largely unable to fight much beyond harbour defence - and that for the first few months it will not possess much in the way of ships capable of that either, which might mean it's unable to actually build those required harbour defence ships...

...I'm not seeing how they're going to be able to prevent the Royal Navy imposing a blockade. If they follow the Smith idea of converting their frigates into ironclads, they've basically given up on them for the year, so their entire battle force consists of some sloops plus converted merchant ships and sail ships.
The idea that some sloops can force open a blockade supported by 90+ gun steam battleships is, frankly, comical.

(And, honestly, looking at some ACW incidents it's not all that sure that slow early coastal ironclads will be able to break the blockade either.)




EDIT: I like this post, so:

....what I decided to do was to do some random sampling of the Union Navy's official records: ten pages at random, every ship on those ten pages (forty ships total). The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate to the viewers at home exactly what kind of ships the Union navy might be taking on the British with.

Firstly, I discounted six ships that were bought to be sunk (USS George P Upshur, USS Mechanic, USS W L Bartlett, USS Patriot, USS Advocate, USS A Holly). Most of these were with the Charleston stone fleet.

Next we have ten ships which would not have been suitable for sea service. These included ships that were never finished (USS Virginia), ships that were finished after the war (USS Minnetonka), tugs (USS Mayflower, USS Juniper), tenders (USS Julia), coal hulks (USS A J View), mortar vessels (USS George Mangham), steam launches (USS Paul Jones Jr), and riverine vessels (USS Vindicator, USS Juliet). Your calculation required five Royal Navy vessels to be hypothecated for service against each of these ships.

Next we have the pre-war purchases: two 40-gun screw steam frigates (USS Minnesota, USS Wabash) and two 20-gun wooden sailing sloops (USS Germantown, USS Jamestown). These are dependable ships for their size, though some considered the Dahlgren too heavy to work in a seaway. While the sailing sloops would have accomplished little against either a steam blockading force or a steam convoy escort, the screw frigates had the potential to cause difficulty for the Royal Navy. However, there are only a limited number of them: they can either be raiding commerce, or they can be trying to sortie from blockaded ports, but they can't do both.

Next we have the iron steamers: USS Memphis, USS Virginia, and USS Monocacy. The former two were blockade runners, captured and pressed into service. Unfortunately, the Royal Navy discovered that unarmoured iron ships are unsuitable for combat because the spall from projectile impact slaughters the crew. If these ships are fired at, they're going to die quickly.

After them are the sail ships, four in total (USS James L Davis, USS James S Chambers, USS A. Houghton, USS George W. Rodgers). The same objections apply to these as the sail sloops above, with the additional proviso that all are poorly armed: none with more than 4 guns. As converted merchant ships, these would struggle to fight a single adequately-armed British merchant ships, let alone either a convoy of them or a British warship. The fact that three of the four were purchased in September and October 1861 shows the extent to which the Union navy was dependent on merchant sail ships in the early years of the war.

Next come the eight paddle steamers (USS James Adger, USS Vixen, USS Paul Jones, USS Agawam, USS Mingoe, USS Geranium, USS Mendota, USS Volunteer). There are a few Royal Navy paddle steamers still in operation, but paddle wheels are archaic technology for warships. Their propulsion systems are easily damaged, they slow the ships down while under sail, and they prevent them firing a full broadside. As such, these ships would make extremely poor commerce raiders.

Next, we have the wooden screw warships: two purchased merchant vessels (USS Patroon, USS Violet), and two screw sloops built for the Navy (USS Juniata, USS Monongahela). The screw sloops could probably stand in a fight with a similar British vessel: the converted merchant ships, particularly the Violet with its armament of two 12pdr guns, could not.

Lastly, we have the single armoured vessel: USS Montauk. At 7 kts max speed, it's going to have to take the Royal Navy by surprise; with two slow-firing smoothbore guns, it's going to have to hope they don't start moving until very, very late on; with barely any freeboard, it's going to have to hope it doesn't get rammed. Just like the Confederate coastal ironclads, it seems wildly optimistic to pin your hopes on this doing enough damage to the Royal Navy to open one port even for a day. Almost as optimistic as giving raw recruits muskets and expecting them to out-range trained skirmishers with rifles, really.

 

[TFSmith121]

It's simply recognition of the reality that large screw steamers

...oh for goodness sakes. - snip - :

Hardly.

It's simply recognition of the reality that large screw steam warships can be converted, however slowly and painfully by the rebels in Merrimac's case, but obviously much more quickly and efficiently in the US yards, into useful emergency ironclads.

As stated, the obvious path in the event of an Anglo-American crisis in the winter of 1861-62 would be for the USN's most modern screw steamers, the frigates and screw sloops, to lose their masts, rigging, etc. (basically, what made them suited for long-range cruising) and use the displacement thus freed up for additional armament and protection - essentially, it's the Atlantic equivalent of the riverine ironclads converted by the USN from merchant ships in the West, and similar vessels converted by the rebels for coast defense in the Atlantic and Gulf, historically.

All it requires is the American naval commanders not being idiots, which - obviously - they were not.

This sort of approach would, of course, quickly yield a dozen large steamers that would carry more guns and better protection than any comparable RN ships but the four British cruising ironclads (which of course, weren't actually available in the winter of 1862), and was mirrored by various real world examples of such conversions, in the US and overseas (even in the UK! quelle horreur!), in the 1860s and even later.

Best,

 

[frlmerrin]

Common Sense

May want to reconsider where the yards were, actually; the British war planners in 1861-62 certainly did...

<Quotations that have been cherry picked without proper context snipped>

British Preparations for War with the North, 1861-1862, Kenneth Bourne, The English Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 301 (Oct., 1961), pp. 600-632

<bombastic statements relating 'caring' about the subject omitted>

Thank you for your kind offer to 'reconsider where the Union navy yards were' - no thank you. They are naval yards hence they are all on deep water and hence accessible to major warships. I do however have several points to make.

1) Washington was not a 'War Planner' he was the Hydrographer to the Navy and his memorandum was entirely advisory and a description as best he knew it of the state of the Union coasts, with additional reference to targets and defences. One does not need to refer to Bourne's discussion of it as it is freely available online and widely available on paper*. Versions showing some of Milne's comments on it are also available on line. Milne did not receive this report until after the satisfactory conclusion of the OTL Trent affair with the liberation from Union captivity and subsequent public surrender of the Confederate Commissioners to London and Paris to the commander of a Royal Navy ship.
2) Milne had no orders and very little in the way of guidance from the Admiralty on how to conduct hostilities against the Union and as he did not have the Washington memorandum he could hardly be expected to be guided by it could he. Later in the war the memorandum might have an impact.
3) Washington's memorandum appears to have been quite accurate in most respects, at least where I have been able to compare it to contemporary charts. However, in one key respect he was very wrong. He assumed that the various Union forts were manned, armed and in a good state of repair. In all but a very few cases this was far from the case as can be determined by reading Totten's reports in the ORA, forts Wiki and some NFS and State parks are also very helpful on these matters. It is not clear if Milne and his officers were under the same misapprehension? This knowledge would clearly influence the method and timing of RN attacks on Union naval yards.
4) Bourne's work is very interesting but it was written in the 1960s before the interwebbie existed there is a wealth of primary records available on line that was never available to him.

*In fact I am pretty sure that 67th Tigers posted large parts of it on this site which should not be hard to find.

 

[TFSmith121]

The quotations are entirely accurate.

<Quotations that have been cherry picked without proper context snipped>

<bombastic statements relating 'caring' about the subject omitted>
.

The quotations are entirely accurate.

Best,

 

[Saphroneth]

It's also worth noting, when bringing up British Preparations for War, that no such document exists for the Union. To all appearances the Union moved only a few companies of troops and made no other preparations for war.




Anyway, here's the Boston defences:



That was it. They have nothing worth a good goddamn. One gun facing seawards total, in fact, and one fort is unarmed. (Most of the ~20 guns in Ft. Independence are pointed at Boston!)

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...er"&pg=PA34#v=onepage&q="fort warren"&f=false

 

[frlmerrin]

Can the RN break the USN's blockade of the rebels' ports?

Yes; who ever said they could not?

Imposing a blockade on the US ports is a different question.

Best,

So please explain to me what the Union can do to stop the RN blockading it because I can see no way the Union could stop them with the resources available to then?

 

[frlmerrin]

The quotations are entirely accurate.

Best,

You have avoided addressing the thrust of my post.

 

[frlmerrin]

That was it. They have nothing worth a good goddamn. One gun facing seawards total, in fact.

One gun more than I thought.

 

[TFSmith121]

They were already in a war, of course.

It's also worth noting, when bringing up British Preparations for War, that no such document exists for the Union. To all appearances the Union moved only a few companies of troops and made no other preparations for war.

They were already in a war, of course, and not looking for one, but based on the multi-front strategies and movements that were underway or occurred - historically - in 1862, and which led to the victories won by the US over the rebels the same year, one can make a reasonably informed series of inferences on how the US would have reacted to a threatened conflict with Britain.

Equally obviously, they'd had two full-dress rehearsals previously (one of which got them to the gates of Quebec and actually took Montreal, the other of which demonstrated the importance of USN control of the lake), and the later was within the lives of men at signficant positions of aurthority in 1861, and the physical geography had not changed.

Obviously, the human and political and technological geographies had... as (for example) the 1860 census of the US and the 1861 numbers for BNA make clear.

And for what its worth, there's War Plan Red, of course, and with regards to CRIMSON, the geography and relative force ratios hadn't changed that much, either.

As far as Boston goes, the first reference in the work you link to cites 78 guns at Warren alone. That's in 1864, but unless you have something specific you're trying to get at, you may want to offer the page where this information is supposed to be found. There are 32 separate references to Fort Warren, after all. Thanks

Since the RN's chief planner and the lord of the admiralty and Milne himself are all quoted as (essentially) "let's not go there and do that" then the obvious expectation would be a) they won't and b) the Americans will reinforce the defenses of Boston, with both shoreside defenses and ships on the water.

Can you provide an example of a successful attempt by the British to simply steam into a defended port in this era, because there aren't any.

Best,

 

[EnglishCanuck]

1) Washington was not a 'War Planner' he was the Hydrographer to the Navy and his memorandum was entirely advisory and a description as best he knew it of the state of the Union coasts, with additional reference to targets and defences. One does not need to refer to Bourne's discussion of it as it is freely available online and widely available on paper*. Versions showing some of Milne's comments on it are also available on line. Milne did not receive this report until after the satisfactory conclusion of the OTL Trent affair with the liberation from Union captivity and subsequent public surrender of the Confederate Commissioners to London and Paris to the commander of a Royal Navy ship.
2) Milne had no orders and very little in the way of guidance from the Admiralty on how to conduct hostilities against the Union and as he did not have the Washington memorandum he could hardly be expected to be guided by it could he. Later in the war the memorandum might have an impact.
3) Washington's memorandum appears to have been quite accurate in most respects, at least where I have been able to compare it to contemporary charts. However, in one key respect he was very wrong. He assumed that the various Union forts were manned, armed and in a good state of repair. In all but a very few cases this was far from the case as can be determined by reading Totten's reports in the ORA, forts Wiki and some NFS and State parks are also very helpful on these matters. It is not clear if Milne and his officers were under the same misapprehension? This knowledge would clearly influence the method and timing of RN attacks on Union naval yards.
4) Bourne's work is very interesting but it was written in the 1960s before the interwebbie existed there is a wealth of primary records available on line that was never available to him.

As an aside, the Milne Papers Volume II (the one directly dealing with the outbreak of the Civil War and the Trent Affair) are available online. Not in their entirety unfortunately, but enough for us to get a good sense of what he was about and what his own plans were.

On January the 24th he makes a rather brief, but enlightening statement of his own ideas and probable strategy.

 

[Saphroneth]

USS Nahant and USS Nantucket - two of the early US monitors - were built in Boston. The loss of Boston would essentially remove - by the looks of it - 1/5 of the US ability to build coastal monitors for service by 1863.

And the US can not stop it.

Most of the rest were built in NY or Philadelphia. I doubt they're both impenetrable...

 

[TFSmith121]

If you're referring to 501, it's pretty much what has always

As an aside, the Milne Papers Volume II (the one directly dealing with the outbreak of the Civil War and the Trent Affair) are available online. Not in their entirety unfortunately, but enough for us to get a good sense of what he was about and what his own plans were. On January the 24th he makes a rather brief, but enlightening statement of his own ideas and probable strategy.

If you're referring to 501, it's pretty much what has always been said: raise the USN blockade of the south, try and impose a British blockade of the north, and various minor amphibious operations against generally undenfended targets to try and secure anchorages, and - possibly - combined operations at some point with the rebels against Hampton Roads.

Is there something else you're trying to point to?

Best,