Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond
- Thread starter EnglishCanuck
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HMS Ticonderoga will definitely be a future ship name! That one is my favorite after HMS Golden Gate personally.
All contenders except (IMO) the USS Toronto, since Davenport Ridge was an embarrassing defeat. USS York might be a better one.
Many thanks! Chapter 114 should be up this weekend!
Who said anything about Hocheeflotte in comparison to La Royale Atlantique
In this case, not yet. I'm waiting until I finish 1865 to publish the map I'm working on. It's not great, but it will get the basic border changes I promise!
You had my attention, now you have my curiosity!Who said anything about Hocheeflotte in comparison to La Royale Atlantique
I said the map will look different and I indeed mean it 😁
You're going to somehow keep Germany from uniting? (at least on OTL's schedule)
Interesting...
You tease
Nevermind that, he just implied that the French Third Empire still falls... but is replaced with a restored Kingdom of France, does a certain Count prove less obstinate or just dies earlier I wonder?
Not necessarily - even the modern French Navy gets called La Royale, despite not having had any sort of monarch for a century and a half.
Definitely not on schedule. There's some chicanery in Europe ahead!
Really? I thought it was called the Marine Nationale since the Third Republic? Or is La Royale just a nickname?
Whatever is happening in Europe, I guess its going to keep Britain and France occupied for a while. With what you said about the Ottoman Empire, Britain might not get Egypt and would not be building the Suez Canal (kind of reminds me of Cinco de Mayo). On the other hand, they might build the Panama Canal instead, or whatever is the ITTL equivalent.
Speaking of, is the US development going to be similar to Imperial Japan? I don't mean like a carbon copy rubber band history kind of way (that seems more like Turtledove's style), but when you mentioned that the New Men would have imperialist ideas, Imperial Japan was the first thing that came to mind.
As for the CSA, not sure what happens to them in the future but for the later election, I am not sure Davis would be re-elected. At least from what I get, the governor's of Virginia and South Carolina might convince their constituencies to not vote for him.
Edit: Ignore the last paragraph. Forgot that the CS does not allow re-election after a single 6-year term. Wonder who would be elected next?
Speaking of, is the US development going to be similar to Imperial Japan? I don't mean like a carbon copy rubber band history kind of way (that seems more like Turtledove's style), but when you mentioned that the New Men would have imperialist ideas, Imperial Japan was the first thing that came to mind.
As for the CSA, not sure what happens to them in the future but for the later election, I am not sure Davis would be re-elected. At least from what I get, the governor's of Virginia and South Carolina might convince their constituencies to not vote for him.
Edit: Ignore the last paragraph. Forgot that the CS does not allow re-election after a single 6-year term. Wonder who would be elected next?
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Apologies if I got this wrong, but isn't the Confederate president entitled to just a single six-year term (no re-elections) or do I have that confused with something else?
Do wonder who's gunning to run for the upcoming elections down there regardless TTL
You're exactly right. Jeff Davis cannot run for reelection. The CSA presidency was locked into a single term of 6 years.
As the Gentleman says, the Confederate constitution did specify that their president could have only a single 6 year term. That was always one of those interesting edits to the Confederate Constitution I found intriguing. It makes legacy building by presidents extremely difficult, and the desire to avoid "the evils of the party system" meant that the first election in an independent Confederacy would be quite interesting.
Suez is going ahead under Ferdinand Lesseps direction and has been building it since 1859, so we will indeed have a canal! Who ends up with political control over it of course could be different.
The United States is going to be very wary of anyone building a canal through Central America, as it would be a direct threat to them. However, the Confederacy would be pleased since it would get Confederate commerce flowing as they lack any access to the Pacific.
Depends on how one looks at the development of Imperial Japan. My own model for US imperialism has always thought of it from the perspective of Russian imperialism (crossing a continent and conquering everyone in the way, then trying to extend your influence through commerce and naval bases). So the New Men will have something like a Greco-Roman understanding of imperialism, or they will couch it in those terms at least.
The most important thing for the US post-war is finding naval bases that the British can't simply blockade. The strategic lesson of the British blockade is that they can't let it happen again.
Everyone would expect it to be Robert E. Lee. Everyone will be wrong.
Chapter 114: Lessons Learned Part I
Chapter 114: Lessons Learned Part I
“When President McClellan declared the Great American War over in July of 1865, he began demobilizing the hundreds of thousands of troops on duty. While he did secure permission to keep some 200,000 men under arms until the beginning of 1866, there was a desire by hundreds of thousands to return home. McClellan wished to give them as much honor as he could, and so ordered many “demobilization parades” where soldiers would parade before crowds as local notables gave speeches to honor their service. However, many soldiers and civilians who participated, feeling without purpose, would instead call them “demoralization parades” as they questioned what could be celebrated.
The largest was held in Washington on August 29th 1865, with almost 40,000 men parading down Pennsylvania Avenue. “It is rank Caesarism, the worst sort of Bonapartism,” Charles Sumner would complain as McClellan turned out to salute the soldiers. No pretense of the greater nation was made, but many plaudits were rained on General and President McClellan by dignitaries.
However, many regiments did not share the enthusiasm. Men would raise their regimental colors high, though others might furl them, but in many instances they flew the national flag upside down to signify the chaos of disunion and a nation in distress…” - The Era of Hard Feelings, William Avery, Random House, 1989
The review of demobilizing soldiers in Washington
“After the Great American War, it was deemed suicidal that the United States should even think of returning to an army of only 16,000 for a nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The new threat of the Confederate States to the south, and the ever present threat of British Canada to the north meant that the nation, which with the ocean of the Atlantic and Pacific as a moat had seemed to secure, could no longer be considered so.
In the immediate aftermath, the United States government had agreed to keep 200,000 men under arms until 1866 in order to ensure both sides demobilized properly. However, the still Democratic majority Congress, seeing the rising debts, costs of the war, and thousands of men returning to work, balked at keeping such a large army in the field. Even those who supported the war saw no need to keep such a “tool of European despotism” in America in peacetime. The old American fears of an army as a tool of oppression ran deep. However, none were willing to shrink the army to the size it had been in 1861.
The Democratic Congress voted for an army of 40,000 men. The Republican and Radical members of the House balked and demanded an army of 100,000 men. Ironically enough, President McClellan would move against his own party to try and raise the army to a higher number. Acrimonious debates led to an army of 80,000 men being adopted in 1866…
The post-war American army was, in many ways, far more professional than its predecessor. 22 Regiments of regular United States Infantry had been raised during the war, and that number was swiftly expanded to 35 two battalion regiments. Each was organized into 10 companies (A through K) with about 110 men and officers, though these were never full strength. Though unlike its European counterparts, the United States adopted only a limited depot system, intended to raise troops for special units like artillery and cavalry. The ‘poor infantry’ was often left to operate on its own resources. Once more, unlike its European counterparts, rifle training was often left to the discretion of officers in charge. While there were now an enormous number of blooded veterans of campaigns from Canada to Virginia and the Pacific in the ranks, not all men who stayed in the expanded peacetime army were good officers, and in many units this would show over time…
One great difference was that new rifles were slowly adopted. The Model 1861 Springfield was the mainstay of the United States Army from 1861-74, with the single shot rifle being the most commonly issued to the infantrymen of the day. It had proved its worth across dozens of battles, and would be modified into the Model 66 post-war, but due to costs and availability, it would remain the go to weapon of the American infantryman. The advent of the repeating rifle at the head of an infantry regiment would not become the norm until well into the 1880s.
The only infantry unit with the distinction of carrying repeaters in the immediate post-war world was the Capital Guard…
The cavalry was issued with Spencer Repeaters beginning in late 1866, becoming the mainstay of cavalry arms. The War Department believed it would be better in the hands of cavalry than infantry who were ‘prone to shoot the whole load” rather than men who would be skirmishing with much more nimble foes.
Organizing the cavalry proved an easier task. Few in Congress objected to raising the number of regiments from the five that had existed in 1861 to fourteen in 1866. They were organized into 10 troops of roughly 90-100 men each as a regiment. The regiments rarely served in one cohesive group, often scattered across wide areas to better protect the frontier. Often only grouped in times of crisis, the cavalry was predominantly assigned in the West with few exceptions.
The artillery immediately after the war was downsized into eight regiments of five batteries each, predominantly scattered across major fortifications on the border…
The most contentious units were the regiments of “Buffalo Soldiers” formed at the insistence of Radical Republicans in the immediate post-war environment. Three regiments of black infantry and a single regiment of black cavalry. It was a bitter fight to create them, but McClellan realized that this was a fight with the Radicals he would not win…” - American Arms from the Indian Wars to the Great War, Matthew Boot, 2004
Soldiers of the 33rd United States Infantry Regiment
“In the aftermath of the Great American War, the Confederate Navy had perhaps the largest number of ironclads in the Western hemisphere. Compared to their United States counterparts, The vessels of the Confederate Navy were larger, better armed and quite capable. However, the maintenance of a large navy would have been expensive in the immediate post-war environment, and the Confederacy was looking to keep its military costs down. As such, they kept three main squadrons of mixed ironclad and wooden steamships active at Norfolk, Wilmington and New Orleans.
The Confederates had learned that the potential of a powerful blockade had to be challenged at the outset of war, and no politician in Richmond would even dream of downsizing their fleet, but it was not until 1867 that a larger fleet would be commissioned…
The United States Navy, despite its morale building victories, had come out of the war extremely humbled. Despite the bravery of its sailors, it had been found wanting when challenging the Royal Navy. To many, the Atlantic Ocean no longer seemed like a vast moat, but a highway through which foreign navies could transport armies to American shores. The peacetime navy had been no deterrent, and even a mobilized navy in 1862 had proven inadequate to defend the vast coastline from British incursions.
In the immediate post-war assessment, most looked to Admiral Farragut, the hero of the victories at Little Gull Island and Sandy Hook to guide the navy. Ever a pragmatist, Farragut realized the navy needed to be able to go toe to toe with a foreign opponent. While he did not advocate for large battleships like the British and French possessed, he was an enormous supporter of fast ironclad cruisers which would be able to outpace, outmaneuver, and outfight any British squadron. In this, he was supported by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Edwin Augustus Stevens, who believed that the future of naval warfare was ironclad vessels.
However, there was a real debate regarding whether these should be coastal defense ironclads, or seagoing ships as Farragut wanted. Farragut considered the little Monitors, undergunned and hardly seaworthy, to be stopgaps from the war. They needed to be replaced with larger, more capable vessels which could challenge any foe. However, Samuel DuPont, would advocate for the smaller vessels, thinking them to be just the tool to defend the inland waters of America. This particular argument would tie up much of the debates around naval spending in the 1860s…” - Navies in Transition: The World before Dreadnought, Tony Dennet, Portsmouth, 1988
Can't wait to see how the Canadian Naval Debate goes down, considering how much of an acrimonious mess that was OTL, can't see it butterflied as the Admiralty will still undoubtedly end up wanting the Canadians to take up some of the burden. Though whether that ends up as financial contributions or a Canadian Atlantic Squadron remains to be seen...