Block Headed

As well as featuring the inexplicable death of Captain John Bythesea, chapter 11 part 1 includes some of the bizarre non-Euclidian geography which represents one of the hallmarks of TFSmith's writing. The relevant passage is as follows:

In memoriam

Unfortunately, it falls to me to be the bearer of some very sad news. I've just learned that one of the pillars of our site is no longer with us.

Cornell University's Making of America series, which we've generally used for access to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies, has been shuttered and transferred to Hathitrust.This is a pretty big blow- not just because almost every existing link in this blog goes to that site, but because it was probably the most user-friendly version of the OR available.

Thanks to my crippling autism, I'll now need to spend some time going through past entries and trying to fix all the broken links as best I can. As such, actual new content may be a little light (at least on my part) for the next few weeks. I haven't worked out which of the alternate versions of the OR would be best to use, so if anybody has a recommendation then let us know in the comments below.

I may also make some other tweaks, such as tagging the articles more systematically. When we set up the site I don't think we were ever expecting to reach nearly 200 articles, and the existing tags may not be as helpful as they could be in finding things. Again, if you've got suggestions for tags that would make your lives easier, then drop them in the comments.

Thanks to everybody who's read and commented over the past few months- and here's to many more!

Knox your Block Off (3)

Having examined the British force at Fort Knox, and the historical precedents that TFSmith uses to justify the loss of British ships there, we now conclude by considering the sinkings themselves.

Knox Your Block Off (2)

We have already seen how TFSmith's depiction of the ships engaged in the attack on Fort Knox does its best to play up their flaws. This fits his main objective of weakening the British, but in reality he needn't have bothered: in BROS the British are perfectly capable of making a complete pig's ear of any endeavour with even the most modern ships.

Knox Your Block Off (1)

Chapter 15, part 1 sees the lengthy recitation of many failed British assaults on the Union's position at Fort Knox in Maine. Fortunately, we only need to look at the first to understand that they are complete nonsense.

XX-Rated

In his rant against 'grognerdish merde,' TFSmith laid out a big, bold statement of purpose for his timeline:

Anyone who has actually read any thoughtful history understands human agency is a bigger factor than almost anything else... A huge element of those historical examples is, of course, the impact - as you say - on the individual, large or small, man or woman.

Sadly, he is no better at understanding these aspects of social history than he is at understanding the aspects of military history which he bungles so abominably. Through a combination of excessive laziness and inadequate foresight, he creates a completely nonsensical world without even realising that he has done so. How did he manage this?

Robbed of Victory

One of the underlying premises of Burnished Rows of Steel is that the Union can raise and arm millions of men, to fight both the Confederacy and the British at the same time. If the Union cannot arm these men, then the timeline falls apart. So how would TFSmith respond when his premise that the United States was 'pretty much an autarky from independence on', 'as close to a functioning autarky in the Nineteenth Century as I think any nation ever could have been', and had 'plenty of slack' in its economy, came under attack?

Battles by Appointment

It is regular in the few occasions where TFSmith portrays the British and the Union manoeuvring against one another, rather than staring at one another over trench lines, that the two sides end up in a head-on military clash (usually with the British ramming themselves obligingly against Union defensive fortifications, even when there should not be any). When the Union is on the attack, meanwhile, the British melt away to avoid conflict where they absolutely cannot find any trenches to attack.
But one of the odd features of these manoeuvres is that they appear to be scheduled beforehand, by both parties, to lead to this outcome.

Red, White, and Blue Hawaii

In considering the British attack on California, we commented that sending HMS Camelion and HMS Mutine off 'hunting American cruisers across the breadth of the North Pacific' seemed like a poor use of resources. In doing so, we talked about the overall pattern of trade and the relative unimportance of the North Pacific to the British. Recently, I found a source which perfectly encapsulates the trade levels- the Hawaiian customs house records, which show the number of ships of each nation which stopped at the islands in 1861 and 1862.

Kearny the Maleficent

Unlike an earlier example, this is an actual plagiarism piece. That is to say, TFSmith actually ripping off a real author. And the implications go wider, though not hugely wide. So even if you skipped the earlier example, I'd suggest sticking with this one.

Irene Musi-can't (still)

Fair warning: this is another plagiarism post. That means highlighting long sections of text which, in this case, have been copied and pasted from one fictional author to another. It may not be particularly edifying, though I've tried my best to put a decent bit of snark in the comments to liven things up. If you do want to skip this one, there'll be a more interesting piece along any moment. Up to you.

Pilot Light

From chapter 15, part 2:

He had then commissioned and fit out the Pacific Mail merchant steamer California as a commerce raider at Mare Island, and had taken her – now USS California, and known as one of the “three pirates,” along with her sisters Oregon and Panama – on a cruise across the North Pacific as far as Japan and back. Schenck had captured half-a-dozen British merchant ships before running into the Columbia with the sidewheel sloop HMS Leopard (18), Captain Charles Keckie, in hot pursuit. Keckie, absent a bar pilot and knowing nothing about the river, prudently remained off-shore, while Schenck took his cruiser upstream to the Willamette.

...wait. Did Schenk carry a bar pilot for the Columbia River with him all the way out to Japan and back? That's remarkably prescient, considering he set off from San Francisco. It's also very obliging of the pilot to come more than six hundred miles down the coast to join the ship and spend months sailing out to Japan on the off-chance that Schenck will need his services on returning to America.

If not, we're presumably intended to believe that HMS Leopard was in hot pursuit right up to the point where USS California dropped anchor off the Columbia bar and waited for the pilot to come out to meet them. That's certainly in keeping with TFSmith's belief that the British would make no preparations for war between December 1861 and April 1862, but it seems a little... unrealistic.

Perhaps the most likely explanation is that TFSmith thinks that Schenck, who had never served on the coast of the Pacific Northwest, had an innate ability to navigate the Columbia river bar because he happens to be an American. This is rather unfortunate, given that Captain Wilkes abandoned his exploration of Puget Sound when USS Penguin was wrecked on the Columbia bar in 1841. Oddly for someone with such a detailed knowledge of the US Navy in this era, TFSmith never mentions this incident when he discusses how 'littoral operations were hazardous in this era in peacetime', highlights 'the risks of littoral operations', or illustrates how 'peacetime operations in littoral warfare was [sic] not without risk'. The incident is, of course, within the 1841-1881 frame of reference which TFSmith set himself. However, in Burnished Rows of Steel, running aground remains a quintessentially British prerogative.

Incidentally, the rather timid Captain Charles 'Keckie' is in fact Captain Charles Leckie, who commanded the Leopard when she was commissioned in October 1862. It's a good job that TFSmith only uses the most reputable official sources to draw up his timeline, otherwise he might make stupid mistakes.

Dis-raeli Bugs Me

 As we have seen many times, TFSmith has no real liking for British politics. It is not an integral part of his story: it is something that gets in the way of him writing the story of the Union victory. This is why we find such easily avoided errors as Sir George Cornewall Lewis acquiring a double-barelled name as Sir George Cornewall-Lewis. It is also the reason why we get passages like the following:

Eyes on the Prize

TFSmith makes great play of his academic credentials, which makes it all the more enjoyable when he reveals that he's fundamentally misunderstood a particular concept. (For an example of this, take his view of the overall balance of trade between Britain and the Union, where circumstances turned out to be the exact opposite of the way he portrayed it). This kind of revelation often comes in the shortest forms: for instance, a single phrase in chapter 11 part 1 reveals that his whole view of the Union commerce raiding operation is built on a horrendous misunderstanding.

The Price of Entry(port)

TFSmith has his fictitious naval historian Irene Musicant deliver a large fraction of the exposition on the blockade. In spite of the heavy repetition employed in these sections, it is nevertheless clear that he must have written much of it - which opens up interesting questions.

Wrecked with inconsistency

In the timeline Burnished Rows of Steel, a number of ships suffer navigational failures and are lost accidentally. However, essentially all of them are British; this is at odds with the real historical record.

Mississippi Burning (2)

In BROS (chapter 4, part 1), the twenty-year old paddle frigate USS Mississippi encounters a British squadron consisting of the four-year-old screw battleship HMS Edgar (89), the five-year-old screw sloop HMS Racoon (22), and the six-year-old ironclad HMS Terror (16). As we already know, Edgar, Racoon and Terror should not be where they are. However, this is in many respects a minor problem, compared to what we discover when we examine the events of the battle in detail.

Rebel without a corps

With TFSmith having already deleted large numbers of British troops, as well as increasing the number of Union troops over the historical amount, it should not be surprising he also tweaks the numbers of the third major combatant - the Confederacy.

The readers are invited to guess which way this one went.

Nom De Guerre

We have discussed many times before the problems with the author's penultimate "Battle of Berthierville" but here I shall touch on very briefly, why the name itself doesn't actually make any sense.

For starters, think of any civil war battle (for that matter any battle) you know of. The name itself is very descriptive of the location it takes place at, or at the very least describes what and where it is. In the Civil War both sides had different naming conventions. The North usually named battles after the closest town, while the South named them after the local river or landmark. Hence you have the Battle of Antietam also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, or Bull Run vs Manassas. They at least describe roughly where the battle took place.

The Battle of Berthierville though, seems to take place anywhere but Berthierville.

Missing Man Formation

During the battle of Berthierville (which has still not been entirely explored) we have several descriptions of the number of troops present at various smaller engagements. We also have a description of the number of troops present for the whole battle.

However, when this is more closely examined, it transpires that there is something important missing.

Caught One Handed

One Hand Behind The Back


TFSmith is fond of the idea that the Union fought the Civil War with "one hand behind its back", a phrase coined by Shelby Foote and repeated by TFSmith something in the vicinity of thirty times in the marginalia.

Examining what Shelby Foote actually meant, however, makes it clear that TFSmith does not understand what was meant - certainly not in the context of the Trent War.

Diplomatic Maneuvering

In the marginila of the TL the author lays out his reasoning on how America "Benefits" the European powers in the era. Saying So, all in all, there would have been reasons for the French, Spanish, Prussians, and the Russians to remain "correctly" neutral in an Anglo-American war in 1862; they all had opportunities that are far more likely the longer the British, especially, are involved in North America. Notice of course how they are stated as remaining "correctly" neutral.

The author has laid out each point numerically, so we shall address them as such.

Block Aid

Or, A Sample of Blockade Actions



We can garner some impression of how TFSmith thinks blockades work from his description of actions around New York.

Niagara Fails

It is sometimes impressive for a knowledgeable reader of Burnished Rows of Steel how many mistakes can be put into a single ship's description. Today, as the title might suggest, we are looking into the US frigate Niagara.

Lakes a-Mercy! (3)

At last - humans!

Lakes a-Mercy! (2)

The purpose of this post was to deal with the human factors of the Lakes war. Unfortunately, in researching it I detected another issue with the material factors which I felt I should pick up on. Rest assured, we'll get to the people in just a moment.

Lakes a-Mercy! (1)

The problems with TFSmith's treatment of the war on the Great Lakes have been touched on briefly, but we will consider them in greater detail in this post (and, based on current expectations, a follow-up).

Colley-wobbles

TFSmith is very keen on 'the realities of time and distance,' as he terms them (here, here, here, here, here, and here). As we are starting to learn, however, he does not always accurately reflect these realities himself. For instance:

Burnished Rows of Steel, chapter 1 part 1 (December 1861)

“Especially with a fire-eater and student of war like yourself in charge, Colley, eh what?” interjected the colonel. “I mean, Pope, here he is at Staff College, half-way through what is supposed to be a two year course in five months,

Lieutenant General Sir William Francis Butler, The life of Sir George Pomeroy-Colley:

'quitting the Cape in January 1862, [he] arrived in England at the end of February to enter the Staff College in March, one month after the usual time of entrance.'

TFSmith's usual excuse when errors of this kind are detected is to argue that his POD is in August 1861. This does just give Colley five months in which he could have attended the Staff College. Unfortunately, as he only took the examination to enter Staff College in September 1861, it implies that Colley teleported from South Africa to Britain and was admitted to the College without sitting any exams part-way through a year.

Of course, even if TFSmith had done enough research to find out when Colley had joined the Staff College, he would probably still have ensured that Colley would have made it to the battlefield. After all, Colley was 'an illustrative case study of the state of British Army professional training and education in the Victorian Era' and 'an exemplar of the professional British Army officer corps' (c.f. here and here).

On My Unbanning

Apologies for the silence over the past few weeks. Needless to say, I'm very grateful for everybody who spoke out in my support. I'm also extremely thankful to Ian for acknowledging that the original decision to ban me was incorrect and reinstating me.

Unfortunately, right around the same time, a pretty sizeable project landed on my desk at work. Although it's not keeping me as busy as it was, I might be pressed for time to contribute to this site over the next month or so. However, even if I can't spare the time for the really sizeable projects, there are some smaller ones that I should be able to write up and post.

As both a thank you for the support, and an apology for the lack of communication, I thought I'd post some of my detailed research for others to use. I've talked previously about my lists of ship positions, so here they are:

Royal Navy ship positions as at 5 January 1862

Union Navy ship positions as at 26 January 1862

The dates may seem arbitrary, but they're intended to be a little before the Cabinet confirmation of the decision to go to war (in the case of the Royal Navy) and the news arriving in America (in the case of the Union). Where it's possible to do so, I've extended the timeframe to allow for the delay in notifying some of the more distant stations.

As you can tell, these have focused on ship positions rather than the minutiae of armament and captains. They're very much a work in progress, but there's enough information present in them already to make them useful. Perhaps most importantly, it's almost all based on the kind of evidence that TFSmith dismisses as worthless. I hope you find it as useful as I have.

West Pointless

We have seen previously that TFSmith likes West Point, to the extent of staffing the Union army with West Point graduates who happpened to be insane, or who publicly expressed regret that McClellan had not led a military coup to overthrow the Lincoln administration and rescind the Emancipation Proclamation. How far does this admiration for military education go? Let's find out.

Mississippi Burning (1)

In chapter 4 part 1, the USS Mississippi engages a British squadron. I intend to do a fuller post to explore the problems with this battle, but in the meantime I have a request for your assistance. I simply can't make head or tail of what's going on: can you help?

On My Banning

This isn't a personal blog, but I thought it best to provide a quick explanation of the current situation. Long story short: I recently got banned from AH.com. The reasons given for this were:

• I was the sock-puppet of a banned member
• I created an offsite blog in collaboration with neoConfederate banned members in order to nitpick the work of others
• I constantly attack people who disagree with me
• I was dragging threads off-topic

In response, I argued that:

• I am not the sock-puppet of a banned member
• None of the three contributors to this blog were banned, and none (to my knowledge) are neoConfederates
• We confirmed with Ian the Admin that it was acceptable to create this blog before creating it
• In a year on the site I had a single kick, received just under a month ago.
• Since that kick, I had not spoken to the member who felt that I was being unduly harsh to them. I have also pre-emptively disengaged from many other members with whom I am well aware that I disagree.
• I did not think that my contributions were particularly off-topic given that the posts before mine had been discussing Woodrow Wilson's presidency and the motivations behind unrestricted submarine warfare.

The admins conceded these points, but at the moment it doesn't seem that they intend to reverse my ban. Understandably, this leaves me somewhat nonplussed. I didn't contribute to the site's donation drive because I thought soliciting money from members was inconsistent with the site's 'my house, my rules' moderation policy. However, I don't get any pleasure from being proved right in this way.

I don't intend to make this a long, self-justifying screed, but I do feel the need to respond to one point made in the thread after my departure. Galveston Bay claimed that ' It would not be hard for me to find numerous examples of sarcastic mean spirited posts directed specifically at me and others in any thread on this topic going back at least 3 years made by him.' I suspect it would be remarkably difficult to find three years of such posts, as I only joined the site on 6 June 2016. My join date appears in the header of every single post I have made, so I struggle to explain his confusion on this point.

Unfortunately, there isn't any advice I can give to those who wish to avoid my fate (other than 'don't talk about the Trent Affair'). I do, however, wish you all the best of luck in your continued interactions on the board. Normal service will now be resumed.

Naval Gazing (2)

Having thoroughly - perhaps too thoroughly - considered TFSmith's usage of sources, we will now learn some of the mistakes they lead him to make in the positioning of ships.

Naval Gazing (1)

In an unrelated discussion thread, TFSmith explained his methodology for researching ship locations:

‘Do a search for "The Navy List" for the appropriate years (1861, 1862, whatever) on Google Books. They have all been scanned in; aside from the occasional finger, they are pretty amazing images, and - depending on your version of Acrobat - are searchable. If not, the indexes are completely accurate.

 The Navy List was published annually, even quarterly; assignments of ships (whether active, in reserve/ordinary, building, etc.) and the officers of the ships in commission are included, along with flag officers and their staffs for all the various fleets, squadrons, and detachments.’

Like his explanation of his economic model for the war, this is very helpful: it allows us to explain exactly where he goes wrong.

A warning to readers: this particular post may itself be accused of navel-gazing, as it considers in detail why TFSmith's use of sources is so misguided. If that doesn't interest you, you can ignore this post and wait for the follow-up, which deals with some of the things he's actually got wrong.

Shubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut'

Outside the TL, TFSmith has expressed his belief that 'the US has a gunboat there [on Puget Sound] that is the equal of Grappler'. We know what he intends this gunboat to be:

'the only American ship of any significance on the Sound was the Revenue Service sidewheel gunboat USRC Shubrick (2), which had helped evacuate the small Army contingent on San Juan Island and then fled south toward Olympia.'

Why is the equation between Shubrick and Grappler, when the British had two gunboats permanently stationed in Puget Sound? More importantly, why is it so wrong?

HMS Grappler:

• 1 68pdr (8in) smoothbore muzzle-loader
• 1 32pdr (6.4in) smoothbore muzzle-loader
• 2 24pdr (5.82in) smoothbore muzzle-loading howitzer

USRC Shubrick:

• 1 24pdr (5.82in) Dahlgren muzzle-loading howitzer
• 1 12pdr (4.62in) Dahlgren smoothbore muzzle-loading howitzer

Even if Grappler landed both her main guns, she would still outgun Shubrick and would also have the advantage of screw propulsion over paddle. So how is Shubrick ‘the equal of Grappler, at least’?

Bonus: The image of Shubrick which TFSmith posted here comes from the USCG page. Right click the image, select properties, and it informs you that the address is:

proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uscg.mil%2Fhistory%2Fimg%2FShubrick1857sm.jpg&hash=a97d7de9ad9a33fef89c85db7affed78

This persumably means that TFSmith has read the page, and knows that Shubrick carries only two howitzers. So why did he ever claim that it was the equal of Grappler?

Yankee Catholic

The author has long claimed that the Canadien population was a hotbed of anti-British sentiment merely waiting in the wings to rise up against the British rule. Of course, with the repeated failures to do so in 1775, 1812, or even 1866, one has cause to doubt the author's cocksure proclamations.

What the author repeatedly seems to fail to realize is that the populace of Canada East (modern Quebec) was predominantly, rural, traditional, and deeply Catholic. In fact here's a brief sketch the author paints of the region:

Although the country people were devout Catholics and deeply conservative, the prewar connections with the States made a difference when war broke out in April; very few of the sedentary militia had responded with enthusiasm to their call-ups, and the percentage of Canadiens in the volunteers – always low since the force’s organization in 1855 as an Anglophone-dominated service, with many traditions drawn from the units that had helped put down the 1837 and 1838 rebellions - had not risen significantly. The reality of how the war began, with the failed British attack at Rouse’s Point, had done even less to carry French Canada to the cause; unlike 50 years earlier, the Americans had not attacked first, and there were already thousands of men of Canadien extraction in the U.S. forces by the winter of 1861-62. 

The subsequent months of crisis and then war had split Francophone Canada, as it had split the Anglophone community in the Province; for every ultramontane like Étienne-Paschal Taché, who declared his loyalty to the crown publicly from the steps of Notre-Dame de Québec - with the archbishop in attendance - and tried to rally the militia where the British flag still flew, there was a patriote like Louis-Joseph Papineau, pursuing the age-old dream of “Canadien” nationalism and rallying his followers, in many cases under the green-white-red tricolor of the ’37 rising. As in any such situation, the vast majority of the French-speaking population of the Province, some 900,000 men, women, and children, living largely in the historically French territory of Lower Canada, also known as the Canada East District, wanted little more than to be left alone. The realities of war, however, forced increasing numbers of Canadiens – and, for that matter, Anglophones whose community showed similar divisions between English and Irish, town and country – to make a decision.

California Dreaming (5)

Welcome to the final section of this mammoth examination of the British assault on San Francisco. If you'd like, check out parts 1, 2, 3,or 4; alternatively, press on for the epic conclusion.

California Dreaming (4)

For reasons of length, what was intended to be the final part of this examination has been split into two halves. Apologies if this seems like dragging it out! I didn't originally think the whole thing would take more than two posts. However, not only did there prove to be more wrong with the TL than I'd anticipated, but showing what was wrong needed more words and sources than I'd anticipated.

This first half (part 4) will deal with the remainder of the battle at sea, and the second (part 5) will deal with the landing. Although I don't think you need to review the previous sections to understand this one, you're more than welcome to do so: check out parts 1, 2 or 3, or the section dealing with the Pacific Northwest.

Cross-Country Rally

For the purposes of Burnished Rows of Steel, TFSmith has created what he terms 'ralliers': men who sat out the Civil War, but would be only too ready to join a war against the British. His usage of these 'ralliers' reveals the simplistic jingoism which underlies his entire treatment of the conflict. In many cases, it also shows the superficial nature of his research, and how he lacks either the drive or the intellectual curiosity to glean more than the most facile and basic understanding of the people he uses as pawns.

Greater Scott!

A while ago, we learned that TFSmith believed that General Winfield Scott was on some sort of secret espionage mission for the Union during his time convalescing in Paris. We also learned that this belief, like many others held by TFSmith, was complete nonsense.

Since the publication of that article, a significant fact has come to my attention. Not only did Scott fail to meet Napoleon III during his brief time in Paris, but when news of the Trent Affair arrived he scuttled back to the United States so hastily that it threw out all the US minister's arrangements:

'General Scott will have arrived in the United States doubtless before this despatch; will you say to him that I last evening received a note from Mr Thouvenel, naming two o'clock to-day to receive him; at which hour I attended at the foreign office and returned his thanks, &c. Mr Thouvenel was quite disappointed at not seeing him, and said that the Emperor had promptly assented to give him a private interview. I explained at the same time that his departure for his own country had been sudden and unexpected.' (William L. Dayton, US Minister to France, to William H. Seward, Secretary of State, 11 December 1861)

Can we detect a hint of thinly-veiled anger in Dayton's message? It would be entirely understandable if we did. After all, he had taken the trouble to arrange a meeting for Scott with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, only for Scott to high-tail it back to the States at the first threat of war. This was not just a personal insult to Thouvenel, at a time when the Union needed all the friends it could find. It also made the Union's representative to Paris look like a buffoon, and the Union's most prominent military figure of the past half century look like a coward.

Either Scott had no mission in Paris, or he lost his head and threw away his only chance to complete it. Which is the more likely?

This means "War".

It is often the case that a topic which appears to contain errors in Burnished Rows of Steel will, once examined a second time, turn out to have more errors than originally believed.

The declaration of war is one such. We have already examined how it is extremely delayed, and how the British ultimatum was allowed to expire. But even on the simple topic of the legal declaration itself TFSmith makes more than a few mistakes.

Dole, not coal

TFSmith is fairly positive about the industrial capacity of San Francisco:

'home of the Benicia Arsenal, Mare Island Navy Yard, and Union Iron Works, among other industrial facilities' (1)
'the most strongly defended and most economically developed bastion on the Pacific Rim in 1861-62, in BROS or outside of it; the realities and resources of the Benicia Arsenal, Mare Island Navy Yard, Union Iron Works, Fort Point, the Presidio, etc. are head and shoulders above the next closest, which is probably Callao' (2)
possessing 'an integrated industrial center (Benicia, Mare Island, Union Ironworks, and the Mint, for example)' (3)
'the Mother Lode and Comstock pretty much forced a level of industrialization - commercial and military - that included what became Union Iron Works in San Francisco proper, and both Mare Island and Benicia Arsenal farther up the east bay, and there was plenty of manpower, horsepower, timber, and livestock in California' (4)

Unfortunately, there is one thing that TFSmith never mentions in the course of these discussions: coal. Of the 99,818 tons of coal brought into San Francisco in 1861, 42,403 tons came from British possessions. A further 16,183 tons came from Oregon, and regrettably (as we have already seen) the Union has no railway to transport the coal and no ships left to escort coal convoys down the coast, even if Britain hadn't been blockading Puget Sound already. The domestic coal supply in California consisted only of 2,662 tons from the Cumberland company, which produces soft low-quality bituminous coal.

This coal is not just needed to forge iron for armour plates or to power the now-mastless ships of the Pacific Fleet. As per Rebels at the Gate, Captain Jeremy Francis Gilmer reported that 'The climate of San Francisco is a peculiar one, the summer months being often quite as cold as the early spring and fall... it is impossible to do business in any office in San Francisco during May June July August and September without fires.' However, we are never given any indication that the interruption of British coal imports has any effect on the industrial capacity of California, let alone that tens of thousands of civilians are burning whatever wood can be found to stay warm, or that large sections of Californian manpower are diverted into the mining industry in order to supply the deficiency.

Why does this matter? Let's compare. In chapter 15, part 1, we are told of the effect that the interruption of American wheat supplies has on Britain:

ending trade with the United States, although it had provided a surfeit of southern cotton to an already saturated market, had substantially reduced the import of wheat and corn to the United Kingdom. Although the supplies could be made up from sources in Europe, including Russia, costs were high and prices had increased in Britain and Ireland, adding yet more stress to the poor and laboring classes, with consequences as yet unknown. Palmerston’s opponents in Parliament, even the Conservatives, were willing to raise the issue, and protests had occurred in the poorest counties in Ireland and Scotland. Irish peers, among others, had raised the issue of the famine, and the possibility of rioting was understood to be very real, especially in the depth of the winter of 1862-63

US wheat amounted to 40% of the British supply at this time: despite finding alternate sources, the British suffer cost increases and is on the verge of famine and riots. British coal amounted to 40% of San Francisco's supply: there are no problems, and indeed California can ramp up its industrial production over OTL. Perhaps the Conestoga wagons being used to carry gold bullion from California to the east are carrying coal on the return journey.

California Dreaming (3)

We have seen the unrealism that permeates the descriptions of San Francisco's defences and the troops available to man those defences. This post will consider the British plans for reducing those defences, which will hopefully lead us on to our final post dealing with the actual course of the battle.

It's Always Sunny In Mexico II

In the story Mexico and the Southwest in general seem to be a land of convenience for the author. As we last saw, here the United States very ahistorically begins to devote significant resources to coaxing the French out of Mexico on a very unfavorable deal. Now though, as the story rolls into 1863, the author feels Mexico should get more credit than it did historically.

We open now, to what is apparently known as the "Rio Grande Campaign", let's watch as the author turns a sideshow into yet another advanced win for the Union:

'Lee-ve it aht, Rodney'

Burnished Rows of Steel, Chapter 9, Part 3:

Grant’s chief topographical officer, Captain Thomas Jefferson Lee, who despite his relatively low rank, was among Grant’s most valuable staff officers on the Saint Lawrence. Lee was one of those individuals – not unlike Wolseley – who would strike an observer as improbably well-suited for the task at hand.Born to American parents in 1808 in Bordeaux, Lee was fluent in French. Appointed to West Point in 1826, he graduated in 1830 and served in the artillery, engineers, and topographical engineers over the course of a 30-year-long career, including duty in Europe, service as an aide to Winfield Scott, and, most notably, with the international boundary surveys on the northern frontier in the 1840s and of the Great Lakes in the 1850s. Lee retired in 1855, but when the Anglo-American crisis came to a boil in the winter of 1861-62, he offered his services. Lee returned to the colors and had played significant roles in the crossing of the Niagara, at Limestone Ridge, and the siege of Kingston; he was ably assisted by his deputy, Lt. George W. Rose, class of 1852, another “rallier” – a Detroit merchant, Rose had served with Lee on the Survey of Northwestern Lakes and knew Upper and Lower Canada as well as any British officer. Both men were examples of the resources the Anglo-American conflict had brought into the field for the Americans, resources which in a solely civil conflict might never have appeared

Notice that we are not told that Lee never saw combat, as we would be if Lee were British. TFsmith presumably thought that 'service as an aide to Winfield Scott' would con his readers into thinking that service came during the Mexican-American War. Or perhaps he really doesn't understand what aides do. However, take particular notice of that last sentence:

Both men were examples of the resources the Anglo-American conflict had brought into the field for the Americans, resources which in a solely civil conflict might never have appeared 

Thomas Jefferson Lee's biography explains that he was 'employed on the Coast Survey, 1861‑62' and 'by the Bureau of Topographical Engineers, 1862‑63'. His obituary specifies further that his service in the latter capacity was 'in connection with the defences of Washington'.

In BROS, some of the country's few trained military officers are drafted out of the Coast Survey and the Topographical Engineers, and into staff roles with armies in the field. However, this transfer of personnel has no effect on the Union's ability to defend its coastlines or its northern border with Canada, despite this task requiring the construction of vast numbers of submarine obstacles, earthen land batteries, and masonry forts which the country had been unable to complete in peacetime. Nor does Lee's absence from the Washington defences matter, as the Confederates sit and do nothing while the Union transfer vast numbers of troops north - how very fortunate.

Once again, that hand behind the Union's back turns out to have been in use after all.

California Dreaming (2)

It's been a while since we last looked at California. If you want to remind yourself what was wrong with the land defences, check out the previous post. You may also want to check out the problems with the Pacific Northwest, as California is used to boost the numbers there.

Otherwise, let's press on.

Norfolk'in sense

At a late point in the timeline, TFSmith goes back to explain exactly how the Union attack on Portsmouth Navy Yard took place. At previous points it has been described as the Union "storming" ashore and taking the Navy Yard, and as Burnside landing at an abandoned Navy Yard to destroy the Virginia.

As it turns out, it is both. There is so much wrong with the way Norfolk and environs are handled that it is hard to put it all down.

Assault and Battery

During chapter 8 part 2, we are told offhand that "Cochrane’s ironclads and mortar ships opened yet another bombardment of Portland’s battered forts" (on August 20)

The image this conveys is of the forts stoutly resisting bombardment that has been going on since June (when the landing took place) without being sufficiently reduced to allow the British into the harbour itself.
In fact, this would be very difficult indeed.

A Shipfull Of Soldiers

Even now, not all of the problems with the landing at Portland have been examined. We will now look into another new one - the simple matter of ship count.

Quod Erat Defendendus

"That was what was to be defended".




If there is one part of Burnished Rows of Steel which is more blatant than any other, it is the total lack of British or Canadian preparations for war (particularly when contrasted with the way the Union spends several months making preparations, including some they would have to have started before the OTL climbdown).

Clear The Way

Of the many engagements in which US troops defeat British ones (spoiler: almost all of them) one deserves examination for what it tells us about TFSmith's idea of tactics - at least, tactics employed by the British - and of the relative quality of infantry.

A Bridge Too Few - bridges and river crossings

Startling as it may seem, TFSmith manages to take the relatively niche topic of crossing a river and foul it up in new and interesting ways.

The War in Canada East

Now we have extensively examined the campaigning in Canada East before. However, there are some interesting facts to bear in mind which effect even those considerations.

What I intend to look at here is the progress of the campaign from its opening at Rouse Point, up till the Battle of Berthierville in September, and all that happens in between.

Ahead By A Century

At numerous places in Burnished Rows of Steel the author displays a dizzying lack of understanding of the tactics or logistical constrains of 19th century warfare.

An excellent number of examples exist in the TL for how the author doesn't quite grasp how armies and battles were carried out. Most interestingly, the Battle of Berthierville, his supposed "realistic" example of what it would look like when a Union army confronted a British army in 1862.

Centreville Cannot Hold

In Chapter 7 Part 1 we come to the great dust up between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. Now one would expect an author who self-professes to know much about American history and military history could deliver an exciting battle with an interesting twist on historic events.

Sadly, in this case we can expect the exact opposite.

Delayed Reaction Time

As discussed before, the author has a weird way of telling time in this story. He consciously slows down one side despite any evidence to the contrary, but then slows down events in general as well. The main reason for this seems to be the somewhat inefficient means the author has chosen to try and convey the great events and scope of this story. That method is to tell each chapter as a single month in time, then immediately move on to the next month. Not a horrible way of doing things, but it creates genuinely weird situations where military operations begin exactly on the first of a month or end exactly at the end of one, something that doesn't really happen in real life.

This fact also prevents any real attempt at describing things in depth as the author seems loathe to play catch up unless taking time to detail events in the past he feels relevant, which are more usually distractions from actually describing plot related events.

We also see that the author delays certain events for narrative convenience.

For instance look at the Battle of Berthierville. Despite Montreal falling at the start of May, with British forces on the St. Lawrence and reinforcements arriving and Grant's army not moving overland until July, with the fall of Kingston the entire front remains static until the end of September. Similarly Lee's great offensive against Washington takes place exactly on October 1st, much like the American invasion of Canada takes place on May 1st, and the British landings in Maine take place on June 1st.

This is a very obvious, and somewhat annoying pattern. Other than many of these dates the author doesn't provide many other dates and so we never get a very tight idea of when things are happening in this story, and are more often than not left guessing or filling in blanks.

So if you ever find yourself scratching your head over when something is happening or why there is a delay, you can thank the author for picking a very confusing narrative style.

One Front, Two Front, Red Front, Blue Front

TFSmith is fond of stating, in both marginalia and timeline, that a two front war is bad news for the participants of such, and that the Trent war is a two-front war for one of the participants.

Unfortunately, and bizarrely, it is not the Union who suffer this penalty.

False by Northwest

TFSmith's representation of the campaign in the Pacific Northwest is perfectly in line with the rest of the timeline. He fabricates a Union victory, largely through disguising the truth where necessary and distorting it where possible. Fortunately, working through the timeline gives a true appreciation of the potential weakness of the Union position in the actual course of a Trent War.

That Dog Won't Barque

The Union Navy of the Civil War was unquestionably an impressive achievement, expanding from small to large and managing (after some initial teething problems) to establish a blockade across a large coastline.
However, TFSmith (as is customary) has to greatly exaggerate the real scale of the achievement, thus making it seem like building a large modern navy was quick, easy and inexpensive - and that the Union could quickly surpass the British.

Camping it up

When TFSmith describes the Army of New Brunswick, he notes that its brigadiers 'all had distinguished careers, connections with Horse Guards, the Palace, or both'. However, these men were not picked by the British government: they were picked by TFSmith. So did the British historically use similar criteria to TFSmith when it came to selecting officers for active service? Let's find out.

Great Scott!

Burnished Rows of Steel, Chapter 1 part iii (dated 27 December 1861):

“Thank you, Seward. You have done very well in trying times,” the president said. “Any word from our friends in Europe?”

“The last report I received is that Gen. Scott and Mr. Weed have been well-received in Paris; the general’s reminiscences about his service in Mexico have been very well received,” Seward responded, levelly. “They were to depart for Potsdam imminently; in addition, Brigadier General Harney has joined the delegation and was to leave for Petersburg the same day"

TFSmith, 7 August 2014:

that fact that Winfield Scott just "happens" to have been sent to Paris historically in the winter of 1861-62 is a little too convenient...

TFSmith,  21 June 2014:

I find the fact that no one less than Winfield Scott ended up in Paris in the winter of 1861-62 (along with Archbishop Hughes, McIlvain, etc.) particularly interesting - it may have simply been for his health, but given the general situation, somehow I doubt it...

TFSmith, 25 May 2014:

As far as France goes, Quebec is one of those issues that I find rarely gets covered in the "NIII would support the British in the event of an Anglo-American War" concept; perhaps, but the question is what would he ask for in return?

We know, obviously, it would be for a free hand in Mexico; one wonders what else might have been discussed in this period - the fact that Winfield Scott was (historically) in Paris in the winter of 1861-62 has always struck me as one of those coincidences that seems a little too helpful to have simply been coincidence.

TFSmith, 17 February 2014:

'Didn't know he was in Paris'
Yep - interesting, isn't it?

Officially, simply to join Mrs. Scott, who had been in Europe for several months because of her health.

The general embarked Nov. 9, with his daughter and son in law; same ship that Thurlow Weed (who was sent to serve as Lincoln's plenipotentiary in Europe)...they got to LeHavre in late November, and then set up shop in Paris, where the general consulted with Weed and John Bigelow, the US consul, and (among other things) sent a series of letters affirming Franco-American and Anglo-American friendship to various worthies and newspapers...

Entirely coincidental, I'm sure.

Makes one wonder what else was going on, doesn't it?

TFSmith, 16 February 2014:

interestingly enough, Paris was exactly where Scott was in the winter of 1861-62 (historically); makes one wonder what he had to say to "L'Impereur"...

I would never be so cynical as to suggest Lincoln et al suggested anything to the French, but the timing is really interesing, isn't it?

In Agent of Destiny, JSD Eisenhower mentions the general's work in smoothing over the (historical) Trent Affair, but he doesn't mention anything else Scott may have had to say in Paris that winter...

J.S.D Eisenhower, Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott (1997), pp.401-2:

But Scott did not foresee that the issue would blow over. Fearing the British might close the sea lanes to American shipping, he sailed for home on the return voyage of the Arago, leaving Cornelia and her husband in Paris to be near Maria. The general arrived back in New York on December 26 1861, only about six weeks or so having departed... Soon after his return from Europe, he called on his friends in Washington to inquire discreetly whether his services might be needed there in any capacity. They were not. He therefore settled down in New York City.

At least some of TFSmith's misunderstanding seems to be based on his shoddy research. Scott did not send 'a series of letters': he signed a single letter at the instigation of the US consul in Paris, who drafted the letter for him, and who subsequently 'had the letter... immediately translated and copies despatched to the principal morning and evening papers in Paris, and copies in English to the London papers'. If Scott was sent to meet Napoleon, he had no opportunity to do so: Napoleon III was at the Chateau de Compiegne, 50 miles outside Paris, where he would remain for the duration of Scott's brief stay in France.

Yet TFSmith also flagrantly distorts events. He claims that Scott left on 9 November, the day after the Trent Affair: however, he must also know that Scott had arrived in New York to start planning the trip on 2 November. He must also know that Scott had left Paris when war threatened - indeed, that he was back in the US at the point TFSmith has him travelling to Potsdam - and that on his return he asked the government if there was any service he could render. Why would Scott do this if he had been given a mission in Europe by the Union government?

The simple answer is that there was no mission. Scott went to Paris to convalesce alongside his sick wife, was dragooned into an impromptu public relations scheme, and returned home when war threatened to break out. There was no Union master-plan, no devious contingency scheme worked out by Lincoln and Seward, no 4D chess involving Mexico. It is a figment of TFSmith's over-active imagination, fuelled by equal measures of bias and ignorance.

Imbalance of trade

TFSmith was kind enough to lay out his model for the economic balance of a Trent War.

Economic costs are huge to both sides, but the British, ultimately are losing $5 in sales to the US for every $3 in purchases from the US

This is particularly kind, because it enables us to show how fundamentally wrong his understanding is.

Mormon Wisdom

The Mormons (or the Church of the Latter Day Saints) appears in Burnished Rows of Steel, largely in minor roles. As is now ISO standard, TFSmith heavily tweaks things to make everything appear better for the Union.

California Dreaming (1)

In Chapter 7, part 2, TFSmith has the British attack San Francisco. As might be expected, the British are humiliatingly defeated, at the cost of three ships (Bacchante, Devastation, Hecate) and 'more than half' of the 67th Regiment. Many of the problems with this battle are common to the rest of the timeline- for instance, the beloved 'mastless chainclads' make an appearance. Instead, this series of articles focuses on the problems specific to this battle.

Strongarming Armstrong

Even in matters as specific as the establishment of British regular artillery, TFSmith makes many mistakes.

The Siege of Quebec Part II

Last time, we discussed the logistic absurdities of Grant's army advancing 70 miles in the dead of winter (or 160 miles in Van Renesslaer's case) to the British lines at Quebec. This miraculous feat of logistics takes place with precisely zero trouble for the Union, and every effort of the British inexplicably fails.

The Union arrives in front of Pt. Levis across the river from Quebec on January 18th however (and if you think that date is coincidental I have some swampland in Ontario for you to buy). They immediately begin siege operations:

After the unsuccessful attack January 22nd by Brown’s British division as Wright’s division crossed the Chaudière, the work of the regular siege began. Sherman’s troops occupied the right, starting from the river at Savage’s Cove, Ord the center, and Thomas Sherman’s the left on the Chaudiere, holding the road south to Saint Apollinaire. The XV Corps headquarters were at Ville-Guay, with divisions under Sheridan, Reynolds, and Crocker; those of the VIII Corps (VanRensselaer, Morris, and Totten) at St. Henry; and the X Corps (Wright, Brannan, Sturgis) at Charny. Wood’s cavalry corps, with divisions under Buford and Ruff, operated up the railroad toward Riviere du Loup and then into the backcountry; McCook’s XII Corps (Negley, Ammen, Turchin) held the south side of the river.

The Siege of Quebec Part I

In Chapter 15 Part 2, we come to what is evidently supposed to be the penultimate moment of triumph of the Union against Britain in the war in Canada. That is of course, the capture of the citadel of Quebec in Quebec City by Grant's Army of the Saint Lawrence.

There is of course some preamble to discuss in the campaign leading up to it.

The first section comes from Chapter 12 Part 2:

Blockade (II): Refit and Repair

At various points both in the text and marginalia of Burnished Rows of Steel, TFSmith asserts that the Royal Navy does not have enough ships to sustain a long-term blockade of the Union. In one case he makes it explicit, saying that:

The RN's strength is such that they can assemble the blockading force Milne wanted, but that takes a majority of the RN's steam frigates, corvettes, and sloops - and they cannot relieve those ships 1 for 1, for example, after however many months of sea duty on blockade (much less maintain those on the "peacetime" stations). There aren't enough ships in the RN to do so, period, end of story, even recomissioning ships in reserve.

This is quite a major claim, not least because TFSmith's blockade requirement figures are very inflated. (Milne requested about sixty-five ships, not the 106 TFSmith claims are required, and one reading of his 65 ship request is that it allows for ships to be off-station.) But the more interesting analysis is the question of relieving ships on station.

Blockade (I): Stationary Stations

One of the inevitable results of an Anglo-American war between 1776 and about 1930 is the establishment of some form of blockade of the USA. This does happen in Burnished Rows of Steel, but - as expected - the author is terribly unclear about what is going on, and when he is not simply ignoring the Royal Navy he is misrepresenting them.

Steampunk

The period from 1850 to 1870 featured a riot of invention and development in military matters, in every country with a modern military. The Union was no exception, but it is a common feature of American Exceptionalism that the Union is portrayed as the font of all technological development - even when this would involve cheating.


TFSmith's habit of rarely mentioning the type or calibre of guns makes it hard to spot where cheating is taking place – hard, but not impossible. The below is a textbook example.

The Powhatan Project (3)

In unimaginatively repackaging Alabama's career as that of the USS Powhatan, TFSmith also replicates the two battles in which Alabama engaged: the first the sinking of the USS Hatteras, and the second Alabama's own defeat against the USS Kearsarge. Unfortunately, the lazy reworking causes many problems: TFSmith either did not notice these, or did not care.

The Powhatan Project (2)

TFSmith's decision to copy and paste the Alabama's career into the Powhatan's creates a number of problems. We will explore each of these problems in turn, but before we do so please bear in mind the circumstances: Alabama historically captured 60 ships in 21 months, and Powhatan is described as catching 30 ships in 14 months. In other words, Powhatan is only 25% less effective than Alabama as a commerce raider.

The Powhatan Project (1)

This is the closing paragraph of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships’ entry on the CSS Alabama:

In her 21-month cruise to the four corners of the globe, ALABAMA wrought havoc among United States merchant shipping, taking more than 60 prizes valued at nearly $6,000,000. The most famous of the Confederate cruisers, her capture caused the Federal Navy Department to divert warships from the blockade to intercepting positions at focal points on the world's trade routes. Northern shipowners were compelled to delay sailings to pay increased maritime insurance premiums and in many cases, to transfer ships to foreign registry. ALABAMA’s exploits buoyed the morale of the South during some of its darkest days, and wrote a chapter of daring in the brief history of the Confederate States Navy.

This is TFSmith’s DANFS entry on the USS Powhatan:

In her 14-month cruise to the four corners of the globe, Powhatan wrought havoc among British merchant shipping, taking more than 30 prizes valued at nearly $3,000,000. The most famous of the American cruisers, her captures caused the Admiralty to divert warships from the blockade or convoy duty to intercepting positions at focal points on the world's trade routes, and raised many questions from members of Parliament, notably from Disraeli’s Conservatives, with ties to the City of London’s financial interests. British shipowners were compelled to delay sailings, to pay increased maritime insurance premiums, and, in many cases, to transfer ships to foreign registry. Powhatan's exploits wrote a chapter of daring in the history of the United States Navy.

Once again, a quick find-and-replace acts as a substitute for originality. However, in lazily translating the Alabama’s career to the Powhatan, TFSmith creates a vast number of flaws and errors. We will deal with some of these in a series of future articles, but one short problem may as well be pointed out here.

Powhatan’s prizes are given the same average value as Alabama’s. However, these speculative prizes include ‘a dozen fishing vessels from the Maritimes’, which amount for a third of Powhatan's total captures. These are a proxy for the sixteen whaling ships which CSS Alabama captured, which represented 25% of her overall captures. Yet even a moment's thought will show that there is almost no comparison between the two types of ship, other than in the delusions of TFSmith.

The whalers Alabama captured were often returning after several years cruising, carrying three hundred and forty, four hundred and twenty five, and even eleven hundred barrels of oil at c.33 gallons per barrel. Even if they ships carried no whalebone, and only the cheapest whale oil valued at 44.875c per gallon, their cargoes were worth between five thousand and sixteen thousand dollars. These were sums beyond even the wildest dreams of a fisherman. Moreover, the whalers themselves were much more expensive ships than fishing vessels, which were small vessels, and often built locally in the Maritimes from fast-decaying softwood. Put simply, there was considerable capital tied up in a whaling voyage, and very little in a fishing boat. Yet TFSmith deems both types of capture to be of equivalent value.

This lack of critical thought, the complete failure of the author to question whether what he is writing makes sense, permeates not just the section about the Powhatan but the entire timeline.

Riband for her pleasure

We are told-  more than once, as it happens- that:

the damage the cruisers the U.S. commissioned in the spring of 1862, many of them fast side-wheel merchant steamers, including a couple of Blue Riband holders, had been bad enough.

However, even the most cursory research- using no source other than Wikipedia- will demonstrate that this is a lie.

Irene Musi-can't

We have already seen how TFSmith didn't bother to hide his own authorial voice when providing what purports to be a text from his alternate timeline, Irene Musicant's Contested Waters: A Naval History of the Anglo-American War (HarperCollins, New York, 1995). Unfortunately, he grew too lazy to be bothered to write original text for the book. Vast sections of text are copied and pasted into chapter twenty, with the author relying on his readers to be too lazy to identify the duplication.

Unfortunately for TFSmith, as the mission statement of this blog makes clear, we do uncover this kind of cheating.

Hurry All To Sea

In the April chapter, TFSmith states:

Wilkes broke his flag aboard Boston, which joined the steam sloops San Jacinto (12) and Wachusett (10) in commission, along with six of the new screw steamers known as “90 day gunboats” – Aroostook, Chocura, Huron, Marblehead, Penobscot, and Sagamore, each with five guns – and seven of the new sidewheel “double-enders,” the Conemaugh, Genesee, Mahaska, Maratanza, Sebago, Sonoma, and Tioga, each with eight guns. Four more steam sloops under construction – Ossipee, Housatonic, Canandaigua, and Sacramento - were being converted to broadside ironclad gunboats, along the lines of Boston; in addition, two ironclad turret gunboats, Nahant and Nantucket, modeled on Ericson’s Monitor, were under construction and being rushed forward. Various merchant steamers and fast steam launches were available for conversion as well, as rams or spar torpedo boats if nothing else, and those were going ahead. In addition, a number of cruisers had set out from New England’s ports as commerce raiders, to join those already at sea; 20 of them, a mix of warships and converted merchantmen, were operating in the Atlantic by the end of the month.

Quite apart from the previously discussed issue with the incredibly fast conversion of the Boston (which has been converted in less time than it took the British to sail reinforcements across the Atlantic in BROS) the list of secondary ships has many problems.

Sloop and sloop – what is sloop?

In various places, TFSmith makes it clear he does not know what ship classes mean in the context of the Royal Navy.






First, a quick description of the real definitions.

Worthless noting

As we have seen, if TFSmith thinks the British are in danger of gaining an advantage, he quickly takes action to correct this. In most cases, this simply involves making a proportion of the British force vanish. For instance, regular British battalions discover urgent commitments at home while both the British and Canadian militia are handwaved into non-existence. Naturally, this technique is also adopted elsewhere: most of a British MP's description of the Army of the Potomac is mysteriously lost, the St Lawrence takes a brief holiday so that Union troops can attack Montreal, and the considerable levels of contemporary racism in the North seem to be missing. However, the Royal Navy is by no means immune to the effects of this phenomenon.

Flank Stupidity

Which of the two following plans seems most sensible to you?

If the fact that the British adopt plan B at Rouse's Point surprises you, then you may want to go away and read more of this blog. If it doesn't, and you'd like to understand how little sense their whole plan makes when subjected to careful thought, then you're in the right place.

Ultimatum ain't what it used to be

By no means the first error in the timeline, but one of the most entertaining, comes when TFSmith has the Union accidentally reject the British ultimatum.

Of course, he does not notice this.

Hawaii How Are You?

In Burnished Rows of Steel we learn two important things about Britain expanding its empire in this period. One is that they must raise more troops but not deploy them sufficiently. Two is that in order to carry out a campaign against the West Coast of the United States, they must occupy Hawaii.

Shenandoah your working

After several months of total inactivity in the Eastern Theatre of the Civil War, the first major engagement that takes place east of the Appalachians is the Battle of Kernstown, between “Stonewall” Jackson (CSA) and Fitz John Porter (USA).



Needless to say (for anyone who has noticed the pattern) it is a flawed battle in terms of description and execution.

Comanche bro

Again in Chapter 13 we find convenience after convenience. Firstly we discover that the Union has made an advance well beyond what they had in 1862 historically. For instance they have raised "the U.S. mobilized in the Southwest: some 4,900 from Colorado, 6,600 from New Mexico, and 1,100 each from Nevada and Utah, almost 14,000 in total." But it should strike everyone that this number seems a tad inflated.

For instance, only Nevada raised some 1,100 volunteers. But those were raised in 1863, and 1864 respectively. The infantry battalion only ever reached 3 companies! Utah by contrast didn't even muster Volunteers, instead the government trusted the Mormons so little they ordered men from California to occupy the state. Colorado it seems has just had the author take the total number of men mustered historically and put it on (without explaining where they get the weapons that allowed them to be armed in late 1862-63) while doing the same for New Mexico.

Do the Anaconda (or not)

In various points during Burnished Rows of Steel, we are told about the cancellation of some Union offensives and the pullback of others. Specifically, Port Royal is evacuated, New Orleans is cancelled and the North Carolina expedition is also cancelled.

This does not garner any actual benefit to the Confederacy or the British (who continue to act as though there are large Union garrisons in these locations requiring months of work to slowly defeat) but significantly benefits the Union.

Railroading to a conclusion

The Union army at the Battle of Rouses Point is a mystery - not just in terms of their tactics and armament, but the size of the army itself is also open to question.
At times we are told that the British are outnumbered "greater than 2 to 1", but the actual Union order of battle consists of one division (Hooker's) plus Kearny's cavalry, plus the 8th NY Militia Brigade and two regiments of NY volunteers (for perhaps 11,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry and 1,000 artillery all told). The British, for their part, have roughly 10,000 men, and as any fule kno 15,000:10,000 is not greater than 2:1. (We are also told in a separate section that there are 12,000 regulars and volunteers, and another 3,000 militia; either way this is still 15,000 but shows a distinct disregard for consistency).



That said, the Union army is still large enough to pose a major logistical challenge to move. Surely the author has fairly reflected the difficulty of this movement?

Garbledowen

TFSmith chooses to open Chapter 3 part 1 with the lyrics to Garryowen, which he suggests to be:

Instead of port, we'll drink brown ale
And pay the reckoning on the nail

This is a rather unusual interpretation of the lyrics. Port, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a sweet red wine which has been fortified with a grape spirit called aguardente; this makes it stronger than standard wine (c.20% ABV rather than c.12%). It was an upper class drink, popular in the London clubs, with Pitt the Younger and Sheridan boasting of their ability to drink three bottles of port in a single sitting. Brown ale, meanwhile, is a moderately strong beer of around 6% ABV, primarily drunk by the lower classes.

The actual first line should be Instead of water, we'll drink ale or Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale
(spa, of course, being water derived from mineral springs). As for the second line, it should be And pay no reckoning on the nail. 'The reckoning' is, of course, the bill, and to pay 'on the nail' means to pay immediately.

In other words, TFSmith's version of Garryowen has the singers boasting about drinking cheap, relatively weak alcohol and paying up when they're asked to. This perhaps explains why For debt no man shall go to gaol: however, it certainly takes away some of the arrogant machismo that made Garryowen so popular in the first place.

Bamboo headsets

There are several occasions, in Burnished Rows of Steel, where the author has questionable decisions made - decisions which, on later examination, seem ludicrously implausible.

However, there is a model which may explain this approach. If we look at some examples, a pattern emerges.

Duelling Bull-joes

In Burnished Rows of Steel, we are clearly intended to understand that Britain, and by extension its Canadian colony, is an archaic, class-ridden society. This is encapsulated in the way in which the aristocrats solve their problems: through single combat. The Prince of Wales's decision to call out his father is inspired by 'Generations of breeding,' and when Wolseley rebukes Colonel McNab for the state of the Canadian militia 'The Canadian looked ready to challenge the British officer to a duel then and there'.

This is completely ahistorical: whereas duelling had died out in Britain, it was still common in America. The last fatal Canadian duels were in the 1830s; the last fatal duel in England was fought between two Frenchmen in 1852. In 1859, meanwhile, a sitting US Senator was shot and killed by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. Senator Broderick clearly saw nothing wrong with accepting a challenge; three years later, when an Irish MP challenged Sir Robert Peel to a duel, Peel referred him to the Prime Minster who brought it before the House as a breach of Peel's privilege to speak freely.

Nor was Broderick's murder an isolated occurrence in American high life. TFSmith mentions Daniel Sickles' 'scandalous personal life': what he neglects to mention is that in 1859, while a Congressman, Sickles shot and killed a Washington DC district attorney who was cuckolding him - and that a jury of his peers acquitted him of the crime.

Which of these societies was the backward, violent one?

Abatis Crazy

TFSmith is evidently very confident in the ability of the Union's engineer corps to construct defences that would withstand the British, praising 'the depth of experience and engineering/artillery specialists available' to them. Unfortunately, TFSmith is clearly not an engineering specialist, because the defences he proposes defy the most fundamental rules of logic.

Thank you

I promised myself that I'd make a post when we hit an appropriate milestone, and passing 3,500 page views seems the right time. If you've taken the time to read any or all of our posts, thank you very much for doing so. Thank you also to those who have challenged our logic, or highlighted errors we have made.

This was only intended to be somewhere we could document all the serious logical and historical errors we saw in what was an exceptionally (and perhaps excessively) praised timeline. To have people reading it (other than ourselves) is more than we hoped for when we set out.

The invitation to contribute stands open: anybody and everybody who wants to critique part of the TL is more than free to do so. If you don't want to write a full article, but you've noticed a glaring mistake- or even something in the TL that just doesn't quite seem right- feel free to let us know and we'll look into it.

On behalf of all the authors, thank you again. And here's to many more posts, many more comments, and, above all, lots more eye rolling!

The Full Monty

At the risk of boring the readers of this blog, there are some more problems with the battle at Rouse's point which we really need to talk about. These articles will be kept as short and punchy as possible, but there really is a lot wrong with this battle. These articles will proceed in a hopefully reasonably logical progression, through the Union defences to the British plans and the course of the battle. Our first concern is the Union position at Fort Montgomery.

Political Disconnections

AKA: Robbing the Banks, Fremonting Unrest, The Butler Did It, Pulling the Wool over our eyes, More Than My Wadsworth

 It is a fact of history that not all those elevated to high command during the Civil War (or any war) were suited to it. This is certainly a problem which the British suffer from in BROS, often to a greater extent than is really realistic (i.e. turning historically skilled generals into bumblers).
The Union, however, seems in BROS to have a talent for stripping out their most unskilled officers to give them insultingly minor commands - in spite of how in real history the same officers were often politically very important, or in some cases in high positions in the regular army.

Unaccounted for and not present

“As of February 15, our forces present for duty numbered 498,153 officers and men... it does not include those sick, absent, or on detached duty, or any state troops, militia, or auxiliaries...

“These numbers are from before the troop movements that began this past week, but on the 15th, the Department of the Potomac reported 212,000 present for duty; the Missouri, 109,000; the Ohio, 73,000; and Western Virginia, 17,000…”

This is not true, or at any rate not historical.

We'll Call It A Wabash

On several occasions, TFSmith mentions that US ships have been converted to coastal defence vessels by removing the masts and yards; this, apparently, allows them to become much more powerful.

Du Pont flew his flag in the big steam frigate Wabash (46), Cdr. C.R.P. Rodgers; with her masts and yards removed, she had enough reserve buoyancy to mount heavier artillery than her ocean-going peers and carry some extemporized armor, as a so-called “chain-clad.”

This is little more than a fantasy. While the sight of a tall ship may stagger one with the sight of her masts and her sails, they are a relatively small fraction of the weight of the ship itself.

General Confusion

TFSmith may be ruthless when it comes to killing off  British VCs, but - as we shall see - he's equally ruthless when it comes to erasing Union generals who don't meet his high standards. Moreover, he does so with a breathtaking disregard for historical accuracy.

It's always sunny in Mexico

In Chapter 13 Part 2 we come to some very sunny times for the Union. As many may know the French in 1861 intervened in Mexico in order to recoup certain debts claimed by the French government incurred by President Benito Juarez's government during Mexico's Reform War. Of course, the author makes a point of exaggerating the early Mexican success against the French (lest you think he's being inaccurate about the British alone):

Two If Bythe Sea

During a small action in June 1862 (which is retroactively put in the timeline long after it has reached and passed June) we see the fate of Captain Bythesea, VC.

In reality Bythesea was an incisive and brave man who served both in combat and in critical roles ashore; in BROS, he dies an incredibly silly death.

Prisoners of inconsistency

TFSmith's determination to turn the Union into a racial utopia is seen in a frankly ridiculous scenario in Chapter 9, part 1. This manages to blend all the problems with the story, from bias to historical misunderstandings, into a single throwaway line.

Copy and Paste Atrocity

The author, with his deep-seated desire to portray the British as the bad guys and the Americans as good, takes certain liberties with historical events. In that vein we come to the "sack of Sorel" in Chapter 9.

Though the author has had no problem blatantly copying and pasting historical events into his narrative despite them being wildly unsuited for his scenario, here we have something of field day with the British behaving badly. The author manages to in one scene, lift events from not one, not two, but three historical acts and splice them together in an unholy mess.

The Cambridge Footnotes

TFSmith's views of the British army- incompetent prisoners of tradition- are encapsulated in his view of the Duke of Cambridge. Like much else in Burnished Rows of Steel, this view is very, very wrong.

La Résistance(3)

The author has waffled on the issue of garrisoning Canada. First he claims there was no need to do so, then he creates four military posts and gives them over 16,000 troops to do the occupying. Having repeatedly denied the need for the Union to garrison the Canadian population, claiming that the Provisional Government could do it themselves, he then recants that statement and in Chapter 14 turns around and puts a reinforced division charged with garrisoning Canada in 1862-63.

Of course, as established before, there should be an overwhelming number of loyalists compared to rebels, and so the Union should have a much stiffer job with the Canadians than portrayed. This means either a much more robust formation of militia than portrayed, or at the very least a larger resistance movement in the rear.

USCT: Untrue, Spurious, Concocted Twaddle

One of the consistent themes of Burnished Rows of Steel is TFSmith's insistence on denying the level of racism in the contemporary North. In turn, this leads to the litany of errors, lies and misjudgements which characterise his treatment of the US Coloured Troops.

Christmas Presents

 In supplementary material to the timeline, TFSmith states:

In terms of a multi-front war, it is worth considering the scale of the US mobilization that had begun in April of 1861 (500,000+ troops, PFD, by the winter of 1861-62) and the extent of their operations ...

The numerical value given is unsupported by evidence, at best.

Bertherville III: Revenge Of The Union

Berthierville III: Revenge Of The Union








Looking at the American plan during Berthierville, one only gets the further sense that there is something unreal about it.

Berthierville II: Attack of the Corps (the ORBAT)

Berthierville II: Attack of the Corps 

In a previous post we looked at the Battle of Berthierville, and the clumsy comparison to the Alma along with the parallels to Stones River.
If one actually looks closer at the order of battle, however, the situation becomes even odder.

Berthierville I: Alma Matter

The below is an excerpt from the Battle of Berthierville, the Large Field Battle which is intended to end (and in fact be) the campaign season in Canada itself.
This three part series of posts on Berthierville is not the whole of the analysis of that battle; there is a lot that is wrong with just the opening engagements.

The War in Upper Canada

When we last left off the Union had won a geographically incomprehensible victory at Limestone Ridge. Now, the war itself is really difficult to follow from here, but by scouring the text we can arrive at a few conclusions.

Pakenham It In

As we have seen, TFSmith is more than happy to steal from authors. Unfortunately, when he does give them at least partial credit, he misrepresents their ideas. Witness the following quote, assigned to a 'distinguished historian':