A two-horse open sleigh

As we are frequently (and correctly) told by TFSmith, during the winter there is no sea route to the Province of Canada.
However, there was a land route, one set up decades before, which travelled by icy road along the eastern border of Maine to reach one of the termini of the Grand Trunk Railroad (Riviere du Loup). Three hundred kilometres long, it used horsedrawn sleighs to transport roughly 160-200 men plus baggage each day – the limiting factor being the accommodation at the end of each day's route.

TFSmith is aware of this, in principle. However, it does not actually get used in the timeline to any extent.




Structure – the BROS sleigh route

The sleigh route in Burnished Rows of Steel is repeatedly denigrated by the British – the very people who would use it. 

While in Britain:

“And yes, even more so, given the border that he and Ashburton negotiated – especially after the Aroostook Valley crisis. The Americans got Rouse’s Point, and we got a winter sledge road from Halifax to Quebec that barely exists even today, two decades later. I think they got the better part of the deal, don’t you?” the younger man said grimly. “God knows Williams and Monck and Tache and John Alexander are all sweating over it…especially since the Grand Trunk only runs to the sea at Portland, of all places. Not exactly thinking ahead at the time…Good God, McCaul, why did you send for me?” 

While on the way over:

“Ah, but that’s the thing, captain – there is no railway from Halifax to Quebec; the only railroad to Montreal from the Atlantic starts in Portland, Maine, in the States – no, we’ll have to do that bit from Halifax to Quebec by sleigh – which, of course, our friends at Horse Guards have provided, which is part of why we’re so jammed aboard this tub,” Wolseley said. “Imagine? Sending sleighs from England to New Brunswick. That makes perfect sense…”

And after crossing it. Words like “struggled” are used:

Because there was no railroad to Quebec, and the coast road was basically impassible in winter, the New Brunswick garrison – as ordered by Maj. Gen. Sir Hastings Doyle, the general officer commanding in the Maritimes and (somewhat confusingly) commanding general, Nova Scotia Command - had laid out and stocked the inland route, which had been used before by troops struggling from the coast to Quebec. The snow-covered road, however, came within rifle range of the U.S. border at several locations, and so Wolseley had been assigned to travel the route before Rumley’s troops were sent, laying his practiced eye on the arrangements and carrying dispatches to the commanders and government leaders in Canada. Wolseley, in turn, had selected Stanley and Seymour as assistants, and the trio had made the march – most of it by sleigh – in ten days. 

It is described as taking roughly two weeks:

Russell’s fellow major generals, Lord Frederick Paulet and Randal Rumley, were organizing their own divisions in New Brunswick; Paulet’s was to hold the colony while Rumley’s moved overland to Lower Canada. Four more divisions, made up of infantry and artillery from Britain and Ireland and detachments from the garrisons in the Mediterranean and West Indies, were slated to arrive in April and May, with cavalry to follow in time for a summer campaign. To secure the necessary time, however, Russell and a group of line and staff officers – both from the first contingent and the existing garrisons - had been sent ahead from the Maritime colonies to Montreal. Their task was to assemble a provisional division from the British troops already in North America and the best of the available militia. It was that force, now concentrating along the Richelieu, which was to demonstrate Britain’s might against the Americans - some 600 miles, and more than two weeks by sleigh and rail - from the Atlantic. 

(The train trip is between 500 and 600 km, and would take roughly a day at 15 miles per hour)

And it is stated to be hard to protect from sniping:

 The second Paulet is in New Brunswick, and was supposed to take his troops to join Williams’ forces in Quebec, but they’re bogged down because the winter road is thawing into mud, the ice is still present in the St. Lawrence, and the Yankees are sniping at the sleigh road along the Saint John River….so the chief of staff, this Colonel MacDougall, says another troop of generals in London thinks it’s time to attack Portland, except the Navy disagrees…oh, and speaking of the Navy, there’s another Paulet, he’s an admiral, but he is not in American waters…” 

The Real Sleigh Route
The real sleigh route was well organized. The 1 Bn, Military Train, was the primary organizer of the route, and set up two-horsed sleighs able to hold eight men each (or six of the larger Guards) complete with repair kits, snowshoes and shovels, plus sleighs for the military stores intended to travel down the route.
Each man was issued with cold weather clothing, moccasins, straw and buffalo robes, and was provided with three hot meals a day. Medical officers accompanied the route, and it was encouraged to run alongside the sleighs in order to maintain circulation.

The troops
At the start of the crisis, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick contained the following troops:
2 Garrison batteries of the Royal Artillery (in Halifax)
1 company of the Royal Engineers
The Royal Newfoundland companies (local troops)
The 62nd Foot
The 63rd Foot

In addition, the following troops arrived in the Maritimes during the crisis in the real world:

1/ Grenadier Guards
2/ Scots Fusilier Guards
1/15th Foot
One company of the 1/16th (the rest reached the Province of Canada by ship)
2/16th
2/17th
96th
1/Rifles
1/ Military Train
3/ military train
Misc engineers and support troops
Large quantity of military stores (rifles, etc)
And at least 9 batteries.

Of these, the following troops went down it:
1/Grenadier Guards
2/ Scots Fusilier Guards
1 company 1/16th
62nd foot (would have been used to secure the route in event of war)
63rd foot
1/ Rifles (would have been used to secure the route if needed)
9 batteries artillery
2 companies Royal Engineers
2 battalions Military Train
56 Cavalry instructors
Misc support troops
Large quantity of military stores



This left the 1/15th, 2/16th, 2/17th and 96th in the Maritimes.

All the troops listed above left Riviere du Loup by rail by the 13th of March.


Burnished Rows of Steel

Nowhere near as many troops go down the sleigh route as in the OTL.
There are at least two independent lines of evidence to show this.


1. Officers not assigned

Earlier we saw that Rumley's provisional division was to be sent over, and it is confirmed that his troops are supposed to go down the winter road:

“Now, because of the incident in the Bahama Channel, the first large contingent of British troops – now organized as Lord Paulet’s division - was sent out; given that we have no hope of holding Canada" - there was an audible hiss from MacNab, Stanley noted, but Wolseley ignored it and plunged on - "without holding New Brunswick, the first contingent will be held there; the second contingent, organized as a division under General Rumley, is passing over the winter road and forming up here in Canada East. In the meantime, Major General Russell has gone forward to Montreal to take command of the troops available farther west – which number, at the moment, six regular battalions, two militia battalions, a regular battery, two militia batteries, and two militia squadrons,” Wolseley said. “And we have only been able to concentrate that force at Montreal by scraping together almost every company we have in the Province, and leaving the fortresses to the garrison artillery batteries and the volunteer and sedentary militia … that is what we have to hold the line, if war comes, here in Canada until more troops arrive from Britain. And that is all we have, gentlemen …”

However, as of the end of March, none of the troops have yet moved. This is stated during the preparations for the Battle of Rouses Point:

Russell’s fellow major generals, Lord Frederick Paulet and Randal Rumley, were organizing their own divisions in New Brunswick; Paulet’s was to hold the colony while Rumley’s moved overland to Lower Canada.  

So nobody has moved overland yet, if this is to be taken as an indication.

2: Troops unlooked for

But the best verification is in examining orders of battle. The OOB at Rouses Point for the British is as follows:

Lower Canada Division (as assembled at Fort Lennox, Île aux Noix, Canada East)
Commanding General: Maj. Gen. David Russell, CB
Chief of the staff: Lt. Col. Garnet Wolseley, 90th F
Artillery Brigade (Acting Brigade Major): Maj. Charles F. T. Daniell
Battery D, 4th Brigade, Royal Artillery;
Quebec Field Battery;
Montreal Field Battery;
Division Troops: Montreal Engineer Company; St. Johns Troop;

1st Brigade - Lt. Col. Henry Ralph Browne, 87th F
1st Btn, 16th Regiment (Bedfordshire) – Lt. Col. (bvt.) John Willet P. Audain. (7 cos.)
30th Regiment (Cambridgeshire) – Lt. Col. James T. Mauleverer, CB
4th Btn, 60th Regiment (KRRC) – Lt. Col. Robert B. Hawley
Montreal Light Infantry Battalion (6 cos.) - Lt. Col. H. H. Whitney

2nd Brigade - Lt. Col. Thomas Ross, 73rd F
1st Btn, 17th Regiment (Leicestershire) – Lt. Col. William Gordon
47th Regiment (Lancashire) – Lt. Col. Thomas C. Kelly, CB
Royal Canadian Rifles – Lt. Col. Wilmot H. Bradford (6 cos.)
1st Volunteer Rifle Battalion (7 cos.,) – Lt. Col. B. Devlin

Cavalry - Col. Alexander Low
Quebec Cavalry Squadron (2 troops) – Maj. J.B. Forsyth
Montreal Cavalry Squadron (2 troops) – Lt. Col. A. W. Ogilvie
Support (District troops) - Lt. Col. Hon. J. Buchanan
2nd Militia Brigade; St. Johns militia cos.

There are a number of indications we can take from this.

The first is that all the regiments listed were already inside Canada by the time the St Lawrence froze. The 1/16th were, just as in the original timeline, disembarked at Bic before the ice closed in, but – and this is key – they are missing the company which had to come over the sleigh route.
The second is that we are told this is essentially everything in Canada with the exception of local forces (the RCR and so on). As such, with only one Royal Artillery battery present, this suggests also that no artillery was sent down the route either (Battery D was already in Canada, having come over the summer.) That the Quebec Field Battery is sent supports this since it would make more sense to retain the Quebec Field Battery in Quebec rather than use a Regular, Armstrong-equipped battery in garrison to free up a local smoothbore-equipped battery for the field.


The British OOB during the invasion of Maine (in June) is as follows:

1st Division, Army of New Brunswick
Commanding General: Maj. Gen. Lord Frederick Paulet, CB (CG)
Chief of the Staff: Col. Patrick Leonard MacDougall (from Staff College)
Dep. Asst. Adjutant General: Lt. Col. Augustus H. Lane Fox, GG
ADC: Capt. Hon. John Constantine “Jonny” Stanley, GG
Observers: Col. J.H. Morgan, CSA; Capt. T.H. Morgan, CSA

1st (Guards) Brigade - Col. T.M. Steele, CG;
1st Btn, Grenadier Guards – Col. Hon. H.H. Manvers Percy, VC
1st Btn, Scots Fusilier Guards – Col. Francis Seymour, CB
1st Btn, Rifle Brigade – Lt. Col. Lord Alexander G. Russell

2nd Brigade - Col. James W. Smith
1st Btn, 15th Regiment (East Riding) – Lt. Col. John A. Cole
62nd Regiment (Wiltshire) – Lt. Col. William L. Ingall, CB
63rd Regiment (West Suffolk) - Lt. Col. William F. Carter

3rd Brigade - Col. Thomas Holloway, CB, RM
2nd Btn, 16th Regiment (Bedfordshire) – Lt. Col. Oliver Langley
2nd Btn, 17th Regiment (Leicestershire) – Lt. Col. Alexander McKinstry
1st (Chatham) Btn, Royal Marines Light Infantry - Lt. Col. John H. Gascoigne, RM, CB

Divisional Artillery (7th Field Brigade, RA) - Lt. Col. Henry A. Turner, RA

Of the nine battalions listed, one is Royal Marines. The other eight are as follows:

1/ Grenadier Guards (Went down sled route OTL)
1/ Scots Fusilier Guards (2/SFG went down sled route OTL, under no circumstances would both leave the UK as they act as depot for one another)
1/ Rifles (went down sled route OTL)

1/15th (Did not go down sled route OTL)
62nd Foot (Went down sled route OTL)
63rd Foot (Went down sled route OTL)

2/16th (Did not go down sled route OTL)
2/17th (Did not go down sled route OTL)

Of the battalions actually sent to or already in the Maritimes, the only one not sent to invade Maine over the course of May-June is the 96th Foot. This regiment, however, later shows up as part of a reinforcement to the Army of New Brunswick (i.e. invading Maine) – thus, none of the battalions who could have gone down the sleigh route actually do so.


The only troops who seem to actually cross the sleigh route are a few officers:

Because there was no railroad to Quebec, and the coast road was basically impassible in winter, the New Brunswick garrison – as ordered by Maj. Gen. Sir Hastings Doyle, the general officer commanding in the Maritimes and (somewhat confusingly) commanding general, Nova Scotia Command - had laid out and stocked the inland route, which had been used before by troops struggling from the coast to Quebec. The snow-covered road, however, came within rifle range of the U.S. border at several locations, and so Wolseley had been assigned to travel the route before Rumley’s troops were sent, laying his practiced eye on the arrangements and carrying dispatches to the commanders and government leaders in Canada. Wolseley, in turn, had selected Stanley and Seymour as assistants, and the trio had made the march – most of it by sleigh – in ten days. 

So we have a sleigh route which, in reality, was used to transport several thousand troops to Canada by the middle of March – thus providing an important reinforcement to the defenders of Canada, nearly doubling their available manpower, moving important specialists into place to prepare defences and logistics, moving large quantities of military stores, and providing training cadre – and which had two battalions assigned specifically to protect it against American attacks. It was so efficient that the limiting factor on troop movement was often the ability of the Grand Trunk railroad to provide rail cars to Riviere du Loup, so it can be argued it was actually better than an extension of the Grand Trunk would have been, and operated up until the thaw.

In Burnished Rows of Steel, it is essentially indefensible, cobbled-together, doesn't appear to move so much as a single company of infantry, a single box of rifles, or a single artillery piece, and it takes so long to prepare to send troops down it that the war is on and Montreal is captured before any reinforcements arrive there.


To give some idea of the scale of the difference, Sherman's March to the Sea involved roughly 60,000 troops of all arms travelling from Atlanta to Savannah over the course of roughly five weeks of late 1864. If a similar factor of adjustment was applied to this non-conventional strategic movement, Sherman would have sent one platoon of officers down to survey the route and then used his army to invade Athens instead.