It works in theory

One of the odder sections of the marginalia of Burnished Rows of Steel - a timeline with plenty of odd sections - is when TFSmith attempts to argue that US naval design was almost as good as British with regard to ships. The means he chooses to do so, however, is (predictably) a double standard on several levels.

An Old Man's War

TFSmith's use of Wolseley to pronounce many of his opinions of officers in both the British and American armies tends to make the man look a little bit biased.

A Webb of deception

Two of the largely ahistorical ironclads which TFSmith has appear in Burnished Rows of Steel are the New York and New Jersey, each possessing forty guns. These are in fact what in our world were the Re d'Italia and the Re de Portogallo (known colloquially as the "Webb Frigates"), but completed much sooner (in service by December 1862, instead of the historical date around September 1864).
This early completion date poses a number of problems.

Passport to Inaccuracy

While we have touched extensively on the naval issues on Lake Ontario before, one small detail has come to my attention recently.

At the "Battle" of Limestone Ridge, it is mentioned that the Hamilton Naval Company is attached to the militia order of battle, meaning the men of that company were apparently shooting it out with American troops on the Niagara frontier. However, we know from the flashback in Chapter 10 Pt. 1, that apparently the ship operated by the Hamilton Naval Company, the Passport, is being converted at Kingston.

Now, from the text the naval action there apparently takes place in May as well. This raises the question, how can the naval company be two places at once?

The simple answer is, they can't. The author, either not realizing (more likely not caring) about his mistake blithely rolls on with it. What is interesting, however, is that the author seems to understand he's underselling the Canadians. He could only know about Harbottle through either seeing him in the 1867 militia list he uses as his base, or by reading about the Fenian raids.

Anything beyond a cursory glance would have led the author to realize that in 1862 no less than six naval and marine companies were formed for service on Lake Ontario (the Garden Island Naval Comapny not being formed until January 1863) versus the precisely zero pre-existing naval militia companies or militia infrastructure on the American side.

What this suggests of course is that the author has deliberately chosen to underrate, and reassign, the Anglo-Canadian capabilities on the lakes, for the express purpose of making an easier American victory. Or, the author is lazy. You decide.

Brittania Waives the Rules

TFSmith has the following to say about the British merchant marine:

Haiti, wait a minute...

Burnished Rows of Steel, Chapter 5 Part 1:

The Executive Mansion
Washington City, District of Columbia
May, 1862
...
“The Spanish, apparently not content merely to take over Santo Domingo, are threatening war with Hayti; we of course, have encouraged the Haytians to resist to the utmost,” Seward said, with a grin of his own.

How did the Union encourage a government with which they had no diplomatic relations?

The United States recognized Hayti (Haiti) on July 12, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln commissioned Benjamin F. Whidden was to act as a U.S. diplomatic representative to Hayti under the title “commissioner and consul-general.” ... Diplomatic relations and the American Legation in Port-au-Prince were established on October 1, 1862, when Commissioner and Consul General Benjamin F. Whidden presented his credentials to the Government of the Republic of Haiti.

Of course, it probably never occurred to TFSmith that the wonderful, egalitarian, totally 100% not racist United States would refuse to recognise a country because its leaders were black. He probably doesn't even know that the US similarly refused to recognise Liberia until September 1862.

(Needless to say, horrendously racist discriminatory aristocratic white supremacist Britain recognised Haiti in 1825, and Liberia on its independence in 1847.)

Feet of Clay Work

To turn a passion for music into a career is a rare achievement; to write a song that is remembered ten years down the line is an even rarer one. Calixa Lavallée not only achieved both of these, but also the exceptional achievement of having his song was adopted as his country's national anthem 100 years after it was first written. Yet, in Burnished Rows of Steel, Calixa Lavallée is demnstrated to be possibly the worst songwriter in recorded human history - and also, ironically enough, very bad at French.