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':

Everybody gets an ironclad (Ironclads II)

Later information in the timeline somewhat answers our questions about ironclads; however, it is not an improvement.


This is from Chapter 12 of the unrevised version (the revised version has not gotten this far), and is in December 1862.

Fishy Ironmongery (Ironclads I)

Ironclads – time and motion

The question of ironclads is an important one, in any discussion of the period. TFSmith, however, appears bound and determined to give us only just sufficient information to realize he is operating far from OTL.

La Résistance(2)

In the last chapter we saw the Canadians ahistorically revolt in order to help a Union invasion, and then move to establish a "Provisional Government" in the recognized capital at Ottawa. We had to brush under the rug what legitimacy and funding they were supposed to have and instead move on to their next mention.  This does not take place until Chapter 9 Part 1 when we are laying the scene for the Berthierville campaign.

Outside Quadrat Problem

In the preamble, TFSmith states:

Not everything used as inspiration occurred exactly as written, but the events so referenced were generally all within a reasonable time period – say, a professional man’s career – of two decades (either side) of the story that follows.

This is already a problematic idea, as it has turned out to mean that any incidence of incompetence for two decades either side of the Civil War is fair game for appropriation and adjustment to fit.
There is one in particular, however, which is far more egregious than this – for it certainly falls outside the two decade limit.

Walk on Water

In Chapter 5 Part 2, we get the unlikely capture of Montreal by Union forces. Now it's not just unlikely because of the weird French reaction, but also matters of geography.

At no point in the Chapter do we ever hear of Heintzelman's army ever crossing the St. Lawrence to besiege Montreal. This is problematic as Montreal is on an island. We are left assuming much a knowing little about this operation, other than the Union army must have crossed the river somewhere, but they somehow can encircle Montreal with no issue.

La Résistance(1)

Now throughout the story we are assured that there are multiple deep and dangerous fractures within the Province of Canada, and there was little which could be done to stop this. Though why take the author's word at this, he hasn't been very on point with Canadian personalities and politics before, so let's examine this.

As previously mentioned, the trio that supposedly found this resistance is an unlikely one. Composed of two Lower Canadian politicians who have zero to few connections in Canada West, and it seems largely based around the Francophone minority. Lincoln makes mention of "friends" north of the border, but who they are is left vague and mysterious. The only serious look we get at this rebel group at first comes from the fall of Montreal:

Blown Apart

During the timeline, there is a section in November in which Jerome N. Bonaparte II (a former American soldier in the House of Bonaparte) argues Napoleon III into a pro-American stance.

Battalion with the truth

Battalions

While in the earlier portion of the timeline TFSmith harps on the way in which the British Army is unable to scrape together a dozen battalions to fight in North America by the thaw, in the later sections there is a smooth transition to a British Army so overwhelmed by the demands of war in America that it is having to recruit Canadians off the street.

Telling lies about Springfield

Nowhere is the air of unreality which permeates Burnished Rows of Steel more apparent than in a throwaway line in the Battle of Berthierville. We are told that 'Enfields and Springfields blazed away as the British came in on a run'. The battle takes place in September 1862.What weapons might the Union battalions have actually been carrying at this point?

Deja Vu all over again

From the assault on Maine:

Smart, aboard Revenge; Dacres, aboard Edgar (89); Kingcome, aboard Sutlej (51); and Cochrane, aboard Warrior (40); much less Paulet, out of his element aboard the Admiralty transport Himalaya (6), were all eager to get to grips with the Americans...

As it happens, about the only thing that is "out of his element" about Paulet is that he is not on precisely the same transport as in the Crimea.

Disraeli Defence Force

In BROS, Benjamin Disraeli appears to have been abducted and replaced by a pod person. Consider the following speech:

How it ends, redux

We have seen that TFSmith's big plan for the ending of the story was a semi-mastubatory depiction of the United States dropping nuclear weapons on a fascist Britain. Was this his original intention when he started writing? Perhaps not. The foreword sees a quotation from 'Introduction to Historia Virtua: Counterfactuals and Alternatives, by Nels Fredericksen, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, London,1997'. In the second version, this is changed to 'Introduction to Historia Virtua: Counterfactuals and Alternatives, by Nels Fredericksen, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1997'.

Was this an error in the original? Did the accurate critiques of the story's spur TFSmith to imagine those who had the temerity to challenge the lamentable historical accuracy of what he considered to be his masterpiece dying in a nuclear holocaust, and subsequently to incorporate his furtive desires into the storyline? Or did the responses of those reading encourage him to believe that his audience slavered after depictions of British humiliation, misery and suffering as readily as he did? We may never know the truth.

However, if we judge by the locations in which books are published, North America appears to have undergone some sort of disaster of its own. Of the 26 alternate history books from which excerpts are given, no fewer than 14 are published in New York and 6 in Boston. Clearly, the rest of the continent is some sort of barren wasteland- or TFSmith is not a particularly imaginative man.

Premier Divisions

TFSmith attempts to partly justify his decision to have the Canadians not bother to turn up to the Trent War with the comment that 'The co-premiers were as yet unwilling to approve expanding the volunteer force to anything more than 10,000, with 10,000 organized militia behind them.' This is also intended to set up the concept of open Canadian disloyalty from all sections of the community. This picture is false, as relatively cursory research will demonstrate.

British Militia: Missing in Action

We've already seen that TFSmith has deleted from his TL almost all Canadian militia, based on mis-readings of historical sources and a misfounded belief that the Canadians were yearning to shake off the British yoke. However, he appears to have also deleted the British auxiliary forces from his TL. The reasons for this are unclear- it may be another misunderstanding, or it may be a deliberate attempt to invent sufficient strategic difficulties for the British to allow him to justify their pitiful deployment in North America.

Forts, Ports and All Sorts - the Attack on Maine

During Burnished Rows of Steel, we are presented with an example of a British attack on the port of Portland, Maine. This is a distinctly odd attack for reasons already explored (including the ponderously slow pace of the troop landing and the overinflated scale of the Maine garrison) but on a more naval scale there are also problems as presented.

You Had One Job

“THE German bumblebee?” Wolseley snorted. “The Duke of `every change to be made at the right time, and the right time is when you cannot help it’? … he actually said that to me once; we’d still be in Crimea if he had been in command after Raglan. And not that he does a particularly good job of it, but Cambridge is the commander-in-chief – who do they expect to take over if he comes to North America? Scarlett? Airey? Craufurd? Lawrenson? One would expect we need the adjutant-general, the quarter-master general, and inspectors-general of infantry and cavalry at home in the midst of the largest war the Army has seen since Napoleon…”

Quite apart from the multi-decade anachronism Wolseley has just committed, there are other issues here.

Sick as a Parrott

Early in Burnished Rows of Steel, we are informed that Parrott has taken up a field command (commissioned in December 1861). He is heavily involved with the battle of Rouses Point, and subsequently remains running field and siege artillery with the main Union armies at least up to the end of the TL.




Which makes it especially odd that he seems to also have developed his rifles, much as in OTL. The 8 inch rifle shows up roughly on the OTL schedule, if not faster (in spite of the first one being cast in March 1862, at which point Parrott himself has spent the last few months at Lake Champlain instead of West Point) and 10 inch Parrott rifles also make an appearance during the Siege of Quebec.

Homing shot?

The Union seem to have an uncanny ability to murder Royal Navy captains. The very opening of the work informs us that 'Rinaldo’s captain, Commander William N. W. Hewett, was killed by a Yankee shot on the quarterdeck of his ship.' In Chapter 4 part 1, HMS Racoon is sunk: we are told that there were 'more than 100' British casualties in the battle, most of which came from Racoon's crew of 270, and naturally the captain is one of them. In the attack on San Francisco, meanwhile, the captain of HMS Bacchante is 'cut in two by a round shot'.

Presumably we are intended to applaud this remarkable accuracy. In reality, hitting so many captains suggests that the Union Navy were firing consistently high, missing their opponent's hulls as they did so- though, strangely, this factor never seems to enter into the results of battles.

There seems to be much that TFSmith does not understand about how contemporary navies worked. For instance, we are informed that:

Alfred had asked to transfer as an observer to Racoon, for the voyage north to Nova Scotia. The Prince had died serving as a gun captain, after replacing an officer killed by the initial shell from Mississippi.

However, in both the Royal Navy and the Union Navy, gun captains were enlisted men rather than officers, and other members of the gun crew were trained to lay the gun if the original captain was killed.

Military Cyphers

There are two types of British officer in Burnished Rows of Steel.

1. Laughable incompetents with stupid accents
2. Nowhere men: mere names and ranks, there for likeable Union officers with fleshed-out personalities to overwhelm and humiliate