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.

Land defences

TFSmith states the defences as 'Fort Point, Alcatraz Post, and... supporting batteries at Lime Point, Raccoon Strait... Inner Works on Angel and Yerba Buena islands and at Point San Jose... a total of 156 guns'. This is a remarkably low number of guns, and in fact is barely any more than were already present. Including guns without carriages, the following were present:
Fort  Point: 62 guns (p.218)
Alcatraz: 86 guns (p.106)
Total: 148 guns.

It should be noted that an 8in columbiad in Alcatraz had burst in autumn 1861, and as result the Ordnance Department 'had directed that they be "used only for shell and with reduced charges."' Assuming these guns are left in place - and, as we shall see, there was nothing to replace them with- it suggests that the additional guns consisted of eight pieces, or 2 at Lime Point, 2 at Angel Island, 2 at Yerba Buena Island, and 2 at Point San Jose. This is hardly a considerable upgrade over the number of guns that were present historically.

The increase is even more pitiful when we set it against the number of guns which the military officials in San Francisco believed they needed to protect against a naval assault. A February 1862 report estimated the requirements of additional batteries as at least 100 guns of 42pdr calibre and below:
20 guns 'in a temporary battery on the beach between the wharf and the fort at Fort Point'
10 42pdrs 'on the hill'
20 guns at Lime Point
20 guns at 'Black Point or Point San Jose'
10 guns on 'Blunt’s Point on Angel Island'
20 guns at 'on the point of Angel Island, called Stewart’s Point'

As well as the specifically enumerated gun positions, the report also called for:
Guns at Yerba Buena
Guns at Point San Pablo
Guns at Point San Pedro
Batteries at Visitation Point
Batteries at the Abbey House
Batteries at the Laguna de la Merced
Batteries at Shear's Five Mile House
Permanent redoubts in the rear of Fort Point

If we assume ten guns per additional battery, this suggests a requirement of 180 guns over and above those mounted in existing defences. Instead, the Union install eight guns beyond what they have historically, and this suffices to defeat the British.

Naval defences

It may be objected in TFSmith's defence that he also has the Union arm a number of floating batteries. It is unclear why he thinks guns would be better deployed in flammable wooden ships without steam power rather than behind earthworks. However, this is the least of the problems with this section. TFSmith has the Union fit out:

• USS Independence: Originally mounting 90 guns; as a floating battery could perhaps mount 45.
• USS Warren: Mounted 20 guns originally; as a floating battery could mount 10.
• USS Decatur: Originally 14 guns, 7 as a floating battery.
• 'some of the hulked merchantmen that had littered the Bay since the Gold Rush': Say 8 guns each for 3 ships
• 'a variety of small craft, ranging from screw tugs to sidewheel steamers, pressed into service for harbor patrol and defense duties'. Say 1 gun each for 6 ships.
• 'as many as 15 merchant steamers'; as 'California, Oregon, and Panama [were] each fitted with a single 32 pounder and few smaller pieces,' say 1 32pdr and 1 24pdr each for 15 ships.

This gives us a requirement of 45+ 10 + 7 + 24 + 30 + 6 =  122 guns for ships alone. If we then add the 8 from land batteries, this is a requirement of 130 guns. However, there were only 89 guns in store as of 15 March 1862: 10 8in, 20 24pdrs, and the rest 32pdrs.

Leaving aside the 40 missing guns for the time being, we should also note that converting the ships for floating batteries was hardly as easy as TFSmith suggests. On 29 January 1863, Commandant Thomas O. Selfridge reported from Mare Island that

The Independence is the only vessel suitable for mounting heavy guns at the yard and which would be effective as a floating battery, and she is now used as barracks for the marines. It would occupy some time with our means to put her in condition for service as a floating battery and it is doubtful whether I could obtain a crew for her at San Francisco.

Decatur was pressed into service as a result of Independence's unavailability, and Warren was sold- presumably as a result of her unsuitability for further service. Yet TFSmith not only makes all three ships available, but makes them as effective as the extensive system of land defences which the Union military thought were essential.

From design to exection

Naturally, there are further problems with this system of defences beyond just the way in which they are designed. For instance, the Union install guns on Lime Point. In reality, as Donald Bastin's thesis explains, the Union government was trapped in legal wrangling over the ownership of this land:

In July, 1861, the jury reached its verdict, assessing the value of the land at Lime Point at $125,000. This was a bitter disappointment to the Army... In October, 1861, Mr. Throckmorton having pushed through his demand for a new trial, the State Supreme Court decided against the government in the initial assessment... on November 8 of the same year [1862], Col. De Russy received authorization from Washington to pay $30,000 for the land, and to take legal proceedings in case of refusal. At this point, however, the matter seems to have been dropped, not surfacing again until March of 1864, when Col. De Russy negotiated with a Mr. Yale for the purchase of the land, and, incredibly, willing to pay $125,000, assuming that the title is free and clear. Apparently, however, there were now questions as to who, exactly, owned the land, and the sale did not go through. In the end, of course, the land at Lime Point was never purchased by the Army.

This is highly instructive. When it came to Canada, TFSmith has political wrangling result in the Canadian government funding fewer militia in wartime than they did historically in peacetime. When it comes to San Francisco, the Union government is suddenly able to surmount all these legal and financial difficulties to acquire Lime Point- something it never managed to do historically.

TFSmith is also very fond of talking about how San Francisco was 'the most economically developed bastion on the Pacific Rim in 1861-62' where, in his view, 'there was plenty of manpower'. Unfortunately, the massive labour shortage in California caused considerable problems, particularly when the government tried to pay them in paper rather than gold:

Even though greenbacks had become legal tender in the United States in February of 1862, gold was the standard by which all transactions were carried out in California. Its citizens were not familiar with the use of bank notes, and were understandably reluctant to accept them in payment. This reticence caused endless problems for the Army. Simply put, paper money had a tendency to fluctuate in value. Contractors and workmen quickly realized that working at a fixed pay scale, in notes, was not a good deal, especially when the value of those notes dropped by fifty percent or more...

During the Civil War, a general shortage of workers existed on the West Coast. For instance, when the Army advertised for laborers in August of 1863, they expected to get about fifty responses. They got six, due, thought De Russy, to “the harvest season and the mania for railroad making in this country.” The silver strike in Nevada and new gold strikes in the Oregon Territory did not help. The upshot was that workers could demand payment in gold or its equivalent. In July, 1863, the workers at Alcatraz and Fort Point were being paid in notes, but were guaranteed the value of gold. The government thought it could save money by capping any increase in pay to twenty-five percent above the going rate in notes, even though treasury notes had slipped fifty percent in value. When this information was transmitted to the workmen, De Russy telegraphed to Washington that “all the men left the works insisting upon their former pay--this puts a stop to the fortifications in this harbour.” Two days later, De Russy received a telegram from Washington stating that “the Secretary of War authorizes you and Capt. Elliot to pay the market rates of wages of mechanics and laborers.”

It is understandable that TFSmith fails to mention any of this: his entire economic strategy for the war effort involves the Union printing vast quantities of money and everybody continuing to accept it. Of course, in reality San Francisco's major problem would not have been too little gold, but too much- but as TFSmith chose to handwave away that problem, we must also conclude that the San Francisco workforce are behaving ahistorically in accepting worthless government paper.