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.
Union resources

In Chapter 7 part, 2, TFSmith explains how:

almost 20,000 volunteers, organized into ten regiments and two battalions of infantry, three regiments and three battalions of cavalry, were raised on the Pacific Slope

We should note here that if the 451,000 (380k + 52k + 12k + 7k) population of the Pacific Slope can support 20,000 volunteers, there seems little reason that the 2.5m of Canada should not support 110,000 or more. However, even the most cursory research will show that not just that this enlistment was over the whole course of the war, but that almost all of these troops came from California:

The California Volunteer units recruited 15,725 volunteers for Federal service... These units included two full regiments and one battalion of Native Cavalry, eight full regiments and two battalions of infantry

The reason that this is important is because troops raised in California would then have to be moved up to Washington. However, TFSmith underplays the difficulty in moving troops on the Pacific coast. He states blithely that:

cavalry and infantry could be dispatched by sea or, with difficulty, overland, from the garrisons scattered from Olympia to Salem to San Francisco to Carson City to Los Angeles to San Diego.

Yet his own decisions make it impossible to send troops by sea: He assigns Saranac, St Marys and Cyane to raid commerce, and removes the masts and yards from Lancaster, Narragansett, and Wyoming so that they can protect San Francisco as chainclads.There are, therefore, no ships left available to the Pacific fleet to escort a troop convoy. With an active Royal Navy presence at Esquimault, the only way to transport troops without risking their capture would be the 'difficult' overland route.

Though TFSmith chooses not to provide the reason, the reason that this route is 'difficult' is because there is no railway in Oregon or Washington: it only travels as far north as Marysville, California. San Francisco to Seattle is 680 miles in a direct line, and Marysville to Seattle is 590 miles. His treatment of this fact is all the more galling when we consider his endless reiteration of the difficulties of moving troops within Canada. The sleigh route is 309 miles long, and Quebec to Windsor on the Detroit frontier is 660 miles, with the Grand Trunk Railway running all the way. In TFSmith's world it is impossible for the British to move troops over these distances, but only too easy for the Union to do so.


Domestic unity

TFSmith contrasts Douglas's opinion in 1841 with his opinion in 1861 to make him look like an idiot:

An American population will never willingly submit to British domination, and it would be ruinous and hopeless to enforce obedience, on a disaffected people; our Government would not attempt it … (and if the United States gained an advantage on the coast) every sea port will be converted into a naval arsenal and the Pacific covered with swarms of Privateers, to the destruction of British commerce in those seas.

- Letter from James Douglas, chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to HBC Governor-in-Chief Sir George Simpson, 1841; excerpted by W. N. Sage, Sir James Douglas, K.C.B.: British Columbia’s Governor, CHQ, XI (1947), 211–27

Note that this section is part of TFSmith's own opening, but the following section is part of an extract from 'Aaron Foreman'. As such, the readers of 'A World Aflame' would have absolutely no idea what Douglas's earlier opinion was:

As Douglas said, even with the limited forces available in British Columbia, the British could take possession of the Sound and attempt to push overland to the Columbia River; “with Puget Sound, and the line of the Columbia in our hands, we should hold the only navigable outlets of the country – command its trade, and soon compel it to submit to Her Majesty’s rule.” How that could be reconciled with his opinion as expressed two decades earlier, however, remained unsaid.

The obvious answer to Mr Foreman's uncertainty, however, is that over the course of the 1850s there had been suggestions of forming a 'Pacific Republic' independent of the Union, encompassing the territory west of the Rockies. In 1855, the Oregon Standard cited 'The growing disparity of habits between us and the Atlantic states' as justification for the split, just as a belief in the disparity of North and South justified secession.* In 1861, Congressional representatives from California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona had favoured this Pacific Republic project.** Unfortunately, in TFSmith's world the only disloyalty he permits is in Canada, so Douglas's personal experience is dismissed.

*Dorothy Hull, 'The Movement in Oregon for the Establishment of a Pacific Coast Republic', The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sep., 1916), p.184
** Joseph Ellison, 'Designs for a Pacific Republic, 1843-62' Oregon Historical Quarterly Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1930), p.332

We see something similar elsewhere:

Significantly, in January, 1862, the state [California] elected its first Republican governor, Leland Stanford, one of the leading businessmen in the state; he joined Oregon’s John Whiteaker, a Democrat elected in 1858; and the appointed territorial governors of Washington, William Pickering, and Nevada, James W. Nye, both Republicans appointed by the president. All four men supported Washington’s calls for troops;  

This is a lie: Whiteaker 'referred to the War as Lincoln's "wicked and unnatural War upon the South"' and 'clearly stated that Lincoln would receive no troops from Oregon to carry out his "fratricidal war". He urged the population to 'Have a care that in freeing the negro you do not enslave the white man... be not deceived by those who tell you that civil war is fidelity to the Union, and that compromise and peace are treason and disunion'. In late 1861 the Oregon senator Colonel Edward Baker, staunch Republican and Lincoln ally, was killed in a botched assault at Balls Bluff. Whiteaker used his gubernatorial privilege to chose as Baker's replacement the slavery advocate Benjamin Stark. Clearly, then, the Pacific Northwest was by no means as staunchly behind the Union war effort as TFSmith implies.

However, even when faced with active secessionists, TFSmith turns them into Union supporters. Take Joseph H. Lane, featured later in the Pacific Northwest timeline, who openly vowed to wage war in support of the South:

when war is made upon that gallant South... the Northern Democracy will not join in the crusade. The Republican party will have war enough at home... When he or any other gentleman raises that banner and attempts to subjugate that gallant people, instead of marching with him we will meet him there, ready to repel him and his forces.

Could there be a more laughable non-sequitur than the underlined description?

Lane was nominated for the vice-presidency on Breckinridge’s “Southern Democrat” ticket in 1860; he left office after Lincoln’s election, and withdrew to his home in Roseburg, Oregon, completely unapologetic for his southern and pro-slavery sympathies but - although one of his five sons served the Confederacy – a loyalist at heart 

In Canada, those who advocated peaceful secession twenty years ago join up with the Union; in Oregon, those who advocated secession two years ago are 'loyalist at heart'. We are perhaps lucky that TFSmith does not have the entire Confederacy join up with the Union to defeat the British.

British plans


TFSmith also distorts Douglas's proposed strategy, by referencing a letter written in December 1861. Because the letter is so mangled and misrepresented, it is worth giving its full context here:

5. The United States have absolutely no Naval Force in these waters, beyond one or two small Revenue Vessels; and with the exception of one Company of Artillery I am informed that all their regular Troops have been withdrawn from Oregon and Washington Territory; but it must nevertheless be evident that the small Military Force we possess, if acting solely on the defensive, could not protect our Extensive frontier even against the Militia or Volunteer Corps that may be let loose upon the British Possessions.

6. In such circumstances I conceive that our only chance of success will be found in assuming the offensive and taking possession of Puget Sound with Her Majesty's Ships, re-inforced by such bodies of local auxilliaries [sic] as can, in the Emergency, be raised...

7. There is little real difficulty in that operation, as the Coast is entirely unprovided with defensive works, and the Fleet may occupy Puget Sound without molestation.

8. The small number of regular Troops disposable for such service would necessarily confine our operations to the line of coast: but should Her Majesty's Government decide, as lately mooted, on sending out one or two Regiments of Queen's Troops, there is no reason why we should not push overland from Puget Sound and establish advanced posts on the Columbia River, maintaining it as a permanent frontier.

9. A Small Naval Force entering the Columbia River at the same time would secure possession, and render the occupation complete.

10. With Puget Sound and the line of the Columbia River in our hands, we should hold the only navigable outlets of the Country, command its trade and soon compel it to submit to Her Majesty's Rule. 

11. This may appear a hazardous operation to persons unacquainted with the real state of these Countries, but I am firmly persuaded of its practicability; and that it may be successfully attempted with a smaller force, than, in the event of war, will be required to defend the assailable points of our extensive frontier, which will be attacked on all sides if we remain entirely on the defensive, and neglect to provide full occupation for the Enemy at home. 

It is absolutely vital here to note that the most crucial parts of Douglas's argument are true. There was no Union naval force in Puget Sound: the revenue cutter Shubrick, which TFSmith has evacuate the Union garrison of San Juan island, actually spent most of January aiding the survivors of the California floods. The steamer Massachusetts, meanwhile had been ordered to San Francisco in late August 1861 where it arrived on 13 October 1861 and where it would ultimately be placed in Ordinary.

Nor were there any fortifications: as George Wright had earlier pointed out, both the Columbia River and Puget Sound were defenceless against a single steamer. The British fleet in Puget Sound at the time of the Trent Affair consisted of HMS Topaze (51), HMS Hecate (4, paddle), HMS Grappler (4, gunboat) and HMS Forward (4, gunboat).


The British enjoyed a similar level of superiority on land. At the point at which a Trent War was actually likely to break out, there were 656 all ranks present for duty in the Department of Oregon. This represented  twelve companies and one artillery battery, which suggests an average strength of c.50 officers and men per unit. At the time that Douglas was writing, the only troops in Puget Sound were the artillery battery on San Juan island, and the company of infantry at Fort Steilacoom: the British Royal Engineer contingent, at 160 men, outnumbered both these forces put together.

TFSmith suggests the Royal Engineers could be reinforced by '150 Royal Marines from the squadron, the detachment on San Juan Island, and the naval depot at Esquimalt Harbor on Vancouver Island, plus any sailors who could be spared'. In 1856, an expedition into the hinterland managed to field 437 men, and it seems unlikely that the British would be unable to match this commitment after troop levels had been increased as a result of the Pig War. Reinforced by a full 800-man infantry battalion, with naval support from Forward and Grappler, it is hard to envisage the four companies (200 men) at Fort Vancouver lasting long- particularly when we factor in George Wright's assessment that the post was 'not prepared for defence against heavy guns'.

This is, of course, before we consider the militia support available to the British. They had three militia companies at the time of the Trent: the white Vancouver Island Volunteer Rifle Corps, which had one company of riflemen and one of artillery, and the black Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps. TFSmith is fairly sceptical about 'the colony’s few companies of volunteer militia,' but it is instructive to consider these formations in context.

• As late as 1865, Nevada had no militia organisation, whether volunteer or enrolled. 
• Idaho did not organise a militia until 1873
• Washington had a nominal militia organisation, and registered expressions of interest from six companies in May 1861: however, these companies were not issued arms nor expected to drill. By February 1862, Colonel Justus was finding it impossible to recruit three companies: 'during the following four months to fill these companies will exhaust the extreme capacity of the Territory,' he reported.
• In 1862, thanks in large part to its disloyal governor John Whiteaker, Oregon had no militia and lacked the organisation necessary to build one. When Whiteaker was replaced, Cyrus A. Reed was appointed as the state's adjutant general: in February 1863, he was writing to the California adjutant general to ask 'how do you do your job and where do you find weapons?'

As such, the three militia companies of British Columbia compare highly favourably with the total force available in the whole of the Union's northern West Coast. Union superiority in the region stems only from California: this is why downplaying distances, so that he can treat California as an integral part of this northern Pacific front, is absolutely essential to TFSmith's chosen outcome.

The solution

How else does TFSmith resolve the problems posed by the above facts? Firstly, in line with his actions elsewhere, he gives the Union a head start. While the Union is permitted to 'use the short of war period to drill their militia, build additional batteries, and draw guns from those stored at the Benicia Arsenal and Mare Island to outfit them,' the British do no such thing: they do not even raise additional militia companies. Given that the guns stored at San Francisco were insufficient even to equip the fortifications TFSmith proposes for San Francisco itself, it seems wildly optimistic to assume that there would be any additional batteries in the Northwest.

This brings us to his second tactic: he inflates the forces available to the Union. TFSmith grants the Union 'fewer than 3,000 federal troops in the District of the Columbia', whereas the historical District of Oregon contained only 732 troops as of June 1862. Needless to say, this increase in force does not reduce the number of troops available for deployment in California, as the Union apparently has infinite resources. He also creates militia units out of thin air to bolster the numbers. For instance, the Puget Sound Rangers registered their interest in serving in May 1861 and might reasonably be expected to defend Olympia - assuming, of course, that their members did not volunteer for the 1st Washington Infantry in the meantime. However, the second named unit in the defence of Olympia is the Capital Guard, which was actually founded in April 1884 (and, ironically, folded two years later due to a lack of financial support from the state government). The British are restricted to what they had historically; the Union deploys units from across time and space to oppose them.

His third tactic is to delay British action. From Douglas's letter, we can see that he was convinced that rapid offensive action was vital to take advantage of Union weakness and to keep them off guard. However, TFSmith has the British advance on Olympia only in August 1862 (at least, so far as the text can be deciphered). This gives the Union time to station three infantry companies there, form a militia, and position blockships. The British then sit and do nothing for eight months before advancing on Fort Vancouver, where they are defeated.


What this tends to show is that the British position in the Pacific Northwest is actually surprisingly strong. Clearly, Douglas's aggressive tactics, British naval supremacy, and the superior quality of the regular infantry available to the British, coupled with the dispersal of Union forces and the concentration of the British, would have put the Union at a considerable disadvantage in the early part of the war. Though TFSmith is able to brush all this under the carpet, the only people fooled are his readers.