Norfolk'in sense

At a late point in the timeline, TFSmith goes back to explain exactly how the Union attack on Portsmouth Navy Yard took place. At previous points it has been described as the Union "storming" ashore and taking the Navy Yard, and as Burnside landing at an abandoned Navy Yard to destroy the Virginia.

As it turns out, it is both. There is so much wrong with the way Norfolk and environs are handled that it is hard to put it all down.



The setup

The explanation given for the attack (which takes place in December 1861) is that the crisis with the British has led to the Union working out how to best stymie the British navy. This is already heavily ahistorical, and highlights TFSmith's double-standard with the crisis.
Either the crisis is so much worse than OTL that the Union is making sweeping changes to their plans, or it is so much better than OTL that the British stop sending troops for three months and cancel the mobilization of the militia. It cannot, however, be both.

Due to the Union wanting to cause problems for the British, they decide to mount an amphibious attack on Norfolk. They have two motives for this decision, neither of which quite make sense. The first one - to destroy the Confederate ironclad Virginia, building at Norfolk - was not strong enough to motivate them to launch the attack historically. The second one - to deny the British a usable "first-class naval station" in America, in line with TFSmith's passionate faith in the width of the Atlantic - does not make sense when the British have not yet had an opportunity to deliver an ultimatum. Destroying a million-dollar dry dock because the British may issue an ultimatum which the Union may reject and the British may declare war over is a very costly precaution.

Burnside's division of about 9,000 men is sent to attack Norfolk, and is later augmented by another brigade of about 3,000 from Wool's command. Though we are told the rebels have defences (batteries scattered along the coast), we are also told that the 14,000 Confederates who defended Norfolk historically have been withdrawn without replacement. These troops have been sent to replace other Confederate troops on the Peninsula, who have been sent in turn to join the field army menacing Washington under Johnston.
This movement is completely ahistorical and frankly stupid, with no logical reason behind it: The Washington field army does not need reinforcements, is not under threat, and indeed does not fight a battle until six months later. The only reason for this movement is that TFSmith needs there to be no significant Confederate force defending Norfolk: instead of 14,000 soldiers, who would have outnumbered the attackers, there is "roughly a brigade of mostly Virginia militia" present.'

The text says the new defender of Norfolk is Fauntleroy, "a veteran of more than four decades of service" and not to be underestimated. This is probably because he is American, though in the event because he is not Union he will still make some incredible mistakes as we shall see.


Patchwork

The setup mixes events from different time periods and contexts, but here is an attempt to disentangle them.

In OTL, there was a recommendation for a plan to attack Norfolk in late 1861 (by Egbert Viele), which was turned down by Lincoln personally.
Burnside's expedition was still in the process of forming in December 1861, with eight regiments at Annapolis at the start of the month and ten at the end (out of fifteen who eventually went on the expedition). It took one week just to move them to Fort Monroe in January.
The Roanoke Island garrison (the one Burnside defeated in February) was only 1,400 strong and lacked muskets.
Wool barely had enough strength to detach a brigade.
Historically the landing at Norfolk took place in May 1862, a week after the Confederates had decided to evacuate (which was why the landing was approved).
The Confederates evacuated because McClellan had forced the Yorktown line and rendered the position untenable.
None of these things have happened in this timeline.


The landing

It is explained to us that, because Norfolk is defended, Burnside (and the Union naval commander) "decided to avoid the fortified areas". While of course perfectly reasonable, this raises the very good question of why the area they do land (Ocean View) was not fortified. Does TFSmith believe it was just that nobody in the entirety of North America, either Union or Confederate, noticed a vulnerable area which would allow for easily landings?
The answer is simple - it was defended.
As per this map
https://tile.loc.gov/image-services...82:g3882h:cw0559000/full/pct:25/0/default.jpg
there was a battery on the very beach he has Burnside land on, along with accompanying batteries along the coast. While not a full fort, this is hardly "avoiding" the fortified area.

In an impressive display of speed and decisiveness, the Union division makes a landing of 9,000 troops starting at 3pm and completing by midnight (with the first 4,000 arriving in less than an hour) - a total of nine hours, with nautical twilight concluding after three of these hours. While historically accurate (with the Roanoke expedition by Burnside), compare to the British landing at Portland - which lands the same number of troops on an undefended beach, beginning hours earlier, and taking hours longer, and is described as "a triumph".

In a further (and, likewise, totally ahistorical) move, a brigade of troops from Wool's Department of Virginia arrive the next morning to reinforce Burnside. There are two problems with this suggestion. Firstly, as Wool's command was still quite small in December 1861, it is unlikely that he would be able to provide this many troops to the activity. Secondly, Wool would insist on commanding the expedition rather than reinforcing it. Considering himself the most senior general in the army, he refused to detach troops to McClellan's command in the OTL Peninsular Campaign. Indeed, he threatened to have McClellan arrested if McClellan did not place himself under Wool! Norfolk is well within Wool's area of responsibility, and as Wool successfully lobbied to be allowed to command the expedition to recapture Norfolk in May 1862, it seems highly unlikely he would not do the same here.

Unfortunately, Wool's command of the May 1862 expedition proved him to be a military incompetent. The Union troops under his command advanced in complete disorder: generals without assigned troops, regiments without assigned brigades, and cavalry and artillery left in the rear as infantry advanced unsupported. Despite their only opposition being a single Confederate battery, they took eight hours to cover the seven miles to Norfolk. The mayor of Norfolk then managed to distract Wool with an elaborate surrender ceremony, giving the Confederates time to burn the navy yard. As such, TFSmith cannot possibly allow him to command the December 1861 expedition, otherwise the brigade of Virginia militia might well stand a chance.

As usual, TFSmith has the Union operate with flawless coordination even with people distinctly lacking such skill OTL.


The attack

Burnside sends his men marching "south and then west, coming up on Norfolk from the east". This involves going several miles through the outskirts of a swamp, but apparently the Union has no problem with an attack through a swamp in a December which historically had particularly bad weather. It also involves going right through a Rebel defensive line with 30 guns - a long-term work, not one of the temporary earthwork trenches which the Union is able to defend at 2:1 odds while outflanked. This explains why Ocean View was not fortified - there would be no point, the fortification is closer to Norfolk and well sited.
https://tile.loc.gov/image-services...82:g3882h:cw0559000/full/pct:25/0/default.jpg
Despite this heavy fortification, Fauntleroy's men are "broken through" and the US advances quickly; Fauntleroy is then shot dead and the Rebels collapse, being punched through and outflanked at the same time. (At more than one point on the timeline Union troops in a similar position hold out without problems.)

Job done, the US then capture Norfolk, and the Rebels "wreck Merrimac for a second time, as well as most of the yard" before withdrawing. There is no explanation given as to why the Rebels do this. Though Norfolk may have fallen, the navy yard is on the other bank of the Elizabeth river. There are no bridges, and Confederate fortifications blocking the river mouth. Despite this, the Union captures Gosport Navy Yard, the naval hospital and Portsmouth as well "by the end of the second day".
Historically this is almost exactly what happened in Wool's landing, except that there was no resistance because the Confederates had decided to evacuate the base a week previously. This is why they destroyed the yard - they did not intend to defend it in the first place, because it was strategically untenable thanks to McClellan taking the Yorktown line.



The conclusion

TFSmith knows nothing at all about the area around Norfolk beyond what can be gleaned from a modern look on Google Maps, and it shows. He has Burnside enact a cunning plan to avoid the fortifications which entails marching directly through earthwork fortifications, but because TFSmith does not know about them it works perfectly. His Union troops cross the river to Gosport without breaking a sweat, presumably by walking on water as they later do at Montreal.

At the same time, he fiddles with historical events to strip 80% of the defenders from Norfolk in order to allow Burnside's (largely ahistorical) 9,000 men to take a fortified port originally controlled by 14,000 enemy troops, while not bothering to give any justification for why the Union did not attempt the landing he describes in OTL - it is presented as an easy bit of work achievable over a weekend in December, a stark contrast from the British invasion of Portland (which actually DID have almost no defences, but which holds out for a year and is never taken)


If Burnside had attempted his landing at this time he would have been doing so with about 5,000 of his own men and 2,500 of Wool's men, over the course of more than a week, against the express disapproval of Lincoln, against a position defended by double his own numbers, and in the middle of a fight with Wool over who got to run the expedition. The landing as described would have hit a beach mounted with a battery of artillery, and then run straight into an artillery breastwork with thirty heavy guns.


The aftermath?

But perhaps the oddest thing is what happens to Norfolk afterwards.

All of the above has been based on a section in chapter 12, part 2 - a "flashback" - which later states that the Union destroyed everything in the area and then evacuated while leaving "little more than a corporal's guard". No explanation is given as to why the Confederacy does not simply come back in and retake the place then and there, but instead it takes until the British get involved for the total force split between Norfolk, Hampton and Fortress Monroe (under a colonel, so presumably roughly one regiment total) to be captured on May 1. This is about forty times as long as the CSA force of three times the size held out in Norfolk.

However, in chapter 7 (part 1) it is mentioned that Fortress Monroe and Norfolk are still holding out as Union garrisons into July, tying down two entire corps of Confederate troops - Huger and Holmes - and preventing them from taking part in the battles of July.
So TFSmith gets to have his cake and eat it. The Confederacy moves Huger's force north so the Union can capture Norfolk, then moves it back south again and reinforces it so it can spend over half a year impotently attempting to overcome a single regiment (even with the support of the Royal Navy) without being able to help out in the battles of the summer.
In one event, we have most of TFSmith's foibles - lack of research, mild plagiarism, American exceptionalism, Union tactics and strategy being prescient and the tactics and strategy of their enemies being pants-on-head insane, and (of course) the knowledgeable reader being left with burning questions. (In this case, the main one is "so why didn't this happen in our world?" since it is actually well before the point at which anything else diverges.)

This display would not be particularly impressive as a bug report for a grand strategy game set on easy. For what is supposed to be an award-winning tale of alternate history, it beggars belief.


The Great Handwave
TFSmith was actually addressed with most of the above concerns directly (and well before he wrote up the attack described above in the long form), on page fifteen of the AH.com thread. His justification for doing things as diverse as making McClellan's historical illness hit a month earlier (thus justifying Johnston needing reinforcements, apparently) and having Burnside assemble his forces faster is that the point of departure was in August 1861.
In effect, TFSmith sees a point of departure as giving him carte blanche to rewrite history in order to improve the Union position. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of alternate history. Changes should flow organically from the point of departure- small at first, then gradually growing larger and larger over time. This is why we talk about "butterflies," in reference to the chaos theory premise that a butterfly flapping its wings in California can change airflows that may eventually lead to a hurricane in China. What Burnished Rows of Steel does is to have that butterfly cause a immediate hurricane in California, one which magically washes TFSmith's car while simultaneously demolishing the house belonging to his school bully. It is a shame that Nels Fredericksen's Introduction to Historia Virtua did not find time to cover this basic premise.