Lakes a-Mercy! (1)

The problems with TFSmith's treatment of the war on the Great Lakes have been touched on briefly, but we will consider them in greater detail in this post (and, based on current expectations, a follow-up).


Some of these problems stem from lazy research. For instance, TFSmith mentions the 'Bidwell & Banta yard' four times. In reality, Banta had gone to Chicago years before, and by 1862 (p.87) the yard was named Mason and Bidwell. If this is how little research he does for the Union, imagine the state of the British and Canadians...

However, there are other places where TFSmith appears to flat-out lie about the capabilities of the Union. For instance, at one point he claims that 'although Kingston was a defended port, so were Oswego and Sacketts'. Yet this is not the case:

'Next comes Oswego, lying upon the lake shore like Buffalo, and liable with its shipping to be destroyed by war vessels firing from the lake. Here there is Fort Ontario, a fort of the period of the Revolution, extensively repaired abont twenty years ago, but now again demanding large repairs...
Sackett's Harbor- heretofore the point of naval construction and outfit, and where now stands housed an unfinished line-of-battle-ship, with some other naval property, has no defenses. There are pretty extensive barracks, needing probably considerable repairs. A railroad leads up to this harbor from the interior of the State, insuring the quick arrival of supplies and re-enforcements. Should this place again become the seat of great naval constructions and preparations, as in the war of 1812, it will demand considerable expenditures in the way of field fortifications' (per Totten)

Kingston's Fort Henry, built in the 1830s, mounted 38 guns (excluding its surrounding Martello towers). Fort Ontario, built in 1782 was designed to mount only 30; Sackett's Harbour had no defences. For TFSmith, these are equivalent setups. Had this disparity of force been the other way round, can anybody really suggest that TFSmith would have argued the two sides were evenly matched?

TFSmith's bias is well exemplified by a comparison of construction capacity. Oswego and Sackett's Harbour are given the ability to construct four ironclads over the course of the winter:

Willard A. Kitts (whose namesake son and grandson would each reach flag rank in the USN in later years), had a design for a 430-ton steam propeller judged suitable as the basis for an extemporized “casemate” ironclad, along the lines of those built for the Navy for use on the Mississippi. The first, the SS Norman, was on the ways and rapidly converted and commissioned as the gunboat USS Norfolk (5 guns) and as Woolsey's flagship... Woolsey accepted the “rebel” name and went on to lay down two enlarged sisters as soon as she had launched at Oswego, and a third at Sacketts; the Oswego pair would commission as Chicago and Oswego, respectively, while the ship at Sacketts became USS Watertown.

Only three of the ships are present 'when Woolsey’s squadron showed offshore (navigation opened to Ogdensburgh April 14, but there was still ice at Kingston)'. It is not stated whether the fourth ironclad was incomplete: however, we will present the worst case scenario for the Union and assume that it was. For the Union to build three 430-ton ironclads (Norfolk, Chicago, Oswego) requires a shipbuilding capacity stated as follows:

In peacetime, some 2,000 men worked in the shipyards during the spring through fall, with as many as 200 working over the winter; those numberes [sic] doubled and tripled in the space of a few weeks in 1861-62

So, 2,000 men working in peacetime gives the Union the capability to launch three 430-ton ironclads before April. How many men worked at Quebec in peacetime? 2,000 in 1861 to 4,000 in 1863 (p.53). How many ships do they get?

as of September, HMS Ontario and Quebec were launched but still fitting out; HMS Acadia and HMS Canada were in commission, but both, the first ships of the type to ever be built in Quebec, were still undergoing trials.

Technically, none; generously, two. British construction is slowed by TFSmith's insistence that there would be 'discussions between the Admiralty, Horseguards, and the Citadelle over how they would be paid for', but even if we assume that the British only laid the ships down in April then these ships are being laboriously constructed.

And it's obvious that the British are the problem, because the Union can build two tinclads in four months at Montreal at the same time as constructing a 'mosquito fleet':

In June, a short month after the twin victories at Limestone Ridge and Montreal had won essentially all of Upper Canada but the fortress city of Kingston on Lake Ontario, Silas H. Stringham had been ordered from Buffalo to Montreal to take command of the naval force that was to cooperate with the growing Allied army on the Saint Lawrence... the “mosquito fleet” built by Stringham and de Joinville, with the assistance of the Canadiens themselves, could use the islands and backchannels of the river, along with shore batteries and obstructions, to prevent the British from using the Saint Lawrence as a highway much below Lake Saint-Pierre...

By September, the first two “tinclads” – USS Montgomery and USS Montcalm – were in commission at Montreal; they were 300-ton versions of the Carondelet class casemate gunboats... with a substantial amount of material shipped from the yards on lakes Champlain, Erie, and Ontario, they had been built in two-thirds the time as their big sisters on the Mississippi. Four more of the “petite tortues” were under construction, Montreal and Quebec at Cantin’s yard and Prescott and Kingston at Sorel, although the pair on the stocks at Sorel was progressing much more slowly. 

Let us, therefore, summarise the construction totals of these comparable situations:

• Oswego/Sacketts (2000 workers): 1,200 tons between December and April (4 months)
• Quebec under the British (2000-4000 workers): 1,400 tons between April and September (5 months)
• Montreal under the British: 0 tons between April and June (2 months)
• Montreal under the Union: 600 tons and a mosquito fleet between June and September (4 months)

This is pure American exceptionalism. The American yards on the Lakes have no more experience building warships than do the Canadians. However, not only do Union yards build quicker than the Canadians, but the Union builds ships more quickly even in Canadian ports. What is worst is that this critically under-values the talent of Canadian shipbuilders, whose skill and speed in constructing wooden ships gave them the world's fourth largest merchant fleet by 1878.