Battles by Appointment

It is regular in the few occasions where TFSmith portrays the British and the Union manoeuvring against one another, rather than staring at one another over trench lines, that the two sides end up in a head-on military clash (usually with the British ramming themselves obligingly against Union defensive fortifications, even when there should not be any). When the Union is on the attack, meanwhile, the British melt away to avoid conflict where they absolutely cannot find any trenches to attack.
But one of the odd features of these manoeuvres is that they appear to be scheduled beforehand, by both parties, to lead to this outcome.

Red, White, and Blue Hawaii

In considering the British attack on California, we commented that sending HMS Camelion and HMS Mutine off 'hunting American cruisers across the breadth of the North Pacific' seemed like a poor use of resources. In doing so, we talked about the overall pattern of trade and the relative unimportance of the North Pacific to the British. Recently, I found a source which perfectly encapsulates the trade levels- the Hawaiian customs house records, which show the number of ships of each nation which stopped at the islands in 1861 and 1862.

Kearny the Maleficent

Unlike an earlier example, this is an actual plagiarism piece. That is to say, TFSmith actually ripping off a real author. And the implications go wider, though not hugely wide. So even if you skipped the earlier example, I'd suggest sticking with this one.

Irene Musi-can't (still)

Fair warning: this is another plagiarism post. That means highlighting long sections of text which, in this case, have been copied and pasted from one fictional author to another. It may not be particularly edifying, though I've tried my best to put a decent bit of snark in the comments to liven things up. If you do want to skip this one, there'll be a more interesting piece along any moment. Up to you.

Pilot Light

From chapter 15, part 2:

He had then commissioned and fit out the Pacific Mail merchant steamer California as a commerce raider at Mare Island, and had taken her – now USS California, and known as one of the “three pirates,” along with her sisters Oregon and Panama – on a cruise across the North Pacific as far as Japan and back. Schenck had captured half-a-dozen British merchant ships before running into the Columbia with the sidewheel sloop HMS Leopard (18), Captain Charles Keckie, in hot pursuit. Keckie, absent a bar pilot and knowing nothing about the river, prudently remained off-shore, while Schenck took his cruiser upstream to the Willamette.

...wait. Did Schenk carry a bar pilot for the Columbia River with him all the way out to Japan and back? That's remarkably prescient, considering he set off from San Francisco. It's also very obliging of the pilot to come more than six hundred miles down the coast to join the ship and spend months sailing out to Japan on the off-chance that Schenck will need his services on returning to America.

If not, we're presumably intended to believe that HMS Leopard was in hot pursuit right up to the point where USS California dropped anchor off the Columbia bar and waited for the pilot to come out to meet them. That's certainly in keeping with TFSmith's belief that the British would make no preparations for war between December 1861 and April 1862, but it seems a little... unrealistic.

Perhaps the most likely explanation is that TFSmith thinks that Schenck, who had never served on the coast of the Pacific Northwest, had an innate ability to navigate the Columbia river bar because he happens to be an American. This is rather unfortunate, given that Captain Wilkes abandoned his exploration of Puget Sound when USS Penguin was wrecked on the Columbia bar in 1841. Oddly for someone with such a detailed knowledge of the US Navy in this era, TFSmith never mentions this incident when he discusses how 'littoral operations were hazardous in this era in peacetime', highlights 'the risks of littoral operations', or illustrates how 'peacetime operations in littoral warfare was [sic] not without risk'. The incident is, of course, within the 1841-1881 frame of reference which TFSmith set himself. However, in Burnished Rows of Steel, running aground remains a quintessentially British prerogative.

Incidentally, the rather timid Captain Charles 'Keckie' is in fact Captain Charles Leckie, who commanded the Leopard when she was commissioned in October 1862. It's a good job that TFSmith only uses the most reputable official sources to draw up his timeline, otherwise he might make stupid mistakes.

Dis-raeli Bugs Me

 As we have seen many times, TFSmith has no real liking for British politics. It is not an integral part of his story: it is something that gets in the way of him writing the story of the Union victory. This is why we find such easily avoided errors as Sir George Cornewall Lewis acquiring a double-barelled name as Sir George Cornewall-Lewis. It is also the reason why we get passages like the following:

Eyes on the Prize

TFSmith makes great play of his academic credentials, which makes it all the more enjoyable when he reveals that he's fundamentally misunderstood a particular concept. (For an example of this, take his view of the overall balance of trade between Britain and the Union, where circumstances turned out to be the exact opposite of the way he portrayed it). This kind of revelation often comes in the shortest forms: for instance, a single phrase in chapter 11 part 1 reveals that his whole view of the Union commerce raiding operation is built on a horrendous misunderstanding.