WI: There was a Pig War

[LHB]

Russia's Army in the Crimean war was 700,000 men, the US army at the start of this one would be what? 16k in regulars? Britain doesn't need any allies. They put 250,000 men into the Crimea by themselves.

Which only worked because Russian infrastructure was operating at the horsecart and muddy wagon track level, their 700k men were mostly illiterate poorly equipped and at least somewhat malnourished peasant conscripts who didn't want to be there, and the Russian officer corps who didn't quite get how all of the above added up to a lot of problems.

If the US goes to war with the UK under this scenario you can bet the number of voluntary enlistments, just as happened at the outbreak of the Civil War, would soar through the ceiling. It would take time for them to get caught up to speed but unlike the Russians there's going to be higher levels of literacy, better equipment and health, and is operating on a fairly extensive rail network stretching across the main population centers of the industrial northeast. There won't be a Siege of Sevastopol, which by the way took the British just shy of a year to win, because the US will have reinforcements in force at any such landing site in far greater concentrations faster than the British can hope to respond to.

To whit: it is 3400 miles from Portsmouth to Boston over the North Atlantic. Chicago is 1000 miles by rail and all points east are even closer. Add in tidbits like how railroads don't sink and the North Atlantic is not exactly the gentlest body of water in the world and the result is a logistical tether facing a lot more kinks, difficulties, and simple lag time on the side of the British compared to the Americans. The lack of industrial logistics in 1812 that allowed the British to have their way with the US during that conflict is not the case in 1859.

And even with the long-haul that is the voyage to California, either by steamer from Panama or by clipper around Cape Horn, no matter how successful the British are on the West Coast the US is still closer by sea than the British and MUCH closer by land.

As far as modern equipment and artillery and all that allow me to introduce you to the Parrott Rifle, the Sharps Rifle, and the Colt Revolver each of which were fairly easy to manufacture in large numbers and will be the moment it becomes clear superior equipment is needed to beat the British. They should also have no problem getting the necessary nitrates for powder production seeing as the CSA managed to do just fine with urine-derived nitrates.

 

[Saphroneth]

Pure distance over ocean doesn't matter much to the RN. It was easier to get troops from London to Cape by sea than to Cornwall by land, pretty much.

 

[LHB]

Pure distance over ocean doesn't matter much to the RN. It was easier to get troops from London to Cape by sea than to Cornwall by land, pretty much.

That's because Cornwall at the time was an undeveloped rural backwater that no one cared much about outside of some Romantic poets waxing eloquent over Tintagel. And saying pure distance doesn't matter at sea demonstrates a great deal of ignorance regarding moving stuff by sea during the 1850s and 1860s. The Royal Navy might think they rule the waves but a rough North Atlantic storm system, quite common even in the better times of year, would disagree and that's before going into the limitations winter weather will impose of ship traffic. The most important factor you are ignoring here, however, is it takes substantially longer to move troops and goods over 3400 miles of sea in the 19th century than it does to do the same overland by rail. That it is happening over sea makes the situation even more difficult for the British than it is for the Americans.

Not to mention the simple mundane fact that when a train is derailed it is possible to save lives and salvage material. The same cannot be said for a ship sinking in the North Atlantic.

 

[Beedok]

I rather suspect this would cause the US to implode. The slave states were much more tied to the UK for trade weren't they? They'll not be supporting a war against their main trading partners in a war that can only gain them more free states.


Also Napoleon will probably want another wonderful adventure, maybe retaking Louisianna?

 

[Saphroneth]

That's because Cornwall at the time was an undeveloped rural backwater that no one cared much about outside of some Romantic poets waxing eloquent over Tintagel. And saying pure distance doesn't matter at sea demonstrates a great deal of ignorance regarding moving stuff by sea during the 1850s and 1860s. The Royal Navy might think they rule the waves but a rough North Atlantic storm system, quite common even in the better times of year, would disagree and that's before going into the limitations winter weather will impose of ship traffic. The most important factor you are ignoring here, however, is it takes substantially longer to move troops and goods over 3400 miles of sea in the 19th century than it does to do the same overland by rail. That it is happening over sea makes the situation even more difficult for the British than it is for the Americans.

Not to mention the simple mundane fact that when a train is derailed it is possible to save lives and salvage material. The same cannot be said for a ship sinking in the North Atlantic.

Of course, I could reply by pointing out that the RN does this kind of thing all the time. They went pretty much where they wanted at will at this time.
And that it's rare to find a power with as much rail capacity as the RN had access to ships. It'll take longer for any one load, but there'll be one hell of a lot more in parallel.

 

[TFSmith121]

Yeah, the problem there is Wikipedia

Farwell says 30,000, Troubetzky and Strawson both say about 26,000; given that the Eastern Army's order of battle totalled five infantry divisions and a cavalry division, each with two brigades, and the total number of battalions assigned were 44 infantry and 8 cavalry, the above makes sense.

Source is Hart, 1855 Army and Militia List; the OOB starts about page 231.

Now, perhaps the British suffered 1,000 percent casualties, and the "250,000" number amounts to six divisions and all their replacements (10 times over), but I sort of doubt it.

The total numbers of "British" troops (as opposed to Indian or "foreign and colored") numbered 218,309 officers and men in 1862, according to Petrie & James' Organization, Composition, and Strength of the Army of Great Britain.

Best,

 

[Saphroneth]

Farwell says 30,000, Troubetzky and Strawson both say about 26,000; given that the Eastern Army's order of battle totalled five infantry divisions and a cavalry division, each with two brigades, and the total number of battalions assigned were 44 infantry and 8 cavalry, the above makes sense.

Source is Hart, 1855 Army and Militia List; the OOB starts about page 231.

Now, perhaps the British suffered 1,000 percent casualties, and the "250,000" number amounts to six divisions and all their replacements (10 times over), but I sort of doubt it.

The total numbers of "British" troops (as opposed to Indian or "foreign and colored" numbered 218,309 officers and men in 1862, according to Petrie & James' Organization, Composition, and Strength of the Army of Great Britain.

Best,

I wouldn't be surprised if it shrank quite quickly at the conclusion of the war. The British Army does that.
What I'm also not sure about is if the "British" 250k figure is the Crimean section, or the Crimean + Baltic + Far East + Tartary or whatever; if it includes disgruntled locals; if it counts Indian troops, or anything of the sort.
So it's hard to tell what the number means.
OTOH, if we take the overseas deployment as of Sevastapol, and add regularized Canadian militia, we get at least one ACW-size army (approaching 100,000 men, though on the low side). Combine that with the RN (rule Britannia etc.) and the way the Brits have the more recent doctrine due to Crimea experiences, and it at least suggests the Americans won't easily run the table.

 

[robcraufurd]

As far as modern equipment and artillery and all that allow me to introduce you to the Parrott Rifle,

Did you read the page all the way through? It wasn't invented until 1860.

the Sharps Rifle, and the Colt Revolver each of which were fairly easy to manufacture in large numbers and will be the moment it becomes clear superior equipment is needed to beat the British.

Were they and will they? In June 1861, the US Government ordered ten thousand Sharps carbines. By the end of 1861, only 5,800 carbines and 100 rifles had been received. Ironically, the British army received the last of its order of 6,000 Sharps carbines by the end of March 1858, so the British would have certainly gone into and probably come out of a war with more Sharps than the Americans. As for Colts, only 54,184 were delivered by the end of July 1862 despite each one costing the government $25, or a 100% markup on cost. However, at least the British army only had 18,057 .36 Navy Colts in store or in issue on 1 January 1859, so we don't encounter the same embarrassing situation as the Sharps.

We actually know what weapons were in Federal arsenals in November 1859, and they weren't Sharps: 503,664 .69 smoothbore percussion muskets, 106,598 percussion rifles in varying calibres (.69, .54 and .58), and 24,546 flintlocks.

A quote which few people have apparently seen and which I'd like to bring everybody's attention to is Palmerston's proposed strategy for fighting a war with America:

“If we are weak in Canada, the Americans are still more vulnerable in the slave states… A British force landed in the Southern part of the Union, proclaiming freedom to the blacks would shake many of the stars from their banner” (Palmerston to Panmure, 24th September 1855)

This is really going to make things interesting. It gives the US a massive domestic headache, compounded by the competing forces of slave-owners and abolitionists, and shores up British public opinion behind a war of liberation. Black troops in red coats storming the White House? It'll make a good painting, at least.

 

[Saphroneth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Gun
This is also relevant for the time. Parrot v. Armstrong - which is actually superior? The Armstrong was around at the time.

 

[TFSmith121]

It's Wikipedia; it doesn't mean anything.

...So it's hard to tell what the number means...

It's Wikipedia; it doesn't mean anything, which is why I asked the poster for his sources...

As far as I can tell, based on various published sources, about the largest effective field strength the British Army (as opposed to the French, Turks, and Sardinians) ever managed at any one time during the Crimean campaign was about ~30,000, plus (at best) another ~15,000 or so lines of communication, service, and support elements.

And those 30,000 were not all the regulars of the thin red line; by 1856, a lot of them were wartime recruits. The reason the British failed at the Great Redan is generally laid to the poor training of the replacements for their infantry battalions; there were a finite number of Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotsmen, and Welshmen who were going to volunteer for active service against a "Western" enemy in this period, and with 14,000 British troops on the sick list at one point, they needed a lot of replacements.

There's a reason the British were trying to raise mercenary units in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy in 1855, after all.

As far as "regularized canadian militia" go, there wasn't any in 1854. The first recognized volunteer battalion in the provincial (Canadian) militia was organized in 1859, as the First Battalion, Volunteer Militia Rifles of Canada.

Like anyone else, the British can throw companies of sedentary militia together into provisional battalions, but that is even less of a foundation than the state militias in the US were in 1861.

Add to the realities of time and distance, terrain, and the fact the US was much more heavily industrialized in comparison to the UK in 1859-60 than Russia was in 1854-55, and the correlation of forces looks very much unlike a walkover for anyone.

The idea that the British - or any other European power - was going to steamroll any major Western Hemisphere state in the Nineteenth Century is completely belied by the historical record, given the British defeats in the United States and (what became) Argentina, the French defeats in Haiti and Mexico, the Portuguese defeat in Brazil, and the Spanish defeats everywhere, including their second goes at Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Chile...

The biggest reason was that there was ALWAYS somewhere else the European power needed its army and/or navy (generally closer to home), but the fact was the Western Hemisphere nations were peer competitors to the Europeans by the end of the Eighteenth Century...add the home field advantage and the minor issue of the Atlantic in an era of coal-fired steamers (at best) and sail, and there was no way a European power was able to deploy and sustain enough combat power in the Western Hemisphere to effect any sort of lasting political settlement.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

And how long did any of the first generation of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Gun
This is also relevant for the time. Parrot v. Armstrong - which is actually superior? The Armstrong was around at the time.

And how long did any of the first generation of breechloading artillery (field or naval) last in service - in peacetime?

There's a reason the British went back to muzzleloading artillery.

Equipment one's troops can not use effectively, however technically ahead of its time, ends up as scrap metal.

Best,

 

[TFSmith121]

Yes, because in 1859, the British were all about

...Black troops in red coats storming the White House? It'll make a good painting, at least.

Yes, because in 1859, the British were all about using non-white troops against "civilized" enemies.

As witness the full divisions of Indian Army sepoys and sowars and West India Regiment troopers sent to the Crimea, Baltic, and Kamchatka...much less (a few years later) to the Transvaal and Vrystaat.

Much less the legions of native troops enlisted and armed in South Africa for use in both of the "Boer" wars...

Oh wait, they didn't...wonder why that was, again?

Because it was so much cheaper to ship regulars, wartime enlistees, Imperial Yeomanry, City Imperial Volunteers, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders, I'm sure...much less try to enlist German, Swiss, and Italian mercenaries in 1855-56.

And if the US had 610,000 percussion small arms already in the arsenals in 1859...that is not going to be enough, somehow?

Best,

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

But no domestic production of saltpeter, without which those guns are useless.

 

[TFSmith121]

Well, first off, there were these things called the

arsenals and armories, in which stockpiles of both finished powder and (you guessed it) saltpeter was stored for wartime use.

Now, I don't have the figures for 1859 - although I'm sure if one wanted to dig into it, they exist somewhere; there's a reason the Quartermaster Corps was founded (in 1775 or 1818, your call) - but on March 4 1861, there were 1,110,584 lbs of finished powder and 3,822,704 lbs of saltpeter on hand in the Army's stockpiles, alone, according to the Civil War OR (which are on-line); that does not include the stocks of the Navy and Marine Corps, Revenue Marine, all the state and territorial adjutants general and state militias, and (of course) civil stockpiles.

As far as raw nitrates, given that the basic requirements are manure and urine, and that both the “French Method” using manure and urine and the “Swiss Method” using solely urine were known in the US, that hardly seems a hurdle that could not be overcome. Chemistry, after all, was hardly unknown in the United States in the Nineteenth Century... The Elements of Chemical Science, the first American textbook of chemistry, written by Harvard’s second Erving Professor of Chemistry, John Gorham, in 1819. Harvard opened its undergraduate chem lab in 1850, and the first chemical physics journal, Elements of Chemical Physics, published by Erving Professor of Chemistry, Josiah Parsons Cooke, in 1860.

Likewise, given that "cave nitre" had been surveyed and exploited since the Colonial Era, and that during the 1812-1815 war, deposits at Wyandotte, Indiana, were exploited on an industrial scale to provide source material for gunpowder, it seems likely these resources could be exploited as well. Scientific descriptions of these deposits were published at least as early as 1818 (Phillips, William, An Elementary Introduction to the Knowledge of Mineralogy, New York, 1818). By the mid-Nineteenth Century, usable deposits were found in the mountainous regions of Kentucky, which were exploited for commercial purposes. Other deposits were found in the caverns of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Surface deposits were also known to exist in California, Maryland, North Carolina, and Wyoming, and were exploited in California from the Spanish and Mexican periods onward.

Unless someone is going to argue that North America doesn't include sulfur deposits and the ability to grow trees (charcoal), I think the "Americans wouldn't have any gunpowder" concept is probably somewhat flawed.

Best,

 

[LHB]

Of course, I could reply by pointing out that the RN does this kind of thing all the time. They went pretty much where they wanted at will at this time.
And that it's rare to find a power with as much rail capacity as the RN had access to ships. It'll take longer for any one load, but there'll be one hell of a lot more in parallel.

They never did it with an industrial, modern nation-state on the receiving end.

The only reason the British were able to pull off what they did in Crimea is because they were facing a power that lacked the means to effectively respond to a naval descent in force like what the British did. In the case of the United States not only is the means for rapid response and massive mobilization present it will be able to move FAR faster, more reliably, and have a huge home field advantage over British forces.

When you can make the Royal Navy run the 3400 miles from Portsmouth to Boston faster and more reliably in 1859 than a train goes from Chicago to Boston then you've got logistics beat. However there is no such vessel or transportation system capable of doing that NOW short of flying, much less in the era of steam and sail.

Oh and one last thing re Portsmouth to Cornwall: the fact that going 180 miles by sea is faster than going overland in a time of bad or no roads or rail connection doesn't say much about the speed of the Royal Navy. There's no records anywhere in the world that suggest they were EVER capable of cross the Atlantic faster than an 1859 locomotive can cover a third as much distance.

With no danger of sinking with all hands and cargo.

 

[Beedok]

My guess is that the war will go very badly for both parties, but marginally worse for the Americans. They're on the verge of collapse without the war, I doubt the union will hold out when the North is aggressively poking the South's trade allies.

 

[profxyz]

Just a few brief points regarding the current discussion:

1) Direct comparisons to Crimea are probably unfair, since the point was that the British learnt from the experience.

2) The British will know that they can't match the US' land forces on the East Coast. The natural solution to that is not to engage land forces - use their superior navy to ensure the US has to defend everywhere, while the UK gets to pick and choose their fights.

3) The Pig War will start in winter 1859, which means the US can't make any moves into Canada for the first few months. So the British have time to get their defenses in order before the US attack.

4) Even assuming that the US can transport more everywhere, that still doesn't necessarily overcome their command/tactical/experience deficits compared with the British, especially given that McClellan will be the natural fit when war breaks out.

5) The fact that you have less than a year to make war before 1860 elections is very important. Firstly, this incentivizes a wasteful 'cordon' strategy for the US, just as it did for the CSA. Secondly, it means the Democrats need quick victories. The US is thus incentivized to do too much in too little time.

6) The fact that this war will imply the annexation of Canada, should the US be successful, is also important. The South faces two choices to keep their political power - sabotage the war effort (likely), or demand compensation for Canada, which is likely to take the form of non-Canada territories. Both don't help the US. Britain knows this.

7) Lastly, personalities. Palmerston is newly-elected, able, works according to British interests, and sees the US as a dangerous threat to said interests. Buchanan is on his way out, weak, worn out by the North/South debate, and cannot act decisively in a crisis (as shown in Fort Sumter OTL). I would argue that Palmerston will mobilize/utilize British resources in a much better form than Buchanan can.

So I can concede that the US' objective capabilities might look stronger than the UK's on paper (at least on land), but capabilities by themselves don't determine everything or else the Union wouldn't have needed 5 years to win the ACW. Leadership, strategy and politics all play a big part in victory and most things point to the UK being superior in all three for winter 1859. I can agree with TFSmith121's initial assertion that the result won't be a steamroll from either side, however, and will result in a worse situation for Britain vs. France.

 

[TFSmith121]

Couple of points:

Just a few brief points regarding the current discussion:

1) Direct comparisons to Crimea are probably unfair, since the point was that the British learnt from the experience.

Did they? I'd offer the 1st South African War, 1880-81, in evidence, counselor. Majuba as Exhibit A. I won't even mention Isandlwana...

2) The British will know that they can't match the US' land forces on the East Coast. The natural solution to that is not to engage land forces - use their superior navy to ensure the US has to defend everywhere, while the UK gets to pick and choose their fights.

There's a lot of the US in 1859 the British Army will be more than welcome to flounder around in; the reality is there (as always) are lakes and rivers to control and cities to defend, namely the maritime approaches to the Big 3; even the Chesapeake is secondary, as are the whole of the south Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific - closer to tertiary.

3) The Pig War will start in winter 1859, which means the US can't make any moves into Canada for the first few months. So the British have time to get their defenses in order before the US attack.

Winter comes earlier to the Saint Lawrence than anywhere else in North America worth bothering with in 1859; if the river is closed, Upper Canada (Canada West) and the important parts of Lower Canada (Canada East), meaning Montreal and the Eastern Townships are in US hands before the thaw. Given that this is two decades after the events of 1837-38, and a decade after both the provincial parliament was burned and the annexation manifesto was published, I'd expect the Americans would have been welcomed by more than a few of the Queen's subjects.

4) Even assuming that the US can transport more everywhere, that still doesn't necessarily overcome their command/tactical/experience deficits compared with the British, especially given that McClellan will be the natural fit when war breaks out.

Actually, no; Scott's the man in charge, and he has fought and beaten the British before. Delafield, Mordecai, and (former) Captain McClellan, however, got to see the British at their finest in 1854-55. And Alfred Mordechai has no reason to resign - neither do Lee, the Johnstons, etc., and there are plenty of others likely to "rally."

5) The fact that you have less than a year to make war before 1860 elections is very important. Firstly, this incentivizes a wasteful 'cordon' strategy for the US, just as it did for the CSA. Secondly, it means the Democrats need quick victories. The US is thus incentivized to do too much in too little time.

US strategy is simple; defend the (major) ports, commerce raid the British, control the rivers and lakes, and invade the Province of Canada and New Brunswick with the largest armies as yet mobilized on the North American continent. Third time's the charm.

6) The fact that this war will imply the annexation of Canada, should the US be successful, is also important. The South faces two choices to keep their political power - sabotage the war effort (likely), or demand compensation for Canada, which is likely to take the form of non-Canada territories. Both don't help the US. Britain knows this.

From the "true southron's" point of view, perhaps; from the vast majority of southern whites, probably not. Manifest Destiny was widely supported north and south in the mid-Nineteenth Century, and if anything, new free states in the north implies some adjustments in existing slave territory. There's always the Texas 5-way split, for example.

7) Lastly, personalities. Palmerston is newly-elected, able, works according to British interests, and sees the US as a dangerous threat to said interests. Buchanan is on his way out, weak, worn out by the North/South debate, and cannot act decisively in a crisis (as shown in Fort Sumter OTL). I would argue that Palmerston will mobilize/utilize British resources in a much better form than Buchanan can.

Palmerston was born in 1784 and died (historically) in 1865; Buchanan was born in 1791 and died in 1868. Neither one is exactly hale and hearty, despite the "Lord Cupid" element of Pam's career.

So I can concede that the US' objective capabilities might look stronger than the UK's on paper (at least on land), but capabilities by themselves don't determine everything or else the Union wouldn't have needed 5 years to win the ACW. Leadership, strategy and politics all play a big part in victory and most things point to the UK being superior in all three for winter 1859. I can agree with TFSmith121's initial assertion that the result won't be a steamroll from either side, however, and will result in a worse situation for Britain vs. France.

Thanks for the agreement, but - 5 years?

Across Five Aprils would be four years, true?

Best,

 

[tallthinkev]

As pointed out, as the US army is bogged down in parts of eastern Canada, the RN is free to do want ever it wants, say goodbye to any and all coastal ports and cities from New England to Texas. In the west British troops can come from India, Aus and outposts in the far east, lets say 12,000?

France could say 'we can help out' and take New Orleans, the Mississippi is taken and the US cut in half. OK, that that's pushing it a bit, but hey.

Best out come for the US is that the borders remain the same.

Some of the southern states may ask Britain for help, they won't get it if they still hold slaves.

 

[profxyz]

I'll probably only do this once, since I don't like it when others do this sort of point-by-point debate, but you definitely know stuff, so...

Did they? I'd offer the 1st South African War, 1880-81, in evidence, counselor. Majuba as Exhibit A. I won't even mention Isandlwana...

It's a bit unfair to look at the performance of an army 20+ years after the Crimean War and argue that from that, the Crimean War Generation learnt nothing from their experience. It's like saying that because the US got bloody noses in Vietnam and they did so again in Iraq, nobody learnt anything from Vietnam.

There's a lot of the US in 1859 the British Army will be more than welcome to flounder around in; the reality is there (as always) are lakes and rivers to control and cities to defend, namely the maritime approaches to the Big 3; even the Chesapeake is secondary, as are the whole of the south Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific - closer to tertiary.

That's true, and I don't claim to know what needs to be defended. But it's not reasonable to expect the British, who well know that without going on the offensive Canada is not defensible, would just sit back and get bogged down into lake and river defence (and even if it were so, the result is to get more ships to do the job, not sit passively). It's not like they haven't done this sort of grand raid before - they did it in China, they *tried to do* it in Crimea, and they can probably do it (with more ships) in America.

Winter comes earlier to the Saint Lawrence than anywhere else in North America worth bothering with in 1859; if the river is closed, Upper Canada (Canada West) and the important parts of Lower Canada (Canada East), meaning Montreal and the Eastern Townships are in US hands before the thaw. Given that this is two decades after the events of 1837-38, and a decade after both the provincial parliament was burned and the annexation manifesto was published, I'd expect the Americans would have been welcomed by more than a few of the Queen's subjects.

That's what the Fenians thought in OTL 1866, and it didn't work out. In any case, a US strategy that depends on a) the St. Lawrence freezing over completely and b) a hastily assembled US army capturing forts and seizing all strategic points of note (when they rarely did that on home soil during the ACW) before organized resistance comes from the UK is probably a risky strategy, especially if you give the few months needed for the US to prepare for what is, in essence, an unplanned conflict for both sides.

Actually, no; Scott's the man in charge, and he has fought and beaten the British before. Delafield, Mordecai, and (former) Captain McClellan, however, got to see the British at their finest in 1854-55. And Alfred Mordechai has no reason to resign - neither do Lee, the Johnstons, etc., and there are plenty of others likely to "rally."

Scott's an old-timer used to old war (in any case, too ill for command). Delafield will probably have to stay and look after coastal defences, and I'm not sure an armaments man like Mordecai wouldn't be staying at Washington. If the railroads are so important as many here claim, then railroad VP McClellan's expertise makes him the natural. I concede that Lee being made head is certainly a possibility, though again this raises questions about whether Lee was a good or a fortunate general (I lean towards the former).

US strategy is simple; defend the (major) ports, commerce raid the British, control the rivers and lakes, and invade the Province of Canada and New Brunswick with the largest armies as yet mobilized on the North American continent. Third time's the charm.

War in an election year is bad because you simply can't let bad things happen to your constituents. Oh, you're just going to sit back and watch our minor port burn, huh? I guess we'll just choose our own candidate/vote Lincoln/vote Breckinridge instead. Like the early CSA, the US is just politically incentivized to spread itself thin to give some semblance of Federal protection, no matter how strategically stupid that is.

From the "true southron's" point of view, perhaps; from the vast majority of southern whites, probably not. Manifest Destiny was widely supported north and south in the mid-Nineteenth Century, and if anything, new free states in the north implies some adjustments in existing slave territory. There's always the Texas 5-way split, for example.

How many Congressmen were 'true southerners' one can only guess, though an awful lot of the political elite were happy to break with the Union when secession came in OTL 1860. I'm not sure that the Texas 5-way split is a solution, because if it was then why didn't Congress do it at any point before 1860?

Palmerston was born in 1784 and died (historically) in 1865; Buchanan was born in 1791 and died in 1868. Neither one is exactly hale and hearty, despite the "Lord Cupid" element of Pam's career.

I meant in political terms: Buchanan is not personally/situationally in the best position to give direction to the war effort, which means that the North/South dispute in Congress will lead Union efforts astray; Palmerston doesn't have this problem (plus he was in pretty good health until he croaked).

Thanks for the agreement, but - 5 years?

Across Five Aprils would be four years, true?

True.