Civil War & Ukraine War Article on Parallels/Anglo-French Intervention ACW

[History Learner]

So no, British direct military intervention in the US Civil War is not as much as a sure thing as you'd think.

I think we're losing sight of the thread purpose, but the UK would've curbstomped the U.S. as best exemplified by the fact the majority of the lead, gunpowder, rifles, gun steel and percussion caps, to name just a few items, used by the Union were all British in origin. The Royal Navy was far larger, better trained, better equipped and could concentrate its forces in a way the U.S. Navy could not without diplomatic embarrassment. If you'd like to continue this further, I'd be happy to, but we'd probably need a dedicated thread for that.

 

[S'task]

I think we're losing sight of the thread purpose, but the UK would've curbstomped the U.S. as best exemplified by the fact the majority of the lead, gunpowder, rifles, gun steel and percussion caps, to name just a few items, used by the Union were all British in origin. The Royal Navy was far larger, better trained, better equipped and could concentrate its forces in a way the U.S. Navy could not without diplomatic embarrassment. If you'd like to continue this further, I'd be happy to, but we'd probably need a dedicated thread for that.

You sure you're not confusing the sides? Cursory research shows, for instance. That the most common rifle used by the Union Army, the Springfield 1861, was entirely produced in the US, as were every other rifle commonly used by the Union I could find. And while it appear some precursor components for gunpowder were imported, the US was a net exporter of gunpowder in the years prior to the Civil War. Lead I will grant was in short supply as in the 1860s the major lead mines in North America happened to be in Confederate territory. On the other hand, Percussion caps and other cartridges likewise had considerable domestic manufacture, with one company making as many as 80 million caps in 1860. Things are certainly not as one sided as to make the situation a "curbstomp" as you put it, and you're glossing over my core point which was you could not use the situation of the US in 1812 to determine anything about it in the 1860s due to the dramatic levels of growth and industrialization the country had seen in the intervening 50 years, which was what was explicitly done.

 

[History Learner]

You sure you're not confusing the sides? Cursory research shows, for instance. That the most common rifle used by the Union Army, the Springfield 1861, was entirely produced in the US, as were every other rifle commonly used by the Union I could find.

Many Union firearms, for example, were Pre-War stocks, European imports or made with steel imported from the British; domestic production only really got under way after 1863 because manufacturing methods were achieved via industrial espionage...in Britain. If I remember correctly, as late as Gettysburg about a fifth of the Army of the Potomac was still armed with smooth bore muskets.

And while it appear some precursor components for gunpowder were imported, the US was a net exporter of gunpowder in the years prior to the Civil War. Lead I will grant was in short supply as in the 1860s the major lead mines in North America happened to be in Confederate territory. On the other hand, Percussion caps and other cartridges likewise had considerable domestic manufacture, with one company making as many as 80 million caps in 1860.

The U.S. was a net exporter of gunpowder in the context of peace time conditions, the Civil War saw massive expenditure on a level multiple times that of previous consumption rates. At the start of the war there were no major domestic producers until Dupont in the Fall of 1863 began production of saltpeter at 50 tons a month, for a total of 600 tons per year. To put that into perspective, the Ordnance Department shows that between June of 1862 and June of 1863, the Army expended 1,557 tons. This means that the Army used about two and half years of domestic production via fighting alone. This figure also, it should be strenuously noted, does not include what the U.S. Navy and Marines Corps used, nor does it include the large amount the Army was using for food preservatives.

So how important was Britain, in this context? In 1862, 7.02 million lbs saltpeter were supplied directly from the UK itself but the British did more via British India:

18.66 million lbs saltpeter 1860-1
16.36 million lbs saltpeter 1861-2
18.65 million lbs saltpeter 1862-3
13.15 million lbs saltpeter 1863-4
6.88 million lbs saltpeter 1864-5

Converting all power to saltpeter for comparison, you found the following about purchases:

At war start 4.64 million lbs saltpeter
To 30 June 1862 purchased 10.98 million lbs, issued 5.80 million lbs, remaining 9.83 million lbs
To 30 June 1863 purchased 4.32 million lbs, issued 4 million lbs, remaining 9.25 million lbs
To 30 June 1864 purchased 6.31 million lbs, issued 5.66 million lbs, remaining 9.87 million lbs
To 30 June 1865 purchased 4.96 million lbs, issued 4.21 million lbs, remaining 10.62 million lbs

Credit to the user Saphroneth of the Civil War Talk forum for this particular bit of research. However, you can expand it to lead which is something I did research and found it quite devastating:

On hand in 1861: 1,302,000 lbs
Purchased to 30 June 1862: 23,057,000 lbs
Expended to 30 June 1862: 18,920,000 lbs
Purchased to 30 June 1863: 48,720,000 lbs
Expended to 30 June 1863: 31,139,000 lbs
Purchased to 30 June 1864: 12,740,000 lbs
Expended to 30 June 1864: 7,624,000 lbs

Lead imports from Britain by year

1861: 1,679,000 lbs
1862: 28,926,000 lbs
1863 5,777,000 lbs
1864 25,929,000 lbs

From June 30th of 1862 to June 30th of 1863, the Union Army alone expended 31 million pounds of lead; total production during that same space was only 28 million pounds. I don't have the data on percussion caps handy, but it was on the order of 30-40% of consumption as well if I remember correctly. The inescapable conclusion is that, without British imports, the Union war effort collapses due to material shortages of weapons and munitions.

Things are certainly not as one sided as to make the situation a "curbstomp" as you put it, and you're glossing over my core point which was you could not use the situation of the US in 1812 to determine anything about it in the 1860s due to the dramatic levels of growth and industrialization the country had seen in the intervening 50 years, which was what was explicitly done.

In so far as using 1812 to judge the 1860s I agree with, which is why my counter argument focused in on the specifics of that time period, rather than seeking to utilize historical data from 1812.

 

[ATP]

Oh for... the United States of 1810s and the United States of 1860s are two utterly and completely different beasts in ways no European can really grok due to the inherent different nature of the US to typical European countries.

The first major difference is this:

Bulgarian Population in 1810: 2,200,000
Bulgarian Population in 1860: 2,540,000

French Population in 1810: 30,000,000
French Population in 1860: 37,200,000

Italian Population in 1810: 19,600,000
Italian Population in 1860: 26,000,000

Spanish Population in 1810: 11,900,000
Spanish Population in 1860: 15,600,000

GB Population in 1810: 10,186,000
GB Population in 1860: 28,917,900

US Population in 1810: 7,239,881
US Population in 1860: 31,443,321

I want you to stop and really understand what those numbers mean. In the same period of time France saw a 24% increase in population Great Britain saw an 184% growth in population while the US saw a 334% increase in population, nearly DOUBLE that of Great Britain. The US, in 1812, had 3 million LESS people than Great Britain did, by the 1860s they had 3 million MORE. And the majority of that population growth was in the North, as that massive population boom was driven in large part by various waves of immigration to the US from various European countries that almost ALL went to the northern and northwestern states as that was where opportunities were.

Meanwhile in the same period the US had seen a massive wave of industrialization in the north that completely upended the economies of the region. In 1810 around ~72% of the US population was farm labor, by 1860 it had dropped to ~56%. This is a dramatic transformation of the economy.

Likewise the US went from having no railroads in 1810 (in fairness, nobody had railroads in 1810, the first profitable railroad didn't open in England until 1812) to having 30,000 miles of track laid, while Great Britain had around 10,000 miles. Granted, not entirely a fair comparison, as GB's railroads served a larger percentage of the country than the US ones did due to the sheer size difference. However, for reference, both of these countries had more rail-line laid than in any other country in Europe at the time. Likewise the first true telecommunication system, the telegraph, was considerably more widespread in the US than in any other country, with the US having 23,000 miles of telegraph line internally compared to 2,200 miles for Great Britain (who was the highest in Europe) in the 1850s. What this means, from a practical standpoint, is that the US would have much better coordination and control of operations in North America than Britain would and be able to use their railroads to move troops around much more effectively to respond to any land attacks.

As to the most critical force in this comparison, the navies, the US Navy in the 1810s relatively new and overall small, with only 5,000 personnel and 14 ocean going ships. During the Civil War the US navy rapidly grew from 42 ships to 671. This was considerably more ships than the Royal Navy fielded at the time (398), and most of the US ships were integrating new technology at a rapid pace while the Royal navy had considerable amounts of legacy ships that would not have been able to compete. Add in that the Royal navy would have had to remain on station across much the world, while the US Navy would be mainly focused on defending the continent and maintaining the blockade, and the numbers simply do not look good for the British, who would not be able to concentrate their forces effectively compared to the US.

So no, British direct military intervention in the US Civil War is not as much as a sure thing as you'd think. If it somehow happened early enough in the war it could force a negotiated end, but the capabilities of Britain and America were no so far apart as you seem to think they were, and the US of the 1860s was a VASTLY and completely DIFFERENT beast compared to the US of the 1810s. To even suggest that just because things went one way in 1812 that they would play out similarly in 1860 just demonstrates your utter ignorance of American history and just how dramatically the US rose and developed as a world power in the 19th century. By the 1860s the US was a top tier world power on par with any of the European empires, and superior to many of them when it came to industry and innovation. Sure we didn't do international colonialism the same way the Europeans did, but then we didn't need to, as the US was not only a massive home market for our own goods, we tended to have most raw materials we needed within our territory anyway, and so were really going out looking for luxury goods and new markets to sell to (and we were willing to sell to anyone, as we had long ago rejected the Mercantile policies that drove European colonialism).

Just... really... citing 1812 as support for something in 1860? That 50 year period is perhaps one of the most dramatic shifts in human history. That is the core years of the Industrial Revolution. That is when the Steam engine is invented and the railroads began connecting across continents in ways never before imagined; the telegraph is invented and saw the first trans-Atlantic cables laid. This was when the era of Wooden Ships and Iron Men saw it's final "Hurrah!" and firearms went predominately from smoothbore to rifled and the dramatic increase in accuracy was achieved. The revolver was invented and the groundwork laid for automatic firearms. There's been few times of such dramatic changes in 50 years... and you stumbled into arguably the biggest one in world history...

Thanks for info,i would add two facts:
1.British do not have big army.And,since they had professional army,they could not just consprict people,like USA.
Even if they win on sea,they still could not win on land.And USA would probably take Canada.
I once read fanfiction/forget title,as usual/ in which war between USA in 1863 was compared to Grizzly fighting whale.

2.British fleet still had ships-of-the line,not battleships or even ironclads.Sure,they would rule on sea,but near Harbour they would lost to monitors.

P.S i am almost sure,that France in 1863 had professional army,like England,but i could be wrong.
If i am right,that France could not send big army there,too.

All in all - i think,that they could only save CSA,not destroy or even turn into vassal state USA.And,England probably would lost Canada.

But,it would be interesting TL - in which USA would support Germany during WW1.Wrll,at least we do not have commies there.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Thanks for info,i would add two facts:
1.British do not have big army.And,since they had professional army,they could not just consprict people,like USA.

The British Army in 1861 had on the order of 245,000 soldiers serving worldwide, making it the largest and most capable professional army in the world. And that's not including colonial auxiliary forces, which in India alone were roughly another 250,000 regulars trained to British standards.

For comparison, the pre-breakup United States Army consisted of barely 16,000 servicemen, and the regular forces of the Union Army at the end of the southern rebellion still numbered only about 22,000. Total men under arms for the Union totaled a staggering nearly two million enlistments and troop strength on the order of 700,000, but most of these were U.S. Volunteers, not regular army.

2.British fleet still had ships-of-the line,not battleships or even ironclads.Sure,they would rule on sea,but near Harbour they would lost to monitors.

As of the Civil War, ironclads were a new invention and the term battleship hadn't even been coined yet, so "not battleships" is an absurd criticism.

And no; while the Union and Confederacy were the first to put ironclad warships in actual battle and American history books tend to focus on these, the major European powers already had ironclads that were far more capable than anything America would field for several decades to come.

In 1861 the Royal Navy already had four seagoing broadside ironclads -- Warrior, Black Prince, Defence, and Resistance -- to the United States' grand none. By 1865, the Royal Navy boasted nearly two dozen of both broadside and central-battery types, and unlike the innovative but fundamentally flawed American monitors, all were fully seaworthy. In comparison, the United States Navy had no truly seaworthy ironclads at all, although three were nominally "seagoing" models.

 

[bintananth]

Four mounted infantry and one artillery regiment; four plus one is five.

Five mounted infantry regiments plus an artillery battery:

92nd Illinois, 98th Illinois, 123rd Illinois, 17th Indiana, 72nd Indiana, and the 18th Indiana Independant Battery.

A brigade with five regiments and attached artillery was overstrength before you get to the breech loading rifles. The use of horses to get from point A to point B while not using the likes of pistols and sabres from horseback at close quarters during a fight like cavalry typically did was "new".

 

[Agent23]

Oh for... the United States of 1810s and the United States of 1860s are two utterly and completely different beasts in ways no European can really grok due to the inherent different nature of the US to typical European countries.

The first major difference is this:

Bulgarian Population in 1810: 2,200,000
Bulgarian Population in 1860: 2,540,000

French Population in 1810: 30,000,000
French Population in 1860: 37,200,000

Italian Population in 1810: 19,600,000
Italian Population in 1860: 26,000,000

Spanish Population in 1810: 11,900,000
Spanish Population in 1860: 15,600,000

GB Population in 1810: 10,186,000
GB Population in 1860: 28,917,900

US Population in 1810: 7,239,881
US Population in 1860: 31,443,321

I want you to stop and really understand what those numbers mean. In the same period of time France saw a 24% increase in population Great Britain saw an 184% growth in population while the US saw a 334% increase in population, nearly DOUBLE that of Great Britain. The US, in 1812, had 3 million LESS people than Great Britain did, by the 1860s they had 3 million MORE. And the majority of that population growth was in the North, as that massive population boom was driven in large part by various waves of immigration to the US from various European countries that almost ALL went to the northern and northwestern states as that was where opportunities were.

Meanwhile in the same period the US had seen a massive wave of industrialization in the north that completely upended the economies of the region. In 1810 around ~72% of the US population was farm labor, by 1860 it had dropped to ~56%. This is a dramatic transformation of the economy.

Likewise the US went from having no railroads in 1810 (in fairness, nobody had railroads in 1810, the first profitable railroad didn't open in England until 1812) to having 30,000 miles of track laid, while Great Britain had around 10,000 miles. Granted, not entirely a fair comparison, as GB's railroads served a larger percentage of the country than the US ones did due to the sheer size difference. However, for reference, both of these countries had more rail-line laid than in any other country in Europe at the time. Likewise the first true telecommunication system, the telegraph, was considerably more widespread in the US than in any other country, with the US having 23,000 miles of telegraph line internally compared to 2,200 miles for Great Britain (who was the highest in Europe) in the 1850s. What this means, from a practical standpoint, is that the US would have much better coordination and control of operations in North America than Britain would and be able to use their railroads to move troops around much more effectively to respond to any land attacks.

As to the most critical force in this comparison, the navies, the US Navy in the 1810s relatively new and overall small, with only 5,000 personnel and 14 ocean going ships. During the Civil War the US navy rapidly grew from 42 ships to 671. This was considerably more ships than the Royal Navy fielded at the time (398), and most of the US ships were integrating new technology at a rapid pace while the Royal navy had considerable amounts of legacy ships that would not have been able to compete. Add in that the Royal navy would have had to remain on station across much the world, while the US Navy would be mainly focused on defending the continent and maintaining the blockade, and the numbers simply do not look good for the British, who would not be able to concentrate their forces effectively compared to the US.

So no, British direct military intervention in the US Civil War is not as much as a sure thing as you'd think. If it somehow happened early enough in the war it could force a negotiated end, but the capabilities of Britain and America were no so far apart as you seem to think they were, and the US of the 1860s was a VASTLY and completely DIFFERENT beast compared to the US of the 1810s. To even suggest that just because things went one way in 1812 that they would play out similarly in 1860 just demonstrates your utter ignorance of American history and just how dramatically the US rose and developed as a world power in the 19th century. By the 1860s the US was a top tier world power on par with any of the European empires, and superior to many of them when it came to industry and innovation. Sure we didn't do international colonialism the same way the Europeans did, but then we didn't need to, as the US was not only a massive home market for our own goods, we tended to have most raw materials we needed within our territory anyway, and so were really going out looking for luxury goods and new markets to sell to (and we were willing to sell to anyone, as we had long ago rejected the Mercantile policies that drove European colonialism).

Just... really... citing 1812 as support for something in 1860? That 50 year period is perhaps one of the most dramatic shifts in human history. That is the core years of the Industrial Revolution. That is when the Steam engine is invented and the railroads began connecting across continents in ways never before imagined; the telegraph is invented and saw the first trans-Atlantic cables laid. This was when the era of Wooden Ships and Iron Men saw it's final "Hurrah!" and firearms went predominately from smoothbore to rifled and the dramatic increase in accuracy was achieved. The revolver was invented and the groundwork laid for automatic firearms. There's been few times of such dramatic changes in 50 years... and you stumbled into arguably the biggest one in world history...

I think you are failing to account for a few things, like the fact that Britain is territoriality much smaller than the USA, so is France, so are most other European countries if you only use the mtropolies rather than the colonies.
Furthermore, in those years Europe saw several sizable conflicts and outgoing colonization and migrations to other areas of the world, and not just the USA.

The USA does not have a true centralized idea of itself yet, and managing to pull the confederacy out of it will likely open up other avenues of approach for the Europeans to use to undermine what is left of the Union.

Also, I have no idea where you got your numbers from, but Bulgaria did not exist as an independent entity until the Russo-Turkish War of 1877(something like the 13th one)

 

[bintananth]

That's cool and all, but there weren't 200,000 Spencers and, IIRC, even this brigade wasn't fully equipped with them. Again, however, this doesn't detract from the main point?

A New Kind of Firepower that Gave Union Soldiers a Fearsome Edge

Christopher Spencer’s seven-shot repeating rifle gave Union forces in the Civil War a fearsome edge against their Confederate enemies.

www.historynet.com

~106,000 were made during the US Civil War.

There's also the Sharp's single shot
breech loading rifle and the Henry fifteen shot repeating - which sometimes got refererred to by Confederates as a "load on Sunday and shoot all week" - rifle.

 

[History Learner]

A New Kind of Firepower that Gave Union Soldiers a Fearsome Edge

Christopher Spencer’s seven-shot repeating rifle gave Union forces in the Civil War a fearsome edge against their Confederate enemies.

www.historynet.com

~106,000 were made during the US Civil War.

There's also the Sharp's single shot
breech loading rifle and the Henry fifteen shot repeating - which sometimes got refererred to by Confederates as a "load on Sunday and shoot all week" - rifle.

No, they were not; the figure is from total production runs in Carbines including most which were from 1865 or later.

 

[bintananth]

No, they were not; the figure is from total production runs in Carbines including most which were from 1865 or later.

Those are the numbers for the ones made after the Civil War ended. Not the numbers for the ones produced and delivered during it.

 

[History Learner]

Those are the numbers for the ones made after the Civil War ended. Not the numbers for the ones produced and delivered during it.

No, it's referring to both. Case in point is here with the category specifically marked Civil War models, showing where the serial numbers go:

 

[bintananth]

No, it's referring to both. Case in point is here with the category specifically marked Civil War models, showing where the serial numbers go:

Your username is @History Learner. If you'd like to learn a little bit about the Lightning Brigade go look up Captain Eli Lilly. He was a pharmacist from Indianapolis.

 

[History Learner]

Your username is @History Learner. If you'd like to learn a little bit about the Lightning Brigade go look up Captain Eli Lilly. He was a pharmacist from Indianapolis.

Cool, still doesn't change you're wrong about the Spencer Rifles, however.

 

[ATP]

Five mounted infantry regiments plus an artillery battery:

92nd Illinois, 98th Illinois, 123rd Illinois, 17th Indiana, 72nd Indiana, and the 18th Indiana Independant Battery.

A brigade with five regiments and attached artillery was overstrength before you get to the breech loading rifles. The use of horses to get from point A to point B while not using the likes of pistols and sabres from horseback at close quarters during a fight like cavalry typically did was "new".

Well,dragoons were invented in 17th century,and before that english archers sometimes have horse units to go with calvary,and fight on foot.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Well,dragoons were invented in 17th century,and before that english archers sometimes have horse units to go with calvary,and fight on foot.

The earliest recorded use of dragoon tactics came in 1552, when Duke Farnese of Parma mounted several infantry companies on packhorses for mobility. What was "invented" in the 17th century was the establishment of dedicated dragoon units that were permanently established in this manner.

 

[ATP]

The earliest recorded use of dragoon tactics came in 1552, when Duke Farnese of Parma mounted several infantry companies on packhorses for mobility. What was "invented" in the 17th century was the establishment of dedicated dragoon units that were permanently established in this manner.

Then,english longbowmen was still first.

 

[bintananth]

Then,english longbowmen was still first.

Not really.

A Japanese Yumi and English Longbow are are about the same size: ~6'6" in length and both need arrows ~3' long. A Yumi is asymetrical and can be used while riding a horse. A longbow is symetrical and not usable while in the saddle.

 

[S'task]

Not really.

A Japanese Yumi and English Longbow are are about the same size: ~6'6" in length and both need arrows ~3' long. A Yumi is asymetrical and can be used while riding a horse. A longbow is symetrical and not usable while in the saddle.

Err... that makes the Samurai a mounted archer, not a dragoon. A dragoon, by definition, is a infantry unit that uses horses to rapidly get into position but then fights on foot. Some Samurai may have fought like that, but they were horse archers first and foremost. And formations of Mounted Archers have been a thing since the Parthians AT LEAST, so Samurai weren't anything special there.

 

[Zachowon]

Err... that makes the Samurai a mounted archer, not a dragoon. A dragoon, by definition, is a infantry unit that uses horses to rapidly get into position but then fights on foot. Some Samurai may have fought like that, but they were horse archers first and foremost. And formations of Mounted Archers have been a thing since the Parthians AT LEAST, so Samurai weren't anything special there.

Before rhat we have Assyrians

 

[bintananth]

Err... that makes the Samurai a mounted archer, not a dragoon. A dragoon, by definition, is a infantry unit that uses horses to rapidly get into position but then fights on foot. Some Samurai may have fought like that, but they were horse archers first and foremost. And formations of Mounted Archers have been a thing since the Parthians AT LEAST, so Samurai weren't anything special there.

Samurai pre-Tanagishima Tokitaka and Medieval English Archers were pretty comparable: a whole shitload of "this is going to suck" got sent downrange in the form of 3ft long arrows in armour piercing clouds addressed "to whom it may concern" with up to a 1/4 of a mile away being where the arrows landed.