Robert Conroy’s “1862: A Novel”: a Critical Analysis

 

Bryn Monnery

 

Introduction

 

1862 retrends the same subject as Harry Harrison’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”, and does a better job. This is not really a complement, as S&SF had had a visit from the Alien Space Bats (TM the late Alison Brookes). However, it is still a deeply flawed book.

 

This article is not a review, although it was a fairly mediocre book, but readable. Instead it is a simple analysis of some of the military aspects, notably the mistakes.

 

The Blurb

 

Three errors in the first sentence fragment:

  1. “seizes three Confederates”, there were four
  2. “English sailing ship”, the ship is British, not English, and is a steamer, not a sailing ship

 

Saltpetre

 

In his introduction, the author states that he was sure any Saltpetre shortage would simply be solved. This is because all of the Unions, and virtually all the Confederacy’s, Saltpetre was imported from British India. Saltpetre is required to make Gunpowder.

 

The worries about a Powder shortage were serious. Before the Trent Affair, the US government had bought all the excess Saltpetre in Britain, and it was on a ship awaiting shipment to the Union. This was impounded when the Trent Affair broke, and not released until after the conflict was resolved.

 

Even with British powder, the Union suffered a massive Powder shortage. No troops fired target practice, and standards of marksmanship were poor.

 

DuPont’s problems are vast. The only way of manufacturing new Saltpetre involves manure beds, and takes over a year (it’s an old, well known technology). Even with unlimited manure (which was all used up in farming as fertiliser IRL), money to run the farms etc., it will be summer 1863 before any new saltpetre is available.

 

The other option is to jump forward to 1910 Germany, when the Haber process is invented, which may be the authors intent. This is ASB territory however.

 

RN Ships

 

There is no cruiser HMS Asp in the RN. There is a tender bulk at Fisgard, an old packet. http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=1081

 

There is a HMS Gorgon. She’s an old (1837) paddlewheel cruiser, armed with 6 heavy guns, and the nameship of her class (several of her sisters were in American waters IRL, but not her). She was not part of the ships detailed for service in North America IRL. Instead she was famous for steaming up the Zambesi with Dr Livingstone aboard in 1862.

 

http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=1506

http://www.theshipslist.com/accounts/natal.htm

 

The Gorgon of the books is a 74 gun “frigate” (although with 74 she’d have been a Battleship), although there were no 74’s left in the RN at all.

 

The Warrior and Black Prince are mentioned. IRL, although complete and armed, the Black Prince was still in reserve. This causes some confusion over Trent Affair discussions due to the fact that “Commission” has a different meaning in the RN and USN.

 

In the USN, the modern meaning was used. A ship was Commissioned on completion, and decommission when her service was over.

 

In the RN, a Commission was an assignment to Squadron service or some other duty. The British government was fairly parsimonious, and so when a new ship was completed, and at the point the USN would “Commission” her, in the RN she went straight to reserve, often for 2-4 years. Ships in the reserve had skeleton crews, mainly engineers and the like, who kept them serviceable until called into Commission. It was common for ships to go back and forth from Commission (active service) to Reserve many times in their career. A third term, “Ordinary” was used for ships simply laid up and not maintained. The Ordinary was mainly old sailing ships.

 

The RN was stopped from putting armoured ships straight into commission by the Treasury. They were only aloud to match French squadron strength, hence RN armoured strength was much higher than the number in present commission. (See Lambert).

 

Thus the Black Prince is a fully armed and equipped ship in January 1862, but has only a skeleton crew. IRL she was ordered to prepare for sea during the Trent, but the matter was over before she was mobilised.

 

However, the RN have several more armoured ships. 7 of the 8 Crimean War “floating batteries” are still in existence and serviceable (HMS Meteor was rotten and scrapped 1861). One (HMS Terror) is even in American waters (as Bermuda guardship). One (HMS Trusty) even has a turret retrofitted to her, being the first “Monitor” type warship (she’s at Woolwich)

 

Additionally, the Defence is in Commission, Resistance, her sister, is complete and could be commissioned within weeks.

 

The four ships of the Prince Consort class are on the stocks and all 4 launched in 1862. The Hector and Valiant are on the stocks, and IRL Hector is available 1862 (but Valiant was delayed by her builder going bankrupt).

 

It will be 1863 before the 3 large follow-ups to Warrior are launched, and they languish for half a decade in the reserve before commissioning. There was a simple lack of need for them.

 

There are few enough specifics about HMS Agamemnon that no errors occur. http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=43

 

Regulars

 

Conroy is right that he says the regular British Army is over 200,000 strong. He is wrong saying it is all in the colonies. India absorbs about 20% of the Army. The Mediterranean islands about 5% of the Army. The rest of the colonies (SA, NZ, China etc.) absorb about another 5% of the army. The remainder is about 70% of 220,000, or about 155,000, are in the UK or are in Canada or the Caribbean.

 

The size of forces committed to the defence of Canada is miniscule. In reality 22,000 regulars were there as a tripwire, backed up by a considerable militia force.

 

Moreover, the entire British Army in the UK can be sent to America. It happened in the Crimean War. The British simply mobilised the militia. There was no need to keep a regular garrison in Ireland.

 

However, in this book the main field army is only 24,000 strong, exactly the strength of the Crimean forces first wave if you remove the cavalry. This despite a 230% increase in Army size (well, in the number of infantry).

 

Canadian Militia

 

Conroys description is so wrong it’s almost offensive.

 

Canada had three militia forces. The first were regulars, such as the Royal Canadian Rifles and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. These were quite small (limited to 5,000 by law, and only about 3,500 in 1862). The second are volunteer militia. These are an essentially identical organisation to the US volunteers, they were uniformed, armed with modern weapons and about 15,000 strong are growing (the recruitment went through the roof, 25,000 by the end of 1862 and 35,000 by 1863). There were about another 5,000 volunteers in the Maritimes.

 

http://www.cmhg.gc.ca/cmh/en/image_422.asp?page_id=485 for their uniform.

 

The volunteers were a fairly anglocentric organisation. The French Canadians did not like the organisation, they did however like the Sedentary Militia.

 

The Sedentary Militia was the “old militia”, and here French Canadians felt more at home. An attempt to call out 38,000 Sedentary Militia (about 1/3rd of the total) yielded 14,000, mostly French Canadians. They wore a different uniform, but were rearmed with modern weapons. The Maritimes produced a massive militia, 43,000 strong, with uniforms, but they swamped the supply of arms.

 

In January, the Canadians thus had 32,500 men in uniform in Canada, 48,000 in the Maritimes. This was steadily rising. They were certainly not a mob without uniforms or guns. They were a full, all arms army (albeit one lacking logistics).

 

Organisation

 

Conroy describes the organisation of the Army of Canada as “the Scottish Division, the British Division and the Canadian Division”. This is massively wrong.

 

For a start, the names are must silly, and the Divisions are two large. The standard British Division was the same as the pre-war US Division structure (and the French etc.).

 

It was essentially 2 Brigades of 3 Battalions, about 6,000 infantry. 2 Divisions would make a Corps. When comparing to US Divisions, they were in reality usually triangular. A Corps of 3 Divisions of 3 Brigades of around 5 Battalions was normal.

 

The difference is that the 2:2:3 pattern was the best attacking formation. The 3:3:5 pattern of the US was too unwieldy to attack effectively, but had a lot more mass (on paper) so was defensively stronger. In fact, the US lost men so quickly that a US and a British Division were about of equal size in 1862, and by late 1862 a US Corps was smaller than a British Corps of 2 Divisions.

 

Thus, in reality we are talking what should be a 3 Corps British Army. However, the British habit was to attach local troops to Divisions as Divisional Troops (or even an extra brigade).

 

The Lakes

 

The British apparently can’t move ships onto the Great Lakes because the Canals aren’t deep enough.

 

Rubbish.

 

The novel suggests the draft limit was 5 feet. This is not true, it is the limit for total passage from the St Lawrence to Lake Michigan, but:

 

To Lake Ontario: 186 feet long, 44.5 feet wide, 9 feet deep

To Lake Eire (Welland Canal): 142 feet long, 26 feet wide, 10 feet deep

 

Thus the depth is easily enough for many of the RNs ships, including the 7 Crimean Ironclads, and the 200 odd sub-1,000 ton warships. The limiting factor is the lock length.

 

ALL the Gunvessels and Gunboats in the RN can get to Erie (see http://www.pdavis.nl/Gunboats.htm ), Monitor (the smallest of the US Monitors) can’t, nor can Terror, Thunderbolt et. al. Of the ironclads, Aetna alone can reach Lake Ontario, and that’s a squeeze (she has less than 6 inches clearance from some of the lock sides). The others are very slightly too large to fit the locks.

 

http://thomo.coldie.net/hole_html/britain_1859.html

 

Thus the lack of British forces on the Lakes is exceptionally strange. An invention of the author even.

 

Notably, at one point 3 US Monitors attack the British. The US commissioned its 3rd Monitor, Montauk, on 17/12/1862. Since none of the three is the Monitor, the 4th Monitor was Nahant, 29/12/1862, 2 days before Monitor floundered IRL.

 

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/us_mon.htm

 

Conclusions to Date

 

This article is not finished, but it appears that the author has totally failed to grasp the Devil in the Detail. It certainly doesn’t deserve to be “Historical Fiction”, or properly a “Counterfactual”. It’s Science Fantasy/ Alternative History novel.

 

TBC, with details of the US Canals (which may simply get expanded into a new article: “The Great Lakes in the Trent War Counterfactual”).