Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond
- Thread starter EnglishCanuck
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I genuinely laughed at this. Lincoln was definitely not a handsome man. I always laugh when I read about how General McClellan called Lincoln "the original gorilla". Despite the clear disrespect, I've always found it an apt and hilarious description
true but people don't like there heros ugly and I am sure his actors will all be at least Hollywood nines.
My favorite is "that giraffe "
by stanon.its just amazing in its contempt.
Of cause, following that logic, wouldn't McClellan be "the original Tree Sloth"?
Hey @EnglishCanuck
Quick question I thought of and figured I'd ask. I was rereading an another older Trent War TL on this site and in that TL my namesake's son, John Fox Burgoyne, plays a part in the conflict.
Now, I'm currently slowly rereading this TL to remind myself of everything that's happened. I don't believe I've seen mention of John Fox Burgoyne.
Any ideas what he could be up to in this TL? Any potential for him to play a part in the conflict? (Assuming the conflict continues and allows him a chance to get in on the action)
Anyway, just figured I'd ask. Looking forward to more from this amazing story!
Quick question I thought of and figured I'd ask. I was rereading an another older Trent War TL on this site and in that TL my namesake's son, John Fox Burgoyne, plays a part in the conflict.
Now, I'm currently slowly rereading this TL to remind myself of everything that's happened. I don't believe I've seen mention of John Fox Burgoyne.
Any ideas what he could be up to in this TL? Any potential for him to play a part in the conflict? (Assuming the conflict continues and allows him a chance to get in on the action)
Anyway, just figured I'd ask. Looking forward to more from this amazing story!
Most definitely. "Sloth" is the perfect spirit animal for McClellan.Of cause, following that logic, wouldn't McClellan be "the original Tree Sloth"?
Burgoyne was, briefly, brought up waaay back in Chapter 10 Marching as to War Pt. 3 where some of his words included in reports to the commissioners on the defence of Canada in 1862 are recorded. He had some pretty good insight that is echoed by the sources at the time, and he was probably pretty well right in many of his assessments about defending Canada in the time period. The most pertinent quote I've chosen from him is used here:
It's actually what got me looking at battlefields south of Montreal to see if anything would make a speedbump in the Union advance. I stumbled on the previous battles at Lacolle, studied as much of the ground as I could find, and realized he was probably right. If a Union force is marching right up the Richelieu River, they pretty much have to try and cross the smaller Lacolle Ricer, and if you wait for them on the other side behind brestworks with batteries emplaced... well you're going to give them a really bad day!
For Burgoyne himself though, he has since then been advising the War Cabinet on strategy, discussing what ought to be done to better defend Canada, and most recently saying how bitter he is that there has been a battle at Ticonderoga again. TTL he and the poor Bishop John Strachan are suffering from some very terrible deja-vu. Burgoyne is just very happy he was an ocean away at the time. He had thought about trying to get overseas to take part, but given his advanced age and usefulness at home, the War Cabinet has had him kicking around the Horse Guards instead.
As Jefferson Davis tended to react to most news he didn't like...poorly. Though he is going to be among the last to find out. One side bonus of Lincoln sending his requests for peace negotiations through the Russians is that the Confederates don't have any major agents in St. Petersburg* and with Mason being effectively sidelined in London, he won't have any real way of finding out about it outside the newspapers. Once he does find out he's going to be making some very questionable decisions as you will see in the first March narrative chapter.
He won't really be able to complain much either since the British are icing out his envoy and they have no diplomats in Richmond, only their small military mission which was meant to coordinate with the army that was supposed to take Washington. Pity how that turned out.
*Funnily enough, I've read a few accounts from the period and it seems many in the South did not care for the Russian Empire. I've seen the Tsar of Russia being maligned in the same sentence as bankers in New York!
Well you see even complimentary accounts of Lincoln describing him as a scarecrow and an undertaker (or a combination of the two) and you find that, almost universally, he was not praised for his rugged good looks. Sadly the war also aged him beyond his years, and you compare the pictures of him in 1861 to those from 1865 and you get a frankly heartbreaking image of what great stress does to a person.
I've often wondered how Churchill came out looking comparatively rosy between 1939 and 1945 for all the stress he had to have been enduring.
Helps that he started looked pretty old at the start of the conflict, perhaps. Plus, Churchill was the sort of personality that positively revelled in the role he'd found himself in in several ways that Lincoln never did.
This is true. Churchill was an old baby most of his life. He probably drank enough to be partially pickled as well...
Then again, there's probably a difference between someone who knowingly steps into the breach and someone whose elected to a position where he doesnt quite believe the whole nation is about to be split by a fratricidal war.
It might be interesting to compare Churchill between 1933 and 1939. Between those years he was watching the country and the world spiralling towards the abyss while he was forced to watch from the sidelines. By the middle of 1940 all and sundry were in the abyss, but he now had a degree of input and control over what happened as well as, as you say, revelling in the job.
Chapter 79: The Prisoners’ Tale
Chapter 79: The Prisoners’ Tale
“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” - Hebrews 13:3
“Come the end of 1863, the war between Great Britain and the United States had been waged for well over a year, and each side had taken numerous prisoners. The British mainly in their overland campaigns, and the United States in its invasions of Canada. The war at sea had been costly for the United States, and in the Battle of Key West alone the British had taken 1,095 sailors captive. In their subsequent destruction of the various blockading squadrons, taking the old and less modern ships, they had captured a further 4,000 American seamen. Over the next year hundreds more would fall into British hands as they attempted to run the blockade. Before 1864 over 32,000 Union men (9,000 of them sailors) were in British hands.
The Union on the other hand, had taken many of its own prisoners in the early stages of the invasions of Canada. At Delaware Crossroads they’d capture 1,244 Canadian militiamen and 54 British regulars. In the fighting that raged in Canada East a further 900 Anglo-Canadian prisoners would fall into American hands, and thousands more would follow from action on land or on the seas. 14,000 would be in Union hands before 1864.
The Union largely incorporated the new prisoners into existing prison camps like Elmira, Camp Douglas and Johnson’s Island. This simplified matters from the point of view of the Union army, but would cause considerable headaches in the presses…
The Elmira Prison Camp, 1863
The Anglo-Canadians on the other hand, had greater problems. While many prisoners were handed over to the Confederacy in 1863, the five thousand sailors captured in 1862 had to be dealt with somehow. Many were transported to makeshift prisons in Bermuda, while others were taken to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. They would spend miserable winters in makeshift encampments outside Saint Johns and Halifax, and many were transported to Camp Sherbrooke where over 4,000 would eventually be interned. Another prison camp was established outside of Halifax, Camp Monck, where many failed blockade runners ended up.
In the Province of Canada, the matter proved more difficult. With much of Western Canada overrun in early 1862 and Canada East having many secure locations, but not enough space, it was eventually decided that most prisoners would be housed outside Ottawa at Camp Sheaffe. The palisaded camp would be guarded by local militia and house some 6,000 prisoners of war who made the voyage up the Ottawa River in the spring and summer months, usually spending uncomfortable and cramped months in hutted camps in New Brunswick.
These prisoners became problematic however, and Britain, other than understanding the material value of keeping trained soldiers out of American hands, soon wanted to be rid of them. On the American side of the border, there was a desire to get many experienced men back to fight the Confederacy.Turning British and Canadian prisoners over to the British forces would hardly impact their position, while after the Siege of Washington they needed every man available to them. In the aftermath of the Albany Campaign, General Burnside was authorized to approach the British under a flag of truce to commence negotiations for a prisoner exchange.
On October 4th, 1863, the two sides, in the person of Colonel Stephen van Renessaler and Colonel Edward Wetherall, sat down to hammer out the details of an exchange…
The resulting Wetherall-Van Renessaler Cartel would see British and American POWs begin to exchange hands in November. Firstly some 1,000 sailors held prisoner near Ottawa were exchanged for 800 British regulars in Elmira. Over the coming months further prisoners would be exchanged at designated points along the front in New York, and by the spring of 1864 8,000 Union men would be back on American soil, as would 5,000 Anglo-Canadians who returned North.
However, this would bring its own difficulties. News began to percolate through the army, and then the popular presses, about the horrors of the prison camps. No matter where Anglo-Canadians had been held, horror stories abounded. Men fed on starvation rations or not fed at all, casual neglect, and terrible conditions. Some men exchanged were little better than walking skeletons. The Canadian papers first reported this with outrage, followed by similar reports from The Times, on the horrors of “American penal institutions” and the plight of the captured soldiers. These stories would end up being considerable weight for the British negotiators at…
The British system meanwhile, was hardly ideal. The American POW’s had suffered sickness and death, and those at Camp Sheaffe were consistently on lean rations. Many suffered from malnutrition, and it is estimated that over 700 died of pneumonia. Meanwhile, in Bermuda and other Caribbean prison camps, 2,000 died of yellow fever caught in the tropical climate.
Recriminations in the presses on both sides of the Atlantic followed. While the British complaints held a moral weight in Britain, the appalling conditions revealed in the United States caused outrage for the captured soldiers, but also horror that men were dying in American care. As Louise May Alcott would write “Was not food cheap and plentiful? Was there not wool for blankets and socks? Was the nation not overflowing with straw and things good for men? Where then was the Christian compassion for their fellow man?” Indeed, the newsprint and moral indignation was so great that the Senate Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War would have to chair a special session to determine how the situation became so untenable.
The horrors of Andersonville, revealed later in 1865, would be even more outrageous…” POW’s and the Great American War, Jeremiah Dutton, Civil War Quarterly, January 1999 edition.
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well it sucks but I never heard of good prison camps from the 19th century.
my guess is cause the British and Americans are structurally portrayed as somewhat heroic duel protagonists is that CSA are being actually cruel towards there prisoners..especially those with African heritage.
my guess is cause the British and Americans are structurally portrayed as somewhat heroic duel protagonists is that CSA are being actually cruel towards there prisoners..especially those with African heritage.
I imagine with the realities of prison camps exposed to the international community there will be stricter rules placed on how you treat PoWs.
dunno seems a little dynamic for him, i mean they can actually move.
The preservative effect of copious amounts of spirits plus of course his supportive marriage and some close friendships helped
The campaigns of 1864 are going to drive that problem home rather nicely. The USCT ended up playing a very vital role in the Siege of Washington and now there's quite a few of them hanging around, might have to do something with them after all. Off to the Rappahannock it is...
The composition of the Army of the Potomac is gonna be interesting in the spring of 1864.
I've always been mildly fascinated with how badly the POW system broke down in the war. In the South at least they had the excuse that they could hardly supply their own men, but the North was also terrible in ways that can only be ascribed to malice rather than incompetence. Elmira was OTL a particularly brutal place which the inmates dubbed "Hellmira" by those incarcerated there. Let's just say it may capture the Anglo-Canadian imagination in TTL for quite a while.
Its also a bit ironic that we're heading into when the first Geneva Convention was held and signed, so I may have to dedicate a little time to that.
From what I can gather, British camps weren't great, most of the problems seem to stem from location. American ones seemed actively malicious with how they handled prisoners but it seem the Confederates are set to take the cake with what they did.