Will's Good idea for the Week of 3-10-19

We always planned to write an alternate history novel about a war between the US and the UK, and people liked Palmerston's Ironclads.

At some point we're going to have to crawl out of the World War 1990 morass...

[Morass? You sell those everyday, knobhead - Ed].

Frankly the project had fallen by the wayside and we felt Palmerston's Ironclads had doused that creative fire.

But the Tennessee and Canadian contingents among our readership really came through last week with some other short story ideas for Palmerston's War.

The damn thing is marketable as hell.

We'd be dumb not to write it.

Palmerston's War The Royal Navy

In 1862 Britannia indeed ruled the waves.

The Royal Navy numbered over 300 ships.

In North American the navy had three important stations, an Halifax, Bermuda and Barbados. As war fears mounted, by 1862 54 ships were on the North American Station under the command of Admiral Alexander Milne. Halifax was well defended and had coal stores well provision by Canadian mines. Milne had carefully built up Bermuda stores.

In case of war Milne intended to keep 25 ships or so in the West Indies. Milne intended to break the Union blockade and then sweep down the east coast attacking ports. He had a detached squadron of Iron Clads for this purpose. If possible he would attack Washington, though this was unrealistic in 1862. From there Milne wanted to blockade the east coast at Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, Sandy hook and Long Island Sound.

Aside from attacking Washington, there is no reason to think Milne and the North American Squadron could not have accomplished all he set out to do. 

Palmerston's War: 1862

As noted previously, we've been asked to contribute to an alt-history short story anthology. We've decided to do a Palmerston's War short story.

The idea is that the Trent Affair, in which the USN boarded a British ship and removed two Confederate diplomats, leads to war. This was a real possibility. Cooler heads prevailed, though.

In our estimation such a war would have been about vulnerabilities. Of course the United States could have walked into Canada anytime it wanted. Conversely, the East Coast was wide open to British naval action. 

So the matter comes down to who can do what first.