Thank you all who nominated this AAR for Choice AwAArd
VILenin: No causality loop!
anonymous4401: Sometimes, I just can't figure out how to write any more.
BBBD: Weird, huh?
Darks63: Just wait and see.
Fiftypence:
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September 16th, 1867
Admiral Flanagan studied the land spread before them for as far as the eye could see to either direction. From the bridge of the USS
Saranac, he could also see the flotilla of ships surrounded by an escort all too small for a force this size.
So many men, he thought,
It'll be a miracle to keep them all supplied.
Reports of the naval presence several miles to the northeast had alarmed Flanagan, and taken the President's expectations off-guard. It had complicated matters greatly.
Flanagan sighed with a shrug.
Surprise or not, orders are orders, and would have to be carried out.
"Commence firing!"
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September 16th, 1867 marked a sudden and abrupt end to an American ideology. Not the ideals of democracy or the Constitution, or even of slavery, but of war.
The first half of the 19th century had been kind to the United States. The Louisiana Purchase had caused an unprecedented doubling of America's borders and dominion. This precedent was repeated again a mere thirty years later with the Oregon War, in which the United States again doubled in size. Within another twenty, it had almost doubled again with the acquisition of Alaska and northern Mexico. The United States had emerged from war larger, stronger, and more respected by the world. Each time, American valour, ingenuity, and luck and benefited the Republic until it had almost completely expelled European influence from the continent and become the undisputed master of the Western Hemisphere.
To many Americans, the memories of the slaughter of the Oregon War had faded, and all that remained was the granduer and mystique of glorious combat. Recruitment soared and both the Army and Navy swelled larger than before, supplemented by the newest weapons of war American industry could supply, and there was indeed a great supply. It was this change that cemented a fundamental divergence in traditional American outlook in the latter half of the century.
On September 16th, 1867, the United States, citing neither foreign transgression or belligerence, declared war upon the island nation of Japan. Located thousands of miles to the west and just in the infancy of a technological and industrial explosion of development, Japan had neither threatened nor even affected the United States in any way. When President Hannibal Hamlin asked the Senate for approval, his sole reason was to advance American power. While the public would later respond with massive positive enthusiasm, the Congressmen were reluctant. But whether through a series of back-room dealings and clandestine agreements or just simple foresight into the mood of the nation, Congress complied.
The United States had gone to war with Japan.
Thus a remarkable change was brought about. The United States would henceforth fight any war at any time that it deemed fit to empower the country.
But why Hamlin would be the one to bring this change is puzzling. Before his presidency he had not been an advocate of jingoistic war or further expansionism. Part of Lincoln's old Free Soilers, his presidency should have implied entirely peaceful and industrial and economic growth, and perhaps a solution to the slavery question still lingering.
Instead, Hamlin had overseen the expansion of the Federal Navy and an additional 70,000 to the country's standing army, as well as previous invasion of Texas and Hawaii.
Even more shocking was the fact that a substantial naval force had already left the San Francisco harbor with the entire Army of the West and Pacific Fleet. By the 20th, it was predicted the army would already have landed an invasion force on the island, regardless of Congressional approval. This too brought with it massive implications of where the true loyalties of the military lay, with the Republic, or with the President. Many could not help but point to the fate of the Roman Republic to show the implications of such a shift.
But regardless of what changes might be brought about, at the time, no one could quite predict how it would all develop. America was at war, and that took priority.
By October 10, the invasion force was securely in place.