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The Presidents: 1836-1936 - An Interactive US AAR

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General Order 004
Confederate States of America

Hereby exclaiming the Defense of the Nation should be achieved, by General Order of the Confederate Congress and President of the Confederate States, I do allocate the following;​

1. Telegram's between the Confederate States and the United States shall be regulated by the government in Richmond.
2. The Confederate States shall not give into United States demands to accept Peace and Surrender into the United States.
3. The Government in Richmond will send out Diplomats to European Powers for recognition.
4. The Confederate Congress shall be open and willing to work to solve the Problem of Slavery.
5. The Confederate States hereby proclaims that this War and Government is solely for the Purpose of Preserving Independence and the Rights of each State.

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Frymonmon said:
General Order 004
Confederate States of America

Hereby exclaiming the Defense of the Nation should be achieved, by General Order of the Confederate Congress and President of the Confederate States, I do allocate the following;​

1. Telegram's between the Confederate States and the United States shall be regulated by the government in Richmond.
2. The Confederate States will allow for Representatives from the United States to sit down and discuss talks of Peace.
3. The Confederate States shall not give into United States demands to accept Peace and Surrender into the United States.
4. The Government in Richmond will send out Diplomats to European Powers for recognition.
5. The Confederate Congress shall be open and willing to work to solve the Problem of Slavery.
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I Would Reccomend against making Peace overturees at this point sir, let us wait for a Glorius military victory so we may negotiate from a position of strength.
 
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If the President will allow it, may I have the honour to be a negotitaor in the peace process?

[telegram]

To General Davis,
Do not forget my words Stop

Walsh

[\telegram]
 
((Didn't think of that, and frankly I'm glad. It's extremely grating.))
 
Alerting mod.
 
The American Civil War
1858: First Blood​


The Civil War began in confusion. The Confederacy, with its larger pool of experienced military personnel, was able to muster its forces faster. Conscription was enacted on March 1st, and a total of 147,000 young men were drafted into Davis’ army. They reinforced the existing 78,000 regulars who had joined the rebellion and brought the Confederate Army’s full strength to a formidable 225,000 battle-ready soldiers.
This coincided with the final placement of Confederate government. President James Davis was inaugurated on February 28th, and signed the Confederate Constitution on the same day he gave his first General Orders. This efficiency allowed the South to gain the advantage of the first strike in the war, and stood in stark contrast to the Union’s first efforts.
It took Williams and his cabinet until March 3rd to sort out the mess created by the secession. When Nicolas Khur arrived in Washington on March 4th, Williams was more than happy to have the military mind who had engineered the victory in Mexico command Union forces, hopefully, to victory in the Civil War. Khur immediately devised two separate strategies, one for the land war, and one for the war at sea.

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1. General Nicolas Khur, c. 1858.​

On land, the US Army, with its 108,000 regulars and estimated 123,000 volunteers [1] would be divided into 5 separate armies. The Armies of the Potomac, Appalachia and Ohio would wage the war in the east, and the Armies of the Rio Grande and Mississippi would wage war in the west. The objectives for the east were Richmond, Raleigh and Savannah. The objective of the Army of the Ohio was to occupy the Mississippi from Malden to New Orleans, thus cutting the Confederacy on half, while the Army of the Rio Grande would commit itself to harassing movements in Texas and the liberation of Oklahoma.
The plan for the US Navy was simple. The Southern Economy was dependent on exports of cotton to nations such as Britain and France. Khur and Admiral Winfield Scott together finalized the Anaconda Plan, which would see the navy blockade every port in the Confederacy. The US Navy, consisting at the time of only 18 Man o’ Wars and 5 transport flotillas, would expand massively during the war, and become a force to challenge the Royal Navy.
The initiative was however, with the South. On March 26th, the Confederate Army of Kentucky, consisting of 39,000 men, attacked the Army of the Mississippi five miles outside Malden. The Union force was not yet fully formed, and thus was short of men, leaving the Army of the Mississippi at 36,000 men with no clear chain of command.
The battle, which became known as the 1st Malden [2], lasted only 12 hours, and ended with the Union force retreating with 4,156 dead. The Confederates had lost only 2,228 men at Malden. This added to the 919 Confederate troops killed at Huntingburg, on the border with Kentucky, where 24,000 Confederates pushed the Army of the Ohio back from the Evansville area, killing 1,215 Union troops.

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2. Painting of the 1st Battle of Malden.​

The first clash of the war had thus gone to the Confederacy. Davis decided to follow the victories up by retaking West Virginia. The Armies of Virginia and Carolina, both with 21,000 men, began their invasion of West Virginia with the Army of Virginia marching to Oak Hill. To the surprise of the Confederate force, the town was defended by the 21,000-man Army of the Appalachian. The ensuing battle escalated into one of the longest, and bloodiest, of the entire war.
General Joshua Young, brought out of military retirement by Khur a month earlier, set up his troops on April 25th to block the Confederate force’s only way to cross the river, at the Thurmond bend. This meant that the Army of Virginia would either have to go downriver for miles to reach the next bridge, and exhaust itself by the time it reached Oak Hill, or go for a full frontal assault. General Beauregard elected to wait for the arrival of the Army of Carolina before attempting the latter option.
When Young got the news of the Army of Carolina’s approach, he immediately sent for reinforcements. These came in the form of the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by General Mandrake [3], which had been formed in the aftermath of Evansville from half of the Army of the Ohio. The Army of Carolina arrived first, and the Confederates launched an attack across the Thurmond bend on April 27th.
The initial volley from Union troops devastated the Confederate first line, but the numbers of the rebel force kept them from retreat. They knew that, at least for the moment, the Army of the Appalachia was outnumbered 2-to-1. The fighting on lasted 2 days, only beginning to slacken once the Confederates had achieved a tenable foothold on Young’s right flank. By then, already 4,798 Confederates had been killed in return for 2,193 Union soldiers.

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3. “Crossings of Death”, by Alexander Anderson.​

The next day, Young was forced by lack of men to launch only small and largely ineffectual harassing attacks at the Confederate foothold. The Army of Carolina on the other hand, prepared to launch another crossing of the Bend in order to gain a foothold on Young’s left flank. This attack was repulsed after heavy fighting, which lasted long into the night and killed 945 Union and 1,598 Confederate troops.
Mandrake arrived on May 1st, having with him a battalion of volunteers from Washington who had joined his force near Huntington. The volunteers were mostly factory workers and engineers, and had put their civilian skills to use in a way that the South’s draftees and volunteers could not. The Union volunteers had actually managed to create an improvised telegraph line following their line of march, and were preparing to set up a station at Oak Hill.
Young put the telegraph to good use, sending almost hourly reports on the situation to Khur in Washington. That situation was often hard to report in the following days. Mandrake’s first action was to launch the entire army of the Cumberland, composed of 42,000 men, in a counterattack on the Confederate foothold on the right flank. The Army of Virginia was forced to retreat, despite the much higher casualties Mandrake’s force had sustained, and take up makeshift positions on the other bank of the bend.
Mandrake pressed the attack, forcing the Army of Carolina to abandon its positions and reinforce the other Confederates. The fighting lasted well into May 2nd, at which point Young moved out of his defensive positions and crossed on the bend on his now defenseless left. Beauregard soon ordered a retreat as night began to fall, and Confederate forces were out of West Virginia by May 4th. The battle ended with 12,711 Confederate dead and 17,992 Union dead [4].

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4. Generals Mandrake (right) and Young (left), the “Fighting Brothers of Oak Hill”.​

While the Battle of Oak Hill was raging in West Virginia, Confederate forces in the West had consolidated their hold on the areas around the border between Kentucky and Missouri. Confederate forces were in full control of Malden, Evansville and Carbondale, and were closing in on Joplin and Cincinnati. The situation was grim for Richard Schofield’s Army of the Mississippi, which had been pushed away from the very river that gave the army its name.
Fortunately, Confederate generals were still giddy from victory at Malden and Evansville, and reports of imminent victory at Oak Hill. General Robert E. Lee led his larger force of 38,000 men to take St. Louis from the 26,000 men remaining in the Army of the Mississippi [5]. Lee underestimated the determination of Schofield and his men to wipe the shame of the 1st Malden from their reputation, and launched a full frontal assault on the left flank of Schofield’s force at the battlefield near Hillsboro on July 3rd.
Schofield kept his right out of the fighting long enough for the left flank’s furious resistance to suck up most of Lee’s force. He then ordered the right flank to charge the part of Lee’s force not in combat. Once these forces were routed by less than 30 minutes of fighting, Schofield turned to encircle the troops attacking his left. Lee saw this, and attempted to call an organized retreat, but being fired at from all directions turned it into a rout. 3,980 men of the Army of the Mississippi were killed in the battle that cost Lee 17,865 men and tarnished a reputation he spent the rest of the war trying to clean.

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5. Confederate dead lined up for burial in a mass grave at Hillsboro.​

In the aftermath of Saint Louis and Oak Hill, Williams was able to convince the British government to pledge to an embargo on the CSA and fully recognize the illegality of the rebellion. Any rebel blockade runners or ships of any sort caught by British ships would be handed over to the Union. With the world’s foremost power supporting the Union, the Confederacy’s hopes for foreign intervention were dashed. If the CSA was to survive, it would have to be through major success by Davis.
The Confederacy however, was able to counter the losses at St. Louis and Oak Hill with the battles of Cincinnati and 2nd Malden. 2nd Malden was supposed to be a simple battle. The Army of the Ohio needed only to destroy the remnants of Lee’s force, which it now outnumbered almost 2-to-1. Yet the battle became almost a reversed version of Oak Hill.
The Army of the Ohio attacked on July 20th, but met heavy resistance from Lee’s force, which was now trying ironically to wipe the shame of St. Louis from its reputation. When news reached Schofield’s Army of the Mississippi that the Army of Texas was headed from Joplin to support Lee, Schofield moved to support Hunter’s Army of the Ohio. These two forces brought the total number of combatants to a staggering 78,000 Confederates and 73,000 Union troops.
With the arrival of reinforcements for both sides, the battle devolved into a brutal mess stretching all the way through Malden and Bernie two miles away. Eventually, Hunter and Schofield decided to retreat and merge their armies as a singular Army of the Mississippi. The battle had cost 10,642 Union killed and 5,178 Confederate dead.

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6. A painting of 2nd Malden.​

The 1st Cincinnati on the other hand was a complete and unmitigated disaster. The Army of the Cumberland came into contact with the Army of Western Kentucky at Finneytown, some miles out from Cincinnati, on September 5th. Union forces suffered 8,932 casualties by September 11th, in the process pushing the Confederates out of Finneytown and into Cincinnati proper. In Cincinnati, the battle devolved into street fights that severely damaged the town. The Confederates had the advantage of being defender in the veritable deathtrap, and when General Mandrake finally ordered the retreat of his battered army on September 16th, the Army of the Cumberland had lost 16,973 men. Only a comparatively meager number of 3,440 confederates had been killed.
The Union was severely battered by the fighting so far, and Williams was reportedly beginning to have nightmares about Davis invading Washington at the head of a horde of Southerners. These fears were unfounded by two factors, the Confederacy too had been battered by the fighting, and Washington was more than safe thanks to the presence of Khur’s Army of the Potomac, which had crossed its eponymous river as early as April, and occupied the crucial Manassas Junction. Adding to this, the Union would soon be racking up victories again.
The first was a political victory. Despite the stresses of the war, Williams had been working fervently on Cameron’s pre-assassination pet project, Hawaii. The island nation had been politically isolated as long as anyone could remember, until the US Ambassador arrived in 1856, with a proposal of peaceful cooperation. Hawaii, with its small economy and being a potentially vital position in any conflict for the Pacific, accepted the deal along with a promise of protection.
In September 1858, Williams finalized the treaty that Cameron had begun work on in 1857. The Newlands Resolution annexed the Kingdom of Hawaii, in a bid to gain further influence in the Pacific and show the world that the United States was still capable of acting outside of its Civil War. The islands’ monarch accepted the resolution on the singular term that he be the first governor of the new state, a term that Williams readily approved.

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7. Kamehameha IV, Last King and First Governor of the state of Hawaii.​

After this seemingly small victory, Williams was forced to turn his attention back to the mainland, and more specifically Springfield, Illinois. The Confederate Army of Kentucky had moved into Illinois in the wake of 2nd Malden, and began to burn its way up the state with the intention of taking Chicago and cutting the Union in half. General Leonida Trimble’s force had already reached Chatham when the reorganized Army of the Mississippi set up around Springfield.
Trimble had only 23,000 men against Schofield’s 63,000, but like the Confederate army as a whole, was not aware that the Army of the Mississippi now also included the Army of the Ohio. He expected to face some 15,000 battered survivors of St. Louis and 2nd Malden. When he reached the area outside Springfield, Trimble was shocked, but knew that retreat was no longer an option unless he wanted to be attacked in the rear by a much larger force.
He set up defensive positions as best he could. Schofield on the other hand, told his men to move out of their positions as soon as he realized Trimble’s force was so greatly outnumbered. The following battle lasted two days with Union assaults alternating like a snake between the flanks and center of Trimble’s line. When Trimble deemed he had done enough damage to the Union force to discourage pursuit, he pulled back and the Army of Kentucky made a frantic dash for Malden, having lost 2,823 dead in return for 3,914 Union soldiers killed.
Unfortunately for Trimble, this was nowhere near enough to discourage Schofield’s 59,000 man force from pursuit. Trimble arrived at Malden with the Army of the Mississippi an hour’s march behind him. The 3rd and final battle for Malden began on October 4th, two weeks after the battle outside Springfield. It lasted for two days before Trimble’s exhausted troops retreated back into Arkansas, having lost 3,408 more men, while the Union suffered 5,349 dead. The effect on morale though was electric. Malden, the scene of two of the most humiliating Union defeats had been recaptured.

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8. A lithograph of 3rd Malden.​

3rd Malden would be followed up two weeks later by another stunning Union victory at Dayton. The objective of the Army of Western Kentucky was the same as the Army of Kentucky’s when it moved out of Cincinnati and up Ohio State toward the battered Army of the Cumberland. General Jackson intended to march all the way to Sandusky and cut Washington off from every state west of Indiana. He expected that the Army of the Cumberland would not yet have fully recovered from the beating it had taken a month earlier at Cincinnati.
Jackson underestimated General Mandrake, whose army set up some of the most impressive defensive positions of the entire war when it was confirmed that the Army of Western Kentucky was headed for him. Mandrake and Jackson, commanding 38,000 and 31,000 men respectively, met at Oakwood, though the proximity to Dayton meant the battle became known by that name. Jackson attacked in full force on Mandrake’s left flank, who in turn detached his right and went in for the kill. Jackson knew this tactic from St. Louis, and expected it.
He wheeled half of his force to face the attackers, but it was too late. The battle soon became a fighting retreat, which devolved into a rout, killing 11,760 of Jackson’s men. Mandrake lost 2,576 soldiers and began to pursue Jackson, intending to take Cincinnati in a move similar to the one that recaptured Malden. Unfortunately, it was not to be.
2nd Cincinnati devolved into the same kind of street fighting that had spelled doom for Mandrake’s first effort. This time, the results were not as demoralizing. 10,083 Union troops died before Mandrake once again called the retreat, leaving a further 5,983 Confederates dead. The Army of the Cumberland now had 29,000 men to the Army of Western Kentucky’s 11,000. Jackson knew he wouldn’t survive another campaign against Mandrake.

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9. Painting of 2nd Cincinnati.​

Mere days after Mandrake’s decimation of the Army of Western Kentucky, Virginia saw its first real combat. The Army of the Potomac had occupied Staunton on November 23rd, and on November 25th the Army of Virginia had marched to recapture Manassas Junction. Khur saw a chance to give Davis and the rebellion a blow where it hurt, so close to the capital. He immediately set out for Manassas.
Arriving on December 3rd, he let his men rest for a day while cavalry scouted out the Confederate force. On December 6th, the 54,000 men of the Army of the Potomac attacked the left flank of the 27,000-man Army of Virginia. Beauregard quickly wheeled the rest of his force to face the threat, the very right having to pass through Manassas Junction in the process.
The fighting lasted three days, and Beauregard lost 9,451 men before he was forced to retreat. Khur’s force had suffered only 3,400 dead. Beauregard headed for Staunton, which was already under threat from the Army of Carolina, and Khur prepared to follow. He caught up to Beauregard on December 24th, and in two days of fighting killed 4,544 Confederates forced the Army of Virginia away from Staunton. The Army of the Potomac lost 6,842 men.
Meanwhile, the Army of Texas had engaged the Army of the Rio Grande outside Oklahoma City on December 26th. The odds were against the Union, with General Sanderson commanding only 21,000 men against Robert E. Lee’s 32,000. Luckily, Lee’s army was still tired from marching, and Sanderson had time to set up a defensive line.
The following day, Lee attacked. The battle flung wildly from left to right, and on December 27th, part of the Army of the Mississippi was dispatched to aid Sanderson. They were still at Tahlequah on January 1st, when Sanderson called the retreat. The Army of the Rio Grande had lost 9,559 men, but had managed to kill 10,822 Confederates. When Sanderson’s force disengaged from Lee’s, the war had dragged on into 1859 with no end in sight, and with the fluctuating fortunes of war making both combatants even more determined to fight to the end.

[1] – Until 1860, the Union Army was composed solely of regulars and volunteers who had joined for the duration of 180 days promised by Williams’ administration on March 5th.

[2] – Shorthand for the 1st Battle of Malden, a format that would be used for any later battles taking place in roughly the same area as another one.

[3] – Mandrake was promoted in order to command the Army of the Cumberland.

[4] – Most Union casualties came from Mandrake’s push through the foothold and Thurmond Bend.

[5] – The reinforcements that had not yet arrived to fight at Malden were absorbed by the half of the Army of the Ohio not put under Mandrake’s command.

------------------------------------

Exceptional Situation(s):

Phew. That was quite the slugfest. What do you think so far? Does the South still stand a chance? Here are the stats:

Union Dead (as of January 1st 1859): 96,681
Confederate Dead (As of January 1st 1859): 91,107

One of you can recount those if you want. I’m not sure they’re 100% right.
 
Well, as you can see, Britain at the least is no longer a concern.

PS. Frymonmon, your inbox is full.
 
BigBadBob said:
Well, as you can see, Britain at the least is no longer a concern.

PS. Frymonmon, your inbox is full.
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Yeah, I wrote my post at the same time as you posted the update... I removed the post since it no longer applies. :)
 
General Order 005
Confederate States of America

Hereby exclaiming the Defense of the Nation should be achieved, by General Order of the Confederate Congress and President of the Confederate States, I do allocate the following;​

1. The Confederate States of America is willing to negotiate with the United States of America for grounds of Peace and Cession of Hostilities, to Preserve the Lives of Americans.
2. In according to Section One of General order Zero-Zero-Five, the Confederate States shall not accept any Peace that does not Preserve the Independence of the Confederate States.
3. The Confederate States shall send diplomats to the French Empire on grounds of strengthening ties between our Two Nations.
4. The Confederate Congress has seen fit to release money for the Construction of Twenty-Five new Ironclad Ships, Blockade Runners, and Commerce Raiders.
5. The Confederate Congress Praises and Honors the Soldiers of the Confederacy who have been killed or wounded in Battle to Defend our Nation.
6. Across the Board Increase in Soldier's Pay by Fifty-Cents.

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((Inbox is Empty))
 
Red Cesar said:
((Awww, No recognition for Colonel Vandrove!?)) Damnit, we must push onward! Push the rebels onto the beaches, no mercy! Total War I say!
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He'll get his recognition in 59-60, when things really heat up in Virginia.
 
Seek75 said:
((Maybe sneak in a reference to Carr? After all, he's probably one of the most eager people in the Army to spill rebel blood ;)))
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Your time will come, there will be plenty of fighting by the wars end.
 
((Now that I've read the update:))

General Khur,

No doubt by now you have read the telegraphs and newspaper reports of our struggles in West Virginia and Ohio. Cincinatti has become a ruin, but I believe we can end his incursion into our sovereign land. Jackson's forces are exhausted and their supply lines are stretched due to the river. ((We do have gunboats there, don't we?)) Send me a more batteries of artillery and we can lay siege, which should be short given the circumstances. I do not wish to waste any more of my men's lives on needless fighting in the streets of a deathtrap.

Once Jackson's army has been dealt with, our forces can be redeployed as you see fit.

In Service,
General Mandrake
 
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