Foreign Intervention: A logistical reality?

One interesting scenario here might be whether the southern envoys happen to take a French rather than a British ship from Cuba and are intercepted by Wilkes as OTL? Napoleon III is less likely to moderate a French reply as Prince Albert did the British and Washington may think France less likely to go to war/less of a threat or be angered by the tone of the French response and you could see France at war with the union.

At worst Britain tries to mediate and ends up at war as well. [Since the French have a strong case for compensation and an apology from the union and its an issue, freedom of the seas, that is very important for Britain].

Failing that French doesn't have as powerful a navy as Britain and lacks nearby bases so any blockade will be weaker. Plus there's no potential northern border to tie down union troops. However it can still lift the northern blockade and smash a good chunk of the union fleet if things go badly for the union. Even a limited blockade will have a a big effect on the union, especially if Britain recognises it in terms of accepting the banning of war materials, including guns and saltpetre for the union. It will still free up a fair amount of southern forces and also their overseas trade and coastal traffic, giving them a big boost. Also a couple of trained and equipped French corps fighting alongside Lee could greatly complicate the union mission.

Also such a clash is likely to be rapidly followed by a formal French recognition of the south, which could be followed by other nations, which would pose a problem for the union as I think it threatened it would see any such recognition as a casus belli by the union. If so either it has to back down or it could find itself technically at war with a number of countries.

Such a situation might save Mexico from armed French intervention because its too busy in the USCW but that's likely to be small satisfaction for the union.

In this circumstance this could be a pretty long and bloody war with I suspect ultimately the union having to recognise the independence of the south but possibly holding some border areas of the seceded states. Whether France would be too weakened to face up to Prussia in 187o or learn enough it does markedly better or anywhere in between there could be substantial butterflies in world history well beyond N America.
 
One interesting scenario here might be whether the southern envoys happen to take a French rather than a British ship from Cuba and are intercepted by Wilkes as OTL?

There was no major mail ship route run by the French that would fit, though it's possible to have anything up to the Union firing on a French warship (nearly happened historically with the Dacotah and the HMS Terror, the latter being based on a French design).

Failing that French doesn't have as powerful a navy as Britain and lacks nearby bases so any blockade will be weaker. Plus there's no potential northern border to tie down union troops.
True, though on the other hand this also means that landing French troops to join in the fighting down south would also be possible. Worst case here is French intervention arriving without a warm-up period in late April 1862 with a large fleet and 30,000 French troops*, with the French fleet smashing the Chesapeake squadron and trapping McClellan's Army of the Potomac between the Warwick line and the sea. At the same time the 30,000 French troops land around Baltimore and take it, cutting DC off by rail from the rest of the Union, and the Union suddenly has a total strategic nightmare which it will be lucky to escape without loss of most of Maryland by the end of May.

* size of the French landing force in the Crimean War

Such a situation might save Mexico from armed French intervention because its too busy in the USCW but that's likely to be small satisfaction for the union.
French intervention in Mexico was a going concern by late 1861, though it never involved all that many actual troops. I'd assume there'd just be no reinforcements.
 
There was no major mail ship route run by the French that would fit, though it's possible to have anything up to the Union firing on a French warship (nearly happened historically with the Dacotah and the HMS Terror, the latter being based on a French design).

Ah sink that idea then. Was there a particular reason why they would use a mail ship rather than just any steamship taking passengers to Europe?

Agree that the French could well supply more troops faster for direct intervention in the south.

French intervention in Mexico was a going concern by late 1861, though it never involved all that many actual troops. I'd assume there'd just be no reinforcements.

I thought it was only later that they moved from demands for debt repayment to seeking a change of regime but obviously wrong as your done so much research on the period.:redface: As such would make sense not to try and fight two wars at the same time.
 
Ah sink that idea then. Was there a particular reason why they would use a mail ship rather than just any steamship taking passengers to Europe?
Mail ships were the scheduled runs, and they were generally fast ships as well. I suspect there wasn't much in the way of non-mail-packet runs going the way they wanted to go (RMS ships were subsidized by the Admiralty and so could take routes that would otherwise be marginal or non-profitable.)

I thought it was only later that they moved from demands for debt repayment to seeking a change of regime but obviously wrong as your done so much research on the period.:redface: As such would make sense not to try and fight two wars at the same time.
Strictly what was going on was that the French always had regime change in mind, and the other two withdrew once they realized this.
 
Mail ships were the scheduled runs, and they were generally fast ships as well. I suspect there wasn't much in the way of non-mail-packet runs going the way they wanted to go (RMS ships were subsidized by the Admiralty and so could take routes that would otherwise be marginal or non-profitable.)


Strictly what was going on was that the French always had regime change in mind, and the other two withdrew once they realized this.

OK thanks for detailing the situation. :smile:
 
That's one likely scenario, and the discussions around the event involved fighting taking place only if the South accepted mediation and the North rejected it. But there are at least two other scenarios:

1) Trent or Trent-alike, meaning that there's some kind of diplomatic rupture with the Union where the European power (probably Britain) demands recompense and the Union does not or cannot give it for any of a number of reasons.
2) A unilateral French intervention in which Napoleon III wants to get something, whether it's glory or something more tangible.


The one which is closest to the Union worst case scenario is Trent, and my analysis is that if the war developing from a Trent scenario persists for the first six months of 1862 then the Union is very unlikely to win the Civil War even if peace suddenly broke out. This is because the timing of Trent and of the thaw means that the Union can't materially hurt the British (i.e. threaten Canada) until at least May, by which time the force in Canada consisting of both transferred troops from Britain and newly trained militia has been developing for several months and is fairly well dug in; meanwhile the shutdown of the supply of weapons has prevented the Union building up extra troops and the need to defend against the British has resulted in the Union's frontline strength being badly reduced.

As of the end of 1861 the Union had about 380,000 men Present For Duty east of Kansas who wouldn't have to swim to get back to the Union proper. It's from these troops which one needs to derive forces to defend the entire US coastline, plus place forces at Sarnia-Detroit, the Niagara isthmus, along the St. Lawrence and to cover the Maine land borders.

To give some sense of perspective, the Confederacy at the same time had over 80,000 troops defending their coastline. It's worth considering how one might place Union troops to hold a strict defensive, without any capacity to take the offensive in the spring, and see how much force is left over...

That's why it's the Union worst case scenario. It turns the Union advantages of numbers, industrial capacity, naval strength, equipment, financial robustness and geography (i.e. how a lot of Union capacity was out of Confederate reach) on their heads, and it doesn't really give any countervailing advantages except the strict defensive - and worse is that some of those advantages may be permanently gone if the war has gone on for a few months. The CSA might easily snap up European import weapons, paying for them with cotton money, and the Union can't easily rebuild a smashed fleet when a lot of their reserve naval guns were on the fleet which the British sent to the bottom the first time.
Exactly, sure the Union has all that (though it didn't apply to them in certain periods: July 1861-January 1862, pre-Antietam Fall 1862-Winter post-Fredericksburg 1862/early 1863 and in certain cases like the panic on Wall Street which caused the greenback dollar and stock to fall temporarily post-Seven Days, the widespread corruption, fraud, and shoddy supplies in the Union and Salmon P. Chase having a hard time trying to raise funds in the early months of the war which Lincoln remarked he had no more money to raise in a conversation to Montgomery C. Meigs on January 1862) but the British were also quite powerful having some of the same things the Union had and they were already a major colonial power/the superpower of their day. But for unilateral French involvement I can't see the French Empire get themselves involved in the conflict without British intervention and if there was a British/French intervention against the Americans on the side of the Confederates it would resemble something from Dixie Victorious' "Hell on Earth" which involves the Union having to fight two fronts: one against the Confederates and one against the British/French/and (to an extent) the Canadians as a result of Prince Albert (who proved key to preventing Anglo-American relations from heating up during the Trent Affair) dying in a carriage incident and without him a more harsh ultimatum is sent to the Americans thus resulting in a full-blown war in which the Confederates win handily and gain the states of Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland or possibly "Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond" which involves this scenario or the Second Mexican War from Harry Turtledove's "Southern Victory: How Few Remain".
 
Salmon P. Chase having a hard time trying to raise funds in the early months of the war which Lincoln remarked he had no more money to raise in a conversation to Montgomery C. Meigs on January 1862
That was actually a direct result of the Trent scare, which caused a run on the banks. Even the threat of war with the British caused major problems in the US economy.

But for unilateral French involvement I can't see the French Empire get themselves involved in the conflict without British intervention

My understanding is that the French didn't want to intervene without British approval, not necessarily British involvement.

If you're interested in the Trent scenario, meanwhile, my largest What-If thread is actually a Trent analysis. I've done my best to go into as much detail as possible on the constraints and plans of both sides, which does have the side-effect I'm barely into March.
 
That was actually a direct result of the Trent scare, which caused a run on the banks. Even the threat of war with the British caused major problems in the US economy.



My understanding is that the French didn't want to intervene without British approval, not necessarily British involvement.

If you're interested in the Trent scenario, meanwhile, my largest What-If thread is actually a Trent analysis. I've done my best to go into as much detail as possible on the constraints and plans of both sides, which does have the side-effect I'm barely into March.

While it's true that the Trent Affair did disrupt financing by Salmon P. Chase for a time it's important to note that the difficulties of financing the war effort occurred about one month prior to the Trent Afair (November 1861) "Credit gone at St. Louis, Springfield, Cincinnati. Overdraft day to-day Oct. 2, 1861 - 12,000,000. Chase says new loan will be exhausted in 11 days. Immense claims left for Congress to audit." those words actually came from Abraham Lincoln when he observed the situation of the Union war effort in October 1861. For the French they were eager and willing to intervene and were slightly pro-Confederate but without the British there can no French involvement. Since you've at least tried the best to do a Trent War timeline although "The Great American War" timeline also does a good job and focuses on the Canadian side of the war (something not detailed in other Trent scenarios). Personally I love for you to list all the benefits of an Anglo-French intervention hostile to America and friendly towards the Confederacy (I know this well).
 
For the French they were eager and willing to intervene and were slightly pro-Confederate but without the British there can no French involvement.
I'm not a hundred percent sure about what you mean by this (the syntax is a bit ambiguous) but I think it's pretty clear that the French can at least sustain action themselves at long distance; they don't need active British participation.

While it's true that the Trent Affair did disrupt financing by Salmon P. Chase for a time it's important to note that the difficulties of financing the war effort occurred about one month prior to the Trent Afair (November 1861) "Credit gone at St. Louis, Springfield, Cincinnati. Overdraft day to-day Oct. 2, 1861 - 12,000,000. Chase says new loan will be exhausted in 11 days. Immense claims left for Congress to audit." those words actually came from Abraham Lincoln when he observed the situation of the Union war effort in October 1861.
That's a fair point, yes, but the bank runs themselves were strongly linked to the Trent affair itself. It went from a difficulty in getting loans for the government to a widespread suspension of specie payments for the population.
 
I'm not a hundred percent sure about what you mean by this (the syntax is a bit ambiguous) but I think it's pretty clear that the French can at least sustain action themselves at long distance; they don't need active British participation.


That's a fair point, yes, but the bank runs themselves were strongly linked to the Trent affair itself. It went from a difficulty in getting loans for the government to a widespread suspension of specie payments for the population.
You know there were basically two factors that stopped the Trent Affair from going into full-blown war:
1. Prince Albert being alive. Albert, Saxe-Coburg was in his last days as Prince Consort of Britain and he almost could have been killed in a horse carriage incident (which in OTL he was still left alive though badly injured). When Albert came to review the matter of the Trent Affair he offered a compromise that gave the Americans some breathing room to make a deal. Another factor was there being no trans-Atlanitc cable for the British to know what was going on in America (see The British Library's Trent Affair article)
2. Lincoln listening to Seward to release James Mason and John Slidell. Originally, Abraham Lincoln considered arbitration or meditation between his country and the British in regards to the captured Confederate diplomats but Seward's suggestion of releasing the diplomats was accepted instead.

Now imagine if Albert was killed in a carriage incident it would mean he wouldn't be there to soften the British response to the Trent Affair when Lord Russell was sending a letter to Abraham Lincoln and America thus they would be in a position where they would be met with a severe response from Britain and no other choice. So we've already got war with Britain and America, France might join in as Napoleon III was pro-Confederate and among the obvious benefits the Confederates receive (even if the British/French fight a war with the Union separate from the Confederates) are:
* The Confederates can receive banking and loans from European companies. The Confederacy already has direct financial ties to Britain and France thanks to cotton.
* The Union Navy would be locked in a duel between them and the Royal Navy (there's a reason why "Britannia Rules the Waves" exist) thus serving partial distraction from the blockade.
* If the British/French war front against the Union is merged with that of the Confederacy then they get help from units such as the British Highlanders and the French Foreign Legion.
* For the French, a war with the Union in cooperation with the British means a convient way to distract themselves from what was going on in Mexico.
* For British and French investors and businesses, they get to use New Orleans (the home of the New Orleans Stock Exchange aka NOSE or simply the Nose) as an alternative to New York, Boston, and other Northern cities.
* For the Union, it's bad news as you mentioned before the bank runs were (partially) caused by the Trent Affair and in any war will cause British businesses and banks to withdraw thus making it harder for Salmon P. Chase to raise any money.
* Again for the Union, it means they are fighting only their third war against Britain with the previous being the War of 1812 (1812-1815) and the American Revolutionary War (1776-1783).

There are a few downsides though:
* For the British, Canada (which was still a colony and not yet a formal nation) is now at risk of being possibly captured by the Union they could potentially penetrate through and capture Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa crossing through the Saint Lawrence River.
* British business with America would disrupted completely and any American exports to Britain would be cut off.
* There's also Russia, already a major ally for the Union they still have Alaska and could join in since they already dislike the British and the French (see the Crimean War).
 
1. Prince Albert being alive. Albert, Saxe-Coburg was in his last days as Prince Consort of Britain and he almost could have been killed in a horse carriage incident (which in OTL he was still left alive though badly injured). When Albert came to review the matter of the Trent Affair he offered a compromise that gave the Americans some breathing room to make a deal. Another factor was there being no trans-Atlanitc cable for the British to know what was going on in America (see The British Library's Trent Affair article)
Prince Albert's importance can be overstated. IIRC Palmerston also moderated the dispatch.

2. Lincoln listening to Seward to release James Mason and John Slidell. Originally, Abraham Lincoln considered arbitration or meditation between his country and the British in regards to the captured Confederate diplomats but Seward's suggestion of releasing the diplomats was accepted instead.
Yes, this is the key decision, and it's worth realizing it took three days to argue Lincoln into this.

* For the British, Canada (which was still a colony and not yet a formal nation) is now at risk of being possibly captured by the Union they could potentially penetrate through and capture Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa crossing through the Saint Lawrence River.
Though it's much easier said than done! You can't manoeuvre a large army in Canada any time other than the summer and autumn (i.e. May onwards) and by May there's the prospect of British fleet units on the St. Lawrence river. I would not want to be the Union commander trying to cross the St. Lawrence to Montreal in the face of not just British gunboats but British corvettes and ironclads.

* British business with America would disrupted completely and any American exports to Britain would be cut off.
True, though the British side of British-American trade is much less important to Britain than the American side of it is to America.

* There's also Russia, already a major ally for the Union they still have Alaska and could join in since they already dislike the British and the French (see the Crimean War).

Russia is a Union friend at the time, but not a formal ally. Alaska is a military footnote at best, and the Russians don't really have any major way to help the Union (or profit from it) except for naval action (and get their remaining navy wrecked).
 
British intervention would have been entirely naval and financial in nature and would not have involved sending troops to the Confederacy. But it would have been enough to win Confederate independence pretty much overnight. Think about how difficult it was for the Union to defeat the Confederacy. Then think about how much more difficult it would have been if the Royal Navy had lifted the blockade (which they could have done without too much trouble), if British creditors had supported the Confederacy and thereby reduced inflation in the South, and if the Union had had to deploy a hundred thousand or so troops along the Canadian border. Not only that, but the Royal Navy would have swept the United States merchant marine from the seas without breaking a sweat and instituted a long-distance naval blockade, shattering the Northern economy.

Breaking the blockade would have allowed the South to import much more in the way of weapons and other necessary supplies, but that would have been a minor impact compared to the much more important question of inflation. If there was any single reason that the South lost the war, it was inflation and the breaking of the blockade and the loosening of credit by British and European bankers would have meant that inflation would be much lower. The situation of the civilians on the home front would have been much less dire, which means much less desertion from the men in the ranks of the Confederate Army.

The Peace Democrats would have become a much, much stronger force in Northern politics had Britain intervened on behalf of the Confederacy. Northern public opinion very nearly gave up the war effort in 1864; imagine how much more eager than would have been had Southern armies been stronger and the Northern economy been in shambles.

British intervention means Confederate victory. Period. And not a single British soldier would have ever had to set foot on Confederate soil for it to happen. Even if the Union conquered Canada (a very difficult task, by the way), Britain could have simply kept up in naval stranglehold, like keeping its foot on the North's throat, until the Union cried uncle and agreed to give it back.
Hey Jeffrey Evans Brooks, I've been following you on your author page searching some of your articles, viewed your posts on Alternate History Discussin and agree to some of the conclusions you had for a Confederate victory scenario. You're a fellow Southerners from Virginia and Texas I'm a fellow Northerner from California (Union state but was the only state that raised a few Confederate units). I'd agree with your conclusions that you just posted here.
 
You know there were basically two factors that stopped the Trent Affair from going into full-blown war:
1. Prince Albert being alive. Albert, Saxe-Coburg was in his last days as Prince Consort of Britain and he almost could have been killed in a horse carriage incident (which in OTL he was still left alive though badly injured). When Albert came to review the matter of the Trent Affair he offered a compromise that gave the Americans some breathing room to make a deal. Another factor was there being no trans-Atlanitc cable for the British to know what was going on in America (see The British Library's Trent Affair article)
2. Lincoln listening to Seward to release James Mason and John Slidell. Originally, Abraham Lincoln considered arbitration or meditation between his country and the British in regards to the captured Confederate diplomats but Seward's suggestion of releasing the diplomats was accepted instead.

Now imagine if Albert was killed in a carriage incident it would mean he wouldn't be there to soften the British response to the Trent Affair when Lord Russell was sending a letter to Abraham Lincoln and America thus they would be in a position where they would be met with a severe response from Britain and no other choice. So we've already got war with Britain and America, France might join in as Napoleon III was pro-Confederate and among the obvious benefits the Confederates receive (even if the British/French fight a war with the Union separate from the Confederates) are:
* The Confederates can receive banking and loans from European companies. The Confederacy already has direct financial ties to Britain and France thanks to cotton.
* The Union Navy would be locked in a duel between them and the Royal Navy (there's a reason why "Britannia Rules the Waves" exist) thus serving partial distraction from the blockade.
* If the British/French war front against the Union is merged with that of the Confederacy then they get help from units such as the British Highlanders and the French Foreign Legion.
* For the French, a war with the Union in cooperation with the British means a convient way to distract themselves from what was going on in Mexico.
* For British and French investors and businesses, they get to use New Orleans (the home of the New Orleans Stock Exchange aka NOSE or simply the Nose) as an alternative to New York, Boston, and other Northern cities.
* For the Union, it's bad news as you mentioned before the bank runs were (partially) caused by the Trent Affair and in any war will cause British businesses and banks to withdraw thus making it harder for Salmon P. Chase to raise any money.
* Again for the Union, it means they are fighting only their third war against Britain with the previous being the War of 1812 (1812-1815) and the American Revolutionary War (1776-1783).

There are a few downsides though:
* For the British, Canada (which was still a colony and not yet a formal nation) is now at risk of being possibly captured by the Union they could potentially penetrate through and capture Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa crossing through the Saint Lawrence River.
* British business with America would disrupted completely and any American exports to Britain would be cut off.
* There's also Russia, already a major ally for the Union they still have Alaska and could join in since they already dislike the British and the French (see the Crimean War).

I think Saphroneth's TL covers a lot of this in detail but he gives the union a few breaks and doesn't include the French joining Britain. Despite that its a very bad situation for the union and I suspect the war could well last less than a year.

Not sure why you mention the Highlanders as the highland regiments are basically no different to any other British line regiment? The closest comparison to the French Foreign Legion is likely to be the Gurkhas.

Other than diplomatic support Russia is likely to do little as it knows it can't really threaten Britain in any way and is still recovering, economically and socially from the Crimean war, with the knowledge that it needs peace and political reform.

Steve
 
I got a slightly different count for the number of US warships in 1865 than RandomBritishGuy. This source:http://www.answers.com/topic/u-s-navy-1866-1898
Gives US navy warships in 1865 at 471 warships.
This source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2338425?seq=3
Gives Royal Navy ships in 1865 at 540 ships.
As RandomBritishGuy says, however, the Royal Navy ships were generally larger and more powerful.
The Royal Navy was a more powerful Blue Water Navy by far, but it might have had a tough fight against the Union Navy in coastal and riverine waters when the Union Navy was at the height of its strength in 1865.


Ironclads...

By 1865, of course, the monitors of the USN were more capable and powerful than the original 'Monitor'
"Monitor": length 179', beam 41', 1000 tons, speed 6 knots, complement 49 men, armament 2 11" shell guns in a double turret.
"Miantonomah": (commissioned in 1865, one of 4 "seagoing" monitors built by the USN in the Civil War) length 258', beam 53', 3,450 tons, speed 7 knots, complement 150 men, armament 4 15" shell guns in 2 twin turrets.
Just like the British broadside ironclads were about twice as large as the CSS Virginia, the Miantonomah class monitors were about twice as large as the original 'Monitor'.
An interesting difference, however, is in the Miantonomah's armament. Four 15" guns packed a truly powerful punch. Each shell weighed 440 lbs! A salvo from the Miantonomah threw 1360 lbs of high explosive shells at the enemy. This compares with 1510 lbs for a broadside from HMS Warrior, or 1,224 lbs for a broadside from HMS Achilles.
So, Miantonomah threw about the same weight of shot per salvo as the RN broadside ironclads, but threw it in much more concentrated form. How much more effectively this concentration could penetrate armor is a key question (and one that I don't know the answer to).

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori..._the_union_navy_stronger_than_the_royal_navy/

I bring this up because: The Brits Plan to burn Boston and New York...

The heart of the British strategy in case of war was “overwhelming naval strength based on a few select fortresses,” especially Bermuda and Halifax (in today’s Nova Scotia). (Bourne 208) British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston dispatched a powerful squadron of eight ships of the line and thirteen frigates and corvettes under Admiral Milne to the western Atlantic, and wanted to use the Great Eastern, the largest ship in the world, as a troop transport. London even considered ways to foment secession in Maine. Bombarding and burning both Boston and New York was actively considered as a contingency; it was concluded that the reduction of Boston would be very difficult because of the channels and forts; New York was seen as more vulnerable, especially to a surprise attack. An Admiralty hydrographer saw New York City as “the true heart of [US] commerce, — the centre of …maritime resources; to strike her would be to paralyse all the limbs.” (Bourne 240)

What stops them Ironclads...

By the time spring of 1862 came, the Monitor had come on the scene, further complicating British intervention. The Royal Navy had ironclads, but they were only usable in deep water. Bourne aptly notes that “the American monitors might have played havoc with any attempt by the older wooden frigates to maintain a close blockade” of Union ports. (Bourne 240) As more vessels of the Monitor type were produced by the US, this aspect of the British predicament became even more acute. The point of detailing these facts here is to suggest the existence of a fascinating array of neglected issues
Interestingly the Navy List for 1862 gives a total strength of 735 ships, of which 28 are Armoured.
From the Navy list of 1862 http://archive.org/stream/navylist03admigoog#page/n5/mode/2up


  1. Achilles (building at Chatham, reserve from December 1863, Commissioned into the Channel Fleet September 1864)
  2. Agincourt (building at Birkenhead, reserve on 26th May 1864, Commissioned 1867)
  3. Black Prince (in Commission with the Channel Fleet)
  4. Caledonia (in reserve at Woolwich from 2nd February 1863, Commissioned into the Med. Fleet July 1865)
  5. Defence (in Commission with the Channel Fleet)
  6. Enterprise (building at Deptford, Commissioned into the Med. Fleet May 1864)
  7. Erebus (in deep reserve a Portsmouth)
  8. Favourite (building at Deptford, Commissioned into the American Fleet 1866)
  9. Glatton (in deep reserve at Portsmouth)
  10. Hector (building at Glasgow, reserve from October 1862, Commissioned into Channel Fleet 1864)
  11. Minotaur (building at Blackwell, reserve on 15 December 1863, Commissioned into the Channel Fleet 1867)
  12. Northumberland (building at Millwall, reserve in 1866, Commissioned into the Channel Fleet 1868)
  13. Ocean (building at Devonport, in reserve from 23rd March 1863, Commissioned into the Channel Fleet 1866)
  14. Prince Albert (building at Millwall, reserve from 20th May 1864, Commissioned almost immediately into the Channel Fleet to test the turrets)
  15. Prince Consort (building at Pembroke, reserve from 14th January 1863, Commissioned into the Channel Fleet 1864)
  16. Research (building at Pembroke, reserve from March 1864, and Commissioned next month into the Channel Fleet)
  17. Resistance (in Commission with the Channel Fleet)
  18. Royal Alfred (building at Portsmouth, in reserve October 1864, Commissioned into the American Fleet Jan. 1867)
  19. Royal Oak (building at Chatham, in reserve 13th September 1862, Commissioned into 27th April 1863 into the Channel Fleet)
  20. Royal Sovereign (building at Portsmouth, complete as turret ship 20th August 1864 and placed on Harbour Commission in October, but was never fully Commissioned)
  21. Terror (in Commission on the Bermuda station)
  22. Thunder (in deep reserve at Sheerness)
  23. Thunderbolt (in deep reserve on the River Thames)
  24. Trusty (in deep reserve at Woolwich)
  25. Valiant (building at Millwall, reserve from October 1863, Commissioned 1868)
  26. Warrior (in Commission with the Channel Fleet)
  27. Zealous (building at Glasgow, reserve from December 1864, Commissioned into the Pacific Fleet 1866)
  28. Aetna (tender to HMS Cumberland, River Thames)
Those in reserve can be re-commissioned in about a month, requiring Crew, Stores and Arms. Those in deep reserve are in need of maintenance and repairs, so would take longer.
(And ships under construction cannot be accelerated/ rushed to completion in a crisis!? ...
The foreign contracts listed below only include vessels completed by 1865, there were more in existence.)

(We must ask ourselves when hostilities would break out, if after the Trent incident, Britain sensibly delays until the start of the practical campaigning season, which given Canadian weather is not before May 1862, the numbers shift dramatically.)

There were another Five Ironclads under Laid Down/ Converted from 1863 Repulse, Lord Clyde, Lord Warden, Pallas and Bellerophon.
And 14 Ironclads under-construction for other Nations Navies The Laird Rams, Rolf Krake, Affondatore, Huascar, Independencia, Smerch, Pervenets, Arminius, Danmark, Arapiles,Vitoria, Absalon and Esbern Snare.
(There was always a clause in warship construction contracts allowing for their requisition by the Royal Navy in an emergency ... which they could easily have just done anyway by an Order in Council.)

This comes to some 47 Ironclads, assuming not a single extra ship is laid down or converted. (From the hulls already available the RN could have added another 7 - 1st Rates converted ala Royal Sovereign, 2-5 Bulwark's converted to Prince Consort's and 6 or more Camelion Class Sloop, conversions without any more purpose built Iron hull ships, and at the time the wooden to Iron hull commissioning ratio was about one to one?)
Noticably this is more Ironclads than the Union Commissioned in the entire Civil War. And the Arapiles mentioned is the same ship that gave the US Navy the vapours during the Virginius Affair.
There are several Brown Water vessels listed, most obviously the Aetna & Erebus Class, such as HMS Terror, and those based on the hulls of Sloops ie. Research, Enterprise & Favorite etc. Arapiles had a shallower draft than CSS Virginia. Absalon and Esbern Snare were marginal in terms of combat power, they would however fit through the locks of the Welland Canal.
 
To my mind the most important ships aren't the ironclads but instead the steam liners and heavy frigates. The heavy frigates (the 51s or the large 40s) are a match for most any Union wooden ship - and the number of active Union ironclads didn't climb above three until 1863 - while the liners are larger and more powerful still. And while the Union had heavy frigates of her own, the sheer number of British liners and heavy frigates means the Union is automatically on the back foot.

Assuming the ironclads cancel out (distinctly generous to the Union!) the wooden steam capital ships employed by the Union at any point in 1862 (that is, the ships able to fight on even terms with a 51 or a large 40) are the Wabash, Roanoke, Minnesota, Niagara, Colorado and (if one wishes to extend the generosity further) the five Hartfords with their twenty 9" guns. As against this the Royal Navy possesses the Imperiuses (5), the Liffeys (5), the Ariadnes (2, easily comparable to the Hartfords at 24 10" guns), the Merseys (2), the Emeralds (3) and the Bristols (4), plus their entire steam line of battle numbering nearly sixty.

What this means is that essentially the USN is unable to successfully contest the seas unless they concentrate their battle line before the Royal Navy arrives and the RN does not determine that fact (in which case they could successfully fight an action against the blockading force at the port in which they have concentrated).

In my alternate history analysis timeline, I concluded that just taking the ships already on station with Milne, the ships earmarked to be sent to Milne and the ships which were preparing for overseas service and could be sent to Milne one could match essentially every purpose-built warship in the USN with at least one equivalent or heavier Royal Navy combatant, and that would leave many ships left over.
 
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