9. Supporting army operations
A) Eastern Campaign. Our forces in and around New York and Philadelphia will launch spoiling attacks to tie down the Insurgent armies, thereby inhibiting the enemy’s ability to reinforce New England or the Northwest. Should the Insurgents attempt to move forces from these areas toward New England they will be attacked on the march by General Beauregard’s army at New York.
B) Western Campaign, Trans-Mississippi. The Missouri State Militia will secure the State of Missouri against incursions by Insurgents operating out of Iowa, northern Illinois, and the Kansas Territory.
C) Western Campaign, Kentucky and Indiana. The Kentucky State Militia remaining in Kentucky will secure the State of Kentucky against incursions by Insurgents operating from across the Ohio River, especially from Cincinnati. To tie down the Rebels in Kentucky and Indiana, General Harney will launch a diversionary attack to occupy points on the railroad between Indianapolis and Cincinnati at Shelbyville and Greensburg. Madison will be brought inside our lines if feasible.
10. Naval Operations.
A) Eastern Campaign. We will charter steamers to move our men into the New England ports. They will be escorted by warships of the Home Squadron based in Norfolk. A part of the Home Squadron will be sent to the mouth of the Delaware River to engage the Rebel ships based in Philadelphia.
B) Contracts have been let for the construction of twenty armored gunboats to patrol the Western rivers and block Rebel interference with our commercial and military shipping. These to be completed by March 1, 1862.
C) Contracts have been let for the construction of twelve ocean-going battle cruisers to augment our Navy, these to be completed by December 31, 1862.
11. Security. The utmost secrecy must be maintained. We must assume that the Insurgents have agents at high levels in our armies and government agencies. We must assume that they are monitoring our rail and shipping traffic at ports and railroad terminals.
12. Deception. In order to deceive the enemy we will instigate rumors that the Eastern Campaign will be an amphibious assault up the Delaware River into Philadelphia. We will depend upon the short 72-hour concentration of forces to deceive the enemy in the West.
When Davis finished reading the plan he paused to take a long drink of his minted tea. “These plans are open to discussion.”
Robert E. Lee looked at McClellan. “It’s not my bailiwick, Mac, but I do want to know how you’re going to reduce the forts guarding the harbors at Boston and Portland. I didn’t see anything about that in the plan.”
“I’m not going to reduce them!”
They all sat bolt upright.
“It’s one of the things I learned while observing the Crimean War,” McClellan explained. “Harbor forts only have utility when an enemy fleet engages them. They are of no use when an invading fleet chooses to ignore them.”
“They won’t blow the bottoms out of your ships coming into the harbor?” asked Davis incredulously.
“They won’t be able to,” retorted McClellan confidently. “The artillerymen manning those forts are inexperienced. They’ve had no practice in deflection shooting. So long as we don’t approach the forts head-on they won’t hit anything except by luck. We’ll run the steamers in by day. I’ll bring the slower sailing ships in by night. Unless there’s a full moon they won’t even see them.
“To confuse their gunners I’ll mount some cannons on a few ‘decoy ships’ and have them open fire with powder charges only. That will fog up the harbor and make it impossible for the forts to see what they’re shooting at even in broad daylight. Once our men are landed in Boston they’ll be safe. The harbor forts won’t open fire on the city. Their artillerymen probably couldn’t hit it even if they did. I’ll ignore the forts and let them fire off all their ammunition. After that the forts will be no more dangerous than any other pile of rocks.”
Davis was astonished. “So you’re telling us that all those expenditures we’ve been making on harbor forts for lo these many years are useless. They wouldn’t protect our cities from the European navies, would they?”
“They’d protect us so long as the Europeans played the game of engaging them,” answered McClellan. “And most navy men would insist on slugging it out with the forts until they were reduced. That’s what we’ve all been trained to do. But if an enemy chose to ignore the forts they wouldn’t be likely to inflict substantial harm on him.”
“What do you think, Frank?” Davis asked Secretary of the Navy Buchanan.
“I concur with Mac’s conclusions. Conventional wisdom holds that you can’t take possession of an enemy harbor without first reducing its forts. But when has conventional wisdom ever been put to the test? Like Mac says, their artillery men aren’t trained, and even if they were, I doubt that they would be able to estimate lead and deflection with sufficient accuracy to make hits on fast-moving ships.”
“What about their defending the harbor with warships?” asked Lee. “Do we know how many U.S. Navy ships are loyal to the Rebels? Some of those are bound to show up in Boston to contest our invasion.”
“We know for certain that they have five of our active-duty ships under their command,” Buchanan replied. He looked at his notes. “They captured the Jamestown at Philadelphia. They acquired the Vincennes and Preble in ordinary at Boston. The Portsmouth and Levant on overseas duty are commanded by New Englanders and crews known to be loyal Free Staters. We suspect some other ships on overseas duty may be Free State-loyal, but we won’t know for certain until they return to their ports. Also, besides the Vincennes and Preble, which are of recent construction, there are about a dozen of our older warships laid up in Boston, Philadelphia, and Portsmouth, but so far as we know the Rebels have not put any of these older ships to sea.”
Buchanan looked up from his papers. “As indicated in the war plan, we’ll try to draw whatever ships the Rebels command to Delaware Bay to defend against our feigned attack on Philadelphia. We’ll try to destroy those ships or at least bottle them up. If they keep any of their warships in Boston we’ll have to defeat them, but I don’t expect we’ll have to deal with more than two. We’ll have our entire Home Squadron to deal with them.”
“I’m satisfied on that point,” said Lee. “At least until we find out whether running our landing fleet past the harbor forts works as well in practice as well as it sounds in theory! I do agree with your point about the risk being necessary. It would take weeks to reduce the forts by naval bombardment and that would only serve to give the Rebels the time they require to fortify Boston itself. Now I would like an explanation of the details of another point in your plan — that being the cavalry against the New England arsenals.”
“We’ll land three thousand un-mounted cavalrymen at Boston on the first day,” McClellan explained. “They’ll acquire horses in Boston and then ride for the Springfield Armory ninety miles away. They’ll get there before the Free Staters even know they’re on the way. They’ll burn it then follow the Connecticut River down to the Colt Factory at Hartford twenty-six miles south. They’ll burn that one then return to our lines in Boston. With your permission I’d like to assign Jeb Stuart to command the raid. You trained him superbly to command cavalry in long distance raids. He proved his mettle fighting the Indians on the frontier.”
“I was hoping to use Stuart in Illinois,” replied Lee. “I wanted to send him on a long-stop between Grant’s lines and Chicago.”
“I understand it’s an imposition,” replied McClellan. “And of course it’s your decision. But I would suggest that it’s at least as important for us to disarm the Rebels by demolishing their weapons manufactories as it is to defeat them in the field. Jeb’s the only cavalry commander I trust to carry out this raid and then get his men back to our lines. And even without Jeb you will still have Stoneballs Jackson to command your mobile forces in the West.”