Customer Reviews

1862: A Novel

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4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

In 1862, the Union was not winning the Civil War. In 1862, the incompetent John Pope lost the 2nd Battle of Bull Run, which forced Lincoln to reappoint the timid George McClellan to command of the Army of the Potomac. Later the same year, the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg was fought. So why does Conroy think that the Union could defeat both the Confederacy and the world's largest industrial and naval power?

As a previous reviewer has pointed out, in 1862 Britain was the preeminent industrial power. Just as the Union was industrially dominant over the Confederacy, Britain was industrially dominant over the Union. True, the British Army was small and not well led. That's because the Royal Navy was the major British military force. Just as the Union blockade of the South was effective, a British blockade of the North would have brought the Union to a standstill. And if anyone claims that the Union's ironclads would have defeated the Royal Navy, the first British ironclad ship was HMS Warrior, built in 1860. The British were quite aware of the value of ironclads, which is why they stopped building wooden battleships and frigates in 1860. Also, with the exception of USS New Ironsides, American ironclads were not ocean going ships. The British ironclads could safely cross the Atlantic.

I have other complaints about this book. I found the love/sex story to be quite unnecessary (although I did get a chuckle from the mental picture of Allan Pinkerton being found naked, painted red, and chained to a post in a Washington street). To say that the characters are wooden is to give them more subtlety than Conroy portrays. At one point early in the book, HMS Gorgon defeats USS St. Lawrence in a battle. Gorgon is described as a "steam frigate" mounting 74 guns. Sorry, Conroy, but a 74 gun ship was a battleship, not a frigate.

Other than the historical inaccuracies, the gratuitous sex, and the lack of three dimensional characters, "1862" is not a bad book.

(1) Winfield Scott was in eclipse not merely because of McClellan or Cameron. He was extremely old and infirm; he was a stuffy, formal, and arrogant person; and he was a former Presidential candidate.

(2) There is no evidence that Patrick Cleburne was a Fenian; considering he came from middle-class stock (his father was a physician), it's highly unlikely. It's DOUBLY unlikely that anyone in the North would have paid him any attention, since he had fought in not a single battle as of the first mention of him in the book.

(3) Lesbianism was just -not- spoken about- and any American woman of the period would have been scandalized at the very mention of it.

(4) As mentioned, British land forces were nothing like as weak as depicted. The vast inferiority of British leadership is believable; its numerical and material inferiority is NOT.

Finally, the factor that more than anything else spoils the book for me:

(5) Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is depicted in this book as eager for a war and blithely ignorant or dismissive of American power. This is absolutely the opposite of the historical Lord Pam, who was determined to avoid war with the United States if at all possible. In this book, Palmerston calls for war despite Lincoln backing down, apologizing, even groveling and releasing the Confederate diplomats Mason and Slidell. It just stretches belief too far, for a student of the Civil War, to accept this uncharacteristic action.

I questioned 1901's quick war; I utterly reject virtually every aspect of 1862's war, and the characters and historical figures portrayed in it. I strongly regret buying this book, and I hope other people will read this review and AVOID, AVOID, AVOID.

"1862" was a disappointment. In actual fact, America would be fighting way, way out of its weight against Britain in 1862.

The UK had a larger population, a much larger GDP, and the advantage in the crucial areas (heavy industry, marine steam engines, heavy engineering) was even greater -- somewhere between six to one and eight to one.

In 1862 Britain was at its height as the dominant manufacturing power, producing half or more of the entire _world's_ output.

The Union had to extert every effort to defeat the Confederacy. Its prospects of defeating the UK and the CSA at the same time would be somewhere between zero and zip.

The US might make gains in Canada, but that would be irrelevant and they'd have to cough up at the peace conference; the war would be fought and won and lost at sea, and on the southern front.

Real results? A close blockade of the northern coasts, collapse of Federal government revenues, hyperinflation, defeats at the hands of the Confederate army, British-built gunboats dominating the Mississippi.

Almost certainly a collapse of the Unionist will to fight and humiliating defeat, with harsh peace terms set by the victors - probably massive losses of territory to the Confederacy in the West (probably as far as California) and punitive war indemnities and reparations.

In our world it took Lincoln and the Union 4 years of terrible war and TOTAL MOBILIZATION to defeat the CSA. That is a fact. Now Conroy has a Novel where the Union beats the Brits, Canada, and the CSA in one year. Is something wrong here. Okay Okay its just a story, a fantasy, hey the guys just writting a book. Well maybe so but can you make a little more realistic. Was it possible for the Union to win such a war ? Not at all likely but yes possible. Was it possible for the North to win such a war in one year. Hell No !!! Waite..just maybe.. if Lee was smoking crack.

I greatly enjoy History and alternate-history books.
In this case the twist is that Great Britain decides to support the Confederacy. The premise works because according to some accounts it was a "near thing" (Britain siding with the Confederacy).

While the general plot works, the book never approaches the level of detail and intricacies that other better writers, such as Turtledove or Shaara, are able to bring to the tale.

Battle descriptions are okay, but too much just happens without explanation and probable small yet critical divergents from actual history are ignored. The author seems to have decided the Union would win and then to write the book, instead of researching what probably would have happened [see other reviews here].

Good stuff includes:

* The opening chapters
* Grant kicking [...] in Canada
* Generally, the battle scenes
* The Union iron-clads destroying the pride of the British fleet

Some bad things/things that make no sense:

* Scott has way too much influence compared to actual history.
* Lee is a non-entity for most of the book.
* Britain's totally inept planning
* The Union kicking [...] just too easily.
* There is no way the war would have been over in a year.
* But the absolute worst thing about the book has got to be the author's total inability to do a romance scene. Every one of them is just awful.

Having said all this, I say to you, it's worth a read if you pick up a used copy for a couple of bucks. Just don't expect a great book [read the title of this review] . [...]

I picked this book up by chance and decided to read it. About 1/4 of the way into the book I noticed several troubling details. The first major problem I had is that it is told from only Union and British characters, with a French diplomat thrown in for the heck of it. It contains needless love scenes and never looks beyond the basics.

This book is a tough sell for 1862 and here is why. In the east, even with the introduction of the British the war would have been fought fairly similiar. Large army that is poorly led. In fact it would have been more so because of the fact that there was only incompetent generals leading it. The author made a good call by not using the penisula campaign but missed on the fact that the other Union decision would have been seizing either Leesburg or Fredericksburg. Either way a crushing defeat for the Union. With McClellan out the next General would have been Burnside and he would have fumbled the ball also probably getting trapped by the Potomac and having his army defeated.

On the Sea the Union would have had to pull at least 1/3 of its blockade if not 1/2 to defend its cities. This alone would have allowed the South to resume importing and exporting. Also France wouldn't haven't stood idly by, they two would have joined in, seeing that a weakened North America would help them substantially. Another thing the South was committed to building the Virginia (the Ironclad) and wouldn't have stopped half through. Both sides new the importance of these ships in fighting a new naval war.

In the West the story would have been much different. With much of Missouri still at war, and with no threat to New Orleans and a reduced threat to South Carolina, there would have been 30,000 more Southern Troops to use in the defending of Fort Henry and Donaldson. Also Beuaregard would have led those forces because he wouldn't have become ill in the swamps of Louisiana. Both of those forts would have been redesigned and Grant's demonstration wouldn't have been successful. I am not saying he wouldn't eventually take the forts but it wouldn't have been easy. Also Shiloh would have never happened, without New Orleans there was no way the North was going to gamble on trying to reach Vicksburg.

In the world the author has created Shiloh happens but for what purpose. Johnston knows in this world (the author's) that all he has to do is defend and win. He isn't going to commit to the battle at Shiloh and instead withdraw east into Tennessee. Also Grant knows that there is little hope in taking the Mississippi this way. Grant would have went to Missouri to defend St. Louis. Also if Shiloh would have happened the Sherman would be wounded and unable to travel to Canada. Without Sherman you have a very poor secondary general.

In Canada the war would have been much different. If Grant would have been sent he wasn't the kind of General to sit back and let things happen. He was a very aggressive General who would have charged straight at the British. Grant got lucky at Shiloh and used his only strategy of shoving as many men into battle as it takes. In fact Grant wasn't as successful General as everyone remembers as he was defeated in the last three battles of the Civil War by a weaken, smaller force led by Lee. And beaten decisively twice then.

Also the author and several people don't realize that it did take everything the Union had to defeat the South. The North did have a larger army but half of those troops were tied up in gaurding borders and strategic areas. With war against Canada that occurred in this book then the North would have used all of those "recruits" to gaurd. Also the author gives these troops that sign up for the north no recruitment time, its just all of a sudden they have thousands of extra troops waiting.

As for the book the book takes to many characters and gives them a legendary status they never had. The story of the Irish fighting against the British was interesting but never really practical. The Irish would have never follow Cleburne and the truth of the matter, Cleburne loved the idea of state's rights more then anything else.

In conclusion, I would have to say that the best alternate history civil war book out there today is the Gettysburg series. It actually looks at the what ifs from a historical stand point and not just a literary one. This book had little history value and when i finished it I was angry that the book had taken so many assumptions and believed them to be true.

The british talk of using overwhelming force but then do nothing. Cities are torched but strangely reinforcements are not thought about until america invades canada. Apparently the empire was brought about by luck because britian seem to become idiotic when confronted by american forces. The chapter dealing with the canadian irregulars surrender was unrealistic. It is mentioned that england has vast experience with siege warfare because of the crimean war, so surprise they go on the offensive agaisnt the constantly stated larger union army. Wouldn't it make sense to let the union bleed itself at least a little before attacking. The anglo-confederacy states the answers but still acts opposite every time. The confederacy's actions are even more simple minded. Conroy knows how to write but this story follows a tired formula of certain armies or ideas never winning. Very boring for alternate history readers

In 1862: A Novel author Robert Conroy demonstrates two things and two things very clearly. The first is that he's no Harry Turtledove and the second, that he isn't the first. That's too bad because had he used even a little more imagination and didn't stretch credulity as much as he did (in an effort to finish this book it seems), he might have given the grand master of alternative history a run for his money.

That said "1862: A Novel" isn't a bad book per se, it's just not a very credible book, even for a "what if" novel. By the end of 1861 the Union was only just beginning to realize the scope of the task before it as it attempted to subdue the Southern states in the US Civil War. It had (barely) survived the debacle of Bull Run while trying to keep Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky from joining the fledgling Confederacy.

The blockade of Southern ports was slowly taking effect while the Army of the Potomac was gathering itself for General McClellan's springtime campaign in Virginia. Generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Phil Sheridan, Joshua L. Chamberlain and a host of other later-famous leaders were still largely undiscovered and in the backwaters of the Union's war effort.

Into this mess the real-life Trent Affair took place when Union Captain Charles Wilkes, commanding the United States ship, San Jacinto, forced the British ship, the RMS Trent, carrying two Confederate officials enroute to Europe, to stop at the point of his cannons. He then boarded the ship and kidnapped James M. Mason and John Slidell and sailed back to the US where Wilkes was feted as a hero for capturing the Rebel representatives.

Britain, however, was enraged and demanded an apology, as well as the release of the Confederate envoys. Historically, the Union government of President Abraham Lincoln did just that, thereby preventing a war between the USA and Great Britain and perhaps preserving the Union as well.

Conroy, naturally, flips this premise on its head and thus begins his book with the idea that Britain does, infact, declare war on the United States and enters the Civil War as an "associate" of the Confederate army. But instead of taking the realistic approach that a declaration of war on the USA by Britain would also mean diplomatic recognition of the Confederate State of America, he supposes the British are too timid to do that. Instead, Conroy wants the reader to believe that the English are content to simply align themselves as "associates" of the Rebels, without granting them formal recognition at all - he also takes no account of French Emperor Napoleon III who, at that time, was itching to recognize the South in order to help perpetuate his Mexican adventure.

Then the bottom really falls out of the credibility barrel as Conroy takes us from one British military disaster to the next. Lincoln, too, seems to have gained a unique insight and gives General Grant command of armies at a stage in the war where that general was still touted as little more than bum and a drunk. He also relies heavily on the equally heavy General Scott, who is not as out of the war has he was historically.

As for the blockade of Northern ports by the British, Conroy nullifies that early on in the conflict, with the advent of numerous sea-going iron clads that, historically, were still largely experimental and, as the Monitor's later sinking in bad weather showed, very unreliable.

Although the invasion of Canada was clearly a distinct possibility in the event of war with Britian, the amount of available troops the author makes available to Grant on his invasion would have been impossible as, historically, the Lincoln Administration was ridden with fears of a Confederate attack on Washington D.C. Lincoln, infact, held back over 50,000 troops from McClellan during his Peninsular Campaign and thus helped to contribute to the defeat of that general and the extension of the civil war itself. It is highly unlikely, therefore, that that same government, now faced with a foreign foe as well as a domestic one, would have now felt more free to give thousands of troops to an untried and unproven general who was still seen as a drunk.

But that doesn't stop Conroy who, by the midpoint of his book, seems, either more motivated by historian Shelby Foote's view that "all the North had to do was pull out the other hand" and win the conflict, than by the complexities involved in doing that, or a simple desire to get the book finished than finished well. And that's too bad because, presented properly and with a realistic understanding of the times and facts of that period, it would not be too hard to believe that the events could have played out as Conroy's books suggests.

A greater writer, such as Turtledove, would certainly have found a way to do just that. Conroy, on the other hand, was either too lazy or too close to his Detroit (Northern) heritage, to conceive of history happening any other way. So, instead of an interesting "what if" story, we get a novel that becomes quite predictable half-way through it, and a conclusion that is as lame as a three-legged horse.

That, like I said, is unfortunate, because Conroy's writing is fairly crisp and fairly readable. What it isn't is credible, and in the world of alternative history, unlike the world of extreme science fiction or fantasy, the credibility of the causal relationships the story is built upon, is even more important than the conclusions they lead too.

From the start of the book, it is apparent that mr. Conroy has not adequately researched many topics that one would think would have been foremost for this book:

Actual numbers of troops involved: In the book 1862, there are about 20,000 British regulars in Canada and an equal number of Canadian Militiamen: In Real life, there was, before the Trent affair, 11,000 British regulars in Canada and 50,000 Canadian militiamen; There were 39,000 troops in Britain ready to be sent there, and transport enough to bring them all there well before the campaign season began; the Canadian militia was increased to 100,000 men and the authorities had to turn away volunteers!(and that was without the war!)

For another: British naval practises: In one scene of the book, an enormous British fleet, steaming for New York, passes by an American sail sloop (Flying the American flag) and just steam on by: I ground my teeth when I read this: This is about as anathema to the Royal navy as it can get; I'd say it is the farthest one can get except for the next naval scene: a group of Redcoats sieze the forts guarding New York harbor, allowing the British fleet in, they then STEAM AROUND SHOOTING ALL THE SHIPS IN THE HARBOR!

Can you imagine the torture to the innocent, unsuspecting student of history reading this book? The British, when they broke into an enemy harbor(And they have done this a number of times), they NEVER sailed/steamed about SHOOTING the ships there: that was a waste of coal, a waste of shot, a waste of powder and a waste of money: The British would LOOT the harbor: They'd search through the ships docked there for valuable cargoes, They'd sort out all the ships that were sea-worthy so they could capture them and bring them back to England(The Navy offered prize money to any crew that captured an enemy ship), they then destroyed, using fire(NOT CANNONS) the ships and as much of the harbor as they could.

Conroy seems equally ignorant of US planned actions: in case of war the US government planned to raise an entirely new army in the midwest(estimated maximum possible strength: 50,000 men) for the 'invasion' of Canada. In the book, Grant and his army are simply TURNED AROUND and sent north(AAAAARGHHH!).

1862, Is, in short a mediocre work.

Writing fiction is playing God. That being said, Mr. Conroy has tapped into a real event at the outbreak of the American Civil War, gone off on a tangent and attempted to rejoin the altered timeline in a way that would somehow lead to the present. There are almost too many ludicrous premises to address, but here is an underlying question: If it took the Federal Union four long years to bring the Confedeacy to Appamattox, how can we believe that the same resolute Confederacy combined with the might and motives of Great Britian could be defeated within a year of their alliance? Moreover, in reality (as well as in this fiction) Lincoln was highly reticent to antagonize Britian for the Trent Affair but seemed to have no trouble threatening France for the puppet regime they'd setup in Mexico. Wow, those Yanks sure can take on the world, can't they? He should have given U.S. Grant some tights, a cape and a large gold shield with "U.S." engraved on it across his chest to complete his cartoonish superhero characterization. The fact that the only historical figures who have any character development are all Union ones speaks volumes for the intended slant of the narrative. Davis and more especially Lee are merely cardboard figures with absolutely no depth to them. Of course, there is lip service to Lee's great leadership, but our yarn spinner has him wounded and losing a leg. That insured there would be no "leadership", as he notes in the story, to inspire the Southern forces to fight on.

The primary point of view comes from Nathan Hunter, our Indiana Jones-like anti-hero, who is a little like Forest Gump. He seems to meet and associate with all the most important Union figures at just the crucial moments in the war. That is, when he isn't trying to seduce the widow Rebecca. In fact, the gratuitious sex scenes in this book are a real detriment. They seem to have been grafted onto the story to juice it up.

I agree that there are many aspects of the times surrounding the War Between The States that could have led to different outcomes. That is true of any historical event. And Mr. Conroy has made this "what if" idea his bread and butter it would seem. I am mainly disapponted after reading "1862" that I didn't believe it could happen.