Didz's American game blog.

[Didz]

1800 Winter: Revenge isn't sweet, its Greene.

Even before the massacre of Cowell's Army, General Nathan Greene had been marching as fast as he could towards Algonquin Territory. The fact, is he didn't want Cowell stealing all the glory and was determined to get his fair share.

Cowell had made some scathing comments about Greene's caution when fighting the natives, and whilst Greene would never have wished upon Cowell the disaster that befell his so-called 'Indian Fighting Army', he certainly felt vindicated that his Army and tactic's has secured him a string of victories whilst Cowell's new fangled idea's had cost him his life.

Greene arrived at Cuyohoga in the late summer of 1800, just in time to hear of the massacre at Niagra, and he marched immediately to avenge Cowell's death, razing the indian settlements at Fort Preque and Allegany en-route.

He arrived at the Niagra settlement to find that Hiakatoo and his warband of 4,810 braves had settled down for the winter and reconstructed their wooden longhouses on the site of the original settlement.

He wasted no time in forming his army into the tried and trusted square formation he had used in all his previous indian battles. His men knew the drill and most were veterans of at least two indian fights. As soon as they were in position his artillery began bombarding the indian village and its surrounding woodland with shell. Much of the firing was blind but the indians were so closely packed that most shells hit something.

Enraged and tormented by the bombardment several war parties tried to charge the American positions but a combination of shell and accurate musketry drove them back with heavy loss. Finally, the entire of Hiakatoo's warband charged the American square. The slaughter amongst them was terrible, but once again Greene was amazed at the resilience of the Iroquios warriors, and it seemed that once they started 'whooping' their battle cry's nothing would stop them except a bullet.

The 3rd and 4th Continentals on the front left of the square bore the brunt of the assault and fierce hand to hand fighting ensued as the indians tried to break through into the squares centre and get at Greene and the gunnners. However, unlike the militia of Cowell's army the men of the 3rd and 4th were highly expereinced and disciplined veterans. They fought the indian's to a stand-still and then drove them off, finally cutting the last of them down with musketry.

After this the battle was merely a hunt of the fugitives and the bombardment into obliteration of any last signs of resistance.

Greene lost 1,080 men out of an army of 6,825. Hiakatoo's warband of 4,810 was wiped out.

1801 Summer: The State of the Navy.

Naval Secretary Goodfellow is pleased to report to congress that the current programme of ship building is almost complete and that the final 3rd Rate should be ready for commissioning by the end of the year. The navy will then have a fleet of 14 x third rate ships of the line ready to protect American interests at sea and should be more than sufficient to deal with any immediate threat to American commerce.

It is not the intention to commission further ships of the line at this time. Though, funds permitting congress may wish to consider increasing the number of frigates available. At present the Navy has a total of 9 x 24pdr Frigates, 1 x Carronade Frigate, 1 x 5th Rate, 1 x 6th Rate and 1 x sloop. It should be noted that the USS Plymouth, which was lost to the British has never been replaced.

The current number of frigates is more than ample to cope with peace time trade protection, but would be badly overstretched if the nation was put on a war footing.

On a specifc note reports from traders in Madagascar confirm that the British are making repeated attempts to wrest control of the sea lanes in that region from the Spanish, whilst the USS Yorktown patrolling the East Indies has reported seeing a British Squadron in the area. Given the war with both the British and Spanish is inevitable we will need suffiecient force in every trade zone to protect our commerce, and that may need a force of twenty frigates to achieve.

In the meantime, research is progressing well, however, all attempts to acquire additional knowledge from friendly nations have been unsucessfull. It will therefore be several years yet before American ships will be able to match the performance of their British counter-parts. The only avenue which has not been explored is espionage, mainly because the risks are unlikely to be justified by the rewards and because the assignment of gentlemen to that activity would actually distract them from their research and so could be counter-productive.