HOME | DD

Description
Before we start, I'd like to say that the Siege of Friendship is one of the most unintentionally funny things I've ever done. Anyways, back to the unpaid program
---------------------------------------------------------------------
American Civil War 1861-1865

  Since the loss of the Great Gamble, France had been working hard to make sure the United States of America becomes a definitive ally of France instead of a neutral power that generally agrees with them. Britain had been doing the same, trying to ride the momentum of the Great Gamble to make sure America becomes their ally. As such, the two were constantly trying to meddle in American politics, and, oh, it appears America was dividing itself based on their thoughts of Slavery, what a perfect opportunity. Those opposing slavery ended up aligning with France, with those favoring slavery aligned with Britain. French diplomats would go on and on about how evil slavery is, while Britain would say that although they don’t allow slavery, they’re okay with others doing so.

  The French and Brits would purposefully try to start conflict, pointing fingers at opposing diplomats and their allies. Personal attacks, like that of Preston Brooks against Charles Sumner, Henry S. Foote and Thomas Benton against each other, and even those on the same side battled each other in a argument over how extreme their sides should become.

  The argument eventually came to a head in 1860, when Pro-British, Pro-Slaverly men stormed voting polls across the country, even invading nearby non-slave states, to make sure their candidate, Moise Severin, gets power. While legally, it worked, Moise Severin and his running mate would be assassinated by Pro-French Americans before he get the presidency, leaving the President Pro Tempore of the US Senate - Kenneth Victors, who was Pro-French (but oddly neutral to slavery) - as President to be. The South, understandably, didn’t like this. The North (while celebrating the death of Moise Severin) said that the law is the law and thus that Kenneth Victors should be president, not to mention that the only reason Severin won the election anyways was because of vote-rigging. By the time that Kenneth Victors would ascend to the presidency, blood was already flowing in the streets, and the South gathered an army of Pro-Slavers to march on Washington and get a different president in, while what remained of the true US army gathers to defend Kenneth Victors.

  French and British troops were suddenly flowing into the United States to support their respective sides (interestingly, New York was the main staple port for the French and Pro-French America, New Orleans was the staple port for the British and Pro-British America). The first battle was the battle of Alexandria, just south of Washington and the flash of cannons could be seen easily from Washington. This battle contained no French or British troops, though. Instead, the first battle that would contain French and/or British troops would be the battle of New Orleans (1861), in which French sailors flying under the United States banner tried and failed to capture New Orleans, being pushed off by British ships.

  There were two main fronts in the American Civil War: The Virginia Front, and the Mississippi front. The American troops mostly focused on the Virginia Front, while they sent the Europeans to the Mississippi front. Now that isn’t to say that Europeans didn’t serve in Virginia (mostly Officers), nor Americans in Mississippi (they still made up a large percentage of the army, though certainly not the majority).

Virginia Front and the Atlantic

  The Southern insurgents started off very disorganized, a stark difference to the American Government army, headed by general Robert Scotts. The Southern insurgency can be mostly described as a coalition of self-declared generals and their self-described armies running around trying to beat the government. Not only this, but the North also had an industrial advantage and a discipline advantage (getting most of the army, while only a few defectors joined the Southern Insurgency). The insurgency should have been over by Christmas.

  That was before the European Intervention. By June, British officers (most important of which was Alexander Palmer) came and replaced the Southern Insurgent Generals, disciplining them in the same way that Baron von Steuben disciplined the American Revolutionaries almost a century before. The first signs of slowing came in August, right after Richmond was reclaimed, and by Christmas the Virginia Front had almost came to complete halt at the Virginia-North Carolina border and Norfolk.

  Britain used her superior navy to try to block out the 3 most important bays in America: Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York bays. While Chesapeake and Delaware were mostly successful, the New York bay blockade was not, as the Brits were unable to block both New York bay and her sister Long Island sound, meaning the whole blockade of New York was for all intents and purposes a failure. But for the blockades that did work, it meant that Washington, Baltimore, Northern-controlled Richmond, and Philadelphia were all blocked out by sea, making the French trek to the front needlessly longer. Not that it really mattered, French and British ships flying French and British flags were almost never attacked out of fear of launching a larger war.

  Norfolk sat as a major fortress for a year, Robert Scotts demanding its surrender and Alexander Palmer carefully keeping the defenses up. Two new pieces of weaponry were introduced almost specifically for this siege: the French Flying Shell (a new advanced Howitzer that used relatively advanced indirect fire techniques) and the British Repeating Rifle (Gatling Gun). The Repeating Rifle made assaults on the town costly affairs, while the Flying Shell made it unnecessary to do so. While the siege of Norfolk went on, other parts of the Northern Army marched through North Carolina, capturing Raleigh and Greensboro.

  Eventually, the storehouses and supplies at Norfolk became too diminished for Palmer’s liking, and so throughout November, he had part of his garrison army slip out of Norfolk with orders to go to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, just 40 km south. By the end of November, Palmer had escaped Norfolk without Scotts ever being the wiser, and was Scotts ever made the fool when he found out halfway through December that he was bombarding an empty city as his enemy was reinforcing down south. Scotts was sacked for his mistake and moved to the Mississippi front, which was at the time a losing front. He was replaced with Richard P. Geiger.

  Geiger believed that Palmer could safely be ignored, and instead of marching his armies to Elizabeth City, he rather decided to turn his men to Raleigh and, more importantly, Charlotte, and try to capture the major population centers throughout the South, leaving Norfolk in January. Now it was time for Palmer to look like the fool as his plan to deteriorate the US government army through only defensive battles would have to be set aside and he made chase with Geiger. Geiger knew that Palmer would chase him all over the front, and so Geiger could place himself anywhere he wished and give himself a week to prepare for a battle. Instead of going to Charlotte, like he intended, he instead fled into the mountains of western North Carolina, quickly capturing Asheville and the surrounding hills, preparing for a grand defense.

  The battle of Pisgah was a tremendous success for Geiger and Palmer fled to Charlotte and prepared his own defence. At Charlotte, he wrote to the government of Britain, saying he believed the cause was lost in America, despite Britain’s surprising success on the Mississippi river. Palmer was forced to defend Charlotte from Geiger’s forces and contemporaries in the battles of Belmont, Lake Norman, and Concord. While all narrow victories for Palmer, he was trapped in Charlotte, and forced to push out of the suffocating Charlotte, breaking out and setting up a position to the south at Rock Hill, although that September he was forced to flee from there as well. As fled, the last of North Carolina fell back to the American Government

  Palmer sat in Columbia, South Carolina for the winter, with Geiger in Charlotte, North Carolina. Palmer was told that he had one year to turn the war around, or he’d be replaced just as his former nemesis Scotts was. Palmer decided that Columbia needed to become a fortress, so throughout the winter months, Palmer had his army and any volunteers available to make a wall around Columbia, and then another two layers of walls inside, including one of them on an island in the middle of the Congaree river. The fortifications were shifty, but they were better than nothing. The walls were lined with the repeating rifles and standard cannons, and Palmer was ready to fight.

  And fight they did, for when Spring came, Geiger came down onto Columbia and was shocked as to what he saw. He bunkered in for a long and seemingly never ending siege. Geiger pushed to take the walls time and time again, only to be mowed down by the repeating rifles, and it seemed that the flying shell was doing minimal damage to the defenders. This was the first battle in the Virginia front for a long time that saw many more Government casualties than Insurgent, and Columbia soon became a symbol of the Southern Insurgency.

  Sadly, for the insurgency, that didn’t stop Charleston from being captured, cutting off the Congaree river. The sudden knowledge of the Surprise war and its loss was devastating for British moral, and the loss of British moral affected the insurgents as well. Throughout the summer and fall, Geiger would continue his siege, and more and more insurgents deserted to Geiger. Meanwhile, other cities across South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida fell as well, with British generals deciding to head back home and their armies collapsed from loss of moral. Palmer was the last one in Virginia, and he no longer wanted to be there. On November 3rd, 1864, Palmer surrendered to Geiger under the condition that he could live in America (so that he wouldn’t suffer humiliation at home).

  The next week, the first election since the insurgency began were held, with elections taking place in Virginia and North Carolina. Incumbent President Kenneth Victors won in a wild landslide, repeating the phrase “Victors for Victory!”

Mississippi Front and the Gulf

  The war in Mississippi started off with a slight French advantage on land and a major British advantage at sea. With the front starting off at the 36th Parallel North, the French army was prepared to march on Memphis. Sadly for the French, they would be stopped just north at Memphis, and the French and Brits were preparing for a repeat of what happened at Changsha and Wuhan, with the French and British armies marching between Saint Louis and Memphis.

  Fortunately for the British, it didn’t end up this was, for in the next year, the 1st Explorer’s War in the Congo (or Surprise War) would begin, and French troops and supply would diverted from America to the Congo, with Britain scratching their heads why. Most figured that France was probably preparing for a war elsewhere, or had given up on the American war (hardly a chance). But, nonetheless with the French force limited on the Mississippi Front, Britain gained the upper edge and started the march up the Mississippi River, capturing Saint Louis by Christmas of 1862, and had begun a siege of Chicago the following year.

  The Northern Americans fought hard to try to break the siege, cut off British supply lines, or just to negotiate as good of a peace as they still could (thankfully, the Virginia front was still going decently, with large leaps in progress coming in 1863). Chicago did eventually fall in early 1864, which the Brits believed would be the end of the Mississippi front, despite some resistance volunteers coming in from Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. The Brits were wrong to assume.

  With the discovery of the Surprise War and France’s victory in it before it even started, many Brits suddenly had a drop in morale, but not enough to take them out of the war. Britain still held Chicago and the entirety of the Mississippi River up to Saint Louis (as far as they really needed to go), and from there, up the Illinois river to Chicago, dividing the United States. But, they would be facing off against a new surge of French Troops, arriving back from the Congo, led by Vincent Durant (Jean-Marie ‘Le Toulonnais’ was out on another mission in the Sahara). But also arriving from the congo was Joseph Crawford, hoping to regain some of his lost honor.

  Durant’s first strike was against Saint Louis, quickly capturing it while the British were still in Chicago. The British armies led by Crawford marched quickly on to Saint Louis and put it under siege. Durant seeked to pull the same trick that Le Toulonnais had pulled on Crawford back at Fort Durant, tricking Crawford into a peace behind French lines so he could be captured, but this time Crawford knew it was a trap, and while Durant stood waiting for his adversary, one of Crawford’s men shot Durant. While he survived, he wouldn’t be able to effectively lead his armies. Crawford was able to regain Saint Louis under the conditions that Durant would get safe passage to New York City so he could more effectively recover, the remaining French forces would surrender all arms, and that said force would get a 2 day’s head start to run to a more effective place to defend and get weapons again.

  British forces lined the Mississippi by the time the Virginia front finally ended. The rebellion in the East had finally been put down, and it was time to put down the rebellion in the West. Richard Geiger was put in charge on the Southwest (Louisiana), former general of Virginia Robert Soctts was put in charge of the Northwest (Illinois), and a replacement general for Durant, Philippe Berger, led the center (Missouri).

  Crawford, put at the helm of the entire West, stood no chance, and he wished that all British troops in America leave. They had already lost the important front, that in Virginia, any victory in the Mississippi would be minimal, even if Britain could establish a completely separate state west of the Mississippi, the population would be nearly nonexistent and there seems to be no resources in the area.

  The British government agreed, but refused a flat-out surrender. Instead, they wanted their troops to return to Britain or Canada before they’ll negotiate (since they technically never declared war, they hoped that a few hundred thousand pounds would work). Thus began the great retreat, in which British soldiers north of Saint Louis would sweep north-west back into Canada (and try to burn Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota on the way), while soldiers south of Saint Louis would collapse the line to the Texan coast, where they’d get on British ship and go on their merry way.

  The Northern retreat went as expected, as Robert Scotts chased them from Illinois, but witnessed the destruction of the Upper Mississippi along with the way. The two most infamous incidents were when the entirety of Chicago was burned to the ground, and when British troops in Minneapolis burned the mills, and a good amount of the rest of the city with it. The Southern retreat didn’t go quite as expected, mostly thanks to one major flaw that Crawford couldn’t imagine; an evolved, advanced, and much larger form of cavalry warfare, a much more mobile warfare, where the French General Philippe Berger was able to get around the retreating and harass the northern end of the British armies from the front and rear, and ‘chewed’ down from there. Most of the British army survived, but only by moving in a way Crawford hadn’t intended, clumping together into a giant mass. The British army gathered in Friendship, Texas, where they were to hold out while the French and Americans assaulted the town

  In April 1865, the British fleet finally arrived, and the last of the British troops fled America, the de jure end of the American Civil War.

Description
Before we start, I'd like to say that the Siege of Friendship is one of the most unintentionally funny things I've ever done. Anyways, back to the unpaid program
---------------------------------------------------------------------
American Civil War 1861-1865

  Since the loss of the Great Gamble, France had been working hard to make sure the United States of America becomes a definitive ally of France instead of a neutral power that generally agrees with them. Britain had been doing the same, trying to ride the momentum of the Great Gamble to make sure America becomes their ally. As such, the two were constantly trying to meddle in American politics, and, oh, it appears America was dividing itself based on their thoughts of Slavery, what a perfect opportunity. Those opposing slavery ended up aligning with France, with those favoring slavery aligned with Britain. French diplomats would go on and on about how evil slavery is, while Britain would say that although they don’t allow slavery, they’re okay with others doing so.

  The French and Brits would purposefully try to start conflict, pointing fingers at opposing diplomats and their allies. Personal attacks, like that of Preston Brooks against Charles Sumner, Henry S. Foote and Thomas Benton against each other, and even those on the same side battled each other in a argument over how extreme their sides should become.

  The argument eventually came to a head in 1860, when Pro-British, Pro-Slaverly men stormed voting polls across the country, even invading nearby non-slave states, to make sure their candidate, Moise Severin, gets power. While legally, it worked, Moise Severin and his running mate would be assassinated by Pro-French Americans before he get the presidency, leaving the President Pro Tempore of the US Senate - Kenneth Victors, who was Pro-French (but oddly neutral to slavery) - as President to be. The South, understandably, didn’t like this. The North (while celebrating the death of Moise Severin) said that the law is the law and thus that Kenneth Victors should be president, not to mention that the only reason Severin won the election anyways was because of vote-rigging. By the time that Kenneth Victors would ascend to the presidency, blood was already flowing in the streets, and the South gathered an army of Pro-Slavers to march on Washington and get a different president in, while what remained of the true US army gathers to defend Kenneth Victors.

  French and British troops were suddenly flowing into the United States to support their respective sides (interestingly, New York was the main staple port for the French and Pro-French America, New Orleans was the staple port for the British and Pro-British America). The first battle was the battle of Alexandria, just south of Washington and the flash of cannons could be seen easily from Washington. This battle contained no French or British troops, though. Instead, the first battle that would contain French and/or British troops would be the battle of New Orleans (1861), in which French sailors flying under the United States banner tried and failed to capture New Orleans, being pushed off by British ships.

  There were two main fronts in the American Civil War: The Virginia Front, and the Mississippi front. The American troops mostly focused on the Virginia Front, while they sent the Europeans to the Mississippi front. Now that isn’t to say that Europeans didn’t serve in Virginia (mostly Officers), nor Americans in Mississippi (they still made up a large percentage of the army, though certainly not the majority).

Virginia Front and the Atlantic

  The Southern insurgents started off very disorganized, a stark difference to the American Government army, headed by general Robert Scotts. The Southern insurgency can be mostly described as a coalition of self-declared generals and their self-described armies running around trying to beat the government. Not only this, but the North also had an industrial advantage and a discipline advantage (getting most of the army, while only a few defectors joined the Southern Insurgency). The insurgency should have been over by Christmas.

  That was before the European Intervention. By June, British officers (most important of which was Alexander Palmer) came and replaced the Southern Insurgent Generals, disciplining them in the same way that Baron von Steuben disciplined the American Revolutionaries almost a century before. The first signs of slowing came in August, right after Richmond was reclaimed, and by Christmas the Virginia Front had almost came to complete halt at the Virginia-North Carolina border and Norfolk.

  Britain used her superior navy to try to block out the 3 most important bays in America: Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York bays. While Chesapeake and Delaware were mostly successful, the New York bay blockade was not, as the Brits were unable to block both New York bay and her sister Long Island sound, meaning the whole blockade of New York was for all intents and purposes a failure. But for the blockades that did work, it meant that Washington, Baltimore, Northern-controlled Richmond, and Philadelphia were all blocked out by sea, making the French trek to the front needlessly longer. Not that it really mattered, French and British ships flying French and British flags were almost never attacked out of fear of launching a larger war.

  Norfolk sat as a major fortress for a year, Robert Scotts demanding its surrender and Alexander Palmer carefully keeping the defenses up. Two new pieces of weaponry were introduced almost specifically for this siege: the French Flying Shell (a new advanced Howitzer that used relatively advanced indirect fire techniques) and the British Repeating Rifle (Gatling Gun). The Repeating Rifle made assaults on the town costly affairs, while the Flying Shell made it unnecessary to do so. While the siege of Norfolk went on, other parts of the Northern Army marched through North Carolina, capturing Raleigh and Greensboro.

  Eventually, the storehouses and supplies at Norfolk became too diminished for Palmer’s liking, and so throughout November, he had part of his garrison army slip out of Norfolk with orders to go to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, just 40 km south. By the end of November, Palmer had escaped Norfolk without Scotts ever being the wiser, and was Scotts ever made the fool when he found out halfway through December that he was bombarding an empty city as his enemy was reinforcing down south. Scotts was sacked for his mistake and moved to the Mississippi front, which was at the time a losing front. He was replaced with Richard P. Geiger.

  Geiger believed that Palmer could safely be ignored, and instead of marching his armies to Elizabeth City, he rather decided to turn his men to Raleigh and, more importantly, Charlotte, and try to capture the major population centers throughout the South, leaving Norfolk in January. Now it was time for Palmer to look like the fool as his plan to deteriorate the US government army through only defensive battles would have to be set aside and he made chase with Geiger. Geiger knew that Palmer would chase him all over the front, and so Geiger could place himself anywhere he wished and give himself a week to prepare for a battle. Instead of going to Charlotte, like he intended, he instead fled into the mountains of western North Carolina, quickly capturing Asheville and the surrounding hills, preparing for a grand defense.

  The battle of Pisgah was a tremendous success for Geiger and Palmer fled to Charlotte and prepared his own defence. At Charlotte, he wrote to the government of Britain, saying he believed the cause was lost in America, despite Britain’s surprising success on the Mississippi river. Palmer was forced to defend Charlotte from Geiger’s forces and contemporaries in the battles of Belmont, Lake Norman, and Concord. While all narrow victories for Palmer, he was trapped in Charlotte, and forced to push out of the suffocating Charlotte, breaking out and setting up a position to the south at Rock Hill, although that September he was forced to flee from there as well. As fled, the last of North Carolina fell back to the American Government

  Palmer sat in Columbia, South Carolina for the winter, with Geiger in Charlotte, North Carolina. Palmer was told that he had one year to turn the war around, or he’d be replaced just as his former nemesis Scotts was. Palmer decided that Columbia needed to become a fortress, so throughout the winter months, Palmer had his army and any volunteers available to make a wall around Columbia, and then another two layers of walls inside, including one of them on an island in the middle of the Congaree river. The fortifications were shifty, but they were better than nothing. The walls were lined with the repeating rifles and standard cannons, and Palmer was ready to fight.

  And fight they did, for when Spring came, Geiger came down onto Columbia and was shocked as to what he saw. He bunkered in for a long and seemingly never ending siege. Geiger pushed to take the walls time and time again, only to be mowed down by the repeating rifles, and it seemed that the flying shell was doing minimal damage to the defenders. This was the first battle in the Virginia front for a long time that saw many more Government casualties than Insurgent, and Columbia soon became a symbol of the Southern Insurgency.

  Sadly, for the insurgency, that didn’t stop Charleston from being captured, cutting off the Congaree river. The sudden knowledge of the Surprise war and its loss was devastating for British moral, and the loss of British moral affected the insurgents as well. Throughout the summer and fall, Geiger would continue his siege, and more and more insurgents deserted to Geiger. Meanwhile, other cities across South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida fell as well, with British generals deciding to head back home and their armies collapsed from loss of moral. Palmer was the last one in Virginia, and he no longer wanted to be there. On November 3rd, 1864, Palmer surrendered to Geiger under the condition that he could live in America (so that he wouldn’t suffer humiliation at home).

  The next week, the first election since the insurgency began were held, with elections taking place in Virginia and North Carolina. Incumbent President Kenneth Victors won in a wild landslide, repeating the phrase “Victors for Victory!”

Mississippi Front and the Gulf

  The war in Mississippi started off with a slight French advantage on land and a major British advantage at sea. With the front starting off at the 36th Parallel North, the French army was prepared to march on Memphis. Sadly for the French, they would be stopped just north at Memphis, and the French and Brits were preparing for a repeat of what happened at Changsha and Wuhan, with the French and British armies marching between Saint Louis and Memphis.

  Fortunately for the British, it didn’t end up this was, for in the next year, the 1st Explorer’s War in the Congo (or Surprise War) would begin, and French troops and supply would diverted from America to the Congo, with Britain scratching their heads why. Most figured that France was probably preparing for a war elsewhere, or had given up on the American war (hardly a chance). But, nonetheless with the French force limited on the Mississippi Front, Britain gained the upper edge and started the march up the Mississippi River, capturing Saint Louis by Christmas of 1862, and had begun a siege of Chicago the following year.

  The Northern Americans fought hard to try to break the siege, cut off British supply lines, or just to negotiate as good of a peace as they still could (thankfully, the Virginia front was still going decently, with large leaps in progress coming in 1863). Chicago did eventually fall in early 1864, which the Brits believed would be the end of the Mississippi front, despite some resistance volunteers coming in from Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. The Brits were wrong to assume.

  With the discovery of the Surprise War and France’s victory in it before it even started, many Brits suddenly had a drop in morale, but not enough to take them out of the war. Britain still held Chicago and the entirety of the Mississippi River up to Saint Louis (as far as they really needed to go), and from there, up the Illinois river to Chicago, dividing the United States. But, they would be facing off against a new surge of French Troops, arriving back from the Congo, led by Vincent Durant (Jean-Marie ‘Le Toulonnais’ was out on another mission in the Sahara). But also arriving from the congo was Joseph Crawford, hoping to regain some of his lost honor.

  Durant’s first strike was against Saint Louis, quickly capturing it while the British were still in Chicago. The British armies led by Crawford marched quickly on to Saint Louis and put it under siege. Durant seeked to pull the same trick that Le Toulonnais had pulled on Crawford back at Fort Durant, tricking Crawford into a peace behind French lines so he could be captured, but this time Crawford knew it was a trap, and while Durant stood waiting for his adversary, one of Crawford’s men shot Durant. While he survived, he wouldn’t be able to effectively lead his armies. Crawford was able to regain Saint Louis under the conditions that Durant would get safe passage to New York City so he could more effectively recover, the remaining French forces would surrender all arms, and that said force would get a 2 day’s head start to run to a more effective place to defend and get weapons again.

  British forces lined the Mississippi by the time the Virginia front finally ended. The rebellion in the East had finally been put down, and it was time to put down the rebellion in the West. Richard Geiger was put in charge on the Southwest (Louisiana), former general of Virginia Robert Soctts was put in charge of the Northwest (Illinois), and a replacement general for Durant, Philippe Berger, led the center (Missouri).

  Crawford, put at the helm of the entire West, stood no chance, and he wished that all British troops in America leave. They had already lost the important front, that in Virginia, any victory in the Mississippi would be minimal, even if Britain could establish a completely separate state west of the Mississippi, the population would be nearly nonexistent and there seems to be no resources in the area.

  The British government agreed, but refused a flat-out surrender. Instead, they wanted their troops to return to Britain or Canada before they’ll negotiate (since they technically never declared war, they hoped that a few hundred thousand pounds would work). Thus began the great retreat, in which British soldiers north of Saint Louis would sweep north-west back into Canada (and try to burn Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota on the way), while soldiers south of Saint Louis would collapse the line to the Texan coast, where they’d get on British ship and go on their merry way.

  The Northern retreat went as expected, as Robert Scotts chased them from Illinois, but witnessed the destruction of the Upper Mississippi along with the way. The two most infamous incidents were when the entirety of Chicago was burned to the ground, and when British troops in Minneapolis burned the mills, and a good amount of the rest of the city with it. The Southern retreat didn’t go quite as expected, mostly thanks to one major flaw that Crawford couldn’t imagine; an evolved, advanced, and much larger form of cavalry warfare, a much more mobile warfare, where the French General Philippe Berger was able to get around the retreating and harass the northern end of the British armies from the front and rear, and ‘chewed’ down from there. Most of the British army survived, but only by moving in a way Crawford hadn’t intended, clumping together into a giant mass. The British army gathered in Friendship, Texas, where they were to hold out while the French and Americans assaulted the town

  In April 1865, the British fleet finally arrived, and the last of the British troops fled America, the de jure end of the American Civil War.