Civil war Challange East vs West

[Mojo]

The challange is to somehow have a civil war between Eastern US vs Western. The war must be around the same time frame 1860-1870. You decide the issue that starts the war. Bounus points for anyone who can make it a western victory.

[Mike Stearns]

The challange is to somehow have a civil war between Eastern US vs Western. The war must be around the same time frame 1860-1870. You decide the issue that starts the war. Bounus points for anyone who can make it a western victory.

If memory serves several of the western states were slave states. Assuming that the southern states had chosen to abolish slavery on their own I could see an east-west civil war based on the attempts of the government to force the abolition of slavery in the west. I can't see the west winning though. The west was just being opened in the 1860s, so there wouldn't have been a very big resource base on which the slave states could have waged a war. Also the east would have the advantage of having better access to factories for the production of war goods in addition to have having a larger population.

[Forum Lurker]

It would then be a Southwest v. everybody else war, which would last a few months at most. The northern half of the West was firmly anti-slavery.

I think you need a very early PoD. Maybe the Louisiana Territory sees a substantial French colonization early on, and when it's eventually sold to the U.S., the inhabitants are both numerous enough to begrudge the English-descended Easterners who now claim to rule them, and in possession of sufficient natural and human resources to do something about it. I'd guess that the best sparking-point to the war would be some kind of apportionment scheme rigged to deprive the West of what it sees as its fair share of Congressional representation.

[NapoleonXIV]

1845 The transfer of sovereignity from Mexican to American is much more amicable than in OTL since Fremont's expedition fails in many of its objectives and is only bailed out by sympathetic Mexican Californians. Therefore the Mexican type of land ownership, more advantageous to large landowners than the American, stays in place along with the large Hidalgos themselves.

1849 When gold is discovered it is on land controlled by the large landowners who have the resources to keep squatters off. As the rumors of wealth for the taking spread however, these resources are more and more strained. To finance the ever growing private armies they need the landowners turn to the plantation class of the South and offer to bring them in as partners.

1849-55 The Plantationers make CA a Slave state and bring in slaves to work the mines. The private armies, needed to hold off the now worldwide based stream of squatters continue to grow and to meld with the regular Army but only in CA. In the rest of the country there is growing objection to the conditions the slaves are forced to work under.

1855 The slaves revolt. The revolt, supported by abolitionists from Oregon and Canada, and among whom is John Brown, is put down with extraordinary savagery, mainly by the private armies. The CA landowners are condemned worldwide for this.

For their part, the landowners are terrified of another revolt and highly resentful of a rumour that the regular Army was ineffectual in the revolt because they had been ordered to stand down by Washington abolitionist interests.

They send teams of geologists and prospectors into the countryside and the amount of gold they find increases far beyond OTL, most of it going to draw more support from the plantation owners back home. These are drawn mainly from the older cotton growing areas. The movement, besides having the appeal of a gold rush, now also takes on the nature of a vicious cycle. More gold means more Plantationers and slaves, which necessitates a bigger Army, which necessitates more gold.

1855-57 This cycle is remarkably effective at drawing people. The states of MD, VA, the Carolinas and GE are virtually impoverished of slave owners, fleeing plantations with exhausted soil which have become unprofitable and attracted to a CA now paying a premium for slaves in land. The CA landowners use more and more gold to hire more and more private armies They also appeal for mercernary support worldwide. One respondent to this appeal is the Russian government.

1857-1860 The CA Plantation owners, teamed with a former RR lawyer and now Illinois Congressman, Abraham Lincoln., sponsors the completion of two Intercontinental RR’s, one in the N and one in the S. Russia sends increasing contingents of soldiers as the CA landowners see kindred souls in the more conservative Russian nobles, who see support for their serfs in the slaveholding Californians. CA is now packed with former Southrons, their slaves, and a huge private army. Aboltionists abolish slavery in the Eastern South. The Californians find more and more gold and begin to penetrate into Nevada and other Western areas. Their harsh system of slavery comes under more and more worldwide criticism which the Californian slaveholders respond to with resentment, a bigger Army and more courting of the Russians

1861. Abraham Lincoln is elected on an abolitionist platform. California secedes and claims most of the West. Secessionist movements in the South, with far fewer slaveholders, are quashed with one major exception. Texas, having relatively unexhausted soil and newer plantations, declares itself an independent nation but immediately makes common cause with the Californians. Russia allies with California /Texas and the CW begins

[David S Poepoe]

Interesting, but I don't see the Californios aligning themselves with Southern slaveholders, and I certainly don't see any white Americans doing anything to help any non-white individual.

I think what is needed is a larger initial Latino population base to begin with. There are a few PODs during the Spanish period that could get us a larger Latino base. What would still happen would be that Fremont arrives to support the Bear Flag Rebellion and the Californios rise against the Mexicans. California is admitted to the Union and sends a whole string of Latino representatives that just aren't welcomed in the East. California is wanted just for its gold, the Latino and then later Chinese population, tho clearly the majority just isn't tolerated. Californian senators and representatives are repeated refused admittance into Congress since they are considered colored.

California industrializes and trades with the Far East. During the late 1850s there is some suggestions of a transcontinental railroad, but reports that large numbers of Mexican are immigrating to California cause scares of eventually Hispanics will move eastward using the railway.

A bit sketchy but the basic premise would be that the Civil War divides east and west over racial lines. The North agrees to tolerate the continuation of slavery in the South in order to subdue the mineral rich and racially integrated California.

[PJ Norris]

I'm not making POD's just looking at the strategic side of things here. California as an enemy nation against the U.S.A. has some major advantageous and several disadvantages. California has the mighty Sierra Nevada in the east and could easily fight off more Unionists than the Confederacy ever did. Keeping a skirmish line in the north near Yreka and in the south at ,say, San Bernardino, could plug the gaps and create a 'Fortress California'.
Yet the disadvantages outway the good. The population of the west coast in total, with Oregon and Washington included, was about 2 million - hardly enough to create a nation or fight off the crushing numbers of Union soldiers (with the South). CA's industrial hub was even more insignificant than the CSA's, a neglegible food hub to accomodate all of the expectant supporter's flocking to the state and a coastline that would easily be blockaded. Unlike the South that had runners that easily wove in and out of the Union blockade and run to Europe, any brave sailors that DID escape the Union's ships would have to sail around Cape Horn. A couple of major battles in the hills of the south and north, a Union blockade, a major Union battle and eventually the two fronts collapse. Expect the Republic of California to last maybe a year, two if we're lucky.

[David S Poepoe]

Very good points, tho I would downplay the Union blockade part. I think it likely that the US would not expand its navy to any terrible degree, certainly not to the size of the wartime Union fleet. Washington would consider the length of time and likely friendly ports that would be available to its forces in the Pacific. This most likely would be none. The naval side of this war could be a repeat of the Mexican American War, a sideshow of a sideshow.

Strangely the largest possible naval force in the Pacific is sitting in San Francisco Bay, all those ships that brought people to California and then their crews left for the gold fields.

What is most likely is that it would be considered a Army only type of war. Given the unreliability of communications the size and scope of the 'rebellion' could be underestimated to begin with. The first few army units sent West are defeated wholescale.

Geography does play a very important part and not just the Sierra Nevadas, but also the Great Basin and the Rockies.

For additional numbers we'll toss the Mormons in the Californians.

A particularly interesting double edged sword is to consider that California could appeal to both Mexico and China to swell the ranks of its armed forces. The Californian government could offer a rewards of X amount of land for any male Chinaman that comes to California and serves a five year stint in the Army, some other bonus if he reenlists. Granted you'll find some that aren't army grade material, but then you shunt them into the navy, the Army Department of Railroads (building those railways to the front really quickly) or into the growing military-industrial complex.

The next thing to consider would be the political ramifications of such a war in the eastern United States. Its entirely likely that the East would be gridlock by indecision between the Old Northwest, the South and the Northeast. In order to pursue the war the Federal Government would have to come to some agreement with the South about extending slavery into the West and Southwest. I don't see the New England supporting that. The Old Northwest will fight for Union, but not Emancipation. I would almost be sure that a Lincoln victory would worsen the gridlock and bring continued military actions against California to a standstill. However, Lincoln could agree to the Crittenden Compromise in order to pursue the war in the West.

At least in my scenario, which I may enlarge, I can't see there being a war over secession. There is nothing quite as galvanizing as the issue of slavery and the West would be seceding over wrongs that there definately done to them. It comes back down to the definition of secession, the American colonies seceded from Britian over representation; the South in OTL tried the same and California in TTL would be attempting it also.

However, in the end I can see that California could emerge triumphant.

[MerryPrankster]

Napoleon,

Your TL is very good.

The only inkling of an idea I had was to have all of Mexico annexed in 1848 and that would lead to a Western coalition of states (mostly-white states with some sort of grudge making common cause with the oppressed Mexicans) against the federal government.