Dixie Project - Final Decision

[Blackbeard]

The Final Solution..Let us vote!

[SionEwig]

Just a reminder to folks, but could you please put something in the title of your threads as to what it belongs to. Ex. Dixie Project - Final Decision, or even just DP-Final Decision. Just helps people keep up with what is what.:D

[Glen]

Just a reminder to folks, but could you please put something in the title of your threads as to what it belongs to. Ex. Dixie Project - Final Decision, or even just DP-Final Decision. Just helps people keep up with what is what.:D

Added to title.

Also, I think it would be more helpful if a brief synopsis of the gist of the PODs being voted upon was offered. For example, not everyone is familiar with or remembers fully the POD for TL-191.

[Glen]

Added to title.

Also, I think it would be more helpful if a brief synopsis of the gist of the PODs being voted upon was offered. For example, not everyone is familiar with or remembers fully the POD for TL-191.

Where are those explanations?

[I, Guangxu]

As nobody seems to be overly on the ball about this, I guess its up to me to nudge it along.

I myself will throw in a thought or two regarding POD's and interesting possible outcomes.

Although it would seem that the Gettysburg POD has been done to death, I would perhaps suggest a different facet to explore than is typical. My postulation would one of the popular category in which a chance mis-step has far-reaching consequences.

In the scenario I envision, Robert E. Lee and his command entourage have failed to secure an adequately knowledgable guide in their navigation of the rural Pennsylvania roads, and as such, have erred and taken an incorrect fork on their way to the rondevouz point for Confederate forces near Cashtown or Gettysburg, which ever proved more practical. Lee and his entourage proceed down this path for some time, only becoming aware that they may have (embarassingly) become lost after some time has passed. Just as the consensus that they are indeed lost has been agreed upon, the entourage happens upon a small band of militia walking out of the dusk. Really little more than a gaggle of local farmers responding to Governor Curtin's call to mobilize, there is a moment of tense confusion as as the two sides meet, both unsure quite how to respond to this unforseen happenstance. It is unknown which side fires the first shot, but the dusky road is briefly filled with an exchange of paniced gunfire. When the chaos settles, it is confirmed in the settling dark that all of the militiamen have been killed, but at a terrible cost. The militiamens' panic combined with the haze of dusk, caused most of their shots to either miss or merely graze their intended targets, and the Confederates have sustained only one casualty.

General Lee has been slain by the only bullet to find its mark.

Command of the Army falls to James Longstreet, who commits himself to Lee's (now a Confederate Martyr) plan of ending the war through his invasion of the North (a plan Longstreet had originally disagreed with). However, with Longstreet now in direct command of the whole of the Army, he is free to pursue his own, more logistically conservative and tactically radical strategies without needing to convince the more traditional and brash Lee. When A. P. Hill's forces draw both armies into premature confrontation at Gettysburg, Longstreet at first chooses to do what he believes Lee would have done and authorizes the all-out attack of the first day. After the day of fighting is over, Hill is thoroughly chastised by Longstreet for violating not only his own orders, but the spirit of Lee's orders. Seeing the strength of the Union defensive positions, Longstreet decides that his predacessor's more bold strategy would be ill-advised given the likely outcome of assaulting those positions. Rather, in a surprising move for both sides, Longstreet withdraws the Confederate forces in the night, manuvering to their flank and positioning themselves squarely between the Union Army and naught but a long empty road to Washington. Once there, Longstreet orders his Confederates to construct defensive positions, implementing many of Longstreet's then-revolutionary tactical theories by digging trenches and spacing their firing lines for a more efficient use of fire with artillery being used to provide cover. There, Longstreet need only wait until the news reaches Washington that the Confederate Army stands in a position to march unopposed into the Capitol.

As expected, the Union Army is forced to action by a frantic Washington, but Meade remains cautious, wary of the Confederate positions. In the time that this communication between Meade and Washington takes, Longstreet's Army has had a chance to lick its wounds and secure its entrenchments, with the belated bravado of JEB Stewart, after a dressing down for the (alternate) history books by Longstreet for his failure to report the Union Army's positions before they were drawn into conflict, being put to good use securing the tenuous but vital supply lines to the Confederate position.

Longstreet convinces his restless men (who are by this point referring to the trenches they have dug as "Longstreet's Latrines") of the virtue of his strategy by appealing to them to fight in memory of Lee and Jackson, an invocation of the now truly legendary martyrs that is sucessful in rallying Longstreet's somewhat disparate troops.

Surely enough, Meade is informed by Washington that the situation, and his orders, are unequivocal, he is to mobilize the amassed Union forces for a concerted attack on the Confederate position. Meade dispatches as many Cavalry units as he can spare in an attempt to outmanuever the Confederate supply lines, but he knows that it will avail him little, if anything, without being able to cut off the Confederates with the mass of his Army. However, his orders are clear, the time for manuevering is over, he is to launch an amassed attack on the Confederate position with the intent of destroying or routing it utterly as soon as possible, not practicable, possible. So he marches the Army from its staging point at Gettysburg and makes to assault the Confederate trench complex.

"The Bloody Trenches", as the subsequent battles would come to be called, would be feirce, brutal, and ultimately a disaster for Meade. Direct assaults on the trench-works resulted in heavily disproportionate Union casualties, a fact that did not stop Meade, who's orders were explicit, from attempting just that again and again. Ultimately, Union forces were sucessful at forcing the Confederates from their forward trenches, but the Confederates would simply fall back to the next trench line and continue fighting. The combination of trench tactics, more efficient firing lines, and creative artillery coverage proved to be a veritable Opera of carnage, of which Longstreet was the stoic composer and maestro.

After the intial days of fighting, the Union Army lay battered and lacerated in the face of the superior Confederate positions. Morale was exceedingly low, a fact only exacerbated when news broke that a column of fresh supplies escorted by JEB Stewart's bucaneer cavalry had made a daring break through their attempted blockade, and were presently resupplying the embattled but seemingly monolithic Confederate positions. Nevertheless, neither Meade nor Washington was willing except humiliation and defeat. "You Will Break Them, General." read Washington's telegraphed response to Meade's report of the disaster, and the words on Meade's lips the following morning were a mantra of "They will break... They must break...". Meade himself would lead the rallied remains of the Army of the Potomac in a final concerted charge against the enfortressed Army of Northern Virginia. "Meade's Charge", would be both bold and inspiring, moving many of the Confederate soldiers with their stubborn bravery as they charged futilely at the vastly advantaged Confederates. Nevertheless, the charge was broken like a wave against the rock of the Confederate defenses, with Meade personally rallying the troops immediately around him and breaching the main line of trenches before being forced to retreat in the pitched melee that ensued. Finally, in the climactic crescendo of Longstreet's Opera, a Confederate counter-attack was ordered on the coat-tails of the Union retreat, a finishing stroke for the flagging and broken remnants of the Union Army.

With the Army of the Potomac shattered and the Confederate Army standing now to march truly unopposed to Washington, Longstreet sent a courier to the Union Capitol to deliver the missive penned by the late, great Lee, outlining the terms of an end to the war.

That is the essence of my PoD, which would seem to be tied for the most popular. I do hope we can get this project off the ground, as I think that it has alot of potential (although I will say, frankly, that in my opinion TL-191 has been more than done to death).

[Glen]

Well, in a tie I'd favor our homegrown team over an imported POD.

However, you need Blackbeard to show up and make the call. He started all this.

[I, Guangxu]

So, just for the record, is this project dead? I'd just like to know so that I can file away my notes for some other rainy day and not keep checking back to see if Blackbeard has done anything with this every couple of days.

[Glen]

So, just for the record, is this project dead? I'd just like to know so that I can file away my notes for some other rainy day and not keep checking back to see if Blackbeard has done anything with this every couple of days.

Try PMing him and see what he says.

[Blackbeard]

I'm really sorry about this...I forgot, had distractions all sorts of things...If anyone is game...I'm want to restart it.