The Days of Dixie

JJohnson

Banned
I've never really thought about the Confederacy much, but being the 150th anniversary, I thought I might give a shot at a timeline with a surviving Confederacy (without a US going full-tilt socialist, or a Confederacy going apartheid). I was inspired by this timeline, but disagreed with some of its turns later on.

I would like to ask for some help in this, as this is a time of history I'd need to study to get a plausible outcome. For the War between the States itself, where are the major turning points for the Confederacy and the Union that could shift the balance of the war towards the Confederacy to the point that the Union would have to agree to a peace treaty between the two?

That Dixieland 2 timeline got a peace outcome within 2 years, but I'm not 100% sure that'd work. So the question is, what could change to get the Confederacy to a win?
 

Lalli

Avoiding socialist USA is easy but non-apartheid CSA is pretty difficult. Its idea was pretty much white supremacist. Segregationist CSA is very unavoidable. Even abolishing of slavery not be easy thing but it probably happen still. But after that there is long apartheid period.
 

Not Henry G.

Hey, cool, another CSA TL. Welcome to the club!
Good luck on your TL, hopefully we don't end up doing the same haha. If you wanna run it over by me hmu
 

TFSmith121

Banned
There aren't any, realistically.

JJohnson said:
For the War between the States itself, where are the major turning points for the Confederacy and the Union that could shift the balance of the war towards the Confederacy to the point that the Union would have to agree to a peace treaty between the two?
Click to expand...

There aren't any, realistically.

With history as it was to 1861 and Fort Sumter, this is the balance sheet:

npscw_facts-01.jpg

As summed up in Why the South Lost the Civil War (Beringer, Hattaway, Jones, and Still), " ... the 23 states that remained in the Union manufactured more than 90 percent of the industrial goods produced in the United States (including) 17 times as much (clothing) as did the South; 30 times as many boots and shoes; 20 times as much pig iron; 13 times as much bar, sheet, and railroad iron; 24 times as many locomotives; 500 times as much general hardware; 17 times as much agricultural machinery; 32 times as many firearms; and five times the tonnage of ships and boats."

So ... good luck.

Best,
 
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TFSmith121

Banned
Except that leaves:

Admiral Halsey said:
Have Grant, Meade, Sherman, George Thomas, John Reynolds and Sheridan all die early in the war and you have a start.
Click to expand...

Except that leaves:

Scott, Ord, Sumner, Heintzelman, Mansfield, McClellan, Humphreys, TW Sherman, Canby, Sedgwick, Porter, Franklin, Kearny, Hooker, CF Smith, AJ Smith, WF Smith, Curtis, Steele, Stoneman, Emory, Couch, Slocum, etc etc...

Best,
 

DG Valdron

Asteroid. New York.

If it was good enough to wax the Dinosaurs, it's good enough to get the Confederacy a plausible win.
 
Indicus

Indicus

More seriously, what you can do is make the Confederacy secede earlier because the more time passes, the more powerful the Union gets. So maybe if Alexander Hamilton is elected POTUS, maybe the South will secede after he says something inflammatory.
 
Draeger

Draeger

I've said it before in different threads: the EARLIER the BETTER for a successful Southern secession.

If you can have them break away in 1840s or, even better, 30s (before the Mexican-American War that kickstarted/'broke-in' the Union's post-Napoleonic martial tradition), then the playing field is -much- more even than as shown in TFS' lovely infographic.

Even the 50s would be an improvement.
 

DG Valdron

The other answer, of course, is not to fight at all. Secede, but avoid any pretext for violence, instead use passive aggression, prolong negotiations indefinitely, send in the lawyers, take it up to the Supreme Court where southern aristocrats dominate. It's really the only viable strategy.

The difficulty, of course, is that Southern Secessionists were impulsive violent assholes with no strategic or tactical sense. So the whole problem is that the qualities that made the South unable or unwilling to go that route, tend to be the same qualities that result in the South being crushed when it exercises its preferred, badly judged, strategies of violence.

Of course, part of the lunatic meme of the Confederacy is that the South has to win it's freedom by somehow militarily dominating the North, finding its place in the sun by blood, thunder and the force of arms.
 

benjamin

If you don't want a POD that's too early it is very difficult. And honestly, post War of 1812 and pre Mexican American War there was no major move towards secession. The Missouri Comprise and the Nullification Crisis were limited and neither sides' most ardent supports had widespread support. So I would see a pre-1848 secession as being a bit forced.

Really the best bet would be to have an amendment attached to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (essentially a somewhat stronger Wilmot Proviso) that forbids slavery in any and all territory acquired from Mexico. Bonus points if Abraham Lincoln sponsors and champions the Amendment and DOUBLE IRONY points if Trist is replaced a bit sooner and the acquired territories include Baja, Sonora, and Chihuahua.

Imagine the chaos in Wahington. Polk replaced, Taylor dies, Filmore takes over. Of course things could go differently. But secession by 1850 gives the South a much better chance, especially if the sitting President is more sympathetic to the South.

Benjamin
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
JJohnson said:
So the question is, what could change to get the Confederacy to a win?
Click to expand...

By 'win', you really mean 'survive'. While I'm inclined to think that some circumstances early in the war could have lead to a negotiated end, but far more likely would have been a peaceful separation of the states if fighting hadn't commenced with fort Sumter.
 
Draeger

Draeger

Cook said:
By 'win', you really mean 'survive'. While I'm inclined to think that some circumstances early in the war could have lead to a negotiated end, but far more likely would have been a peaceful separation of the states if fighting hadn't commenced with fort Sumter.
Click to expand...

This, basically. You need an earlier secession, though---that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The problem is the 'whole slavery thing'. You need to somehow force the issue early on, and prevent the collective congressional can-kicking that occurred roughly between 1830 and 1860. The Southern Democrats need to be challenged constantly in the 20s and 30s, which means either an earlier Republican Party or stronger Whigs (unlikely but I bet it's doable).

Break the Southern stranglehold on Congress (maybe kill off Jackson before he becomes president or something) and you can force a repeal of slavery through Congress in the 30s (use the British repeal of the same [OTL 1837 IIRC] as precedent). This will lead to a challenge, a Supreme Court case, and an ultimate ruling in favor of the law. The South will likely secede at that point, albeit piecemeal, probably not all-at-once (the Knights and Klan are weakened at this point, and don't have so much political pull). The Union could then treat it like a rebellion or go the route of diplomacy and hope for a peaceful annexation (a la Texas).

The best POD is, honestly, to have Britain repeal slavery earlier, forcing the issue elsewhere earlier as well.
 
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