A House Divided Cannot Stand: The Grim Tale of What Happened After the War

I know, I know. I've got about four TLs on the go, at the moment now. And its not like I update them regularly. But when an idea seizes you, there is little you can do about it. And so I succumb, and put fingers to keys and set about writing an American Civil War TL. But this one is a tad different. This one has a POD in 1865, and the Confederates don't win...

Havana, Cuba

Jefferson Davis looked queasily at the Gulf Sea, to the north which he had left behind. A dark feeling hung over him, and he sighed with the resignation of a defeated man. But he wasn't defeated, not yet. A last thread of hope remained. Beyond the Mississippi, the Texans had held off Federal troops, and showed that the grit of Houston and Crockett still existed. Even now, while Lee languished under de facto Federal arrest, there was still hope. Leaving the dock, Davis along with a few other key Confederate dignitaries headed to one of Havana's hotels, where they would stay before taking ship to Texas, where they would continue the war...

Richmond, Virginia

Robert E Lee coughed harshly as he strode down Richmond's streets, trying to muffle his discomfort with a handkerchief. His health had not been great by the time he had come to surrender, but it had continued to worsen, whether due to guilt or age, he knew not. His movements were carefully monitored by the Federal occupiers, but he knew that he was somewhat emblematic of the Confederacy in their eyes. But he enjoyed a regular stroll through the streets.

As he turned a corner, the instinctive situational awareness that had served him so well in the war kicked in. Something was wrong. This street was too quiet, there were too few people circulating. The eyes of those who were there were dark and shadowy. He picked up the pace, hoping to escape this street and leave its eerie atmosphere behind. But he was stopped by a Union cavalryman who was on foot.

'You. You're that General Bobby Lee, who gave us a licking all through this damn war.' Lee could tell from the man's eyes that he would have to be very careful.

'Yes, I am he. But I assure you, I carried out my duty to my state as faithfully as I could, though it pained me to fight fellow Americans and rebel against the Union.' The man's expression twisted into a grimace.

'It pained you? Did it pain you that my brother died at Gettysburg? My little brother, only a boy, a damn fool for joining up so young, but that don't excuse you killing him!' Lee could tell the man would not listen to reason. He ducked around him and tried to hurry away, knowing he could not match the young cavalryman in a fight.

'Don't run away from me, I'll have you for what you did! Come back you coward!' There was a pause, and he hoped he was going to get out of this with no more than shaken nerves, and a bruised ego. Suddenly a stone sailed through the air and struck him in the back. He staggered and almost fell, but the urgency of the situation was now clear. He ran, but the cavalryman was faster. He caught up with Lee and knocked him to the ground. Lee stared up as a black boot came crashing down into his stomach. The pain was agonising, and he folded in half, wheezing and coughing.

'I ain't done with you yet, old man. I'm gonna have some fun with you...' The man was cut off by an outraged yell, a local had seen what was going on, and the cavalryman was shouting, telling the Richmonder to back and go about his business, but the local didn't back down and asked what in tarnation did he think he was doing, and did he know that it was Bobby Lee he was stamping on. The cavalryman swore and replied that he knew damn well it was Bobby Lee, and he was going to show him what he thought of him. He punctuated this, by stamping down hard on Lee's chest. A crowd was gathering now, but it was becoming a blur to Lee, as he slipped out of consciousness...

Richmond Dispatch

Yesterday a riot broke out, between Union soldiers and local Richmonders. Reports indicate that it started because General Robert E Lee was being abused, verbally and physically, by an aggreived Union man, and locals did not take kindly to this. Several buildings have been burned down, and fighting continues in several streets of the city. The Richmond Dispatch advises citizens to keep well away from the rioting, stay indoors, and try to avoid any suspiscious looking characters...

Confederate Guerilla War? This should be very interesting.

I want more

You'd really think this kind of war ends with black paramilitaries backd by the north and OH NO SOUTHERN OFFICERS GET IMPRISONED.

Enjoyably interesting!

RIP, Bobby Lee

Subscribing.

The Declaration of Flight

Bizarre though the declaration may sound to modern ears, at the time it was a simple enough demand. As many men as possible were to flee across the Mississippi to the Confederate remnant which was coalescing in Texas. Those who could not flee were to dissolve into background, into small guerrilla cells of bushwhackers and wage a war of the knife against the Union bleeding the Yankees dry. Few men aside from those states bordering the Mississippi went west, but many men felt strongly enough to begin a new phase of the Rebellion, as the Civil War came to an end.

If it were not for the Richmond Riots and the confused events around Robert E Lee, even this may not have been a success. Many Confederate officers were willing to follow Lee, the most highly respected Confederate general into honourable surrender. But with mixed up rumours abounding, these men talked of how they couldn't trust the Union, if they could not protect the most high profile Confederate from their own men.

Mere weeks later, while the riots tailed off as more Union soldiers were brought into the city, Robert E Lee died of consumption of the lungs. Rumour had it he was ill before the riots, but all agreed that it could only have been worsened by the stress of the recent events, and if the stories of assault and battery at the hands of vengeful soldiers were true, this was nothing more than murder. Outrage rippled across the South, stirring a feeling of betrayal than up until this point few Southerners outside the Planter class had felt. Bobby Lee was their man, and the Yankees had murdered him, and they hadn't been brought to book.

Even as the Union mopped up the remaining regular armies and placed garrisons in the towns East of the Mississippi, officers who may have considered surrender instead chose to dissolve their regular companies into roving bands of raiders who preyed on Union military formations and those who collaborated with them. Tales of how Union victory in the East had proved bittersweet cheered the tired soldiers of the West, who went on to achieve a string of victories in Arizona and New Mexico, as well as briefly recapturing New Orleans, though the overenthusiastic troops never held the whole city at once and were driven out within days.

These successes were bolstered by the influx of excited new troops from the East who caused chaos up and down the Mississippi River. But as regular forces were mopped up in the East, Grant was appointed to strike west into the formidable heart of the Confederate remnant, now informally referred to as Greater Texas. The Battle of Texas would be bloody indeed...

Mumby said:

I know, I know. I've got about four TLs on the go, at the moment now. And its not like I update them regularly. But when an idea seizes you, there is little you can do about it. And so I succumb...

Click to expand...

Oh, I know that feeling all too well.

Great start, by the way. This is going to be an awfully big mess.

The Texan Campaign, and the Traditional End of the Civil War

The details of the Texan Campaign are well known to most youngsters in North America, though depending on where you are the way the protagonists are portrayed will certainly change. Debate continues as to whether the Campaign carried out throughout 1867 and the start of 1867 really does constitute the end of the Civil War considering the bloodshed that infamously continued afterwards.

Texas had been able to remain inviolate and via a privateer fleet and smugglers crossing the Mexican border had managed to maintain a healthy supply of cotton to Europe. But with the Old South being squashed under a Union boot, protection by the meagre Confederate fleet whithered away. Troops were landed on beaches in southern Texas, where they were usually repulsed, but this drew Confederate soldiers south and east. The gains that the Confederacy had managed in the West in 1865 and 1866 were eliminated as Nevadan and Californian troops began pushing back at an emptying Arizona and New Mexico.

However, the number of Confederate troops had swollen to some 80,000 and they would make the Union pay for every inch of ground they took. Steamboats penetrated deep into Texas via tributaries of the Mississippi, but the bushwhackers and the Confederate Indian allies attacked at night in swift canoes and rowboats.

The Union plan for Texas was much the same as the plan in the East. One army would go storming down the coast, obliterating resistance, freeing slaves and destroying any forage a bushwhacker campaign could find. Another would travel up the Red River dividing the Confederate remnant in half. A last army would head directly towards Austin hoping to decapitate the snake as had been done with moderate success with Richmond. With the Indian Territory still fighting its own civil war, Texas found itself the last remaining state in the Confederacy and so for a time, the Confederacy was known as the Second Republic.

1866 was the last year of the Confederacy. Grant lead the army along the Red River and had ended the war in the Indian Territory by June, and captured the panhandle of Texas. Here he waited for relief by California and Nevada militia who were progressing through the New Mexico Territory. Sherman's hammer imitated his controversial march on Georgia with his campaign to take the Texan coast, and the ghost town of Galveston stands as a testament to his campaign. The destruction wrought there was completed many years later when a hurricane destroyed much of the newly repaired city and most people abandoned it after that. The last army was lead by Sheridan whose scorched earth tactics and use of cavalry to root out bushwhackers earned him a black name in the books of Southerners when the war was done.

The swiftness with which the campaign was carried, with Texas surrendering in January 1867, belies the difficulties and the bloodshed that was faced by those fighting. Guerrillas raided supply trains which only worsened life for civilians as Sherman's men were forced to live off the land, taking anything that they hadn't already burned. The Siege of Austin was the last official battle of the war, but was epic in its levels of destruction. For several weeks, the Confederacy held out before Jefferson Davis was convinced that the cause was lost and they must surrender to the Union forces that had encircled the city. A few regiments would continue an itinerant campaign well into mid 1867, but they soon dissolved into the other raiding bands of gunslingers and bushwhackers which were ubiquitous throughout the post-bellum South.

you for got about the Comanche all over West Texas. Grants not going to have a good time of it in the Panhandle

Interesting, you have some nice ideas.

I will watch this TL.

Will you do much on the rest of the world?

I actually had a thread like this last year! I'm interested to see where you tale this.

Subscribed!

jeckl said:

Interesting, you have some nice ideas.

I will watch this TL.

Will you do much on the rest of the world?

Click to expand...

This is going to be slightly TLIADish in that I will explore the end of the war and the consequences within the US and then I might have a few updates several decades hence and you will be left to wonder how it got there.

Abraham Lincoln, and the Election of 1868

Abraham Lincoln is often mistakenly placed by ignorant foreigners into the category of the Founding Fathers, such is the legendary prestige that the man has acquired. But it is often forgotten that by the time of 1868, the Republican Party and the American people rejected him. His decision to run for a third term was deeply controversial, especially when the events of the end of the Civil War and what came after are considered.

Famously, Lincoln narrowly avoided an assassination attempt in 1865, deciding not to go to Ford's Theatre after having a chilling dream about his own death. John Wilkes Booth was arrested for disorderly conduct after firing a gun on discovering Lincoln was not where he expected to be. He was imprisoned after admitting to plotting Lincoln's death, as were his co-conspirators. After this, Lincoln began a journey into spiritualism believing that he had been warned by unknowable powers who in his eyes had helped save the Union. Many counterfactual historians have theorised that if Booth and his co-conspirators had succeeded, Texas may have proved victorious in the Trans-Mississippi, and a Western Confederacy may have been forged.

The events of the remainder of the war served only to deepen Lincoln's sense of spiritual enlightenment. Guilt over the deaths of the thousands who fought in Texas plagued him, but as he grew more obsessed with his own developing philosophy he increasingly regarded these deaths as a necessary sacrifice upon the altar of the nation. His closest aides recorded a change in the man's character in 1866. The genial, good-humoured man became withdrawn poring over religious tomes, and making plans for redefining the Republic. He spoke of a Second Revolution, of using the emergency powers he had been granted during the Civil War to reforge America. In a way, he was more energetic in this period than he had ever been before. He was thin before, but his Republican allies regularly commented on his frighteningly skeletal appearance.

January 1867 represented the de facto end to the war, but blood continued to be spilt by the bushwhacker cells that had emerged after Lee's death. His attempts at Reconstruction were only partly successful, and his more radical plans were openly condemned by members of his own party. He passed a law inaugurating the Roving Marshals or as he called them 'The Knights of the Republic'. Carrying a warrant from the Federal Government, they were empowered to deputise individuals, requisition any resources they needed in the pursuit of rooting out any guerrillas they might come across. Their extrajudicial powers were deeply controversial, as they required no legal oversight in their killing of enemies of the state, and the entrance of a gang of Knights could overturn the normal system of law and order in a town.

From 1867 to 1868, Lincoln cracked down hard on the guerrillas, but the sweeping measures he took in some cases did more harm than good. Many communities in the South were alienated by the Knights, the absorption of the former Confederacy into sweeping military districts, the removal of voting rights from major supporters of the Confederacy, and the new rights given to blacks, all contributed to a feeling of cultural persecution. But ill-feeling was felt in the North too. Lincoln maintained the war-time special powers to try and push through religious reforms that rancoured with Catholics and Protestants alike. His talk of the 'division of Church and State as an unfortunate lack of foresight on the Founding Fathers' part, just as the slavery issue was unfortunately unaddressed'.

By 1868, his radical ideas had thoroughly annoyed his own party, and upset the American people. While Republican victory was assured, they felt that Lincoln had rather outstayed his welcome. When he stood for re-election, he was roundly rejected by the Republicans in favour of Charles Sumner, who though symapthetic to Lincoln's policies in the South was seen as far more moderate in his other policies. As was expected, Sumner won the election of 1868, but was notable for large number of Independent and third party Congressmen.

After 1868, Lincoln's health improved, he wrote a book entitled The Second Founding setting out his vision of a more centralised United States, governed by a devotion to God, and a more interventionist approach both domestically and internationally. He called for an extension of America's Manifest Destiny to internal growth of the Republic through extending the hand of pensions, and benefits payments, as well as industrial reform. The book would inspire a new generation of American politicians who would in time found the Christian Republican Party.

The Kuklos, and the Election of 1872

If Reconstruction had not proceeded as the Republicans wished under Lincoln, under Sumner it stalled. Concerned more with the rights of blacks than forming stable administrations in the former Confederacy, he came up time and again against the racial prejudice of both Congress and Southern power-brokers. His attempts to give former Planter owned land to blacks fell through thanks to the raids of the Kuklos. Black 'reservations' popped up across the South, a stop-gap measure to keep loyal blacks safe, which simply made them an obvious target for the bloodthirsty terrorists that were the Kuklos. This Southern independence movement had coalesced as an organised force out of the bushwhackers and guerrilla bands that had formed at the end of the Civil War.

In anger at how the territorial governments of the former states did not co-operate with his civil rights policies, Sumner merged them into larger territories far more accountable to Federal Government. The Carolinas were merged, as were Alabama and Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas, and Texas and New Mexico. Tennessee, the Indian Territory and Virginia were unmerged. This was a poor decision, as it was seen by many neutrals in the South that the kind of cultural destruction predicted by die-hard Confederates was coming true. The Red Shirts emerged, and up until the end of his term, Sumner was mostly caught up in the bloody vendetta warfare that consumed the South. However, his black reservations did become more secure with a degree of militarisation, though he was heard to sadly comment that what he had intended to be self-sufficient farms now looked like forts in Indian Territory.

In 1872, an aged Sumner stood down, exhausted from four years of trying to reunify the country. Tennessee had re-entered the Union, but the black reservations there were breaking down, and many African-Americans were thinking life would be easier in the Northern cities or even overseas. The Republican Party was splitting between those who wanted to hammer the South hard, and try and ease the life of the blacks who moved north, and those who wanted to come to some kind of compromise with the southerners, and keep the blacks on their reservations. Fortunately a compromise candidate was found in Ulysses S Grant. A war hero, he was keen to bring an end to the conflict in the South without unnecessary bloodshed, and was also sharply aware of the plight of blacks moving north. He believed by forming an alliance between poor whites and blacks against the core of racial nationalists amongst the upper crust he could break Confederate southern nationalism.

Grant had distinguished himself over the previous five years through his exploits against Maximilian and the French in Mexico. While he was unavailable when the Fenians invaded Canada, Lincoln had handled the crisis in his pre-Revelation fashion and the Irish nationalists had dispersed, in many cases finding themselves embittered against the Federal government and moving to like minded men in the South.

Grant swept to power, and soon found his job would be far more difficult than he had ever imagined...

Why Sumner (who'd stayed a civilian all through the war) when there was a whole queue of Union generals only too happy to run?

Mikestone8 said:

Why Sumner (who'd stayed a civilian all through the war) when there was a whole queue of Union generals only too happy to run?

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In 1868, while the war was over, there was still a heck of a lot of mopping up to do. While that mopping up still isn't finished, there aren't any uniformed Confederate units wandering around.

Grant's Two Terms

What is often forgotten about Grant's time in office is his successes outside the South. A conciliatory attitude to Natives particularly the Sioux helped temporarily staunch the bloodshed in the Dakota Territory, an achievement which would stay for his time as President. And for the first few years, his efficient use of military powers brought a sense of uneasy peace to the South. Grant also sponsored the movement of African Americans out of the fortified strongholds of the South, and into the Midwest where they recieved 'forty acres and a mule' and told to get on with it. Issues with anti-immigrant groups in North were at least partially settled through organised police action, and an agreement was made with the Mormons in Utah, respecting their religious rights, however it drastically reduced the Territory to a Mormon majority rump.

But his problems truly started in 1873. An economic crisis loomed, and combined with the fragility that had existed ever since the Civil War still nascent, the Crash caused chaos. Railroad companies went bankrupt, Western farmers lost their farms, and for the first time in decades, men began moving back East, seeking work in the cities and industrial centres. Unemployment rose above 15%, and the economic situation in the South (already in a parlous state) just grew worse. Soup kitchens found themselves inundated, and Grant found himself out of depth. He didn't want to intervene with the money supply, but as unemployment grew worse in the big cities, hostility towards immigrants grew worse. Grant's anti-inflationary policies simply worsened the crisis and by the time he began injecting cash into the economy, the United States was in the depths of the worst economic and industrial depression in its history.

In 1876, the worst event of his first term took place. Co-inciding with the presidential election, underground Committees of Correspondence between former Confederate politicians, Red Shirts and the Kuklos organised the declaration of a Second Secession. Abandoned forts in the black reservations were seized and arms stockpiled were prepared for use. Battalions of the New Confederate Army formed up, and it looked like the Civil War could break out once again.

Grant reacted with ruthless and decisive action. The US Army clamped down on the Second Confederacy with terrible speed. Forts were demolished under cannon fire, swathes of the countryside were put to the sword and fire to starve out guerrillas and bushwhackers. The armies of the Confederacy were butchered before the hardened, well-trained and well armed men of the Union. By the end of 1877, the Confederacy was dead again, and Grant had won the election despite not winning a majority of American votes.

Grant annexed the Dominican Republic during his term, and encouraged freedmen to move there. The South was by now regarded as too dangerous for freedmen who could be lynched for 'collaboration with Yankees'. He wanted to expand America's role in the Caribbean to potentially have another front against a resurgent Confederacy.

For most of his second term, the South stayed quiet having seemingly learned its lesson. In fact, the Second Secession had changed the sentiment in the South from simple states-rights and hostility to Reconstruction, into a sense of nationality and hostility to the North and the rest of the United States.

But the problems in the second term would only grow. The economic crisis didn't get any better and riots broke out in cities like Chicago, New York and Boston. The Irish community, freedmen who had moved north, and destitute farmers from the West bore the brunt of the anger, and worse each of these groups fought one another. Grant's attempt to use the police to put down riots lead to accusations of behaving as a military dictator, and that the ruthlessness that he had employed in the South may one day come to Pittsburgh and the Old Northwest.

Corruption scandals plagued Grant's second term, and the Democrats began to make a comeback, feeding on the fears of the working poor and nativist sentiments. In 1880, Grant stepped down and the Republican Party split over who should be their new candidate. The Christian Republican Party was formed based on the writings of Abraham Lincoln, and was in favour of re-integrating the South by any means possible. The other was the Liberal Party who were economically conservative and wanted the government to step back from people's lives, and negotiate for the readmittance of the South into the Union.

Very interesting, Mumby. I like this a lot.

Victory for the Democrats!

The split in the Republicans, and the whithering away of popular support for Grant even in 1876 lead to the Democrats winning a narrow victory, winning most of the support in the Upper South and the Old Northwest. The Democrats rapidly injected cash into the economy, becoming the party of intervention. But unlike the Christian Republicans, they funded the movement of the unemployed into the West. In their time in opposition since the Civil War, the Democrats had been reforged around a vision based on Rousseau's ideal of an agrarian republic. The Democrats, lead by Terence V Powderly adopted a policy of bimetallism that won over the mining states of the West, and were also run through with ideas of 'going back to basics', returning the Union to the glory of the days under Washington and Jefferson.

The new face of the Democrats was also deeply involved in the trade union movement. While primarily agrarian in nature, the role of industrial workers had brought them to power and unlike either the Christian Republicans or the Liberals they had a localist attitude.

But their policies came at a cost. As settlers went West in a great tide, land disputes went through the roof as old farmers returned to their land to find it had been taken by hard-eyed young men from the East. Not only that but the peace which Grant had built with the Sioux was shattered as miners drove into the Black Hills. As the US Cavalry rode against Natives across the West, so the military was pulled out of the heavily militarised South.

In 1883, the Third Secession was orchestrated. This time, rather than trying to merely imitate the First Secession, the Kuklos, now having expanded its influence into businesses and corporations all over the South, cut telegraph lines. Trains were derailed, arson attacks on police were carried out. Distracted by the Great Siouxan War which was tearing apart the West, and under a party which had an official line of reconciliation, the US struggled to meet the resurgent threat of the South. The orchestrators of the secession were also keen to negotiate, but not necessarily with Powderly. It was a year before an election, and there were all sorts of people with designs on the Presidency who would dearly love to have themselves either be the Man Who Saved the Union, or the Man Who Booted Out Them Damn Rebs.

While negotiations proceeded slowly, the Third Confederacy slowly reclaimed the military governments and set up state governments which booted the remaining blacks out, either into Dominica or north. 1884 was to be the year of elections both in the Union and the CSA. Clandestinely, the CSA was also supporting the Natives with arms in the West, hoping to use the rebellion as a bargaining chip.

The Confederacy with its Acting President was recognised in a treaty signed by Powderly in 1884. Texas was not included in the Third Confederacy, and neither was the upper South, but the heartland of Dixie was now 'free and independent'. The new country was called the Confederate States of Dixie rather than America, and this amicable separation was applauded in Europe. This granted Powderly the small boost in support that won him a second term. He defeated the Indians, and later on worked on expanding the United States as a Great Power, but from 1886 onwards he was a lameduck President. The Liberals and the Christian Republicans roundly condemned the loss of the South, and in 1888, Thomas C Platt won the Presidency for the Christian Republicans. Something of a hypocrite and a 'machine politician', he nonetheless worked to centralise the United States and fought a war against Spain that brought new land into the Union.

In the CSD, racism altered into religious intolerance and a hostility to non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants. A party system formed in the 1890s, divided between the Social Democratic Party which sat on the left of the political spectrum, and the New Republican party which was in favour of states rights and sat firmly on the right.

And thats the end of the TL. I could go on, but I achieved what I wanted to here, which was basically to detail the alternate successful secession of the United States after a protracted guerrilla conflict.