And note, If the Americans don't take the opportunity to intervene in Texas, maybe the Mexicans will.
Well, I could imagine THAT causing them to intervene.
The Stars at Night: A Texas Timeline
- Thread starter Sicarius
- Start date
Well, I could imagine THAT causing them to intervene.
Awsum! I'd think the King would've more readily accepted having the tricolour with the royal coat of arms in the middle, so it might be more likely that Mac-Mahon offered that one, especially since he personally wanted the King back even at the cost of using the Bourbon flag.
Also, the portion told from Bickley's point of view is very well-written. We really get the sensation of this man being slightly delusional/intoxicated and credulous. The perfect puppet, first for Walker and now for Billot.
Also, the portion told from Bickley's point of view is very well-written. We really get the sensation of this man being slightly delusional/intoxicated and credulous. The perfect puppet, first for Walker and now for Billot.
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OH........MY........GOD
Amazing! Well, Bickley is completely insane by this point, and has no idea about reality. Walker's last words to him are hilarious by the way Boulanger seems to have found a nice, cozy job.
President Trumbull? That should be interesting. So he led the radical or moderate wing of the Freedonian Party? Whose the Vice President Pool guy by the way? And its sad to see Lee stop at one term An intelligence agency this early? Exciting! Who was the Democratic nominee and vice presidential nominee in 1868?
France seems to be doing at least an average job of keeping itself together. A new monarchy should prove interesting against the new German Empire. A radicalized, French, Eugene Debs? Damn, shits gonna go down.
Speaking of Germans, its sad to see them somewhat depart. With the french going nuts (and we all saw that coming from the beginning) I really hoped that Texas could become a German paradise.
With all of these refugees, the west should really grow in importance when all is said and done, with the East most likely destroyed.
FUCK YA!!!!!! FORREST IS GOING TO WHOOP SOME FRENCH ASS!!!! I love that so freaking much! Every update you seem to mention Johnston's age. Should we be expecting an early death? And can we look forward to a possible Forrest presidency in the future? With his continued wealth, he should live longer than OTL. And is Edward Burleson Jr. in Johnston's army? What about Sidney Sherman?
Now.......NEXT UPDATE PLEASE!!!
Amazing! Well, Bickley is completely insane by this point, and has no idea about reality. Walker's last words to him are hilarious by the way
Boulanger seems to have found a nice, cozy job. President Trumbull? That should be interesting. So he led the radical or moderate wing of the Freedonian Party? Whose the Vice President Pool guy by the way? And its sad to see Lee stop at one term
An intelligence agency this early? Exciting! Who was the Democratic nominee and vice presidential nominee in 1868?France seems to be doing at least an average job of keeping itself together. A new monarchy should prove interesting against the new German Empire. A radicalized, French, Eugene Debs? Damn, shits gonna go down.
Speaking of Germans, its sad to see them somewhat depart. With the french going nuts (and we all saw that coming from the beginning) I really hoped that Texas could become a German paradise.
With all of these refugees, the west should really grow in importance when all is said and done, with the East most likely destroyed.
FUCK YA!!!!!! FORREST IS GOING TO WHOOP SOME FRENCH ASS!!!!
I love that so freaking much! Every update you seem to mention Johnston's age. Should we be expecting an early death? And can we look forward to a possible Forrest presidency in the future? With his continued wealth, he should live longer than OTL. And is Edward Burleson Jr. in Johnston's army? What about Sidney Sherman? Now.......NEXT UPDATE PLEASE!!!
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I'm kind of bored, so I thought I'd just post this for fun. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Presidents of the United States in The Stars at Night: A Texas Timeline
9. William Henry Harrison (Whig, 1841)
10. John Tyler (Independent, 1841-1845)
11. Henry Clay (Whig, 1845-1849)
12. Lewis Cass (Democrat, 1849-1857)
13. William Seward (Freedom, 1857-1859)
14. James Speed (Freedom, 1859-1865)
15. Robert E. Lee (Democrat, 1865-1869)
16. Lyman Trumbull (Whig, 1869-Present Day)
9. William Henry Harrison (Whig, 1841)
10. John Tyler (Independent, 1841-1845)
11. Henry Clay (Whig, 1845-1849)
12. Lewis Cass (Democrat, 1849-1857)
13. William Seward (Freedom, 1857-1859)
14. James Speed (Freedom, 1859-1865)
15. Robert E. Lee (Democrat, 1865-1869)
16. Lyman Trumbull (Whig, 1869-Present Day)
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Six days is far to long to wait for an update
A lot better than the multi-month waits we used to be subjected to... Although the quick updates lately may have spoiled us.
Have British politics changed at all? Like, are all the Prime Ministers completely the same so far (1840-1872)?
New Question: Did the Sioux uprising occur in 1862 like OTL? And if not, did any uprising occur at any point in time?
Edit: What happened to James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce ITTL (if anything at all), what was Stephen Douglas' political career after the 1856 election (he would almost certainly live longer than OTL), and did John Quitman join the Confederacy, and if so, what happened to him after the war (he also would probably live longer than OTL)? These are the questions that haunt me....
Edit: What happened to James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce ITTL (if anything at all), what was Stephen Douglas' political career after the 1856 election (he would almost certainly live longer than OTL), and did John Quitman join the Confederacy, and if so, what happened to him after the war (he also would probably live longer than OTL)? These are the questions that haunt me....
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Part 31
Road to the West
South Texas [1] joining the fray was actually something of a boon to the new leadership of the Republic. It was a little difficult in explaining why the Texian army - which was made up of French - had to fight a band of vicious, awful rebels who hated Texas - which was made up of Texians, including the Republic’s most popular (living) President. With the entry of the southern forces, the French-controlled newspapers finally had something to talk about, that being: RADICAL ANTI-SLAVERY REBELS ATTACK ARMY.
Regionalism was always a major factor in Texas, so the eastern block that formed the Republic’s powerbase was already primed to dislike South Texians. Westerners were crude and stupid, Northerners were just unfortunate, those Germans in the middle were untrustworthy but harmless, but those goddamn Southerners...
This was aided by the presence of those other southerners - the Confederados who had fled to Texas when their own nation collapsed. They had settled most heavily in the east, especially when it came to the wealthier southrons [2]. And if theres’s one thing those rich Confederados loved, it was slavery. It was kind of their whole deal.
So they didn’t like the idea of a rampaging anti-slavery rebellion one bit. They remembered what Kansas led to. But even beyond rich Confederados, and even beyond ex-Americans in general, the average Texian had just seen a huge slave rebellion kill hundreds - and as far as they knew, slaves had just blown up the President. So they weren’t much in the mood to free them all, especially with even reputable papers claiming the Southerners planned to set up a ruling class of black administrators to bring the East under their control, a permanent second-class region.
Therefore the entry of a force of Texians fighting to save the Republic, a large portion being led by a Confederado ex-slave trader, actually caused a swell of support for the French-backed government and army. East Texian volunteers began to transform the army into a less exclusively French institution, and the First Army began to prepare for battle.
Meanwhile, General Johnston had secured the far west refugee area, still receiving the occasional straggler, with a militia of men unable to make the long march east and a semi-governmental body in the form of the Committee for Public Safety [3]. With that, the Second Army set off, ready to rendevous with the South Texians before striking at Houston.
Both the Second Army and the First (the French-backed force) were fatigued and underequipped. The Second had a refugee camp to feed, and foraging off land that had been abandoned and burned out by indian raids was difficult. The First encountered significant ill-feeling in the countryside, and while actual attacks against them were almost non-existent, Texian farmers were surly and not exactly thrilled at the minimal compensation they were given when their crops were seized. While the South Texians were not especially well armed (their armed forces were more along the lines of a security force, so even of guns they had, only a bare majority were longarms), they did have one advantage. Morale rose significantly when the First Army spotted a giant dust cloud on horizon. One of the stranger military escorts of the era - thousands of soldiers marching under the Texian flag, chaperoning a herd of cattle. The cowpuncher army had arrived.
The leadership of the armies got along distinctly less well than the men. Richard King saw himself as the savior of the First Army, and by extension, of Texian democracy. He wasn't cowed (if you will) by the former President, either. South Texians didn't especially get along with the government at the best of times, and maintained a "What have you done for me lately?"attitude about all the ways they had been helped over the years. Helping matters not at all, King had been relying on the bottle more and more, to ease a stomach malady. Likewise, Johnston, that stolidly apolitical gentleman farmer, had little regard for King and his attempts to control the Republican Party from his ranch porch. Planning repeatedly fell apart in disputes between the two.
The disputes continued even as the First Army came into sight through the heat haze. Ultimately, the South Texian forces and the Second Army were to operate under nearly separate commands. If not for Nathan Forrest taking effective command of a large part of the soldiers and attempting to facilitate cooperation as best he could, the forces may have operated with even less coordination [4].
The armies met on the hot savanna of the Edwards Plateau. This flat, open terrain, perhaps more than any other factor, hurt the Texian effort. In the mad dash west, the Second Army had not taken much artillery - which had previously proven mostly ineffective against indians anyway. The South, likewise, hadn't ever had much in the way of canon. The pieces they had dug up (sometimes literally) mostly dated from the Mexican War, almost a generation past. One piece was a boat gun that had been lashed to a cattle cart.
The French, on the other hand, had consolidated all their artillery in Houston in preparaton for their departure. While their pieces weren't exactly cutting edge either, being the hand-me-downs of the French Army, that still put them over ten years ahead ofthe Texians. What's more - those pieces the Texians left behind when the went west? They had conviently left them in Houston.
So while the Texians weren't at much of a numerical advantage, and had actually been able to better feed their men, they were at a distinct and immediate disadvantage on the field of battle. The flat plateau left little cover against the French bombardment, and the initial volleys tore a number of Texians to shreds.
Despite it being on the open plains, this was a vicious back alley battle. Both sides knew, or at least thought they knew, that total annihilation was the reward for failure. The Texians were aware that the French had destroyed Austin, and, they believed, had purposefully killed the President and burned down the city. The French soldiers had been told that the Texians had picked up strange and awful ways of war from the Comanche, and they knew that even if they escaped, the ill-concealed hatred of the countryside would no longer be concealed at all. They'd be trapped.
The two sides exchanged wild, withering attacks. The South Texians managed to encicrle and obliterate a not insignficant number of French - at the cost of their field commander, as an errant musketball climbed up Forrest's face, bloodying the Southron in such a way that many feared him dead. (Of course, head wounds bleed terribly, and the shot only left him with his distinctive long facial scar).
But the killing blow to the Texian charge was a more subtle wound. While leading an attack against a group of retreating French, General Johnston nearly collapsed from his horse. Several soldiers reared their mounts to his side, and noticed his boot was dripping. When it was removed, it splashed a large, dark stain onto the dry and hungry ground. It had been filled to the brim with blood.
The General had sustained some nerve damage in his leg nearly 30 years prior, and with age it may have only increased. He may have realized still that he had taken injury - a bullet had lodged itself behind a kneecap - and ignored the mortal wound to lead his men. Or perhaps he did not realize it until that moment. By the time his men had surrounded him, the general was confused and disoriented. He repeatedly asked for Nathan Forrest, despite the two men having barely interacted. According to witnesses, his final words were "How strange, how strange. O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" With this, the General fell unconscious. Within the hour, he was dead.
As in history's other great battle against French invaders, the death of their commander sent the defending forces into a tailspin. As word travelled, ranks broke. The Second Army men lost composure more quickly, with both their own leader and the most capable of the South Texians off the field. King's men held longer, but he realized that the Southerners could not hold their ground alone. Mostly as an afterthought, a retreat was called.
One could describe the French victory as pyrrhic, perhaps. Casulties were not overwhelmingly inflicted on the Texian side, and the French had sustained a number of killed and wounded themselves - even in triumph, they were forced to withdraw. But the true victory was in the fracturing of the Texian forces in the aftermath. The South Texians fled back below the Nueces, taking a number of the Second with them. The remainder headed back in the direction of the Picketwire, but in scattered bands. They would find their way back in small, ragged, demoralized groups, or indeed never returned at all - some died on the path, from indians, animals, or hunger and thirst (Richard King was never seen again, the burned-out remains of a small caravan the only sign of his last stand). Others took to the hinterlands near the Texas/Mexico/American borders - the dawn of the golden age of the banditos.
As the French returned to occupied Houston and the shattered Second returned to what was soon formally christened Camp Johnston, both sides may have expected a continuation of the conflict. And indeed, it was to continue in a series of scattered engagements, simmering across north central Texas, but never boiling over. Both sides were exhausted. Lines had been drawn across Texas - north to south, east to west, center against all - and time would only harden them.
[1] It’s a common error to describe ‘South Texas’ in this era as a true unified force. There was no legislative body, and the ‘agreements’ that led to the formation of its armed forces were just that - personal agreements between a collection of less than a dozen major and minor landowners.
[2] An appellation that begins to fall out of favor at almost exactly this point in time, due to confusion with the South Texians.
[3] Those always work out so well!
[4] The Southron Rebellion had taught Forrest that strong, independent voices were perhaps all well and good when it came to States' Rights, but in the military arena...
Road to the West
South Texas [1] joining the fray was actually something of a boon to the new leadership of the Republic. It was a little difficult in explaining why the Texian army - which was made up of French - had to fight a band of vicious, awful rebels who hated Texas - which was made up of Texians, including the Republic’s most popular (living) President. With the entry of the southern forces, the French-controlled newspapers finally had something to talk about, that being: RADICAL ANTI-SLAVERY REBELS ATTACK ARMY.
Regionalism was always a major factor in Texas, so the eastern block that formed the Republic’s powerbase was already primed to dislike South Texians. Westerners were crude and stupid, Northerners were just unfortunate, those Germans in the middle were untrustworthy but harmless, but those goddamn Southerners...
This was aided by the presence of those other southerners - the Confederados who had fled to Texas when their own nation collapsed. They had settled most heavily in the east, especially when it came to the wealthier southrons [2]. And if theres’s one thing those rich Confederados loved, it was slavery. It was kind of their whole deal.
So they didn’t like the idea of a rampaging anti-slavery rebellion one bit. They remembered what Kansas led to. But even beyond rich Confederados, and even beyond ex-Americans in general, the average Texian had just seen a huge slave rebellion kill hundreds - and as far as they knew, slaves had just blown up the President. So they weren’t much in the mood to free them all, especially with even reputable papers claiming the Southerners planned to set up a ruling class of black administrators to bring the East under their control, a permanent second-class region.
Therefore the entry of a force of Texians fighting to save the Republic, a large portion being led by a Confederado ex-slave trader, actually caused a swell of support for the French-backed government and army. East Texian volunteers began to transform the army into a less exclusively French institution, and the First Army began to prepare for battle.
Meanwhile, General Johnston had secured the far west refugee area, still receiving the occasional straggler, with a militia of men unable to make the long march east and a semi-governmental body in the form of the Committee for Public Safety [3]. With that, the Second Army set off, ready to rendevous with the South Texians before striking at Houston.
Both the Second Army and the First (the French-backed force) were fatigued and underequipped. The Second had a refugee camp to feed, and foraging off land that had been abandoned and burned out by indian raids was difficult. The First encountered significant ill-feeling in the countryside, and while actual attacks against them were almost non-existent, Texian farmers were surly and not exactly thrilled at the minimal compensation they were given when their crops were seized. While the South Texians were not especially well armed (their armed forces were more along the lines of a security force, so even of guns they had, only a bare majority were longarms), they did have one advantage. Morale rose significantly when the First Army spotted a giant dust cloud on horizon. One of the stranger military escorts of the era - thousands of soldiers marching under the Texian flag, chaperoning a herd of cattle. The cowpuncher army had arrived.
The leadership of the armies got along distinctly less well than the men. Richard King saw himself as the savior of the First Army, and by extension, of Texian democracy. He wasn't cowed (if you will) by the former President, either. South Texians didn't especially get along with the government at the best of times, and maintained a "What have you done for me lately?"attitude about all the ways they had been helped over the years. Helping matters not at all, King had been relying on the bottle more and more, to ease a stomach malady. Likewise, Johnston, that stolidly apolitical gentleman farmer, had little regard for King and his attempts to control the Republican Party from his ranch porch. Planning repeatedly fell apart in disputes between the two.
The disputes continued even as the First Army came into sight through the heat haze. Ultimately, the South Texian forces and the Second Army were to operate under nearly separate commands. If not for Nathan Forrest taking effective command of a large part of the soldiers and attempting to facilitate cooperation as best he could, the forces may have operated with even less coordination [4].
The armies met on the hot savanna of the Edwards Plateau. This flat, open terrain, perhaps more than any other factor, hurt the Texian effort. In the mad dash west, the Second Army had not taken much artillery - which had previously proven mostly ineffective against indians anyway. The South, likewise, hadn't ever had much in the way of canon. The pieces they had dug up (sometimes literally) mostly dated from the Mexican War, almost a generation past. One piece was a boat gun that had been lashed to a cattle cart.
The French, on the other hand, had consolidated all their artillery in Houston in preparaton for their departure. While their pieces weren't exactly cutting edge either, being the hand-me-downs of the French Army, that still put them over ten years ahead ofthe Texians. What's more - those pieces the Texians left behind when the went west? They had conviently left them in Houston.
So while the Texians weren't at much of a numerical advantage, and had actually been able to better feed their men, they were at a distinct and immediate disadvantage on the field of battle. The flat plateau left little cover against the French bombardment, and the initial volleys tore a number of Texians to shreds.
Despite it being on the open plains, this was a vicious back alley battle. Both sides knew, or at least thought they knew, that total annihilation was the reward for failure. The Texians were aware that the French had destroyed Austin, and, they believed, had purposefully killed the President and burned down the city. The French soldiers had been told that the Texians had picked up strange and awful ways of war from the Comanche, and they knew that even if they escaped, the ill-concealed hatred of the countryside would no longer be concealed at all. They'd be trapped.
The two sides exchanged wild, withering attacks. The South Texians managed to encicrle and obliterate a not insignficant number of French - at the cost of their field commander, as an errant musketball climbed up Forrest's face, bloodying the Southron in such a way that many feared him dead. (Of course, head wounds bleed terribly, and the shot only left him with his distinctive long facial scar).
But the killing blow to the Texian charge was a more subtle wound. While leading an attack against a group of retreating French, General Johnston nearly collapsed from his horse. Several soldiers reared their mounts to his side, and noticed his boot was dripping. When it was removed, it splashed a large, dark stain onto the dry and hungry ground. It had been filled to the brim with blood.
The General had sustained some nerve damage in his leg nearly 30 years prior, and with age it may have only increased. He may have realized still that he had taken injury - a bullet had lodged itself behind a kneecap - and ignored the mortal wound to lead his men. Or perhaps he did not realize it until that moment. By the time his men had surrounded him, the general was confused and disoriented. He repeatedly asked for Nathan Forrest, despite the two men having barely interacted. According to witnesses, his final words were "How strange, how strange. O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" With this, the General fell unconscious. Within the hour, he was dead.
As in history's other great battle against French invaders, the death of their commander sent the defending forces into a tailspin. As word travelled, ranks broke. The Second Army men lost composure more quickly, with both their own leader and the most capable of the South Texians off the field. King's men held longer, but he realized that the Southerners could not hold their ground alone. Mostly as an afterthought, a retreat was called.
One could describe the French victory as pyrrhic, perhaps. Casulties were not overwhelmingly inflicted on the Texian side, and the French had sustained a number of killed and wounded themselves - even in triumph, they were forced to withdraw. But the true victory was in the fracturing of the Texian forces in the aftermath. The South Texians fled back below the Nueces, taking a number of the Second with them. The remainder headed back in the direction of the Picketwire, but in scattered bands. They would find their way back in small, ragged, demoralized groups, or indeed never returned at all - some died on the path, from indians, animals, or hunger and thirst (Richard King was never seen again, the burned-out remains of a small caravan the only sign of his last stand). Others took to the hinterlands near the Texas/Mexico/American borders - the dawn of the golden age of the banditos.
As the French returned to occupied Houston and the shattered Second returned to what was soon formally christened Camp Johnston, both sides may have expected a continuation of the conflict. And indeed, it was to continue in a series of scattered engagements, simmering across north central Texas, but never boiling over. Both sides were exhausted. Lines had been drawn across Texas - north to south, east to west, center against all - and time would only harden them.
[1] It’s a common error to describe ‘South Texas’ in this era as a true unified force. There was no legislative body, and the ‘agreements’ that led to the formation of its armed forces were just that - personal agreements between a collection of less than a dozen major and minor landowners.
[2] An appellation that begins to fall out of favor at almost exactly this point in time, due to confusion with the South Texians.
[3] Those always work out so well!
[4] The Southron Rebellion had taught Forrest that strong, independent voices were perhaps all well and good when it came to States' Rights, but in the military arena...
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Not much different for those poets, though John Greenleaf Whittier is the head of the Bureau of Freedman's Affairs. With his younger age, less prominent station, and a wilder Confederacy, John Wilkes Booth kept his mouth shut. As of the 1870s he's fallen from being America's favorite actor - the physicality of his earlier performances has waned, and his looks were impacted by an accidental, self-inflicted stage fighting wound to the face - but he's perhaps more appreciated as an actor, now. He recently turned in an acclaimed performance as Richard III.What year did Edgar Allan Poe die, and has anything happened with Ralph Waldo Emerson or Walt Whitman? Sorry for the weird questions, but we just started a poetry unit in my class
Edit: Also, what are the Booth brothers up too?
Yeah, Trumbull was the leader of the radical faction, for more government and strong anti-slavery. The Vice-President is John Pool of North Carolina, who in significant part shaped that state's (and by extension, the upper south's) Opposition movement. Being President only made Lee's health worse than OTL, sadly. He'll be remembered as one of the country's greatest and most important Presidents. He's on the quarter. 1868's nominee was Vice-President and former governor of New Jersey Joel Parker. He may have had strong anti-secession and anti-Speed credentials, but he lacked the military glory and acceptability to the south that Lee had. And despite his own service, VP nom Winfield Scott Hancock made Northerners a little uncomfortable.President Trumbull? That should be interesting. So he led the radical or moderate wing of the Freedonian Party? Whose the Vice President Pool guy by the way? And its sad to see Lee stop at one term
Not yet, but after recent events in France, things are going to get shook up.
There was a similar event, but the war delayed it slightly. And after that, the US had a veteran, standing army, so it was crushed quicker - paradoxically resulting in somewhat less casualties. A few indian veterans of the rebellion found their way south to the Sun Dance.
This reminded me. Way, wayyyy back when, when I first started this TL, I made this wallpaper for my laptop to encourage me to write more often (that obviously worked great, HAH). Anyway, NOW THE WORLD CAN SEE
EDIT:
There's a map forthcoming! I made one a while back, but I'm not satisfied with the quality now, so I'm gonna redo it a little.Wait, does this mean Texian balkanization, (Texanization)???!!
EDIT: I meant to ask this earlier, but could you please whip up a map to illistrate the current situation, and define the Texian regions
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holy crap!!! HOLY CRAP!!! H.O.L.Y. C.R.A.P!!!!!!!
And I was really rooting for Johnston
What's to become of Texas? With more borders, that means more outlaws. With more outlaws, that means more American intervention. American intervention means really bad relations with the French. Oh, and now we really go down the rabbit hole, don't we...
And I was really rooting for Johnston
What's to become of Texas? With more borders, that means more outlaws. With more outlaws, that means more American intervention. American intervention means really bad relations with the French. Oh, and now we really go down the rabbit hole, don't we...