The newly independent Confederacy suffered some instability, especially since the restive
Texas seized the contested Indian Territory and finally declared its complete independence and becoming the
Second Republic of Texas. That brought the specter of war close, with either the US going to war over the Indian Territory or the Confederacy seeking to retain Texas by force, but it was averted; Texas was allowed to amicably go its own way, and relations between all three nations steadily improved….
In 1898, it was the Confederacy that went to
war with Spain, and seized and annexed
Cuba. The flamboyant Rel Stuart, a son of
Jeb Stuart born in 1867 (in actual history Stuart had been killed in 1864
during battle), had a major role in this war and was eventually the first governor of the
State of Cuba. (In one illustration, Rel Stuart is portrayed as looking like Theodore Roosevelt.)
In the twentieth century, the US, CS, and Texas became increasingly integrated economically and removed all tariff barriers between them. In 1917, Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt of the US and
Woodrow Wilson of the CS brought their countries into
World War I, as did the independent Texas. The soldiers of all three joined the
Entente powers and fought as close allies against
Germany and the
Central Powers. Similar developments took place against the
Axis powers in
World War II. Kantor does not provide much detail of this but clearly assumes that three allied armies crossing the
Atlantic together and fighting together in Europe would have achieved much the same result as a single US army achieved in the actual history.
In the aftermath, the US, CS, and Texas all felt threatened by Soviet missile bases and armored brigades
in Alaska (which had never been purchased from Russia in 1867). Therefore, they finally announced a formal reunification at a Washington summit in 1961, on the precise centennial of
Fort Sumter.
Thus, Kantor's version of history comes full circle, the situation in 1961 being not too different from that in actual history: a single United States as a major world power locked in
Cold War with the
Soviet Union, but at
a considerable disadvantage compared to the actual timeline due to the Soviet position in Alaska.