Photos from Featherston's Confederacy/ TL-191

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Theodore Roosevelt shaking hands with Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1910
 
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Soldiers of the Union 12th Division marching to the front to meet the Confederate Invasion of Ohio, circa 1941. Note most of the soldiers shown here are wearing re-issued Great War era M1915 Helmets.
 
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I was able to read almost all of the previous pages on this thread and I found some post that were very memorable. Here are some reposts, with clear images, that I think are worthy of attention:

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In 1944, Confederate General George Patton gives an emotional speech announcing the Army of Kentucky's surrender at Birmingham. Patton, tears in his eyes, would commend his soldiers for their valor in combat, and urge them to accept their defeat with honor, offering a glimpse of hope that Americans would somehow find a way to live peacefully after the Second Great War.


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A vintage copy of the 1942 Spanish-language translation of Jake Featherston's "Over Open Sights."(*) As soon as the Freedom Party leader's manifesto had been published in its original English the year prior, Featherston immediately saw the value in translating his words to Spanish, so that they could be directly understood by common citizens in Spanish-speaking Confederate states such as Chihuahua, Sonora, and Cuba.

Such shrewd populism underlies one of the many ironies about Featherston and the Freedom Party. Despite going down in history as the most notorious and deadly force of racism the world has ever seen, the party went out of its way to court the support of the long-neglected Chicano populations within their states along the Mexican border. Long having their interests neglected by the ruling Confederate Whig party, Chicano voters flocked to the Freedom Party, who reciprocated by breaking up the unequal distributions of land ownership held over since Mexican rule, and seeing the promotion of more Hispanic officials to high positions within the military and government than ever before in the history of the Confederate States. All of Featherston's hate, it seems, was directed in its entire fury at the suffering and disenfranchised African-Americans, whereas Hispanics, Jews, and other minorities were a matter of indifference (or even approval) to him.
(*)Reposter's comment: I literally translated the phrase "Over Open Sights". However, the literal translation makes no sense in Spanish. An more appropriate translation of the book would be "Sobre Lugares Abiertos". Featherston's first name may have been translated into its Spanish version. I can see different translations of the Spanish edition appearing in the Confederacy.
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Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist, medical doctor, and philosopher Viktor Emil Frankl (1905-1997). Born into a Jewish family of civil servants in the Austro-Hungarian capitol of Vienna, Frankl pursued a lifelong interest in psychiatry, motivated by his own unique views blending psychology with existentialist philosophy. While studying medicine at the University of Vienna, Frankl specialized in neurology and psychiatry, and took a particular interest in the treatment of depression and suicide prevention. As the 1930s progressed, Vienna was a common destination for Jewish refugees fleeing Russian and Polish pogroms; Frankl would often treat patients from these refugee backgrounds, and his study of how they coped with the deaths of their families and the humiliation they had suffered, and how they found the will to live in a new homeland, gave him initial inspiration for his eventual theories.

When the Second Great War began in 1941, Frankl was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and served as a medic on the Russian front. In addition to offering his medical expertise to treat physical wounds, he also offered counseling to soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by their battlefield experiences.

In 1944, two traumatic world events occurred which would solidify Frankl's theories, and provide the two biggest touchstones which he would refer to in his works. First, the world's first atomic superbomb was dropped by Germany onto the Russian capitol of Petrograd. As the army Frankl was stationed in advanced further into Russia, an increasing number of the Russian POWs they captured were survivors of the superbomb. Frankl listened intently as the survivors spoke of the utter apocalyptic horror they had witnessed, the disillusionment they felt as they realized their country's defeat was imminent, and their struggle to find a way to keep going on despite the fact that their faith in God and their country had been so thoroughly shattered.

Second, word reached across the Atlantic of the discovery of the Freedom Party's Population Reduction in the Confederate States of America. Europeans learned through newsreels about the utter depravity and inhumanity inflicted upon the African-Americans of the American south, and the torture, starvation, humiliation, and hopelessness they had been subjected to, a brutality without any prior precedent in human history.

Immediately, Frankl felt the need to go to America and personally learn more about what happened. Upon the war's end, he petitioned to travel to the United States for an extended academic study, and in 1945, he and his family moved across the Atlantic. Because so many African-Americans were illiterate and uneducated, there were few written accounts of what had gone on inside the Freedom Party's camps. Frankl, therefore, relied on interviews and therapeutic sessions with Population Reduction survivors in order to learn about what had gone on, what the survivors had witnessed and endured, and how they found the will to live. He was particularly impressed with how the survivors told stories of how they tried to lighten their situation by finding comfort in such things as humor, music, religion, and memories of their loved ones.

After several years of research, Frankl returned to Austria-Hungary. In 1959, he published his most famous work: Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen ("Saying Yes to Life In Spite of Everything"). In it, he first outlines the various experiences he had learned from refugees, war veterans, and survivors of genocide, after which he delves into his conclusions about human psychology, its reaction to suffering, and how humans can derive mental and existential healing by understanding suffering and finding a purpose in the trials and tribulations they face. His book ends with the memorable quote: "Since Camp Determination, we know what man is capable of. And since Petrograd, we know what is at stake."

In addition to being a major source of education for Europeans about what had gone on in America during the war, his theories attracted the support of psychologists across the world, and provided a strong foundation for future treatments of depression and PTSD.

Frankl died in 1997, survived by his wife of 53 years, Tilly.
Since there is a John Wayne in Tl-191...

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Pictured above is noted historian and activist, Clint Eastwood [1], at a Q&A seminar at the Blackford Institution [2] in Dakota.

Eastwood was born in Virginia in 1930, just a few short years before the ascension of Jake Featherston to the Confederate Presidency, the son of Josey and Sarah Eastwood [3]

Eastwood is one of the most prominent Confederate historians living, having written many of the most popular and cited books on the C.S.A. the Freedom Party, and Jake Featherson. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans group, an organization of only those who descended from those served in the Confederate Armed Forces and is not affiliated with the similarly named, Sons of Freedom (a neo-Freedomite organization).

He garnered a bit of controversy in 2012 when it was revealed he had served in his local Freedom Youth [4], a young boy's activities group and Freedom Party propaganda network to ensure "young patriotic and pure Confederate men". Eastwood has said that although he had spent a few years with the organization, he flatly rejected all of it's principles.

He works with the Remembrance Center as a researcher/archivist for capturing remaining Confederate war criminals.

Such works by Eastwood include:
-The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Freedom Party and It's Relations with the Races of the Confederate States
-Unforgiven: The Legacy of Featherston on the South
-The Gauntlet: A History of the Confederate Barrel Program
-The Enforcers: A History of the Freedom Party Stalwarts and Guardsman
-Hang em' High: Racial Violence in the Post-Great War Confederacy
-Dirty Harry and the Freedomite Nationalization of the Police.
-High Plains Drifters: Confederate Raiding Activities in the the West
-Kelly's Heroes: Major Kelly's Platoon and the Strangest Battle of the Second Great War
-Escape from Freedom to Freedom: Tales of Those Who Escaped Featherson's Butchers
-Sudden Impact: How I Killed the Greatest War Criminal of the Century [5]
[co-authored auto-biography/history book on Cassius Madison's assassination of Jake Featherson]
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[1] = *This* close to renaming him "Westwood" or "Southwood"
[2] = Equivalent of the Hoover Institute
[3] = You get a cookie if you figure out what movies I'm referencing
[4] = I know there existed a Hitler Youth equivalent in the C.S.A but I don't know the exact name. Feel free to correct me.
[5] = Sue me I used the names.
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Joe Albert holding the draft known as the "Second Book", a 200 page manuscript intended by Featherston and the Freedom Party as a sequel to Over Open Sights. The draft was discovered by army clerk Joe Albert in 1969 at a Washington State warehouse that had been used by the U.S. army for storage of captured Confederate documents and the draft went unnoticed upon entry and remained there for 25 years.

It is believed to be mainly composed of ideas and rants that were edited out of the final edition of Over Open Sights and were being saved for an eventual sequel. Much like it's predecessor, it contains many rants against the blacks of the Confederate States and is similarly poorly worded and eloquent. However the book does give more insight into what Featherston's thoughts and plans for the world, specifically North America.

In 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Confederacy, the papers were released to the public.

Such positions being.
-Canada should be made an independent nation again, with Quebec as a part if it as well.
-A canal should be built in Nicaragua owned and operated by the Confederates.
-All island nations in the Caribbean should be acquired by the Confederate States, specifically Haiti.
-Mormons oppression in the United States is worse than anything the Confederates have ever done to blacks and that Mormons should be given their own country.
-Confederate States should acquire more of a Pacific coast (whether it be from Mexico or the United States) and should become a major player in the Pacific.
-Not much comments on Europe but Featherston does say that Britain and France are the "natural dominant powers of Europe and it's unnatural for Germany to be the major power of Europe" and that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is oppressing it's various nationalities similar to how the "damnyankees did us before the War of Secession".
Two photos from 1970, which illustrate one of the biggest cultural differences between the two biggest 20th Century superpowers.

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The new logo of the U.S. Socialist party, unveiled just before the congressional elections of 1970. Note the multiracial hands, as well as the conspicuous absence of the Stars and Stripes or any other national symbols of the United States of America.


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Meanwhile, on September 2nd, 1970, crowds of proud, patriotic Germans in front of Brandenburg Gate celebrate the centennial Sedantag celebration, marking the 100th anniversary of Prussia's decisive victory at Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War, which paved the away for the unification of the German Empire.

These two images mark the highly distinct political and social views which Americans and Germans came to develop toward the concepts of nationalism and patriotism.

The United States of America, a diverse nation of immigrants founded on the broad-spanning democratic ideals of the American Revolution, influenced heavily by the internationalist outlook of socialist ideology, and having seen the worst ravages of racial hatred carried out by the Freedom Party, came to view nationalism with suspicion. Horrified by the Population Reduction, and with a pressing need to incorporate the inhabitants of the former Canadian and Confederate lands into the United States, American leaders after the Second Great War instead came to espouse a sense of universalism and international egalitarianism, appealing to all North Americans, as well as others around the world, to unite under a common purpose and pursue universal goals of democracy, economic equality, and liberty. To this day, Independence Day celebrations in America tend to be limited, in favor of the unifying calls for peace and reflection inspired by Remembrance Day, and it is quite rare to see American people wave the Stars and Stripes.

In contrast, the Empire of Germany had been formed by leaders and people united by a common German language and cultural heritage. Upon this unity, the empire had gone from triumph to triumph. Its military was undefeated in war, its industrial power and work ethic made it the largest economy in Europe, it was a cultural powerhouse which produced great works of art, music, and cinema, and its citizens were at the forefront of major scientific advances, from nuclear energy to space exploration. All of these accomplishments instilled in German leaders and people a strong sense of national pride. And although the country was also wounded by the Second Great War, and although various European nationalisms played a role in that conflict, their victory and sense of historical righteousness from being on the opposite side of the aggressive Entente Powers further fueled their sense of national greatness. And the fact that the Population Reduction, while shocking to the vast majority of German people just as much as anywhere, took place an ocean away meant that it did not scar the European psyche the way it did in North America.

To this day, while there is not any serious animosity between the American and German people, these different worldviews can bring about cultural clashes. Germans, especially Prussians, are sometimes annoyed by what they perceive as Americans' hypersensitivity toward displays of patriotism, self-righteous claims of universalism and self-identification as "citizens of the world." By contrast, Americans are often shocked to see boisterous Germans frequently waving the imperial flag and singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" in public, and are off-put by the perceived supremacist undertones German pride can take.
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Independently distributed propaganda poster found in southern cities in the occupied former Confederate States in the mid-1940s. Despite massive protests from the white inhabitants of the southern states, the U.S. occupation authorities were almost deliberate in their half-heartedness toward removing such posters and finding their (likely Yankee) makers.

The poster itself and the respective responses to them highlight one of the biggest cultural dilemmas facing Americans after the Second Great War: how to interpret the Freedom Party's role in the culture that gave rise to the horror of the Population Reduction. Did Jake Featherston represent an anomaly that could have appeared in any other nation, or was the society of the Confederate States of America unique in its ability to give rise to such a force for tyranny, brutality, and hatred? As can be expected, following the war's end and the revelation of the extent of the genocide committed against African-Americans, legions of white southerners began to insist that they had always been skeptical of the Freedom Party and done their best to be tolerant of black Confederates. Some of these stories were true, and there are quite a few documented stories of courageous white southerners whose conscience motivated them to protect African-Americans from being rounded up by Freedom Party guards. Thus, there are those who argue that the Freedom Party did not represent the culture of the C.S.A., and that their rise was a tragic turn of events in the history of a nation that, while imperfect, had the potential to be a better society.

However, as obviously indicated by the poster, there were many U.S. citizens who simply did not buy this. The most hard-lined U.S. Socialists railed against the Confederate people as a collective, holding them responsible for being the ones to elect Featherston in the first place and turn a blind eye when African-Americans began disappearing. They go even further to say that the Freedom Party's rise was practically an inevitability in a nation which had enshrined slavery and racism right into its own Constitution and built its entire country around the dehumanization of black slaves and their descendants. In their view, the Confederate States as a whole was a barbaric, evil nation, and, as per the image, the Freedom Party banner and the Stars and Bars were merely two sides of the same coin, and equally deserved to be dissolved and occupied by the more enlightened United States.

It was a difficult rode ahead for North America, and for decades to come, there would be an acrimonious dilemma between those who wished to unite the re-unified America under mutual understanding, and those who wished to hold the south responsible for the atrocities carried out in their society. To this day, southern American identity is divided between, on one hand, a desire to move on from the past and create a better future, and on the other hand, a shame mentality which believes that their entire region holds a permanent stain for which there can be no redemption.
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One of the few promotional images taken during the filming of the Second Great War tragic film "The Day the Clown Cried" circa 1972.

The film was to document the experience of washed up circus clown Herman Jefferson (played by Jared Luey), a clown who drowned his sorrows one night, resulting in making disparaging remarks of the Freedom Party. He was arrested and spent the next three years (1939-1942) in a camp for political prisoners, hoping for the day his case will be reviewed.

While demonstrating his clowning talents (and getting beaten when it turned out he wasn't very good at it) to fellow inmates, he notices that one group appreciates his talent: Black children being detained in the same camp as he was. Happy to be appreciated again, Herman performs for them and gains an audience for a while, until the prison commandant orders him to stop.

After being disciplined for fraternizing with the Black prisoners, he continues despite this due to being unable to bare seeing the children unhappy and leads to one of his "performances" being broken up by Freedom Party Guards. Seeing a use for him, the commandant assigns him to help load Black children on trains leading out of the camp, with the promise his case will be reviewed. By accident, he ends up accidentally accompanying the children on a boxcar train to Camp Determination, and is eventually used in a style reminiscent of the Pied Piper, to help lead the children to their deaths in the gas chamber. With the guilt of what he just gone combined with the despair of what is about to happen to the kids, Herman begs to go in the chambers with them as a way to keep the kids from knowing their final fate for a few moments longer. The film fades to black as the children laugh at his antics one final time.

The film itself was never released due to budget overruns and "backstage drama". The rough edit of the film was kept by Jared in a vault in his house, never to be released to the public because of the shame of taking part in the film (according to critics who saw private screenings, the film would've likely bombed in theaters anyways). A similar film entitled "A Beautiful Life" starring Louis Armstrong Jr in 1993 on the other hand, won various academy awards and launched Louis to stardom.
TL-191 famous speeches part 2: James G Blaine's capitulation speech from the Second Mexican War, considered by many to be the birth of the Remembrance Era.

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Finding no hope for the successful employment of our arms against the enemies who ring us round and who have unjustly combined against us, I am compelled at this hour to yield to the demands imposed upon the United States by the Confederate States, Great Britain, and France. I do this with the heaviest of hearts, and only in the certain knowledge that all other courses are worse.

This surrender offers a fitting occasion to present ourselves in humiliation and prayer that God Who has ordained that it be so. We had hoped that the year just past would close upon a scene of victory for our righteous cause, but it has pleased the Supreme Disposer of events to order it otherwise. We are not permitted to furnish an exception to the rule of Divine government, which has prescribed affliction as the rule of nations as well as of individuals. Our faith and perseverance must be tested, and the chastening which seems grievous will, if rightly received bring forth its appropriate fruit.

It is meet, therefore, that we should repair to the only Giver of all victory, and, humbling ourselves before Him, should pray that He may strengthen our confidence in His mighty power and righteous judgement. Then we may surely trust in Him that He will perform His promise and encompass us as with a shield.

In this trust and to this end, I, James G. Blaine, president of the United States, do hereby set apart today, Saturday, the twenty-second day of April, as a day of fasting, humiliation, prayer, and remembrance, and I do hereby invite the people of the United States to repair to their respective places of worship and to humble themselves before almighty God, and pray for His protection and favor to our beloved country, and that we may be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.

And I do further urge and direct the people of the United States to observe the twenty-second day of April in each succeeding year as a day of humiliation and remembrance, so that the infamous defeat we have suffered on this date shall never be lost from the minds of the said citizens until such time as it may, by the grace of God, be avenged a hundredfold.
 
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And yet another compilation of photos

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A gun crew of a Union M1938 40mm AA gun at Selfridge Airbase outside of Detroit, circa 1942.
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A Confederate crewed M1935 40mm AA gun along the coast of Virginia, circa 1942. The Bofors 40mm AA gun was of Swedish origin, during the Second Great War, numerous nations on both the Central Powers and the Radius would use this model.
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Confederate soldiers operating a Hotchkiss Infantry Gun in Northern Virginia, circa 1917.
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Polish soldiers operating a Colt M1895 Machine-Gun as part of a Military Exchange Program in rural Ohio, circa 1922.
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A photo of Polish Army General Juliusz Mórel, circa 1937. During the Second Great War, Morel was the commander of the Polish 2nd Army, which took part in the battle of Brest-Livtosk in 1941 and the Battle of Warsaw in 1942. Interestingly, Juliusz Morel was in fact a distant relative of the Union Army General Irving Morrell and even met him during his time as a military attache to the United States in 1932.
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A photo of Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, circa 1939. During the Second Great War, Goering was the Commander-in-Chief of the German Kaiserliche Luftwaffe.
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A photo of Albert "Al" Koenig, circa 1934. Al Koenig was the younger brother of Secretary General Ferdinand Koenig, whom Al turned to be the complete opposite of his older brother. Al Koenig would be involved in many clandestine Anti-Freedomite groups throughout the CSA and helped smuggle Black-Confederates out of the country, often faking his brother's signatures. Whenever he was arrested for Anti-Freedomite activities, Al would use his brother's position to get him out of said situations. He was arrested following the war and put on trial at the Nashville War Crimes Tribunal, but testimonies by the people that he helped had all charges against him dropped.
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Edda Goering, circa 1982. In 1984, Edda Goering would win a landslide victory as the head of the German Centre Party, becoming the First Female Chancellor of Germany serving 1984 to 1991. During her time as Chancellor, her administration enacted reforms and had established relations with newly independent nations that were colonies of the Japanese Empire following it's breakup in 1990.
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Ernst Rohm of the German National Socialist German Worker's Party, circa 1938. In the early 1920s, Rohm, Rudolf Hess, and a few other veterans of the First Great War would form the Actionist National Socialist German Worker's Party aka the NSDAP. Unlike the CSA, France, and England, German Actionist Parties such as the NSDAP would never gain too much popularity, in fact, at it's height in 1932, it would only have a 1,000 members and 2 seats in the Reichstag. In 1941 after war broke out, the German Authorities would arrest all senior members of the NSDAP including Rohm under suspicions that they were fifth columnists for the Radius. Rohm and his colleagues would be charged for sedition in 1942 and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment at Spandau. Rohm would be released from prison in 1948 and would live a quiet life until his death in 1963. Today, whereas the Silvershirts, Falangists, Freedomites, and Actionists are well known and are household names, the NSDAP has largely been forgotten about. In the Speculative Fiction Series known as Northern Victory by Larry Frenchen, a fictionalized version NSDAP was a part of the later part of the series as a analogue to the Confederate Freedom Party.
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Famed Austro-German Painter and Art Critic Adolf Hitler with his partner Eva Braun at his Alpine Retreat, circa 1945.
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Generalissmo Saddam Hussein of Mesopotamia, circa 2010. During the violent dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent wars in the Middle East, former Ottoman General Saddam Hussein would take command of Iraqi forces in the region of Mesopotamia to establish a warlord state in 1992. Saddam would led his country in wars against neighboring warlord states such as Kurdistan, Anatolia, Syria, and the Saudi Empire.
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The Imperial Japanese Navy Nuclear Attack Submarine Kii in the Northern Pacific, circa 1994.
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A Nakajima G14N "Amy" Jet Bomber photographed by the US Navy off of the Sandwich Islands, circa 1978.
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Union Battleships USS Pennsylvania and Oregon escorting a convoy to the Caribbean, circa 1943.
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A group photo of the Union Army's 2nd Ranger Battalion in Southern Kentucky, circa 1943.
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A Union Army Ranger planting an explosive charge on a railroad behind enemy lines, somewhere in Tennessee, circa 1943.​
If I may point out one thing: Turtledove did include Hitler in the "American Empire" trilogy. he's Heinz Guderian's unnamed anti-semitic orderly.
 
A General History of the Second Mexican Empire in TL-191
*This was going to be its own thread under a different title, but I decided that since it differed a lot from Dr. Turtledove's version, it should be considered a type of fanon. Perhaps someone else can make a thread that contains a more accurate version of TL-191 Mexico from the books. (Ex. There is no Maximilian II, Maximilian III, Francisco Jose or Francisco Jose II in this version here)

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Imperial Standard Flag of the Second Mexican Empire

The Imperial Restoration under Hapsburg-Iturbide
Prior to the victory of the Confederacy over the Union on November 4th, 1862, during the War of Secession, Mexico was dealing with its own war. More specifically, they were fighting a second Franco-Mexican war that began on December 8th, 1861. When Mexico could not pay its debts to European creditors, Emperor Napoleon III of France decided to take advantage of the weakened nation and exert French influence by installing a monarchy. Mexico was initially an empire ruled by Agustín de Iturbide after gaining independence from Spain on September 27th, 1821 until it became a republic two years later. The idea of Mexico becoming a monarchy again began as early as 1838, when an essay appeared that was written by José María Gutiérrez de Estrada and it argued for the idea of a European monarch ruling Mexico.

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Entrance of the French Expeditionary Corps into Mexico on 10 June 1863, Jean-Adolphe Beaucé, 1868​

On July 10th, 1863, the Second Mexican Empire was proclaimed, after the French captured Mexico City a month earlier, but it still lacked a ruler. The regency government sent a delegation of Mexican conservatives to Miramare Castle in Trieste and offered Maximilian von Hapsburg of Austria the Imperial Crown of Mexico on October 3, 1863. After being convinced by Napoleon III to accept the crown, Maximilian claimed that he would only do it if there was a plebiscite that ruled in his favor. A fraudulent plebiscite was done on December 4th, 1863 and Maximilian formally accepted the throne on April 10th, 1864 after the Treaty of Miramar was signed.

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The Offering of the Mexican Crown by a Mexican delegation, Cesare Dell’Acqua, 1867
Along with his wife, Charlotte of Belgium, the eldest daughter of Leopold I of Belgium, Maximilian arrived at Veracruz on May 29, 1864 and settled in Chapultepec Castle. More than a year later on September 16th, 1865, Maximilian adopted as his heirs the grandsons of the first Mexican Emperor from the House of Iturbide, Agustín and Salvador. However, their adoptions were more of a ruse to convince the Hapsburgs in Austria-Hungary to give him a younger heir since he had none of his own. It was rumored that either him or Charlotte couldn’t have children. When the imperial couple first arrived in Mexico, Maximilian and his wife were shocked at the social conditions of their new empire. Contrary to the expectations of his Conservative allies, Maximilian’s earliest actions were to help out the peasant class of Mexico. One of Maximilian's first acts as Emperor was to restrict working hours and abolish child labor. He cancelled all debts for peasants over 10 pesos, restored communal property and forbade all forms of corporal punishment. He also broke the monopoly of the Hacienda stores and decreed that peons could no longer be bought and sold for the price of their debt. Maximilian would also support liberal policies, such as land reforms, religious freedom, and extending the right to vote.

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Departure of Maximilian and Carlota from Trieste, Cesare Dell'Acqua, 1865
The Confederate States were among the first countries that recognized the empire and quickly established diplomatic relations and vice-versa. The United States viewed the empire as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but could not enforce it now that it had the support of Britain, France, the CSA, and even Russia. In-fighting still occurred between the Mexican Republican Liberals and the Mexican Monarchist Conservatives. The United States did send weapons to the Liberals on the remaining U.S.-Mexico border in order to help the rebels fight against the Imperial government. Confederate and French support to Maximilian stabilized his rule over the empire. Before the French withdrew its own forces from Mexico just before the start of the Franco-Prussian War, a deal was made between the Confederates and French that both will be involved in keeping Maximilian in power.

Benito Juárez continued to fight against the empire, but it was not enough to win against a Franco-Confederate backed Mexico. Juárez was eventually captured in 1867 and brought on trial for crimes against the empire. During Juárez's imprisonment, Maximilian visited him several times to talk. Maximilian wanted to spare Juárez and give him the position of prime minister since they both shared Liberal viewpoints for the future of Mexico, but he refused his offers. Despite continued pleas from Maximilian to Juárez, the Conservatives wanted to execute Juárez and formally sentenced him to death by firing squad on June 19th, 1867. His last words were: ¡Viva México! ¡Viva la independencia! ¡Viva la república! (Long Live Mexico! Long Live the Independence! Long Live the Republic!). The Monroe Doctrine was finally dead; it suffered a mortal wound when the Confederates received diplomatic and economic support from Britain and France in 1862 and its misery ended in 1867 with the death of Juárez and the successful instillation of the French-supported Second Mexican Empire.

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Death Mask of Benito Juárez
Maximilianato, the Historical Period of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1864-1879 or 1881)

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Su Majestad Imperial, Maximiliano de México

After securing his rule at the end of the 1860’s/early 1870’s, Maximilian enjoyed great popularity with the ordinary people of Mexico. He tried his best to assimilate himself into the local culture. He was not the authoritarian ruler that many feared he would be. Instead, he was more interested in his botanical hobbies than ruling the nation as an autocrat. In fact, his first trip outside of the Mexican Empire was to the Brazilian Empire, where, besides meeting with Dom Pedro II, he collected several plants for his study. The interaction between the Mexican and Brazilian Emperor had a major influence in the latter that it changed his mind about the future of the monarchy in Brazil.

When Napoleon III was deposed from power in 1872 after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, Maximilian took advantage of the situation and introduced more expensive reforms to the empire, despite much protests from the Conservatives. To some Liberals that remained within the empire, however, he was still a usurper who should not even be in Mexico, even if he was doing a lot of good to the Mexican people. The Third French Republic attempted to continue to view Mexico as another colony under French control but Maximilian refused to follow along and fiercely asserted that his empire be independent. The Confederacy would help France and Mexico develop good diplomatic relations. Eventually, the French would leave a strong cultural influence in Mexico. Maximilian did encourage immigration from other nations, especially Austrian and German communities, but he insisted that Mexico is for those who only wished to be Mexican first.

By the end of the 19th Century, Mexico was the most multicultural country in the Western Hemisphere, besides Brazil. While the vast majority of its members were Mestizo (mixed with European and Indigenous ancestry), Austrians, Germans, and French made up less than 25% of the population. The smallest minority groups were often British, Irish, Italians, Afro-Mexicans, and other unidentified ethnicities. Maximilian was particularly fascinated with the indigenous people of Mexico, who made up about a quarter of the population. Maximilian's land reforms and declaration of civil rights were able to significantly help many indigenous groups who suffered extreme poverty and discrimination.

While rumors of coup attempts circled around the Imperial government, one was nearly successful in removing Maximilian from power in 1876. José Díaz Mori, a supporter of Juárez during the Second Franco-Mexican War, created plans for a putsch on January 10th of that same year. On May 5th, 1876, he attempted to abolish the empire and restore the republic but failed and was defeated by imperial forces in October 16th, 1876 during the Battle of Tecoac.

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Prince-Regent Salvador of Mexico ( June 29th, 1879--April 2nd, 1881)

On June 29, days before his 47th Birthday, Maximilian died of malaria. Although his death at a young age shocked Mexico and the world, he gained for himself the respect and admiration of European royalty and from the Mexican people. A temporary crisis of succession occurred due to the Hapsburgs never giving Maximilian the heir he wanted, but it was eventually resolved with Salvador becoming prince-regent of the empire until Agustin turned 18 in on April 2, 1881. One of the few things that Salvador did during his regency was the reinstitution of Mexico’s Pre-1865 territorial divisions. Instead of being divided into 50 departments, Mexico would now be divided into 25 states.

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Map of Mexico (1865-1880)​

Agustinato (1881-1925)

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Su Majestad Imperial, Agustín III de México

Agustín III, as he was now known after his coronation, reversed some of the reforms that his adoptive father made in order to gain more support from the Conservatives. These actions made him more unpopular to the underground Liberal resistance. Issues such as continuing land reform, reducing poverty, improving infrastructure and the securing the rights of indigenous communities began to fail during his reign. Since the 1870’s, the empire had grown more into debt and was in desperate need of cash to pay off their European creditors. The Confederate government, wanting access to the Pacific Ocean, offered the empire a sale of C$3,000,000 for some of their northern land: the states of Sonora and Chihuahua and a land lease giving the Confederacy travel access through the Baja California peninsula. Despite the positive legality of the purchase, the United States refused to allow the Confederates to obtain more land. At first, they offered Mexico more money than the Confederates’ price, but the Mexican government refused to sell the USA more land due to negative reception of previous land sales in 1848 and 1854. Eventually, the USA and CSA went to war over the sale in 1881. Later, the British would join in the war alongside the CSA. There was also French support, albeit limited in the form of naval engagements. This was due to France’s recovering state at the time after losing against the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian War. There were also economic recessions that France and other European nations were experiencing at the time. During the latter half of the war’s length, Mexico would join in the war and be involved in a series of battles against Fort Yuma, San Diego, Santa Ana, and Los Angeles. Even though most of these battles ended in Mexican victory, the Americans put up a strong defense and most of the casualties were from Mexican soldiers, who were often underequipped and had less advanced weaponry.

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Imperial Mexican Soldiers fighting against U.S. Soldiers near Fort Yuma, N.M. Territory.
After the United States was defeated in 1882, Agustín III experienced mixed praise from the people. On the one hand, he chose an unpopular decision to sell more Mexican land to a foreign nation, but on the other, the purchase was done without force and the War of 1881, as it was sometimes called, helped Mexico gained a sense of national pride in belonging to an alliance of nations that won against the United States. It was a small revenge against the United States from the war that occurred between both nations in 1846-1848.

In 1884, another putsch occurred under the influence of Manuel González, a one-armed former general who fought during the Second Franco-Mexican War and was a supporter of José Díaz Mori. Despite the expectations from the USA that the monarchy would fall, the coup did not succeed and the monarchy continued on. During the remaining years of the 19th-Century, Mexico was interested in flexing its power into the Central American region. Sometime in the reign of Maximilian, the Mexican emperor offered the governments of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica the opportunity to re-join Mexico. All of them refused to be annexed and Maximilian dropped the subject, never to propose it again. Agustín III, however, wanted to increase the size of his empire and began to make plans to meddle in the affairs of the Central American nations. Mexico noticed that under Justo Rufino Barrios in Guatemala, the political rights of the Catholic Church were being diminished. He was also attempting to re-form a Central American Union and went to war with El Salvador to force it to join. Fearing a strong Central America and abhorring the mistreatment of the Catholic clergy from the Barrios government, a war nearly occurred between Mexico and Guatemala until the Confederacy intervened. With the convenient death of Barrios in 1885, the CSA was able to convince Mexico to abandon plans for annexation and, instead, allow Guatemala and El Salvador to be economically dependent via Mexican-owned fruit/sugar corporations. The CSA would do the same economic plans toward Honduras and Nicaragua. Only Costa Rica would be the most stable and independent Central American nation that would generally side with the USA.

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Logo for the Valentine Bros., an Confederate corporation made by a group of Italian-Confederate siblings that traded bananas from Latin America to the rest of the world

The World At War (1914-1917)

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Map of North America during the First Great War, 1914-1917 (Red=Entente Powers, Blue=Central Powers, White=Neutral)
At the start of the First Great War in 1914, Mexico had signed a mutual-assistance treaty with the Confederacy. While not officially a member of the Entente Powers, it was a co-belligerent against the only major nation in North America that was part of the Central Powers: the USA. The Confederacy and Mexico declared war against them in August 1914. Mexican troops would cross into Sonora and Chihuahua and joined their Confederate allies fighting the Americans in New Mexico and in some parts of western Texas. In Baja California, the Mexican Army was in a defensive position most of the time and prevented the U.S. army from conquering it. When the war ended in 1917, the Mexican government was shocked that they had lost another war against the United States. Despite not losing any land to the victors, its morale was shattered and the people of Mexico were disillusioned in fighting a war that did not bring them neither glory or any financial or territorial compensation. Before the war began, Mexico was suffering from social inequality and disproportionate wealth imbalance. It was believed that a war against a historical enemy would help alleviate the problems the Mexican people faced. However, its defeat in the First Great War would be one of the reasons the Mexican Civil War of 1920 occurred.

The Mexican Civil War (1920-1930)
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Collage of the Mexican Civil War

The Mexican Civil War was largely made up of two factions: The Imperialists and Republicans. The latter group were organized by a loose confederation of leaders who had different visions for Mexico, some of which were contradictory, but they were united under their hatred of the Imperial government. Some of the major individuals involved against the Imperialists were: Madero, Magón, Carranza, and Zapata. While the USA was able to sent weapons to the Republicans, the Confederate government suffered too much from war reparations to help out the Imperialists. However, the Confederate Freedom Party would unofficially encourage its members, especially veterans from the FGW, to go to Mexico and use their experience to help out the Imperialist government. Eventually, to the surprise of many, the Imperialist won. Most historians generally agree that there were three main reasons why they won: 1) Additional help from former Confederate soldiers, which were a combination of CFP members and non-CFP members. 2) No war reparations imposed on Mexico from the USA. Had there been any reparations, there would have been a greater pressure to get rid of the Imperial government. In addition, the cancelling of reparations on the CSA allowed the Confederate government to send out a minimal amount of aid to the Mexican government. 3) The death of Agustín III in 1925 allowed Princess María Josepha Sophia de Iturbide to become Empress of Mexico and negotiate with the leaders of the Republican forces and make reforms to the empire. The reforms were not numerous, but they were helpful to dissuade some rebel leaders to stop fighting. The more radical ones vowed to continue fighting against the monarchy.

The World At War, Again (1941-1944)
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Su Majestad Imperial, María de México

When the Second Great War began in 1941, Empress María did not want the empire to go to war. However, the Mexican government’s alliance with Featherston’s Confederacy and the risk of the Republican rebels emerging again meant that she had very little choice in the matter. Without the economic support of the Confederacy, Mexico was all on its own. Since her reign began, she had learned what most of the government knew for decades: Despite what their laws may say on paper, in practice, Mexico was still dependent on foreign powers. Just like in the last war, Mexico declared war against the USA, but played a largely defensive role. Several times, Mexico was compelled to send out its soldiers for “peace-keeping roles” within the Confederacy, but everyone knew that most of them would go to battle against the Americans. The immigration of Mexico’s poorest people to the CSA for cheap labor reduced the likelihood of the Mexican lower class to engage in anti-imperialist activities. However, their large presence in the Confederacy raised questions within the USA and Mexico as to the status of the CSA's Black population. The loss of Baja California, the revelation of the mass murder of Black Confederates by Featherston’s Confederacy, and the USA winning against the CSA compelled the Imperial government to sue for peace in 1944, a few months before the war ended.

Although an enemy during the SGW, the USA decided not to deal with Mexico and focused on the conquered CSA, instead. Eventually, both nations decided that it was time to reconcile after nearly a century of bad blood between them. Beginning in 1947 with the help of the President of the Irish Republic, a new age of peace and friendship blossomed between the USA and the Empire of Mexico. While there were still some unsolved issues, such as the fate of Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua; the fate of Central America’s former Confederate businesses, the hunting of former Confederate Freedom Party members, and the Republican rebels, both nations pledged to be good neighbors from now until the end of time.

In 1947, Vice-President Harry Truman became the first U.S. Executive Branch politician to ever visit Mexico City. Unexpectedly, Mr. Truman makes an out-of-the-way stop at the Chapultepec Monument. Here he pays a simple tribute to the memory of Mexican youths who died 100 years ago defending their nation's capital against an American army. All of Mexico was tremendously moved by this act. Truman brought to Mexico a promise: "...to observe the doctrine of non-intervention. What it means is that a strong nation does not have a right to impose its will by reason of its strength upon a weaker nation."
Educational Sources:
http://www.eumed.net/rev/tecsistecatl/n14/division-territorial-mexico.pdf
http://www.historicas.unam.mx/moderna/ehmc/ehmc12/153.html
http://www.agn.gob.mx/menuprincipal/difusion/textos/pdf/DiarioImperio13mar1865.pdf
http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1020005252/1020005252_MA.PDF
http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1080045869/1080045869_017.pdf
https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/de...exicano-formada-y-corregida-con-decaen-debray
https://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_EmbletonGBanditsLL.html
http://www.museobicentenario.mx/el-museo-y-su-historia/06-segundo-imperio/
http://sin-perdon.yolasite.com/picture-gallery-v.php
https://archive.org/details/historyofmexico05banc/page/224/mode/2up
https://www.dorotheum.com/en/l/439909/
https://www.inehrm.gob.mx/recursos/Libros/Interiores_Maximiliano.pdf
https://relatosehistorias.mx/numero...ico-no-tuvo-presidente-ni-emperador-1863-1864
An Explanation to what the Valentine Bros. are supposed to reference.

In-Universe ideas I made:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...federacy-tl-191.185493/page-191#post-19158761
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...federacy-tl-191.185493/page-193#post-19513080
 
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Now for some Post-War images of the Union (now US) Military

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US Army Soldiers with an M1949 Recoilless Rifle during a Military Exercise in New Mexico, circa 1959.
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A US Army AA crew manning a 40mm Bofors AA gun with a Radar Truck in the background, somewhere on the Sandwhich Islands, circa 1956.
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A US Army mortarman wearing an experimental desert camouflage uniform, circa 1982.
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US Marines on a landing craft at Midway Atoll, circa 1963.
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US Army soldiers during tactical maneuvers in Northern Dakota, circa 1981.
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Soldiers of the California National Guard during a firing exercise using the M1950 General Purpose Machine-Gun (which was a copy of the German MG-42), circa 1975.
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Members of the USMC Sandwich Island Garrison practicing on with a 60mm M1958 Light Mortar, circa 1960.
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A US Army soldier in full winter gear with his Springfield M1974 Assault Carbine, somewhere in Alyaska*, circa 1979.

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* = Following the collapse of the Russian Empire in the late 1940s, Alyaska would become an independent nation in 1948. In 1956, with the fear of Japanese Imperial Expansion in the North Pacific, the Tsardom of Alyaska would form a defense pact with the United States.

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The source to many of the images I have gathered for this post.​
 
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My own interpretations of how these inventors and inventors came to be in TL-191

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Hiram Maxim, born in 1840 in the state of Maine, was an inventor who moved to England during the 1880's. He invented the Maxim gun, the first recoil-operated machine gun at the time and used extensively by the British army. The War of 1881 nearly prevented him from immigrating to Europe and creating his famous invention.

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John Garand was a Quebecois engineer who created the Garand rifle in 1936. Born in Canadian Quebec in St. Remic in 1888, he and his family moved to Connecticut in 1899. He found employment as an adult in Rhode Island and New York. Due to his lack of American citizenship, he was denied conscription into the U.S. army and never served during the First Great War. However, his fascination with guns never left him. He moved to the newly-formed Republic of Quebec in 1920 and became a Quebecois citizen. During the 1930's, Garand would create a semi-automatic rifle that would rival the American Springfield bolt-action rifle. During the middle of the Second Great War, the Garand rifle would be used by the U.S. army with some slight modifications.

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Confederate Army officer John T. Thompson with a final prototype of his "Thompson Machine Gun".

A veteran of the Second Mexican War, his exposure to battlefields during the First Great War as a Brigadier-General inspired him to create a rifle-type weapon that could automatically fire bullets. His retirement from the army allowed him to invent prototypes for his "Tommy Gun". Unfortunately, the economic crisis of the Confederacy during the 1920's and prohibitions of re-arming prevented him from getting funding. During Featherston's rise to power, Thompson was a staunch Whig who would oppose the Confederate Freedom Party. After Featherston gained power in 1934, Thompson would be imprisoned after refusing an offer to work for Featherston's Confederacy and die in 1940. His work would be used by the Confederate Government and heavily modified into the TAR, otherwise known as the "Tredegar Automatic Rifle".
 
It was mentioned in the book The Grapple that the Thompson submachine gun was used by the U.S. Army. It was used by one of Armstrong Grimes men in his new unit.
 
I would think that after the dissolution of the CSA, Washington would return to being the Capital of the United States. The only reason why Philadelphia was used was because it was further from the US-CS border, and it was used up until the beginning of GW1
That’s what I assume would happen also. I can see the government making a big show of it that the return to D.C. symbolizes the two countries finally being reunited.
 
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A US Army EOD working on defusing a unexploded bomb from the SGW in Central Virginia, circa 1998.
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A US Navy EOD working on a washed up SGW era Naval Mine along the coast of Nova Scotia, circa 2017.
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Unexploded artillery shells and mortars that were dug up from a field in Eastern Pennsylvania, circa 2015.
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An M2 "Custer" chassis that was dug up during road construction in Eastern Ohio, circa 2019.
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A photo of a Confederate M1943 80mm Anti-Barrel Gun that was discovered in the forests of the Appalachian Foothills in Tennessee, circa 2009.
 

PNWKing

Banned
It was mentioned in the book The Grapple that the Thompson submachine gun was used by the U.S. Army. It was used by one of Armstrong Grimes men in his new unit.
Maybe Harry Turtledove made a research error, as Thompson was born in a Southern state. Although he could have easily moved North...…………...
 
Maybe Harry Turtledove made a research error, as Thompson was born in a Southern state. Although he could have easily moved North...…………...

Kentucky was one of those states that sided with the USA during the Civil War, so it is possible that after the end of the war of secession, people who were loyal to the US left
 
Maybe Harry Turtledove made a research error, as Thompson was born in a Southern state. Although he could have easily moved North...…………...

More than likely, given all the other minor and major errors Dr. Turtledove made in the books. However, it is plausible for him to settle down in Post-1917 Kentucky as a U.S. citizen and have his gun be used by the U.S. army.
 
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