That, too. And it’s a country thr US had a very ugly war with fifty years ago, where a treaty was basically imposed on them by Europe, then the CSA decides to abrogate a treaty the US was never happy with anyways but working hard to perpetuate as a workable status quo with some tweaks; then they BOMB BALTIMORE in a sneak attack and literally go for “1812 Part Two Electric Boogaloo” on DC
The bloodlust will be overwhelming.
All good points. Maybe a DMZ like the Saarland/Rhineland post war?
The US is more racially enlightened than the CSA (to put it mildly) but it still doesn’t want to absorb millions of Black residents at a time when racial prejudice was still high and mass immigration was starting to become more and more of a live concern for the WASP middle class. A Kentucky vassal buffer state/meat shield is a very different animal (though perhaps hard to make economically viable in the long term)
Yup. This war has the ugliest pieces of the War of 1812, OTL Civil War *and* OTL WWII. Whatever issues bombing Fort Sumter had, they were attacking members of the Military *and* to some degree this is even true for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This would be as if the Japanese had started WWII by attacking San Francisco and Hong Kong. (yes Hong Kong was attacked on day 1 of the war, but about 2.5 hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, so definitely not normal peacetime).
Part of the reason that the Saarland/Rhineland were DMZs is that as far as I know, other than under Napoleon, that area (which was part of the HRE) was *never* French, so the idea of population transfer and settlement by the French was never an option, as opposed that area of Virginia which has been part of the United States for longer than it was part of the Confederacy. (Note, this applies to everywhere in the CSA which was part of the United States in 1789, so VA, NC, SC, GA, KY, TN, AL, MS more or less (minus the AL/MS gulf coasts)) (it also includes the areas which were gotten in the Louisiana Purchase, so LA, AR & "OK" as well), but not the lands gotten in Adams-Onis in 1819, (FL+ AL/MS gulf coasts) or Texas/Arizona. (But I think the author has more or less said that the US is getting Arizona)
I agree that economics would be an issue. The confederacy could go for *decades* before being willing to trade with a Kentucky Vassal State controlled by Blacks. (while trading with RoTexas and "Oklahoma" would be much earlier) But I'm not sure it hits Kentucky *that* badly. If they are always inside any US trade zone, they'll do fine.