Aw fuck it, here we go!
As we segue from the end of the American sideshow back to Texas...
Part 16
Dixie Dregs
President Reagan peered over his desk at his first official foreign visitor. Maybe. Mr. Pendleton Murrah, ambassador of … The Republic of South Carolina?
“Mr. President, I am pleased to offer you the laurel of friendship, extended from all the people of the great state of South Carolina. Today we stand alone, but soon a mighty Confederacy shall rise, a new power and a natural ally of the Texian Republic!”
“I see,” the President said. John Reagan was a more thoughtful type than usually occupied the President’s office - certainly more so than the only just departed Burleson, who seemed happy to leave. President Burleson had held a hard line against the Indian problem, but he found pulling the trigger on legislation just wasn’t as
fun as pulling the trigger on a rifle.
♫ Big John! Big JooOOOoohn! Big bad John. ♫
Murrah was talking again. Texas didn’t have much of a foreign policy, per se. There was France, of course.
For all the problems that’s starting to cause, Reagan thought. “No Taxation, No Representation!” was the unofficial slogan of the equally unofficial anti-foreigner Texian Party, a crude knockoff of the American Party.
Know-Nothings, they’re called up north. Accurately. French trade had filled Texian coffers and French forts had effectively neutralized the Mexican threat. If anything, Mexico was the one that was worrying these days, about France. But beyond Mexico and France, there wasn’t much in the way of foreign relations.
No foreign entanglements, as Washington said, Reagan thought. Texas relations with the United States had been cordial yet cool, more or less empty formalities, since the the Mexican War. Burleson had hardly worked to improve that, but Reagan was hoping to begin to repair the situation. And now this. What did this mean for Texas? Was Pendleton right? Was America about to split into two republics, slave and free? Texas had the support of France for now, despite its particular institution. But down the road, who knows. It might be in Texas’s interest to have a fellow slave power nearby.
“Mr. Murrah, if I may. I have a single question, which perhaps you are best equipped to answer.”
“Please ask, sir, I am your servant.”
“Do you actually think you can win?”
***
“OF COURSE WE WILL TRIUMPH!” Robert Rhett was nearly scarlet. “The people of the South will rise up in one voice and say NO to the so-called Freedom Party! NO to an Africanized America! NO to the tyrant William
Sewer! The only problem, I put it to you, will be keeping the ‘free’ states
out of our Confederation!” [1]
The delegation from Alabama wasn’t sure they were buying it. President Cass had yet to move against the secessionists, and it looked like he would simply allow his term in office to draw to an ignominious close. But when Seward became President, would the might of the United States be directed against the secessionist cause? Many in the South were calling to join the South Carolinians, but many more were unconvinced. Thus, Robert Rhett’s “good will” visit. Rhett, a longtime advocate of leaving the Union, was utterly convinced of his rightness, and the sheer force of his character certainty seemed to draw others in. If nothing else, he was definitely
loud...
***
“We must endeavor to keep this quiet,” Jefferson Davis said. The nation had dragged itself into 1857 with a heavy sense of dread. Alabama and Mississippi had joined South Carolina in departing the Union, and all assembled were only waiting for the formality of Florida finishing its convention. Senator Davis looked around the table at his fellow diners - Congressman Robert Toombs of Georgia, Senator R.M. Taliaferro Hunter of Virginia, and Senator Judah Benjamin of Louisiana. A small group, but one that Davis felt could speak freely and privately. They had assembled in the National Hotel to discuss what they, elected members of the United States congress, were to do in light of the crisis.
“I maintain,” said Hunter, “that it is still possible to preserve the Union as an equal partnership between North and South. My correspondence has kept me abreast of developments in Virgina - many are not ready to so soon leave the Republic. They feel that radicalism has distorted the thinking of their Southern brethren.”
“It is too late,” Toombs said, fixing Hunter with his baleful stare. “Georgia shall soon join with the secessionists. As it should; you know that I have endeavored for too long to restore this nation to its rightful balance, but this illegitimate election has rendered reconciliation impossible. I will not stand for negro equality, nor negro citizenship, nor for the white race to be degraded by racial mixing.
My correspondence shows the same feeling in Georgia; we will meet the Unionist force upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other.”
“Oh, good!” Judah Benjamin hadn’t eaten in hours. “Yes, don’t worry, you’re not interrupting,” he said to the waiter who had appeared a tactful distance from the private table. “Please go on.”
“Sirs,” the waiter said, “we have for dinner tonight two excellent dishes - an sublime cut of steak, and a fresh fillet of the finest fish.”
“I shall have the fish,” said Davis.
“I as well,” said Hunter.
“Fish,” said Toombs.
“I’m in the mood for steak! All this heavy talk requires a fortified mind,” said Benjamin.
The table fell into that temporary silence which follows a waiter’s departure. Davis allowed it to hang, deep in thought. Toombs was right, he knew. Virginia and the border states were not yet ready to commit, but the far South would not tolerate the abolitionist President. However, when the Union troops began to march across their borders to deprive their brothers of their god-given right to Property, their minds would change. They would look more kindly on a Southern Confederation. And the Second American Revolution would need a leader, as did the first. And Jefferson Davis had a good idea of who that would be. He could feel it in his gut.
***
“Waiter! A pot of coffee for me, if you will. Tell me, have my associates yet appeared?”
“S-sir? Have you not heard?”
“Heard what?” Judah Benjamin asked.
“Something
terrible has happened...”
***
WASHINGTON EPIDEMIC
Mysterious ‘National Hotel’ Disease Claims Two Senators, Congressman, Dozens More [2]
***
“It is at least a comfort that he died in peace, and did not linger from disease. He may be the last to see peace in Virginia for some time...”
“He is with your mother now,” Robert E. Lee said, as he stood with Mary over the grave of George Washington Parke Custis. Robert was the executor of the Custis estate. It was ironic, he thought, that he found himself (by the terms of the will) freeing almost 200 slaves, as men in Richmond debated sundering their ties to the Union over keeping men in bondage. Idaho and Louisiana had joined the ‘Confederacy’, and many in Virginia wished to do the same. Lee soon would be in Richmond, but only to manage some minor financial issues. He would take no part in revolutionary talk.
May God avert that evil from us, he thought. As a military man and a Virginian, it was a difficult time for Lee.
If the Union is dissolved, and the government disrupted, I must stay with my native state and share the miseries of my people; and, save in defense, will draw my sword on none.
Robert E. Lee. Just barely outside the shot: An AK-47 given to him by time-travelers.
***
“
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword! For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. The word of the Lord!” Louis Wigfall thundered at the assembled crowd. A shout of “hurrah” went up, along with several hats and more than one bullet. The South Carolina native had not been chosen to participate in the secession convention. In fact, those who supported immediate secession were the minority in the convention [3]. So Wigfall was determined to make himself heard one way or another. Never the most level-headed guy, he figured whipping up a crowd into a bellowing frenzy was a very literal way to be heard. [4] The audience was at this point mostly the kind of people who like hearing someone yell about secession for 20 minutes, but there was also a decent-sized crowd of Unionists, yelling “boo!” and “shame!” [5].
Wigfall was just getting to a really good bit about Southern Honor and Natural Rights and all that when the first punch was thrown. A Unionist and a secessionist went down in a kicking, biting heap, and the crowd went wild. Wigfall was still trying to yell out his speech as the onlookers rapidly became rioters. The Unionist contingent was beaten into submission and chased down the street, before someone noted that there was a tavern owned by a prominent Unionist just blocks away - rather close to the convention. The crowd began to surge, and Louis Wigfall decided this was it - it was his time!
The Notorious W.I.G.fall. Played here by Brian Blessed.
Robert E. Lee was coming out of a lawyer’s office when a man whose face was covered in blood collided with him.
“Good Lord!”
“I’m blind! Oh Jesus, I’m blind!”
“You’re not blind, sir!” Lee wiped the blood from the man’s eyes with a rag. He knew from his time in Mexico how frightfully even minor head wounds could bleed. “What is happening?”
“It’s the rebels, sir! The revolution has begun! They’re like animals!”
Lee put the man’s hand over the rag. “Hold this to your head. I shall summon the authorities.” The Virginia militia was notably hanging around town, just in case. With the heightened mood, people were worried about the worst happening. And now it had.
"Good luck!" said the man. "The officers are gone! They've either fled or joined the mob!"
The rioters had torn the tavern to pieces, and a few were trying to set it ablaze. The rest had appropriated the liquor for the people’s revolution. Wigfall was just rousing them to make it the rest of the way to the convention when he saw the militia.
“Halt!” cried the bearded man in front.
“We represent the will of the Southern people, sir! Join us in our cause!”
“Anarchy is not the will of the people! Stand down!” Robert E. Lee stood at the front of the few militiamen he had found milling about. Whether their officers had joined the fray or been misdirected to another part of the town, he did not know. But
someone had to take command. “We stand only in defense! Withdraw and there need be no more violence!”
“If you stand against us, you stand against Virginia!”
“I stand as her protector.”
“Forward!”
“Halt! HALT!”
“FIRE!”
***
“The Fort has been entirely consumed by flames, Mr. President.”
President Seward put his head in his hands. He had not wanted it to come to this - why wouldn’t they
listen when he told them?
“I told you!” Vice-President Speed. “I said that peace could not solve this! And now the rebels have fired the first shot!”
“They do claim that the attack was a response to ‘Unionist suppression’ in Virginia,” volunteered Attorney General Lincoln.
“That is
nonsense,” said Speed. “Virginia’s convention has rejected anarchy, through democracy. The slavers have lost the vote, and they will lose on the battlefield! We are in the right, and we will triumph!”
***
“Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!”
“President Rhett, we must leave!” cried Secretary of State Henry Jackson. “Our lines have collapsed, Montgomery is lost!” Even with Rhett’s tight grip on the press, and tendency to intern any who questioned the Confederacy’s success, thousands of civilians had already poured out of the besieged capital.
“The British will intervene. They cannot abandon us; I have told them we will turn to France otherwise.”
“The British are not coming! They have denied our ships port, seeking favor with the Union. Sir, this nation is more than a sick man. It is a dead man walking.”
“Bragg’s force is destroyed. Pillow has been crushed by Jubal Early. Only Price’s force has held out, and Lee has blocked them from aiding us,” said Secretary of War Kirby Smith.
Rhett knocked a tower of papers from his desk. “I will not give up! I will not surrender! Not until the last drop of blood is shed! I will not let them beat
me!
I will not lose!”
Revisionists take note: Their money had goddamn slaves on it.
***
“You have won fairly. Let this bloodshed end.” Thomas Jackson handed his sword to Robert E. Lee.
“It is well that war is so terrible,” Lee said, “otherwise we should grow too fond of it.”
~~~~~
President Reagan had grown fond of Pendleton Murrah over the past two and a half years, and it pained him to see his friend this way. Murrah was a shambles, both physically and emotionally - tuberculosis was wracking his lungs, and his beloved Confederacy was all over, as they say, except for the crying.
“I am sorry more could not be done,” the President said. Texas had served as something of a free port for Confederate goods, especially cotton, during the war. But between an active and largely unimpeded US Navy and British political opposition to Confederate cotton, it had not been enough to save the south. Texas had even established a semi-secret arms facility, under the control of Samuel Walker. Reagan was wary of angering the United States too much, so he hadn’t pushed the shipping issue. But as friendly as France was, it couldn’t hurt to give Texas an independent arms manufacturing base, especially one underwritten with Confederate gold.
But there was only so much to be done, and Murrah knew it as well as he. The Confederacy was small, facing a mighty industrial foe, and burdened with a mad egoist of a President. The Confederate ambassador (former ambassador?) bore Reagan no ill will.
“I am sorry about a great many things, these days,” Murrah said with a wan smile. He coughed into a handkerchief and rapidly refolded it, not quite quickly enough to hide the red blots from Reagan. Murrah was embarrassed.
“What... what are your plans now, Pen?”
“We will keep fighting,” the ambassador said, in a firey voice that clashed with his sad eyes. “We will continue the war against the Yankee until the end.”
“Yes, but... I believe you are too ill to return to the south, especially in such a trying time.” Murrah was loathe to acknowledge this, but sat silent. “Indeed, I think a great many people might wish to depart the South some time very soon. And I think Texas may be a hospitable new home.”
Murrah focused on Reagan with a new intensity.
“And I think perhaps I might seek aid in the integration of such a mass from someone who is expert in both matters of Texas and the South.”
It looked like Texas couldn’t have a mass of slave owners across the border. But maybe they’d be just as useful within the border.
With blood-flecked teeth, Murrah smiled for the first time in weeks.
[1] He thought this OTL, as well. How pwecious.
[2] The time and place of the disease are OTL. The victims, less so.
[3] As in OTL. But here, the lines are more sharply drawn between radical secessionists and strong Unionists. There is still a vital block of undecideds, though.
[4] Wigfall was a bit of a maniac, and fond of elevating conflicts to the duel level. During one duel, he was shot through both legs by none other than cane-beater Preston Brooks. One can assume Brooks did NOT receive a congrats letter from the Wigster upon his acquittal.
[5] Alas, too early for “Freebird!”