alternatehistory.com
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John Brown’s Soul: We Shoulda Hanged Jeff Davis from a Sour Apple Tree, But We Are Marching On
-a timeline by demonkangaroo
Oho! A Civil War timeline?
Eh, not really. I’m not that interested in war in and of itself and there are plenty of actual ACW timelines and threads. Many of them are quite good. I’m much more interested in the aftermath of the war.
So this is ASB?
Again, not really. Although the crux of the timeline in and of itself is rather implausible, I’m going to do my best to keep things more or less reasonable-with a few exceptions. Any butterflies are things I want to happen for dramatic/fun purposes. The purpose of this isn’t a serious counterfactual. It’s really just to set up a world I’ve been thinking a lot about and I’d like to do something productive with it.
Ah. So vanity?
Sure. And to explore a few ideas that I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while that I think are pretty neat.
Can I complain about the implausibility?
To a point, but you’ll hurt my feelings. Now hush and enjoy. Or don’t.
The telephote beeped on and Sam settled into the couch with her cup of coffee and a banana. She wrapped her robe around her to keep out the cold October Ohio morning. Two anchors peered out of the TP set. The reporter on the left was a woman, with gray hair salting her curly black hair. Seated by her side was a youngish blond man. The female reporter had been speaking when Sam turned it on.
“…Premier Deering will be laying the wreath later today at the Harper’s Ferry Rising Memorial. At the ceremony, President Averill and the other American heads of state will be in attendance, including President Alonzo, taking a break from campaigning against Texit and the Fraserlander Chancellor McDevitt, attending despite calls for her resignation from her cabinet.” The older anchor stopped and turned to look at and listen to her younger, blond co-anchor. The young reporter began in a deep baritone.
“And in commemoration of this special anniversary of John Brown’s ill-fated slave revolt as a sign of reconciliation, the great-great grandson of Robert E. Lee and mayor of Washington, Fitz Lee will speak. We will be broadcasting this commemoration live later today at two. For now, we’ll go over to Jeremy to talk sports. Jer?”
Sam took a sip. Then she started eating the banana.
“Thanks Jim. Last night, Forest City was able to tie the series with the Knickerbockers in game six of the Fall Classic, ensuring that FCs will stay alive and make it to game seven after the John Brown Day break.”
Sam zoned out. Forest City wasn’t the Bucks, therefor not worth the attention. She checked her pocket phone to see when the parade was scheduled today. She was supposed to meet up with her boyfriend and watch it go through the downtown. But given the forecast, it didn’t look like good parade weather. They’d find something else to do instead. Sam turned back to the TP and realized that they had switched to their Southron politics correspondent. Sam tried to follow it but switched the TP off. Their politics don’t really make sense anyway she thought. No matter how many times her boyfriend tried to explain the way things worked in his homeland, she still didn’t get it.
So Sam got up, finished banana and tossed the peel into the compost bucket. She made a mental note to take it outside to the municipal bin. It’d been two days and Sam didn’t like the smell. She padded across her apartment to her closet sized bedroom to get dressed. Her phone buzzed. It was Booker, her boyfriend.
>I’ll meet you at the corner of Third and Broad in 20. Sound good?
Sam grumbled to herself and grabbed her sweater
>r u sure its not 2 cold?
>JB Day is important. You like parades anyway!
Sam thought the cold thing would’ve worked. Oh well. Southron political priorities trumped weather concerns. She grabbed her keys and walked out the door to catch the streetcar down from the Campus area to Downtown.
>ok. ill b there
From How the 1864 Election Ended the War of the Secession by Geoffrey Miller. Santa Fe State University, 2009
“The victory over the union by the Confederate States of America was brought on by many factors but the most prominent of these was the 1864 election where the Republican President Simon Cameron failed to defeat his main opponent, Governor Horatio Seymour. This defeat was largely due to Usonian defeats in the field and the poor leadership by the President Simon Cameron’s administration, compared to the much more skilled leadership of President Alexander Stephens. If he had won the 1864 election, the war would likely had dragged on until the United States conquered the Confederacy.”
Professor Emiliano Enriquez-Garcia took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph this paper is pure shit. He continued reading Geoffrey’s paper for a while. Maybe not pure shit. More like four fifths shit, one tenth decent historical analysis and the last tenth is just bad writing. It figures. Geoff barely ever showed up for class and his paper showed it. Usually a paper with a grade this early in the semester would serve as a wake-up call to get his act together and actually show up for class. Emiliano finished reading, picked up his pen and wrote on the back of the final sheet:
From Grading Comments for: How the 1864 Election Ended the War of the Secession by Geoffrey Miller by Emiliano Enriquez-Garcia, Ph.D. Santa Fe State University, 2009
“Geoff, it’s clear that you’ve been skipping too many lectures. You oversimplify incredibly complex events during the War of the Succession and this is, simply put, not university level writing. I will enumerate some of the problems with your analysis.
Once you have fixed these problems, I’d recommend taking your paper to the University Writing Center. And if you have any questions, please stop by after class or visit me during my office hours. Remember that the final draft of this paper is 50% of your grade.
D-“
-a timeline by demonkangaroo
Oho! A Civil War timeline?
Eh, not really. I’m not that interested in war in and of itself and there are plenty of actual ACW timelines and threads. Many of them are quite good. I’m much more interested in the aftermath of the war.
So this is ASB?
Again, not really. Although the crux of the timeline in and of itself is rather implausible, I’m going to do my best to keep things more or less reasonable-with a few exceptions. Any butterflies are things I want to happen for dramatic/fun purposes. The purpose of this isn’t a serious counterfactual. It’s really just to set up a world I’ve been thinking a lot about and I’d like to do something productive with it.
Ah. So vanity?
Sure. And to explore a few ideas that I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while that I think are pretty neat.
Can I complain about the implausibility?
To a point, but you’ll hurt my feelings. Now hush and enjoy. Or don’t.
The telephote beeped on and Sam settled into the couch with her cup of coffee and a banana. She wrapped her robe around her to keep out the cold October Ohio morning. Two anchors peered out of the TP set. The reporter on the left was a woman, with gray hair salting her curly black hair. Seated by her side was a youngish blond man. The female reporter had been speaking when Sam turned it on.
“…Premier Deering will be laying the wreath later today at the Harper’s Ferry Rising Memorial. At the ceremony, President Averill and the other American heads of state will be in attendance, including President Alonzo, taking a break from campaigning against Texit and the Fraserlander Chancellor McDevitt, attending despite calls for her resignation from her cabinet.” The older anchor stopped and turned to look at and listen to her younger, blond co-anchor. The young reporter began in a deep baritone.
“And in commemoration of this special anniversary of John Brown’s ill-fated slave revolt as a sign of reconciliation, the great-great grandson of Robert E. Lee and mayor of Washington, Fitz Lee will speak. We will be broadcasting this commemoration live later today at two. For now, we’ll go over to Jeremy to talk sports. Jer?”
Sam took a sip. Then she started eating the banana.
“Thanks Jim. Last night, Forest City was able to tie the series with the Knickerbockers in game six of the Fall Classic, ensuring that FCs will stay alive and make it to game seven after the John Brown Day break.”
Sam zoned out. Forest City wasn’t the Bucks, therefor not worth the attention. She checked her pocket phone to see when the parade was scheduled today. She was supposed to meet up with her boyfriend and watch it go through the downtown. But given the forecast, it didn’t look like good parade weather. They’d find something else to do instead. Sam turned back to the TP and realized that they had switched to their Southron politics correspondent. Sam tried to follow it but switched the TP off. Their politics don’t really make sense anyway she thought. No matter how many times her boyfriend tried to explain the way things worked in his homeland, she still didn’t get it.
So Sam got up, finished banana and tossed the peel into the compost bucket. She made a mental note to take it outside to the municipal bin. It’d been two days and Sam didn’t like the smell. She padded across her apartment to her closet sized bedroom to get dressed. Her phone buzzed. It was Booker, her boyfriend.
>I’ll meet you at the corner of Third and Broad in 20. Sound good?
Sam grumbled to herself and grabbed her sweater
>r u sure its not 2 cold?
>JB Day is important. You like parades anyway!
Sam thought the cold thing would’ve worked. Oh well. Southron political priorities trumped weather concerns. She grabbed her keys and walked out the door to catch the streetcar down from the Campus area to Downtown.
>ok. ill b there
From How the 1864 Election Ended the War of the Secession by Geoffrey Miller. Santa Fe State University, 2009
“The victory over the union by the Confederate States of America was brought on by many factors but the most prominent of these was the 1864 election where the Republican President Simon Cameron failed to defeat his main opponent, Governor Horatio Seymour. This defeat was largely due to Usonian defeats in the field and the poor leadership by the President Simon Cameron’s administration, compared to the much more skilled leadership of President Alexander Stephens. If he had won the 1864 election, the war would likely had dragged on until the United States conquered the Confederacy.”
Professor Emiliano Enriquez-Garcia took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph this paper is pure shit. He continued reading Geoffrey’s paper for a while. Maybe not pure shit. More like four fifths shit, one tenth decent historical analysis and the last tenth is just bad writing. It figures. Geoff barely ever showed up for class and his paper showed it. Usually a paper with a grade this early in the semester would serve as a wake-up call to get his act together and actually show up for class. Emiliano finished reading, picked up his pen and wrote on the back of the final sheet:
From Grading Comments for: How the 1864 Election Ended the War of the Secession by Geoffrey Miller by Emiliano Enriquez-Garcia, Ph.D. Santa Fe State University, 2009
“Geoff, it’s clear that you’ve been skipping too many lectures. You oversimplify incredibly complex events during the War of the Succession and this is, simply put, not university level writing. I will enumerate some of the problems with your analysis.
- You say that there were other reasons for the CSA’s victory besides the 1864 election. Can you state them instead of glossing over them?
- It is unbecoming to make value judgements in a history course. Is it fair to say that P. Cameron had a bad administration? Elaborate more!
- You cast the US as the “good guys” and the CS as the “bad guys”. While according to our modern sensibilities, the US was far superior to the CS but at the time the two were just differing, undemocratic capitalist regimes
- Hindsight bias: there is no way the people of the time had any idea of what tomorrow would bring. You can’t write, judging our ancestors and blame them for not knowing how their actions would have played out.
Once you have fixed these problems, I’d recommend taking your paper to the University Writing Center. And if you have any questions, please stop by after class or visit me during my office hours. Remember that the final draft of this paper is 50% of your grade.
D-“
- Guildencrantz
- Word Count: 1.2k