Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
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The only border state that I'd be worried about flipping is Missouri. Kentucky was just invaded by the csa in support of a coup against the legislature, and west virginia/kanawha doesn't have any interest in returning to Virginia, which would happen if they joined the csa.
Most of them are full of union troops busy defending them. That ship has sailed. It's mostly about which part of the population you want to energize now, if you only think about benefits.
Though Lincoln is undoubtedly important, I don't want to engage in Great Man theory by making it seem like his actions are behind everything. Now that he's president we can expect more updates with a focus on his thoughts and policies.
At the end, Frémont and Cameron were fired mostly for incompetence rather than radicalism, so it's unlikely they will get any kind of recognition as long as the war rages on.
The Slave Power ITTL has been much brazer and aggressive, and that has caused a radical reaction. Lincoln, one of the most fervent believers in the theory that the Slave Power formed a vast conspiracy, was affected by this as well.
At the end, a war without abolition is worthless for the radicals, so they aren't as sensible as Lincoln when it comes to protecting Border State interests or the like.
The fact that Lincoln was not some rabid radical will be clearer ITTL, but I do think his flaws will be forgotten. Kind like how some forget Washington's.
Congress is definitely more Radical, especially because Southern dominance has pushed moderates more into the radical camp than IOTL. Reconstruction will be interesting in that regard.
At the very least, we'll get a more human portrayal of him, especially because he will remain alive and oversee Reconstruction - and thus we will be more aware of his mistakes and shortcomings.
By the end of the Civil War giant strides in the way of equality were being made, such as allowing Black people into Congressional sessions or Presidential galas, or admitting the first Black attorney to practice before the Supreme Court. An African-American generation of historians to counter the Lost Causers may appear.
Battle-hardened Free Soilers are unsurprisingly some of the most radical and unfettered abolitionists out there. They don't want to just defeat the Slave Power - they want to destroy it.
Well, those newly freed Kansan Slaves will probably end up creating their own communities, which could attract freedmen from other parts of the US.
At least we know that Black soldiers would be a great boost to the Union war effort.
The Slave Power has already pushed many OTL moderates into radicalism. From forcing slavery upon Kansas, or the fact that only Southern Democratic Justices voted in favor of the Dred Scott case, or the far more dramatic saga of John Brown, many moderates don't want to give an inch to the Slavocracy.
That's the flipside, but fortunately Lincoln had enough time to apply his Kentucky strategy and at least secure the existence of Unionist governments there. However, you are right that many Unionists or moderates had been pushed into the secession ranks due to the increased radicalism, which boosters the Confederacy in those states.
You are quite right in that regard.
We should take into account, however, that a more radical war is naturally going to produce a conservative reaction. Fortunately, the National Union isn't as organized or powerful as the Northern Democracy was in OTL, and most of them are pro-war, but with time a peace faction will arise.
I feel that this song is rather relevant to this TL's ACW, or at least will be soon:
God what I would give to be able to visit a library in that world. A world without the Lost Cause, a world where black culture and history has been propped up from the 1870s onwards? A world where Lincoln wrote his own memoirs? Hard, but a beautiful thing, to imagine.
My gut tells me the conservative backlash will be spectacularly gruesome in its outrage, but equally gruesome in its death throes.
Though I tend to agree with Lincoln when he said 'to lose Kentucky is to lose the whole game' as it was an immensely valuable strategic spot, had industry, and would have been a shield for the Mississippi/Tennessee. Missouri, while a pain in the ass, is not nearly so strategically valuable.
@Earthallias None are directly involved, although France is intervening in Mexico.
A more radical Civil War may result in a harder division, where if you're not a Patriot you are automatically a Traitor.
Fortunately Polk overplayed his hand and the Union is in control of most of Kentucky. The Confederacy may be able to contest it for longer, but I can't see them taking it over completely.
No. And as I've said several times, I don't plan for any of them to get directly involved.
Exactly. A mini-update about Nappy III's Mexican adventures may come out this week if I find the time to write it.
Will the original wording of the 14th be kept and not include the word male thus paving the way for earlier woman's suffrage?
Napoleon ultimately wasn't willing to give the necessary effort and resources to the Mexican enterprise, dooming it to failure.
That's certainly possible! Since it's the only article that explicitly discriminates on account of sex, in TTL if may only refer to "persons", opening the way for an incluse interpretation that would allow women to vote. However, I doubt we would find many feminism within the Republican ranks, which may render things more difficult.
Well that and maximilian trying to hold an unpopular centrist position between a conservative faction that wanted a strong monarchy and a liberal faction that wanted a republic.
That's certainly possible! Since it's the only article that explicitly discriminates on account of sex said:
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Or, the opposition (Democrats may be kind of dead, so Unionist or whatever)insists on "persons" in order to try to kill the aamendment, but then if the GOP does accept it, take credit for helping suffrage along later.
Anxious to see some of Lincoln's humor eventually, too. I think there has been some, but that's the one drawback to having such good, thorough updates, they take a long while.
Anxious to see some of Lincoln's humor eventually, too. I think there has been some, but that's the one drawback to having such good, thorough updates, they take a long while.
Yeah that too. Poor Max...
There's a way of achieving that, and is through the Sanitary Commission, which showed that women could play an important and oftentimes vital part in the war.
National Unionists right now. The last few Northern Democrats sere pro-Administration who disappeared thanks to Buchanan.
It's been hard to include Lincoln's humor here, but I'll try to in future updates. I love his sense of humor. I look forward to including his story about the British and the portrait of Washington. One of my favorites.
Chapter 20: The River War
Chapter 20: The River War
Ulysses S. Grant did not seem like the savior of the Union. He hadn’t achieved a victory like McDowell had; neither did he have the Napoleonic manner of McClellan or the decisive bravery of Lyon. Diffident, tormented by alcoholism that often drew unfair criticism and threw him into depression, Grant however proved himself to be equal to the task at hand. His legend started in 1862, when he conducted the war in the Mississippi after General Polk invaded the state.
Polk’s maneuver had been ill-advised, and it quickly lit the flame of Kentucky Unionism. “The actions of the Southern General,” a secessionist grimly concluded, “have destroyed the support we had enjoyed beforehand.” Despite this, thousands of Kentuckians rallied to the Southern banner, deciding that Lincoln was a greater threat than Breckinridge. Pushed to join a side, Kentuckians split equally in favor of the rebels and the federals, with around 40,000 fighting for each side during the war – though it would eventually tilt in favor of the Union in later years. Nonetheless, in the first years of the war Kentucky was still hotly contested, and the possibility of it falling to the Confederates was a very real one. The Lincoln administration, naturally, focused a lot of resources in securing the Union’s control over the state. The southernmost Union base at Cairo, Illinois, became a formidable supply depot and training area for this very purpose, and also resources were dedicated to acquiring and solidifying control over the many rivers of the region.
The rivers, as both Frémont and Grant recognized, would be vital for any campaign. The importance of the Mississippi is obvious enough, yet it still cannot be overstated. The Father of the Waters figured as an important part of the Anaconda Plan; taking it would split the Confederacy in twain, and provide access to the very heartland of the South. There were also other very important rivers in the region. Unlike Virginia, where the west-east orientation of the rivers served as an asset to the rebels, in the west most rivers actually benefited the bluejackets. The Confederacy placed its hopes in strategic forts that prevented ships from sailing down the river, thus hopefully warding off invasions and forcing the foe to march uselessly and sink under mud and disease. One factor working against these Confederate “Gibraltars” was the fact that the Union could build better ships, and employ them with more efficacy.
Leonidas Polk
Part of it is, of course, the material element. The Confederacy simply did not have the resources to spare. Precious steel was better used in the production of arms and artillery, and even in that area it was scarce. This explains why the Confederates found it so hard to make boats in the quality and quantity necessary to completely keep the Union out from the Mississippi and its tributaries. Soldiers were also hard to come by. The problems the Breckinridge administration faced when it came to concentrating its forces have already been explained; to them, it should be added that the Confederate leadership often seemed strangely disinterested in the west, giving the lion’s share of attention, supplies and soldiers to the Maryland theater – and even there, Beauregard’s soldiers often complained of shortages.
Material superiority by itself would not be enough. Fortunately for Lincoln, the Union had also striking human talent. The main genius behind the river flotilla that so helped Grant in 1862 was James B. Eads, the Indiana-born resident of St. Louis who had been contracted by the government to build ships for use in the rivers of the region. The odd design of the ships could be owed to the genius of Samuel Pook, the main naval designer. Nicknamed "Pook’s turtles" due to their flat bottom, wide beams and thick iron armor, the ships were more than a match for the hastily converted Confederate gunboats. Their thirteen guns made them especially fearsome enemies of the Confederate forts that guarded the river system. Another formidable foe was Andrew Hull Foote, the naval officer in charge of the Western Gunboat Flotilla.
Outwardly, Foote seemed like the opposite of Grant. A naval officer with firm and deep religious beliefs that pushed him towards abolitionism and abstinence from alcohol, he contrasted Grant and his alcohol problems, lack of religious fervor and indifference towards slavery. Yet they established a good working relationship that bore good results for the Union they both cherished.
Grant and Foote’s fruitful cooperation helped to overcome the problem of army-navy relations when it came to inland water operations. Betraying the simple fact that the United States did not have the necessary institutional precedents for such a large and industrial war, there was a lot of confusion regarding how this kind of operation was to be conducted. The War Department quickly asserted that any inland operation was the Army’s responsibility, resulting in the peculiar arrangement of the Navy building, maintaining and piloting the ships but the Army being in charge. Congress would in due time rectify this, but in the meantime the Union leaders there had to make do with perplexing command chains and ragtag crews formed of sailors, soldiers, civilians and practically anyone else that was up to the task. Ironically enough, the gunboats earned their greater laurels here.
The first operation was an attack against the heights of Columbus, Kentucky, just south of Cairo. Polk had taken them at the start of his unwise invasion, and he then proceeded to fortify them with some 140 guns. The formidable position was the first to receive the perhaps haughty nickname of “Gibraltar of the West” – the rebels, much to their own frustration, also did not have an equivalent of the Royal Navy to defend it. Other forts dotted the Mississippi in its downriver course to Memphis, but they were poorly equipped because President Breckinridge, wanting to retake his beloved home state, had insisted on the fortification of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Very important strategically, Union control of the rivers would make communications with Kentucky more difficult and put one of the Confederacy’s most important wheat-growing and mule-raising regions at risk.
Andrew Hull Foote
Breckinridge chose a fellow son of Kentucky to command the Southern forces in the area. Albert Sydney Johnston had great military experience, being a veteran of the Black Hawk War, the Texan Revolution and the Mexican-American War. He had come to consider himself a Texan, and true to that he spent most of his years in the peacetime-army in the Lone Star State. His reputation and prestige earned him the respect and admiration of many, including, critically, that of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. His personal story in the first months of the war even befitted that of a great general in the making – he resigned his position as commander of the California Department, evaded capture by armed patrols and set out in a daring trek across the continent to the Confederacy, to which he pledged his loyalty and service. His legend, commanding height and his pleasant manner gave him authority and respect. Davis went as far as naming him "the greatest soldier, the ablest man, civil or military, Confederate or Federal."
Now it was time to live up to that legend. His Department of the West had around 80,000 Confederates facing more than 100,000 Federals in a line that covered eastern Kentucky and parts of Missouri. While Johnston had been granted complete authority in the Confederate West, Union leadership was divided between the shrewd and capable, but oftentimes reckless and aggressive Nathaniel Lyon, and the impatient and battle-ready William T. Sherman. Lyon had been appointed commander of the Department of Missouri after Lincoln had been forced to dismiss Frémont. For his part, Sherman was sent to Kentucky following his distinguished participation in the Battle of Baltimore, where his regiment proved essential in pinning down Confederate reinforcements and thus securing victory.
But, worryingly enough, Sherman had started to display erratic behavior that points out to a nervous collapse. His demand for many more men was logical enough; the Battle of Baltimore had already shown that this was not to be a 90 days war. What alarmed his subordinates and superiors was his seeming paranoia when it came to spies, and his surly behavior. Nowadays, it’s pretty clear that Sherman fell into a case of depression. He even confessed in a letter that he entertained thoughts of suicide. His inability to help East Tennessee’s Unionists had been forgiven in account of his service at Baltimore and the fact that the difficult terrain made such a move all but impossible, but it still constituted a hit to his confidence.
Lincoln, still trying to find a winning strategy, asked Sherman and Lyon to cooperate. Urged on by General-in-chief Scott to keep up the planned descend on the Mississippi instead of “ghastly combats such as those at Baltimore”, Lincoln wanted to use his superior numbers to overwhelm the Confederates. "Attack different points, at the same time," the President advised his generals. Sherman was not willing to do so due to his wildly exaggerated estimations of Confederate strength in the zone, but Lyon was eager.
The Missourian found a like-minded official in Grant. The confidence of the Ohioan had been rising steadily, in part because his modesty and common-sense aptitude inspired respect and obedience from the enlisted men and earned him the high esteem of his superiors. The main factor seems to be a now famous anecdote about his first action as a colonel of an Illinois regiment. Fear and the desire to get out of the battlefield seemed to grapple Grant as he approached the rebel camp. Though personally brave, a trait he had shown sufficiently in the Mexican War, Grant now had the weight of command on his shoulders. Yet he carried on. When he finally reached the camp, he saw that the rebels had fled. The Southern commander, Grant realized, "had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot. . . . The lesson was valuable." The sang froid he acquired there would be expressed clearly in another incident, when a larger Confederate force encircled him and he decided against surrender, simply saying that "we had cut our way in and could cut our way out just as well." And he proceeded then to do just that.
Albert Sidney Johnston
Grant suggested attacking Fort Henry on the Cumberland, a suggestion Lyon listened to almost immediately. Though the hot-headed Lyon had initially wanted to attack Columbus head on, he was no fool, and he recognized that Fort Henry was not well-placed, and that Johnston had neglected it because he expected the Union to attack Columbus or Bowling Green. Grant quickly landed to the South of Fort Henry in early January, but his troops slogged in the mud thanks to heavy rains. Ultimately, Foote’s gunboats did most of the work. Grant’s troops only arrived to take in the artillery company that had stayed in the Fort. Most of the garrison recognized that the situation was hopeless, and withdrew to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, some 12 miles away from Fort Henry.
Now Grant was in the middle of the two main Confederate forces, something that understandably alarmed Johnston. Now the Federals could freely choose whether they wanted to attacked Columbus from the rear or subdue Donelson first. The possibility that distressed the Confederate general the most was Grant attacking his front while Sherman attacked him from the other side. The aggressive Lyon was quick to favor this idea, as he wanted to secure the complete destruction of the enemy. Grant had wanted to subdue Fort Donelson first, but Lyon decided not to miss this opportunity to crush the rebels. And thus, Grant was directed to bypass Fort Donelson and instead attack Johnston at Bowling Green.
The task of Johnston was harder thanks to the contradicting orders and desires of the President and the other Johnston. While Joseph E. Johnston, a believer in cautious defense, wanted Albert Sidney Johnston to retreat to a line along Nashville and protect the important iron there, Breckinridge did not want to leave his native state undefended. Ultimately, Breckinridge decided to concede to his general in-chief, but it’s clear that his opinion played a part in Albert Sidney Johnston’s ultimate decision of taking his whole army to Fort Donelson, where he hoped to defeat Grant before Sherman appeared behind him, retake Fort Henry thus securing his position at Columbus (which would need the repair of the vital Louisville and Nashville Railroad that Grant had cut) and then turn back to defend Nashville when Sherman came to attack him. Basically, Johnston was aiming for a offensive-defensive stroke that would allow him to face each Union army separately, with the possibility of retreating to Nashville still open if necessary.
The pieces were thus set for the first great battle of the Civil War in the west, one that pitted Lyon and Grant’s 45,000 men against Johnston’s 40,000. The destiny of Kentucky was to be decided in that pivotal confrontation, which started in January 19th, 1862. Like Baltimore, this battle would set a new standard for a new war, and create legends for ages to come. It would, also, be one of the bloodiest yet fought.
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AN: So, this chapter is a little shorter than usual, and also ends in a cliffhanger, mainly because I wanted to hear you guy's ideas, speculations and opinions before writing how this battle will actually take place. I fully admit that I'm more comfortable with social and political than with military and economic matters, and here's where the war starts to wildly diverge from OTL, so I'd like to hear some advice from you all. I do have a plan for how it all is going to unfold, but some further information never hurts.
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Ah one of my favorite battles is about to get an upgrade! Timothy B. Smith’s book “Grant Invades Tennessee” is an excellent account of the Fort Henry-Donelson Campaign. In your timeline, both Grant’s and Johnston’s army are their respective size at OTL Shiloh. I can think of two phases for this fight to go down:
- The battle west of Fort Donelson: between Forts Henry and Donelson was rolling terrain with plenty of timber like Shiloh. It was an excellent place to ambush an opponent but probably difficult to attack and rout an enemy (which is what Johnston wants).
- If the Confederates are at Fort Donelson, I can’t see all 40,000 Confederates remaining at Fort Donelson. The area IIRC is too small to hold all of them in. Instead I could see Johnston leaving a garrison force, perhaps OTL Fort Donelson garrison, while keeping a substantial force outside of Fort Donelson (at Clarkville or Cumberland city). My idea is that Fort Donelson locks Grant in place while Johnston attempts to breakthrough Grant’s line with the support of the garrison near the town of Dover (OTL McClernand’s position).
Fort Donelson is, unlike Fort Henry, actually well placed for a defense. Its water batteries, while imperfect in some respects, had the firepower and position to repel Foote’s flotilla. Its landward defenses are formidable: the trenches in front of the OTL position of CF Smith’s Division was positioned atop a high ridge with a ditch ahead that was so choked wit timber and broken ground that only one brigade could pass at a time; the rest of the battlefield could be described in similar terms, very hilly and covered in timber and undergrowth. This ground, however, is a double-edged sword for the Confederates: attacking on this ground meant that the Union defenders have a significant advantage. John McArthur’s Highland Brigade (9,12 and 41st Illinois) successfully held off five Confederate brigades for three hours atop Dudley’s Hill on the Union extreme right.
Alright, who swapped the brains of Mclellan and Sherman?
So it appears things are now going to get bloody. Hope uncle Billy gets out of his funk. Though considering the mention of Kentucky continuing to be divided for several years, it sounds like the union victory won't be that crushing.
For once Little Mac isn't the only one at fault
. OTL and TTL Sherman are depicted very similarly, regarding both spies and semi-legitimate fears of Confederate numbers. That is what led, OTL, to his being shelved and the department broken up under Halleck and Buell. TTL looks like that hasn't happened since Sherman already got some degree of confidence from the government for his actions in Maryland.That does beg a question - where is Buell TTL? (Halleck, if I recall rightly, already is placed in the Maryland front) And follow-up question: what if anything is the Union doing in eastern Kentucky? OTL once Polk moved on Columbus, Grant/Halleck/Sherman/Anderson/Buell responded by all descending on parts of Kentucky. The western jumping-off points look like they are more-or-less mirrored TTL. But in the east, is Camp Dick Robinson a thing? And did Buell order Thomas forward to feel out Crittenden/Zollicoffer leading to Mill Springs? OTL this happened a month before Forts Henry/Donelson, so with the TTL timeline as stated this could still have happened prior to Grant's moves.
Also, as another minor question - with Breckenridge willing to make a real effort to defend Kentucky, especially once Polk moved in, why did he still have the main defensive effort on the Tennessee be at Fort Henry, and not at the far superior Fort Heiman on the western bank? OTL this work was started only after Kentucky was invaded in force, because the western bank of the river lies in Kentucky. But unlike Fort Henry, which was several feet underwater, Fort Heiman was on good defensive terrain.