What kind of government head of state does the CSSA use? A premiere? Do they still use president? A triumvirate?

I was thinking a triumvirate with the head of state having the title of President, the head of government being a Prime Minister, and head of the Communist Party having the title of General Secretary. During the lifetime of the CSSA, a very powerful leader (a Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev) could hold all three offices.
 
I was thinking a triumvirate with the head of state having the title of President, the head of government being a Prime Minister, and head of the Communist Party having the title of General Secretary. During the lifetime of the CSSA, a very powerful leader (a Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev) could hold all three offices.

I like this.
 
The Confederacy's Cannae
"Ever since the founding of Jamestown, it doesn't matter if it's Yorktown, Glendale or Ashland, American history has this awful habit of hinging the future of the continent on the outcome of bloody battles fought in Virginia." - Jon Kukla, American historian

"As a General, Lee desperately sought to fight what he called 'his perfect battle, his Cannae,' and he found it on day six of the Six Days Battles, at Glendale." Douglas Southall Freeman, American historian, biographer, and journalist​

Excerpt from On the Sixth Day: The battle that broke America by Stephen W. Sears​

It's hard to imagine a more dramatic turnaround than what was seen on the Peninsula Campaign in June, 1862. Following a steady advance up the Virginia peninsula starting in March, American troops were now just a dozen miles away from Richmond. Then, General Joseph Johnson, the Confederate commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines, and was replaced in command by General Robert E. Lee. At the time derided for his defensive tactics, Lee immediately went on the offensive against the American Army of the Potomac, over a series of battles over six days starting on June 25, the Six Days Battle. The first five days saw a stunning reversal in fortunes for both armies, but the biggest moment would come on June 30, the sixth day of the battle, at Glendale.

Already in retreat, Glendale formed a chokepoint funneling the Army of the Potomac toward the James River - and Lee saw an opportunity to cut the American army in half, in spite of inferior numbers, if the proper Confederate forces could be brought to bear, with three divisions under General James Longstreet assaulting the American flanks and center, and a further four divisions under General Stonewall Jackson approaching the rear.

Jackson, fresh off a three-month campaign in the Shenandoah and a rapid march toward the Pennensula, Jackson and his men were exhausted. This is perhaps why during day five of the Six Days Battle, June 29, his men were held in reserve, with Lee encouraging Jackson and his men to take the Sabbath to get some well-earned respite, with Jackson himself is said to have slept half the day. Thus, in what is a dramatic example of what a difference a good night's sleep can make when Jackson and his men arrived at Glendale the following day, they were alert and prepared to enter the fray. [1]

On the morning of June 30, Jackson's forces encountered the American rear guard under William Franklin near White Oak Swamp, and after scouts located two areas where infantry could ford across, began to send three of his divisions to begin flanking the rear. While Jackson assaulted the rear guard, Lee ordered Longstreet and Hill to move against American troops currently holed up in Greendale, leading a force of nearly 45,000 Confederate soldiers in the attack. American troops in Greendale sent urgent pleas for reinforcements to the rearguard, only for Franklin to say none could be spared, needing everything they had to hold off Jackson.

Perhaps sensing that the American defenders were beginning to waver, Longstreet ordered a full assault, smashing through the center of the overextended American lines. Sweeping through the reserves, he then moved north, toward the Union elements engaged against Jackson at White Oak Swamp. Jackson then committed the remainder of his forces - more than half of the American forces at Glendale were now cut off and almost completely surrounded by two Confederate armies.

Under better leadership, it's possible that a capable general might have been able rallied Union the troops, taken advantage of their superior numbers, or perhaps escaped encirclement entirely. Unfortunately for the Army of the Potomac, they were led by General George McClellan. Or they would have been, had McClellan not already fled the battle, deserting his men in Glendale in favor of finding sanctuary aboard the USS Galena without even leaving anyone in charge of Union forces, in perhaps one of the most brazen examples of dereliction of duty in the history of the American military. While his men were encircled at Glendale, the self-styled Young Napoleon lacked even the courage to face his Waterloo.[2]

It wasn't a total loss for the Army of the Potomac. Joe Hooker's division managed to avoid the encirclement entirely, and two divisions led by Phil Kearny broke through the closing Confederate lines. Those three divisions, along with two that had previously made it to Malvern Hill, were what was left of the army as a fighting force. As the sun fell over Glendale the other seven American divisions were trapped in a shrinking pocket at Glendale, one that Confederate forces continued to shrink smaller every hour - the next morning, Lee accepted the surrender of the remaining US forces. While the estimated numbers vary from source to source, Glendale cost the US Army between 50-60,000 men, including causalities, and resulted in nearly all of thier supplies and equipment. It may not have been as total a victory as that of Carthage, but Lee had delivered the Confederacy their Cannae.[3]

Lee returned to Richmond as the newly-minted hero of the Confederacy. Gone were the snickers over "Granny Lee", now he was hailed as the "Hannibal of the South", and Lee, unlike the Carthaginian, was not going to fail to follow up that victory. Spending some time to recruit and re-equip the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee began marching north, sending one force under Longstreet towards Harpers Ferry to raid the North, and a larger spearhead under Jackson aimed towards Washington, either swatting aside token American opposition, with the remnants of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia mostly being pulled back to defend the American capital.

By September, General Lee had placed Washington under siege and forces raiding western Maryland and central Pennsylvania, an utter reversal of the where the American and Confederate positions had been prior to the Six Days Battles. On September 8, he issued a three-day warning to evacuate civilians before he would begin bombarding the city, as well as a call for the suspension of hostilities and to begin "negotiating the terms of secssion."

Even having suffered such a devastating loss as they had at Glendale, the United States was far from out of the fight. The loss of men cut deep, but the USA had plenty of other soldiers in the field, and hundreds of thousands of draft-eligible men back home to fill the ranks and replace those lost. Even as the Army of the Potomac's defeat put the Virginia theater in dire straights, American armies were advancing steadily in the West, including Grant's victory at the Battle of Shiloh and Farragut's capture of New Orleans. The budding industrial and military might for which the United States would become famous for the world over in a generation's time was beginning to blossom. Even Lee's siege of Washington, while making for shocking headlines, was not as dire as it might appear, with the US capital well on it's way to becoming the most fortified city on Earth even before the loss of the Army of the Potomac.

The loss at Glendale was devastating, but by no means had it defeated the US - they still had the manpower and the materials to keep fighting the war, all they needed was time to bring that into full effect. The Roman Republic had survived their Cannae, so too could America survive their own.

Of course, the Roman Republic didn't have to deal with the British and French. [4]

[1] Our first half of the initial POD ladies and gents. General Jackson, exhausted after a rushed march back to Richmond, was unusually lethargic during the OTL Seven Days Battle. Some rest ITTL, and he's ready to make a difference.

[2] Shockingly, not alternate history, McClellan really did abandon his army at Glendale. If anyone ever tries to say history as been too hard on the coward, don't you believe it.

[3] Our first half of how the Confederacy won their independence - Lee's planned encirclement at Glendale succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, thanks to a one-two punch of Jackson actually attacking the Union rear at White Oak Swamp, and Longstreet attacking the center in masse as opposed to small probing attacks, along with Franklin being unable to send forces to reinforce Union lines.

[4] And we have the SECOND half of how the Confederacy won their independence. More next time!
 
I wasn't expecting the POD to be the Seven Days Battles, or that it would be a quick war. Great job and keep it up!

Its one of those cliches of alternate history I hate - a battle like Gettysburg or Antietem or pretty much anything post-Gettysburg wouldn't have knocked the US out of the war. That was always the big difference between the Union and the Confederacy - the US could afford to lose a major battle, the Confederates could not.

The confederates are much like Germany or Japan in World War II - the only way they winn is if the war is short and day win an over whelming one sided victory. The longer any war between North and South lasts, the more the North will be able to bring their greater manpower, production and resources to play.

Even then it's gonna take outside powers sticking their thumbs on the scale.
 
I see you've read the What Ifs book. Most of what you've written above comes from there. I've always felt that Glendale doesn't get talked about enough. It really could have been a gamechanger.
 
I see you've read the What Ifs book. Most of what you've written above comes from there. I've always felt that Glendale doesn't get talked about enough. It really could have been a gamechanger.

I'd actually forgotten that one of the "What if?" essays had used the same POD. I should really re-read them one of these days.

My main sources for this were books written in OTL by Douglas Southall Freeman and Stephen W. Sears, which is why I have them cited ITTL as well.

Freeman for his sweeping biography of Lee, which I will be drawing upon a lot, that cites Lee's own diaries where Lee admits had Jackson gone ahead and attacked the rear and Longstreet charged as a whole, Glendale could have been the perfect battle he spent the rest of the war chasing. The only action during the war that haunted Lee more than the failed encirclement at Glendale was Pickett's Charge. It won't be the last time I'll be turning to Freeman's Lee biographies, though obviously, things are going to work out quite differently for Lee ITTL.

Sears, for his two seminal works on the Pennensula Campaign and early Army of the Potomac, "To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign" and "Controversies & Commanders: Dispatches from the Army of the Potomac". In both books, Sears makes a compelling case for how Glendale could have easily gutted the Army of the Potomac - he cites the fact that had the US rear guard under Franklin been assaulted by Jackson, critically, divisions they'd sent to reinforce the front lines when Longstreet attacked wouldn't have been able to be sent. While he's not the first to cite the absence of McClellan at the battle either, his books are where I learned of it, and I'm always up to bash Little Nappy.

You are spot on about Glendale never getting the attention it deserves, which is a major reason I used it - so many works of AH, from timelines on this site to professionally published books, have this fixation with Antietam and Gettysburg as PODs, when the latter especially was too late in the war to save the Confederacy. You need a battle early enough in the war where the Confederacy hasn't been too gutted from the war, the Union hasn't won too many victories, where the potential for a deeply one-sided victory exists. The Seven Days Battles, and Glendale specifically, are almost the perfect fit on all fronts.

Plus, there is some authorial bias here - I grew up in Richmond and some of my earliest memories are of my Yankee grandfather taking me along to visit the Glendale/Malvern Hill battlefields, using his visits to see us as an excuse to visit the Civil War sites.

Same reason you see me drop mention of a Battle of Ashland later on - no spoilers on where and when it is, or why it will matter, but one reason I chose that town, in particular, is I know the local geography well enough I could navigate it blind.
 
I feel bad for America but then the confederacy doesn’t seem to Ben in a good right now


Interesting to see how lee will become hated by the south

Great update and I can’t wait for more
 
Just some general questions about the world.

How many states are in the CSSA?

Does the European syndicate follow the same Marxist philosophy, or a different one a la Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union?

Is the CSSA funding Marxist proxies in the Caribbean?

Was there a Mexican revolution between the reckoning war and 1948?

I'm sorry if you've already answered these questions, but I'm just really excited about this book and I can't wait until you get it published.
 
I feel bad for America but then the confederacy doesn’t seem to Ben in a good right now

Great update and I can’t wait for more

Oh yeah, the USA is going to come away from this with an ugly black eye... and a quest for vengeance that will define the next century of American policy.

I'm still working out how we get the USA through the 1860s to where I want them to be - a major reason I set the novel nearly a century later - but don't worry, like any good fighter, it's not about how you get hit, it's how you get back up after you do. And the USA is going to spit the blood out of their mouth and come out swinging and ready to spill someone else's.

Just some general questions about the world.

Never hesitate to ask, or pick my working ideas apart. Feedback is how you get things hammered out.

How many states are in the CSSA?

Unclear at this point - like with any post-Revolution state, there will be some massive internal re-organization and rebranding during the transition from CSA to CSSA. Still working out a happy mix on this front of both plausibility and aesthetics.

What I can say are what OTL states are part of the CSSA: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, a significant chunk of Northern Flordia, including the panhandle, and a sliver of Louisiana east of the Mississippi and north of the Free City of New Orleans.

This is why I need a good mapmaker - any AH is only as good as it's map.

Does the European syndicate follow the same Marxist philosophy, or a different one a la Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union?

Communism takes on some different characteristics ITTL given circumstances - less nationalism and more focus on the creation of new nationalities merging the previous racial and ethnic groups into a new whole. While all of them are authoritarian, the extent of how much varies by nation - I'm deliberately making the European Syndicate the most Orwellian/dystopian of the bunch, while the CSSA will be more on par with your typical Eastern Bloc country, while Trans-Andean Socialist Republic/Tawantinsuyu can almost be pleasant at times so long as you keep your head down, your mouth shut and your Quechuan is better than your Spanish.

Is the CSSA funding Marxist proxies in the Caribbean?

And anywhere else that they can, to mixed success. While the CSSA is TTL's Commintern's senior member, they're not it's most powerful or influential one - the European Syndicate, or the Trans-Andean Socialist Republic/Tawantinsuyu claim those honors.

That said, it's not just the revolution that the CSSA is spreading. All I'll say for now is the South has a potent replacement for King Cotton as the nation's big cash crop.

Was there a Mexican revolution between the reckoning war and 1948?

Sort of *during* the Reckoning War actually - with Mexico on the Entente/Status Quo side of things, the USA backs democratic/anti-Hapsburg rebels during the war, and one of the reasons they take a peace deal with the CSSA is to deal with this and other fronts. Ironically, part of this involves Pershing ordering troops to AID a certain Pancho Villa.

Post-war, Mexico loses Baja California and a slice of Sonora to the USA, and the Yucatan to a surviving and successful Greater Republic of Central America, but the rest of Mexico as a stable, developing Semi-Parlimentary Republic, with the Hapsburgs still around as figurehead monarchs.

I'm sorry if you've already answered these questions, but I'm just really excited about this book and I can't wait until you get it published.

Never hesitate to ask questions, even if they may have been asked before. You guys are helping me work out things I may have overlooked or not thought about, and give feedback on the things I have.

Or for that matter, to ask me "hows the book coming along". I'm counting on friendly pestering to keep me pushing forward on it, no pressure quite like peer pressure.

Interesting to see how lee will become hated by the south.

Wait, why would Lee be hated by the South?

I was thinking the same thing, but thought maybe I missed something somewhere.

@Not Henry G.
From the first chapter

Oh it does my heart well to see such interest in the future of the Hannibal of the South. I'm actually quite proud of what I have cooked up for Lee.

One of my big goals originally with the Communist Confederacy stuff was to take the piss out of the Lost Cause and glorification of the Confederacy, including their patron saint, General Robert E. Lee. Another was to invert the usual US Civil War alternate history cliches, near the top of the list being Lee inevitably getting elected the second President of the CSA, typically also the one to push for the abolition of slavery.

Given I have the CSA winning the war, I'm kind of stuck with not being able to gut Lee's reputation as a general, hell, winning the war involves actually giving him his "perfect battle". So he's going to win the war, only to have the s*** kicked out of him during the peace.

How? And how does he end up remembered by Americans, and the different groups of Confederates, both before and after the revolution? Stay tuned, but while I have to work my way to it through a few updates, I have this one written and ready to go.

I didn't remember that. It really is going to be interesting how that happens

tenor.gif
 
What I can say are what OTL states are part of the CSSA: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, a significant chunk of Northern Florida, including the panhandle, and a sliver of Louisiana east of the Mississippi and north of the Free City of New Orleans.
Would each state of the CSSA have its own flag, and is red and gold still the predominate communist colors?
 
I'm sure that the CSSA (at least in the early years) has suffered from internal instability. Has Georgia tried to secede at any point? Perhaps as its own Communist nation?
 
I'm sure that the CSSA (at least in the early years) has suffered from internal instability. Has Georgia tried to secede at any point? Perhaps as its own Communist nation?

My own guess is that a communist state in America would have a very 'either we all hang together or we all hang separately' attitude.
 
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