Yes still alive!! Though not very participative here. Just a quick note on your comment, I doubt Mexico would be able to eat chunks of the CSA since not only does it have no claim to them (Texas was never part of Mexico in TTL) but they are more populous than most of its norther territories.
¡Por la Patria, Viva México Fuerte! A Mexican TL
- Thread starter Arkhangelsk
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- strong mexico
Yes still alive!! Though not very participative here. Just a quick note on your comment, I doubt Mexico would be able to eat chunks of the CSA since not only does it have no claim to them (Texas was never part of Mexico in TTL) but they are more populous than most of its norther territories.
Indeed, Mexico still has the task of settling California and the *Colorado border, as well as securing Tejas. Mexico's badass but they are no more immune to overextension than the Americans. I also don't think absorbing large chunks of the US South is doable in the long run, as it's still an open question as to whether the Confederacy will last, I also have a hard time seeing large populations of southern Americans being willingly assimilated into Mexican culture, so some level of dissent would persist there, not to mention that if the North gets back on its feet I can't imagine an easier casus belli from the American point of view than freeing Americans living in formerly American lands.
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You're very much correct, you won't be seeing Mexico going on any imperialistic land grabs any time soon. All things considered the government in Mexico City understands that they have their plate full with settling the north. Doing that will be quite the undertaking, but focusing on their northern half to ensure it can never be taken away will be much more beneficial both short term and long term than any sort of imperialistic adventure in Cuba or Texas. Of course that's not to say they'll try any sort of funny business in Cuba or along the border with Texas...at least not anything officially sanctioned by President Álvarez or the Congress.
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You're very much correct, you won't be seeing Mexico going on any imperialistic land grabs any time soon. All things considered the government in Mexico City understands that they have their plate full with settling the north. Doing that will be quite the undertaking, but focusing on their northern half to ensure it can never be taken away will be much more beneficial both short term and long term than any sort of imperialistic adventure in Cuba or Texas. Of course that's not to say they'll try any sort of funny business in Cuba or along the border with Texas...at least not anything officially sanctioned by President Álvarez or the Congress.
I quite like the idea of Mexico getting Gitmo in return for aiding Cuba.
Hoping you had a nice jour de l'action de grâce (Thanksgiving), Arkhangelsk, and wondering what's next in store.
Thanks Dan, I did
I hope yours was nice as well! I'm about half way done with the next update, it's gonna wrap up the ACW and all that good stuff. As for Mexico (which I'll get to in the following update), it's doing pretty well. Last time we left off on them they'd just elected their first Liberal President and are in the process of fixing their constitution. I'll be going into greater detail just how they handle that, as well as how they deal with the ACW (specifically the fallout from Santa Anna's shenanigans in Deseret).
This update has been driving me nuts lol, mostly the parts concerning Oregon. Like I mentioned to Dan, this update will wrap up the ACW, and I've been eager to post up this particular one for quite a long time, so hopefully y'all won't wait too much longer. I'm about 50% done with it, I've had very little free time lately due to work, but I'll try my best to get the update up before 2015 is out.
Thanks Dan, I did
It was, yes. Noël this year promises to be just as good (we're doing the second year of a Yankee swap, which was successful last time).
I await the update with baited breath.
Thanks Dan, I did
I'm about half way done with the next update, it's gonna wrap up the ACW and all that good stuff. As for Mexico (which I'll get to in the following update), it's doing pretty well. Last time we left off on them they'd just elected their first Liberal President and are in the process of fixing their constitution. I'll be going into greater detail just how they handle that, as well as how they deal with the ACW (specifically the fallout from Santa Anna's shenanigans in Deseret).
This update has been driving me nuts lol, mostly the parts concerning Oregon. Like I mentioned to Dan, this update will wrap up the ACW, and I've been eager to post up this particular one for quite a long time, so hopefully y'all won't wait too much longer. I'm about 50% done with it, I've had very little free time lately due to work, but I'll try my best to get the update up before 2015 is out.
Sweet! I eagerly await!!
After a quick google search I figured out what a yankee swap is
I've only heard it referred as a White Elephant, but yes the times I've been part of one have been a blast. Hope you all have fun and a Merry Christmas! Hopefull y'all won't wait too much longer now
Merry Christmas to you too GohanLSSJ2 As a little Christmas gift of sorts for y'all, here's a map of the world right after the Armistice in 1862.
After a quick google search I figured out what a yankee swap is
Hopefull y'all won't wait too much longer now
As a little Christmas gift of sorts for y'all, here's a map of the world right after the Armistice in 1862.
Great map! Merry Christmas!
Nice map, Arkhangelsk!After a quick google search I figured out what a yankee swap is
Hopefull y'all won't wait too much longer now
As a little Christmas gift of sorts for y'all, here's a map of the world right after the Armistice in 1862.
After a quick google search I figured out what a yankee swap is
Hopefull y'all won't wait too much longer now
As a little Christmas gift of sorts for y'all, here's a map of the world right after the Armistice in 1862.
Nice map!
Poor Venetia, though; hopefully they don't stay in Austria's clutches for too much longer.....(and hopefully the C.S.A. starts losing soon!)After a quick google search I figured out what a yankee swap is
Sounds good.
Ours was a blast; now I can't wait for 2016 to come. And nice map, BTW. Happy New Year!Hey Arkhangelsk, hope you had a Happy New Year!
I've checked the Chat section here and... guess what I found regarding Oregon? Check this out! You might get some ideas!
I've checked the Chat section here and... guess what I found regarding Oregon? Check this out! You might get some ideas!
Sounds good.
Haha that's awesome to hear man, and a happy (belated) New Year to you too!!
Thanks GohanLSSJ2, I did! I worked New Years Eve but I got off of work early and spent New Years Day with my family. I hope you had a splendid New Years as well!
Thanks for that link...wow I knew Oregon had some...unsavory beginnings, but I was unaware of any concrete details. I'll look through this and see if I can find a place for it in the next update. Speaking of...
...I'm almost done with this one guys and gals!
I'm about 60-65% done with this update. I've been on and off working on it due to a combination of work, writer's block and spending a lot of my free time out with friends. I will say though this one will be significantly longer than normal. I'm covering a lot of information, and this update in particular has been one I've been planning for a very long time. I wanna end this ACW arc with a bang so to speak and not have it suck like the ending to my MAW finale. That said, I don't know when I'll have this one up, but I feel like my writing mojo is coming back, so if all goes well I may have this one up by this weekend or next week. After that I can finally get back to talking about Mexico, and I'll follow that up with a big ass map of North America.This is gonna be amazing!Haha that's awesome to hear man, and a happy (belated) New Year to you too!!
Thanks GohanLSSJ2, I did! I worked New Years Eve but I got off of work early and spent New Years Day with my family. I hope you had a splendid New Years as well!
Thanks for that link...wow I knew Oregon had some...unsavory beginnings, but I was unaware of any concrete details. I'll look through this and see if I can find a place for it in the next update. Speaking of...
...I'm almost done with this one guys and gals!
United by Blood and Fire, the Second American Civil War: 1862-1868
American Civil War PART III
Thanks dude!
I'm happy to say I have one completed update ready to go, and I couldn't be happier to be done with the American Civil War. I thought I'd never get here, lol. This one's longer than what I normally make (I think it may have been better for me to actually make this two distinct updates, but fuck it yo), but I hope y'all enjoy it nonetheless!
The armistice set into effect in the spring of 1862 gave both the northern and southern armies a much needed respite, after nearly 5 years of exhaustive warfare that left hundreds of thousands of men dead and even more maimed for life. Despite the war not being over in any official capacity, the Confederation did not shy from celebrating what they could only try to perceive as a victory. There were still many Southerners who were more cautious than jubilant, cognizant as they were of all the possibilities an armistice entailed, though that did not stop the multitudes of veterans streaming back to their homes and familial comforts. For the Confederation government in Richmond, the armistice proved (while not a victory in the slightest) to be just enough for President Toombs’ vice-President Howell Cobb to win the presidential election the following year. His northern counterpart however proved not to be nearly as fortunate.
From the moment President Dodge agreed to an armistice, he effectively assured his presidency would be a short one. The Republicans all but decimated the Democrats in the midterm elections that November, which guaranteed Dodge’s fate, and on January 26, 1863, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution to impeach the President on charges of treason and bribery. Several weeks later, the impeachment trial commenced in the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice Wendell Phillips. The President’s defense was in one word, pitiful, as many lawyers approached by the executive reneged at aiding the man who, to put it succinctly, “lost the rebellion.” On their first ballot, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the guilty verdict, and on March 8 Augustus Dodge became the first President of the United States to be removed from office. It was truly ironic, that Dodge had proven to bring such unity to Congress than in his removal. Following the rules of succession, President pro tempore Charles Sumner became the fifteenth President of the United States.[1]
15th President of the United States Charles Sumner
President Sumner, a leading individual of the Republican Party’s radical faction, was the cause of much consternation for many moderates in Congress, due to his radicalism in regards to abolition, and the fear of what an abrupt change might bring to the fractured nation. Whether it was Sumner’s sense of patriotism, his understanding to keep what remained of the Union intact, or both, the President dispatched several thousand troops to Oregon in late April in order to return the rebellious western territories back into the American fold. The surge was an effort by the Federal government to tip the scales in their favor and break a year-long stalemate that had developed between the Union forces and Oregonian rebels. General Sheridan managed some early successes in the Saptin River Valley and in northeastern Oregon, but by 1862 the rebels were deeply entrenched in the south of the Territory and the Willamette Valley. The surge that following year finally tipped the balance in the Union’s favor, as Sheridan finally made some headway into rebel territory and captured much of the High Desert and upper Columbia River, and by the autumn of 1863 was poised to take the Willamette Valley as well. Fearful of a traitor’s fate and all it entailed, Lansford Hastings made contact with the British envoy in Yerba Buena with the intent to make Oregon a British protectorate.[2] There were still many in London that were resentful over the settlement of the Oregon question in the aftermath of the Anglo-American War, and with tempers still running high over the Grappler Incident, the opportunity to “rectify the injustice set forth by the Treaty of Amsterdam” seemed too tempting to pass along.
On October 20, Hastings and troops loyal to him (both current and former employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company) launched a coup d’état against the Oregon Republic and declared it a British protectorate, after the Oregon Assembly refused an offer of British support in exchange for accepting protectorate status willingly. With lightning speed a British naval force, 2,400 strong, sailed up from Yerba Buena under the directive of Admiral Rodney Mundy with the intent to invest the Oregon coast and “aid” the rebel forces. Mundy managed easily enough to take Vancouver Island in early November, following an amphibious landing west of Fort Washington.[3] From there the British captured the mouth of the Columbia River before they engaged the entrenched Americans at Fort Vancouver. The Fort proved difficult to overcome at first, but the arrival of British reinforcements following the New Year forced the American’s to relent and on January 17, 1864 the flag of the United Kingdom was hoisted above Fort Vancouver as British troops marched into Kanamostalo. As expected, the Americans became enraged at British meddling in what was deemed a domestic affair, in light of Britain’s part in the armistice negotiations, and nearly forced both nations to declare war on one another for the first time in a generation. The only thing that prevented President Sumner from making the war with the British an official affair was the desire to settle accounts with the Confederation first and foremost, and any prolonged conflict with the United Kingdom threatened to prolong the Confederation’s survival. Battles raged for several months more, but by the eve of the general election most of Oregon was all but lost to the Americans, as the British moved to occupy the whole territory north of the 42nd parallel north, leaving the remainder in Mexican hands.[4]
The United States pitiful performance highlighted the inherent faults present within the military and the need to reform it, an issue that Sumner had attempted to tackle and which he could have succeeded at if only he had not been dragged into conflict with the United Kingdom. There had been various calls prior to the Mexican-American War to reform the military, as the American regular army proved to be only half the size of its Mexican counterpart. Calls for reform only grew in the war’s aftermath, but the army’s pathetic performance therein only enhanced the poor opinion of the regulars held by the general population, and the necessary funding required to bring about the desired reform never materialized. Despite starting the Civil War in a disadvantageous position, the subsequent five years of warfare only sped up the pace of industrialization in the North, which would have assuredly won the conflict for the Union if not for “southern treachery.” The armistice answered the prayers of many on both sides and provided a major reprieve, but as far as most Northerners were concerned, it did not dampen their desire to avenge their fallen leader and the thousands who paid the ultimate price on the front lines.
16th President of the United States, John Charles Frémont
It was under these circumstances that the Republicans nominated General John Charles Frémont for the 1864 election. Frémont was never without his share of controversy, but even that was not enough to help the Democrats, which never stood a chance at the polls considering their recent history. Sumner was understandably sullen after being spurned by his own party, but he managed to look beyond it for the good of the nation, and while in correspondence with the President-elect sent a bill to the House of Representatives which would call for a new round of national conscription. Previous attempts by the Seward administration failed miserably, as substitutions and desertion were all too common, and the resultant riots dissuaded the government from truly enforcing the draft. The new conscription law, which took effect only days after Frémont’s inauguration, brought forth another round of riots throughout the North. Unlike Seward, however, Frémont held no qualms about using the full brunt of the military to deal with rioters. Frémont had a much easier time instituting his reforms afterward, which included the introduction of new light infantry regiments in emulation of the French Zouaves, as well as the military’s adoption of the Gatling gun, a new and ferocious weapon that left many army officers awe-stricken.
Much like their northern cousins, the Confederation in the aftermath of the armistice initially sought out to “quell internal rebellion” in Cuba and rid the specter of slave revolt from this world. Approximately 5,000 soldiers disembarked from Charleston in May 1862 for Guantanamo Bay, in an attempt to extinguish the rebellion at its source in eastern Cuba. Despite stiff resistance, the Confederates managed to establish a beach head and occupy the surrounding countryside (easily enough since the land near the coast was low lying). As soon as they attempted to engage the Cuban rebels in the highlands however the Confederates were routed at every turn and they were eventually evicted from Guantanamo Bay all together. A second amphibious landing to the west at Santiago de Cuba later that year failed as well, as a combined Cuban-Haitian counteroffensive crushed what little manpower the Confederation could muster. It was perhaps these Cuban victories, as well as Haiti’s explicit involvement that finally stirred the Mexicans into action.
Ever since the norteamericanos fell into civil war in 1857, there were some calls from nationalistic deputies and senators in the Mexican Congress to strike at the Americans in their moment of weakness and retake regions of the former viceroyalty now under American hegemony. Cooler heads prevailed, as President Álvarez wisely opted to “wait and see,” despite the multitudes of slaves which continued to cross from Texas into Mexico and to freedom. This neutrality was only threatened during Santa Anna’s filibuster into Deseret and its aftermath, but for the most part Mexico stayed clear of the death match between the Union and Confederation. Tensions simmered however, as Texan border raiders made frequent incursions across the Colorado River to “retrieve lost property” as they put it, often engaging Mexican authorities and angry citizens who refused to recognize the rights of slavers, not least those which trespassed onto Mexican territory illegally. Following the Confederate reversals in Cuba in 1862, Mexico formally recognized the Republic of Cuba as a sovereign nation, which brought with it a declaration of war by the Confederation soon after.
Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza
Confederation forces under the command of General Lawrence Sullivan Ross hastily crossed the Colorado in early November with the intent to capture Béxar, the state capital. Ross’ troops were undoubtedly euphoric at the prospect of showing up the Mexicans in light of their “victories” against the North, no doubt encouraged by their capture of Hidalgo, a town to the east of the Presidio La Bahía where Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza lay in wait with a garrison of over 5,700 men, nearly half of what Ross had entered Tejas with. The Confederates managed only to beat themselves bloody against the walls of the Presidio, and were subsequently beaten back by Zaragoza when he and his army took to the field. The following month Mexican reinforcements arrived at Béxar under the command of General Miguel Negrete, which allowed Zaragoza to decimate Ross’ forces and drive them back beyond the Colorado. General Negrete was put in command of forces in the north set aside to protect against any further invasion, as General Zaragoza was tasked by Mexico City with what arguably was to be the most important assignment of his life; the Mexican invasion of western Cuba.
In May 1863 a flotilla of approximately thirty five warships and 7,500 Mexican troops disembarked from Veracruz and made twin landfalls, one south of Mantua on the western extreme of the island, along with a second landfall on the Isle of Pines. The latter was thinly populated and inadequately defended enough that the Mexicans overran the port town of Calhoun with relative ease.[5] Confederate forces surrendered to General Zaragoza as well, but advances toward the towns of Guane and Baja were halted in early June by stiff Confederate resistance. The opportune arrival of reinforcements from both the Isle of Pines and the mainland gave the Mexicans the necessary boost required to push forward, prompting the capture of Pinar del Rio in late June and San Cristobal several weeks later. The Mexican invasion forced Confederation forces in the east to divert valuable manpower away from the Cuban rebels, which precipitated the rapid capitulation of Confederate power in the east over the remainder of the year. Following the complete destruction of Port Jefferson in December by Cortés’ Army of Liberation, the Confederate government in Havana panicked, and Governor William Norris, along with most of the legislature evacuated across the Gulf to Alabama, which left General William Walker as the highest ranking Confederate official left on the island.[6]
Against his better judgement, General Walker refused to submit to the “brown hordes,” and fortified what remained of Confederate Cuba while he pleaded with Richmond for more reinforcements. Reinforcements did arrive in February 1864, but were too few to make a difference, as week by week the territory controlled by Walker continued to shrink. In April General Zaragoza and the Mexicans captured Artemisia, which put them within reach of Havana itself, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Zaragoza’s more nationalistic troops. To their dismay however, he opted against it, stating that Havana was “not their prize,” and instead entrenched his forces west of the capital while transferring manpower to the eastern front to fight alongside the Cubans. The offensives in the spring and summer followed the same pattern established the previous year, as the Rebels made gains to the north and west, razing the town of Columbus in May, followed by the capture of the port of Cardenas several weeks later.[7] General Walker personally led the defense of Matanzas, which was laid to siege by Rebel forces in early July. The siege lasted little over a month and saw much of the city destroyed, along with most of Walker’s army. Walker himself did not survive the siege, with libertadores purportedly decapitating the hated General, along with his lieutenants, and lined the main road to the city with their severed heads. The Battle of Jaruco in September paved the way for the Rebels to march on the capital, and the seizure of Güines by the Mexican Army allowed Zaragoza to link up in full with the Rebels. Havana was put to siege beginning in early October, but unlike Matanzas took significantly longer to break, with the remaining Confederates seemingly defying logic with their continued resistance. The siege of Havana lasted a little over three months, with the remaining Confederates surrendering to allied Cuban-Mexican forces on January 12, 1865. After nearly seven long years of brutal warfare, Cuba was finally a free and independent state.
The Lone Star Flag, and the First President of Cuba Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
Almost immediately the Cuban National Assembly voted by acclamation for Carlos Manuel de Céspedes as the first President of the new republic, and not long after the new government relocated from Camagüey to Havana, where the capital’s residents (both old and new) began the arduous task of rebuilding. For Cortés and his Liberators, the culmination of Cuba’s independence was viewed as a vindication of their revolution, which repudiated the notion that white elites could manumit their slaves and call it freedom, and rather promoted what had come to be known as the Liberation Doctrine.” Drawing heavily from the Christian Bible, as well as various Cuban sects such as Palo and Regla de Ochá (by and large held together by Cortés’ charismatic flare), Liberation Doctrine heavily stressed the idea that all men were born free, and the inalienable right to life could not be subverted by any man or government. It encouraged slaves to free themselves from bondage and to help those around them to freedom by whatever means necessary (recent scholarship also points to various other inspirational sources, ranging from the American Declaration of Independence to the Islamic faith). Former slaves and freedmen from across the island and beyond were drawn to Cuba, some stirred by the revolutionary’s dogma, others simply curious to meet the man himself. Someone in particular, a North Carolinian freedmen and former spy for the Union by the name of Abraham Galloway, found his way to Cortés in the last few months of the war in Cuba and the two men instantly became ardent allies. Whether Galloway knew beforehand of Cortés’ plans for insurrection in the Confederation is still up for dispute to this day, however there was no doubt that upon Galloway’s departure for New Orleans in early 1865 that those plans were being carefully laid out.
By the spring of 1865 the Confederation’s economic isolation had left it in dire straits, as it no longer held a monopoly on cotton exports, with the United Kingdom having found cheaper avenues by way of Indian and Egyptian cotton production. The Confederation’s only international ally, Emperor Napoleon III, was curtailed by the French Parliament, which was loathed to contribute any further to the Confederation’s continued existence. Food riots increased with frequency and severity, to the point that President Cobb had to be escorted by soldiers to safety after a violent mob, incensed over the price of bread, descended upon the Capitol Building, shortly before engulfing Richmond for several days of riots and mayhem. Cortés knew the time to strike was eminent, but he was also aware of the history of servile insurrection on the mainland, and was adamant about breaking the mold. To that end he gave Galloway instructions to recruit fellow spies and infiltrate the Lower South in order to prepare the slave population for a “day of reckoning.” Secret cells sprang up from the Mississippi Delta to the Outer Banks, organizing people and weapons clandestinely, in anticipation of a supposed “grand revolt.” John Brown for his part briefly returned to his home in Connecticut before reaching out to his former colleagues about a new plan to incite insurrection in the South. It was a challenge at first as many of them refused to listen to him, but after reconnecting with the wealthy Massachusetts merchant George L. Stearns and fierce abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Brown managed to give Cortés’ army and his infiltrators an invaluable life line to the North and its resources. Cortés planned to invade the Confederation through Florida and ignite “the largest fire the South has ever seen,” only waiting for the perfect opportunity to move his army into position. Due to the sheer scope of the planned rebellion, it was unable to go undetected by the cautious eyes of the Confederation, and many planters exercised extreme countermeasures in order to stifle any possible revolt. Of course, for all their vigilance, the Confederation failed to recognize just how entrenched the conspiracy had become.
In this volatile environment, the likelihood of the armistice maintaining the peace all but diminished. The North had been, since the summer of 1865, organizing three armies at distinct points near the armistice line—the Army of the West based in St. Louis, the Army of the Ohio based in Cincinnati, and the Army of the Potomac based in Washington—totaling roughly 85,000 men by the end of the year and growing. The in the early morning hours of November 20, 1865, a Confederate patrol on the hunt for a band of fugitive slaves crossed the armistice line south of Monticello, Kentucky before being intercepted by Union troops, which rapidly escalated into a brief firefight that left multiple men from both sides dead. The event itself was not an uncommon occurrence, especially in light of the Union’s military buildup, but it was by far the bloodiest skirmish to date. President Frémont, in a joint session of Congress, issued a formal statement repudiating the armistice and calling for a resumption of hostilities with the Confederation. Patriotic fervor overtook the chambers of the Capitol Building and on November 25 the three Union armies made their way south.
Resumption of the War
The Confederation had attempted all sort of conciliatory measures to maintain the peace following the events at Monticello, but were overtaken by sheer surprise and horror at the sudden Union onslaught. Both the Cobb and Toombs administrations had understood the need to improve defenses for the eventual showdown with the North, but the Confederation’s political and economic incompetence stunted all efforts to do so, which made their losses at the Battles of Sparta and Pikeville all the more harrowing. By early February 1866 nearly all of Tennessee was under Union control, aided by the state’s eastern, pro-Union disposition, which ensured the region’s rapid capitulation to the advancing Northerners. The Western Army’s advance, led by General William Tecumseh Sherman, was by all accounts relatively swift, as Confederate resistance was forced all the way back to Vicksburg, which was put to siege by Sherman. General George Meade and his Army of the Potomac made some initial gains after crossing the Rappahannock River, but were soon stalled at the Battle of Hanover Junction. By late spring the Confederates, despite their best efforts, were forced to fall back once again at Vicksburg, which allowed Sherman to link up with troops in Louisiana and effectively cut the Confederation in two. Perhaps it was this chaotic atmosphere that prevented Confederation soldiers guarding the Florida Keys from detecting Cortés and his nearly 40,000 man army as they crossed the Florida Straits into the expanse of the Everglades, aided in their endeavor by the Seminole and Cherokee, whom felt nothing but contempt toward the Confederates. After countless months of careful planning, Cortés' day of reckoning was finally at hand.
The scant Confederate garrisons of southern Florida were taken by total surprise on the morning of Christmas Day 1865, when Cortés’ Liberation forces overpowered them into submission, often taking very few war prisoners. As Cortés neared the border with Georgia and with it the first few plantations within his reach, the signal was given to secret agents all over southern Georgia and Alabama to act, and within days dozens of plantations across the region went up in flames as multitudes of slaves made it across Cortés’ lines and joined the Revolutionary’s ranks. Reserve Confederate forces converged on Tallahassee where they intended to engage Cortés, but were too outnumbered, as most of the region’s manpower had already made its way north to fight the invading Union. Tallahassee’s reputation as a center for the slave trade made it the target for the “Black Liberator,” and the town was put to the torch soon after its capture, very much echoing the war in Cuba. The territory captured by the Liberation Army grew rapidly before coagulating around an area corresponding roughly to northwestern Florida, southwestern Georgia, and after the capture of Troy, Alabama, much that state’s southeast. The fears of generations of white southerners had now coalesced in the most violent and brutal way imaginable, and unfortunately to the detriment to the many slaves still held captive beyond Cortés reach.
The summer of 1866 became witness to one of the most gruesome episodes in North American race relations, as blacks across the Confederation fell victim to white vigilante justice, with murderous mobs often lynching any blacks they could come across. Of course, this only had the effect of spurring more blacks to join Cortés and empower them to exact their own justice. In early September Cortés managed to capture Montgomery, where he organized sham tribunals for Alabama Governor William Sandford and many state officials, before ordering their executions in such a macabre manner that sent chills down the collective spines of both Northerners and Southerners alike. The Governor and other state officials were gathered on the outskirts of the state capital and crucified, before all being burned alive, all while Montgomery itself was sacked and burned to ashes. Cortés’ burning crucifixes became a common occurrence as he and his army marched west through the Lower South, wreaking havoc upon central Alabama and burning Selma, Cahawba and Demopolis to the ground. By this point, in late 1866, General Sherman had already taken much of western Mississippi, with the majority of the former slaves living along the Mississippi River leaving the relative safety of Union occupied territory to join Cortés’ ever growing army. Sherman, to his surprise, noted that blacks who chose not to fight contributed in other ways, usually in uplifting recently freed slaves and teaching them how to survive on their own, which had the effect of restarting the local economy and supplying Cortés' army with much needed food later on.
By early 1867, many Confederate soldiers fighting the Union began to make the difficult, but the increasingly popular choice of desertion in order to defend their homes in the Lower South and elsewhere, as a second slave revolt had deeply entrenched itself in South Carolina, aided by Union collaborators in eastern North Carolina, after amphibious operations along the Outer Banks proved most successful. Most of Mississippi was occupied either by the Union or Cortés’ army, and occupied Tennessee became a springboard to invade northern Alabama and Georgia. General Sherman, following his successes in Mississippi was transferred by Frémont to oversee the capture of Atlanta, as Confederation forces built up stiff resistance in an effort to keep the important industrial center out of Union hands. The battle for the city itself was a forgone Union victory, but the Confederates, against all odds, refused to evacuate the city, which was put to siege by Sherman from April until June. By this point all that remained of the Confederation was a sliver of land along the Atlantic coast corresponding to most of the Carolinas and southern Virginia, as Texas had continued the legacy of secession by unilaterally seceding in early July, though it was not in much of a rush to rejoin the Union.
The Battle of Richmond, 1867
The final months of the war were primarily fought in Virginia, as the Army of the Potomac had managed to encircle Richmond but were short of any breakthroughs. President Frémont, never without the need for attention laced with a sprinkling of controversy, and perhaps interpreting his role as Commander-in-chief too literally, demoted Meade from overall command and aimed to lead the army himself to victory. The fighting around Richmond was notoriously brutal due to a new military innovation that involved the use of trenches, but bled the armies of both sides dry.[8] Nevertheless, Frémont’s presence on the front lines was a major morale booster, and the President’s presence happened to coincide with the culmination of several months of work involving the digging of an underground shaft that ran underneath a vital Confederate fortification, and with the aid of explosives intended to destroy it from below. The plan, concocted by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants, himself a former miner from Pennsylvania, went into motion in the early morning of October 25, when approximately 8,000 lbs. of gunpowder was detonated, which resulted in a gigantic explosion which effectively vaporized the Confederate fortifications above, and saw the instant death of several hundred Confederate troops. The resultant crater gave the Union troops the opportunity needed to break through Confederate lines, and by the following day the Siege of Petersburg was at an end, notable in of itself as the first Union soldiers to enter the city were part of a division of Black Union conscripts.[9] General Lee formally surrendered Richmond not very long after. General Davis held out for several more weeks in the Carolinas, but following Sherman’s assault and capture of Columbia in early 1868, the futility of the situation seemed to finally overcome President Cobb, who had fled to Lawrenceville south of Richmond after the capital’s fall, and on January 30, 1868, with the Union barreling down on him from all directions, ordered Davis to agree to Frémont and Meade’s entreaties and that same day Cobb signed a formal instrument of surrender, before he and Davis were apprehended and taken into military custody.
The Confederation of South America ceased to exist after the surrender at Lawrenceville, but the war still raged for a few more months, until May when Texas issued its own surrender and agreed to Union occupation. Texas had stubbornly refused to bow down to Union pressure, but attrition had taken a significant toll on the state, which left it vastly unprepared for Comanche raids from the west, which left much of region in a dilapidated state and served as the final nail in the coffin of Texas’ short lived independence. At the same time fighting still raged between Southerners and Cortés’ Liberation Army, which had managed to carve territory out of both Alabama and Mississippi to form an independent Black republic. With the Confederation defeated, General Sherman brought the might of the Union Army to bear against Cortés, wary of allowing the Black Liberator to run roughshod over redeemed American territory any longer. Sherman pacified most of Cortés’ fiefdom rather quickly, before cornering him and his own personal troop of guards in an abandoned house southwest of Monroeville, Alabama on May 12. After a short firefight Cortés, rather than surrender, ignited the house with him inside and by all accounts perished, though rumors persist to the modern day of his feigned death and escape to Cuba or Africa. Both Sherman and Frémont agreed to a conciliatory approach to all the defeated parties regardless of their skin color, which also included the Tribal nations in Florida whom played a role in the Confederation’s downfall. Some parts of the Lower South had briefly thrived under Cortés, before being destroyed by either ex-Confederate or Union soldiers, though many Blacks remained alive with the knowledge and experience they otherwise may have never achieved had they not freed themselves. By the summer of 1868, all fighting had come to a halt, and for the first time in over eleven years, the North and South were one nation once more.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
The American Civil War was now over, but it left behind a fragile nation with a bitter and divided populace. The toll in human lives was monumentally staggering, with an estimated 1.5 million soldiers and civilians dead and nearly all land south of the Mason-Dixon line in various states of ruin. Despite calls for amicable reconciliation, too many in the North viewed the war as initiated and perpetuated by the South, and President Frémont held no qualms to find specific people to lay all the blame on. The upper echelons of Confederate leadership, including Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs, were tried and all were charged with treason. The former Confederation itself was divided into seven military districts, with the eventual goal of redrawing the borders of the South as an ultimate act of punishment for secession and war. This was widely condemned by many (including Republicans) but the process had already been started in Kentucky and Virginia, the former being readmitted in a reduced form, while the latter was split nearly in half, with Virginia's western and northern counties readmitted as the new state of Appalachia. President Frémont, despite his resounding success in battle and unwavering popularity, faced opposition from within his own government as well, and whispers of a plot against him abound. In many cases it was a bittersweet peace, but all things considered Frémont had little to fear in the impending elections of 1868. It was not an easy job, but he very much enjoyed being President.
*************************************************
Notes:
[1] Butterflies prevent his all to infamous caning.
[2] I'm still working out the specifics, but the British operate a station there similar to the one at Valparaíso, though with the recent acquisition of Oregon it won't remain there for long.
[3] OTL Victoria, BC.
[4] If it wasn't clear, Mexico pretty much gets Deseret, thanks Santa Anna!
[5] OTL Nueva Gerona.
[6] Ah yes, that William Walker.
[7] Cuba's time as an American colony left it's mark with some town names getting Anglisized. Artemisa became Artemesia, while Colón became Columbus.
[8] Another OTL ripoff.
[9] See above. ^ This one in particular though, apparently the Black division trained to lead the fight in the OTL Battle of the Crater ended up not being the first to fight at the insistence of Meade for fear that the press would go to town with the whole "placing Blacks in the vanguard and all that." Here Frémont sidelines Meade and basically goes according to plan, the press be damned!
Thanks dude!
I'm happy to say I have one completed update ready to go, and I couldn't be happier to be done with the American Civil War. I thought I'd never get here, lol. This one's longer than what I normally make (I think it may have been better for me to actually make this two distinct updates, but fuck it yo), but I hope y'all enjoy it nonetheless!
United by Blood and Fire: the Second American Civil War, 1862-1868
The Grand Army of the Republic
The Grand Army of the Republic
The armistice set into effect in the spring of 1862 gave both the northern and southern armies a much needed respite, after nearly 5 years of exhaustive warfare that left hundreds of thousands of men dead and even more maimed for life. Despite the war not being over in any official capacity, the Confederation did not shy from celebrating what they could only try to perceive as a victory. There were still many Southerners who were more cautious than jubilant, cognizant as they were of all the possibilities an armistice entailed, though that did not stop the multitudes of veterans streaming back to their homes and familial comforts. For the Confederation government in Richmond, the armistice proved (while not a victory in the slightest) to be just enough for President Toombs’ vice-President Howell Cobb to win the presidential election the following year. His northern counterpart however proved not to be nearly as fortunate.
From the moment President Dodge agreed to an armistice, he effectively assured his presidency would be a short one. The Republicans all but decimated the Democrats in the midterm elections that November, which guaranteed Dodge’s fate, and on January 26, 1863, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution to impeach the President on charges of treason and bribery. Several weeks later, the impeachment trial commenced in the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice Wendell Phillips. The President’s defense was in one word, pitiful, as many lawyers approached by the executive reneged at aiding the man who, to put it succinctly, “lost the rebellion.” On their first ballot, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the guilty verdict, and on March 8 Augustus Dodge became the first President of the United States to be removed from office. It was truly ironic, that Dodge had proven to bring such unity to Congress than in his removal. Following the rules of succession, President pro tempore Charles Sumner became the fifteenth President of the United States.[1]
15th President of the United States Charles Sumner
President Sumner, a leading individual of the Republican Party’s radical faction, was the cause of much consternation for many moderates in Congress, due to his radicalism in regards to abolition, and the fear of what an abrupt change might bring to the fractured nation. Whether it was Sumner’s sense of patriotism, his understanding to keep what remained of the Union intact, or both, the President dispatched several thousand troops to Oregon in late April in order to return the rebellious western territories back into the American fold. The surge was an effort by the Federal government to tip the scales in their favor and break a year-long stalemate that had developed between the Union forces and Oregonian rebels. General Sheridan managed some early successes in the Saptin River Valley and in northeastern Oregon, but by 1862 the rebels were deeply entrenched in the south of the Territory and the Willamette Valley. The surge that following year finally tipped the balance in the Union’s favor, as Sheridan finally made some headway into rebel territory and captured much of the High Desert and upper Columbia River, and by the autumn of 1863 was poised to take the Willamette Valley as well. Fearful of a traitor’s fate and all it entailed, Lansford Hastings made contact with the British envoy in Yerba Buena with the intent to make Oregon a British protectorate.[2] There were still many in London that were resentful over the settlement of the Oregon question in the aftermath of the Anglo-American War, and with tempers still running high over the Grappler Incident, the opportunity to “rectify the injustice set forth by the Treaty of Amsterdam” seemed too tempting to pass along.
On October 20, Hastings and troops loyal to him (both current and former employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company) launched a coup d’état against the Oregon Republic and declared it a British protectorate, after the Oregon Assembly refused an offer of British support in exchange for accepting protectorate status willingly. With lightning speed a British naval force, 2,400 strong, sailed up from Yerba Buena under the directive of Admiral Rodney Mundy with the intent to invest the Oregon coast and “aid” the rebel forces. Mundy managed easily enough to take Vancouver Island in early November, following an amphibious landing west of Fort Washington.[3] From there the British captured the mouth of the Columbia River before they engaged the entrenched Americans at Fort Vancouver. The Fort proved difficult to overcome at first, but the arrival of British reinforcements following the New Year forced the American’s to relent and on January 17, 1864 the flag of the United Kingdom was hoisted above Fort Vancouver as British troops marched into Kanamostalo. As expected, the Americans became enraged at British meddling in what was deemed a domestic affair, in light of Britain’s part in the armistice negotiations, and nearly forced both nations to declare war on one another for the first time in a generation. The only thing that prevented President Sumner from making the war with the British an official affair was the desire to settle accounts with the Confederation first and foremost, and any prolonged conflict with the United Kingdom threatened to prolong the Confederation’s survival. Battles raged for several months more, but by the eve of the general election most of Oregon was all but lost to the Americans, as the British moved to occupy the whole territory north of the 42nd parallel north, leaving the remainder in Mexican hands.[4]
The United States pitiful performance highlighted the inherent faults present within the military and the need to reform it, an issue that Sumner had attempted to tackle and which he could have succeeded at if only he had not been dragged into conflict with the United Kingdom. There had been various calls prior to the Mexican-American War to reform the military, as the American regular army proved to be only half the size of its Mexican counterpart. Calls for reform only grew in the war’s aftermath, but the army’s pathetic performance therein only enhanced the poor opinion of the regulars held by the general population, and the necessary funding required to bring about the desired reform never materialized. Despite starting the Civil War in a disadvantageous position, the subsequent five years of warfare only sped up the pace of industrialization in the North, which would have assuredly won the conflict for the Union if not for “southern treachery.” The armistice answered the prayers of many on both sides and provided a major reprieve, but as far as most Northerners were concerned, it did not dampen their desire to avenge their fallen leader and the thousands who paid the ultimate price on the front lines.
16th President of the United States, John Charles Frémont
It was under these circumstances that the Republicans nominated General John Charles Frémont for the 1864 election. Frémont was never without his share of controversy, but even that was not enough to help the Democrats, which never stood a chance at the polls considering their recent history. Sumner was understandably sullen after being spurned by his own party, but he managed to look beyond it for the good of the nation, and while in correspondence with the President-elect sent a bill to the House of Representatives which would call for a new round of national conscription. Previous attempts by the Seward administration failed miserably, as substitutions and desertion were all too common, and the resultant riots dissuaded the government from truly enforcing the draft. The new conscription law, which took effect only days after Frémont’s inauguration, brought forth another round of riots throughout the North. Unlike Seward, however, Frémont held no qualms about using the full brunt of the military to deal with rioters. Frémont had a much easier time instituting his reforms afterward, which included the introduction of new light infantry regiments in emulation of the French Zouaves, as well as the military’s adoption of the Gatling gun, a new and ferocious weapon that left many army officers awe-stricken.
Much like their northern cousins, the Confederation in the aftermath of the armistice initially sought out to “quell internal rebellion” in Cuba and rid the specter of slave revolt from this world. Approximately 5,000 soldiers disembarked from Charleston in May 1862 for Guantanamo Bay, in an attempt to extinguish the rebellion at its source in eastern Cuba. Despite stiff resistance, the Confederates managed to establish a beach head and occupy the surrounding countryside (easily enough since the land near the coast was low lying). As soon as they attempted to engage the Cuban rebels in the highlands however the Confederates were routed at every turn and they were eventually evicted from Guantanamo Bay all together. A second amphibious landing to the west at Santiago de Cuba later that year failed as well, as a combined Cuban-Haitian counteroffensive crushed what little manpower the Confederation could muster. It was perhaps these Cuban victories, as well as Haiti’s explicit involvement that finally stirred the Mexicans into action.
Ever since the norteamericanos fell into civil war in 1857, there were some calls from nationalistic deputies and senators in the Mexican Congress to strike at the Americans in their moment of weakness and retake regions of the former viceroyalty now under American hegemony. Cooler heads prevailed, as President Álvarez wisely opted to “wait and see,” despite the multitudes of slaves which continued to cross from Texas into Mexico and to freedom. This neutrality was only threatened during Santa Anna’s filibuster into Deseret and its aftermath, but for the most part Mexico stayed clear of the death match between the Union and Confederation. Tensions simmered however, as Texan border raiders made frequent incursions across the Colorado River to “retrieve lost property” as they put it, often engaging Mexican authorities and angry citizens who refused to recognize the rights of slavers, not least those which trespassed onto Mexican territory illegally. Following the Confederate reversals in Cuba in 1862, Mexico formally recognized the Republic of Cuba as a sovereign nation, which brought with it a declaration of war by the Confederation soon after.
Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza
Confederation forces under the command of General Lawrence Sullivan Ross hastily crossed the Colorado in early November with the intent to capture Béxar, the state capital. Ross’ troops were undoubtedly euphoric at the prospect of showing up the Mexicans in light of their “victories” against the North, no doubt encouraged by their capture of Hidalgo, a town to the east of the Presidio La Bahía where Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza lay in wait with a garrison of over 5,700 men, nearly half of what Ross had entered Tejas with. The Confederates managed only to beat themselves bloody against the walls of the Presidio, and were subsequently beaten back by Zaragoza when he and his army took to the field. The following month Mexican reinforcements arrived at Béxar under the command of General Miguel Negrete, which allowed Zaragoza to decimate Ross’ forces and drive them back beyond the Colorado. General Negrete was put in command of forces in the north set aside to protect against any further invasion, as General Zaragoza was tasked by Mexico City with what arguably was to be the most important assignment of his life; the Mexican invasion of western Cuba.
In May 1863 a flotilla of approximately thirty five warships and 7,500 Mexican troops disembarked from Veracruz and made twin landfalls, one south of Mantua on the western extreme of the island, along with a second landfall on the Isle of Pines. The latter was thinly populated and inadequately defended enough that the Mexicans overran the port town of Calhoun with relative ease.[5] Confederate forces surrendered to General Zaragoza as well, but advances toward the towns of Guane and Baja were halted in early June by stiff Confederate resistance. The opportune arrival of reinforcements from both the Isle of Pines and the mainland gave the Mexicans the necessary boost required to push forward, prompting the capture of Pinar del Rio in late June and San Cristobal several weeks later. The Mexican invasion forced Confederation forces in the east to divert valuable manpower away from the Cuban rebels, which precipitated the rapid capitulation of Confederate power in the east over the remainder of the year. Following the complete destruction of Port Jefferson in December by Cortés’ Army of Liberation, the Confederate government in Havana panicked, and Governor William Norris, along with most of the legislature evacuated across the Gulf to Alabama, which left General William Walker as the highest ranking Confederate official left on the island.[6]
Against his better judgement, General Walker refused to submit to the “brown hordes,” and fortified what remained of Confederate Cuba while he pleaded with Richmond for more reinforcements. Reinforcements did arrive in February 1864, but were too few to make a difference, as week by week the territory controlled by Walker continued to shrink. In April General Zaragoza and the Mexicans captured Artemisia, which put them within reach of Havana itself, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Zaragoza’s more nationalistic troops. To their dismay however, he opted against it, stating that Havana was “not their prize,” and instead entrenched his forces west of the capital while transferring manpower to the eastern front to fight alongside the Cubans. The offensives in the spring and summer followed the same pattern established the previous year, as the Rebels made gains to the north and west, razing the town of Columbus in May, followed by the capture of the port of Cardenas several weeks later.[7] General Walker personally led the defense of Matanzas, which was laid to siege by Rebel forces in early July. The siege lasted little over a month and saw much of the city destroyed, along with most of Walker’s army. Walker himself did not survive the siege, with libertadores purportedly decapitating the hated General, along with his lieutenants, and lined the main road to the city with their severed heads. The Battle of Jaruco in September paved the way for the Rebels to march on the capital, and the seizure of Güines by the Mexican Army allowed Zaragoza to link up in full with the Rebels. Havana was put to siege beginning in early October, but unlike Matanzas took significantly longer to break, with the remaining Confederates seemingly defying logic with their continued resistance. The siege of Havana lasted a little over three months, with the remaining Confederates surrendering to allied Cuban-Mexican forces on January 12, 1865. After nearly seven long years of brutal warfare, Cuba was finally a free and independent state.
The Lone Star Flag, and the First President of Cuba Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
Almost immediately the Cuban National Assembly voted by acclamation for Carlos Manuel de Céspedes as the first President of the new republic, and not long after the new government relocated from Camagüey to Havana, where the capital’s residents (both old and new) began the arduous task of rebuilding. For Cortés and his Liberators, the culmination of Cuba’s independence was viewed as a vindication of their revolution, which repudiated the notion that white elites could manumit their slaves and call it freedom, and rather promoted what had come to be known as the Liberation Doctrine.” Drawing heavily from the Christian Bible, as well as various Cuban sects such as Palo and Regla de Ochá (by and large held together by Cortés’ charismatic flare), Liberation Doctrine heavily stressed the idea that all men were born free, and the inalienable right to life could not be subverted by any man or government. It encouraged slaves to free themselves from bondage and to help those around them to freedom by whatever means necessary (recent scholarship also points to various other inspirational sources, ranging from the American Declaration of Independence to the Islamic faith). Former slaves and freedmen from across the island and beyond were drawn to Cuba, some stirred by the revolutionary’s dogma, others simply curious to meet the man himself. Someone in particular, a North Carolinian freedmen and former spy for the Union by the name of Abraham Galloway, found his way to Cortés in the last few months of the war in Cuba and the two men instantly became ardent allies. Whether Galloway knew beforehand of Cortés’ plans for insurrection in the Confederation is still up for dispute to this day, however there was no doubt that upon Galloway’s departure for New Orleans in early 1865 that those plans were being carefully laid out.
By the spring of 1865 the Confederation’s economic isolation had left it in dire straits, as it no longer held a monopoly on cotton exports, with the United Kingdom having found cheaper avenues by way of Indian and Egyptian cotton production. The Confederation’s only international ally, Emperor Napoleon III, was curtailed by the French Parliament, which was loathed to contribute any further to the Confederation’s continued existence. Food riots increased with frequency and severity, to the point that President Cobb had to be escorted by soldiers to safety after a violent mob, incensed over the price of bread, descended upon the Capitol Building, shortly before engulfing Richmond for several days of riots and mayhem. Cortés knew the time to strike was eminent, but he was also aware of the history of servile insurrection on the mainland, and was adamant about breaking the mold. To that end he gave Galloway instructions to recruit fellow spies and infiltrate the Lower South in order to prepare the slave population for a “day of reckoning.” Secret cells sprang up from the Mississippi Delta to the Outer Banks, organizing people and weapons clandestinely, in anticipation of a supposed “grand revolt.” John Brown for his part briefly returned to his home in Connecticut before reaching out to his former colleagues about a new plan to incite insurrection in the South. It was a challenge at first as many of them refused to listen to him, but after reconnecting with the wealthy Massachusetts merchant George L. Stearns and fierce abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Brown managed to give Cortés’ army and his infiltrators an invaluable life line to the North and its resources. Cortés planned to invade the Confederation through Florida and ignite “the largest fire the South has ever seen,” only waiting for the perfect opportunity to move his army into position. Due to the sheer scope of the planned rebellion, it was unable to go undetected by the cautious eyes of the Confederation, and many planters exercised extreme countermeasures in order to stifle any possible revolt. Of course, for all their vigilance, the Confederation failed to recognize just how entrenched the conspiracy had become.
In this volatile environment, the likelihood of the armistice maintaining the peace all but diminished. The North had been, since the summer of 1865, organizing three armies at distinct points near the armistice line—the Army of the West based in St. Louis, the Army of the Ohio based in Cincinnati, and the Army of the Potomac based in Washington—totaling roughly 85,000 men by the end of the year and growing. The in the early morning hours of November 20, 1865, a Confederate patrol on the hunt for a band of fugitive slaves crossed the armistice line south of Monticello, Kentucky before being intercepted by Union troops, which rapidly escalated into a brief firefight that left multiple men from both sides dead. The event itself was not an uncommon occurrence, especially in light of the Union’s military buildup, but it was by far the bloodiest skirmish to date. President Frémont, in a joint session of Congress, issued a formal statement repudiating the armistice and calling for a resumption of hostilities with the Confederation. Patriotic fervor overtook the chambers of the Capitol Building and on November 25 the three Union armies made their way south.
Resumption of the War
The Confederation had attempted all sort of conciliatory measures to maintain the peace following the events at Monticello, but were overtaken by sheer surprise and horror at the sudden Union onslaught. Both the Cobb and Toombs administrations had understood the need to improve defenses for the eventual showdown with the North, but the Confederation’s political and economic incompetence stunted all efforts to do so, which made their losses at the Battles of Sparta and Pikeville all the more harrowing. By early February 1866 nearly all of Tennessee was under Union control, aided by the state’s eastern, pro-Union disposition, which ensured the region’s rapid capitulation to the advancing Northerners. The Western Army’s advance, led by General William Tecumseh Sherman, was by all accounts relatively swift, as Confederate resistance was forced all the way back to Vicksburg, which was put to siege by Sherman. General George Meade and his Army of the Potomac made some initial gains after crossing the Rappahannock River, but were soon stalled at the Battle of Hanover Junction. By late spring the Confederates, despite their best efforts, were forced to fall back once again at Vicksburg, which allowed Sherman to link up with troops in Louisiana and effectively cut the Confederation in two. Perhaps it was this chaotic atmosphere that prevented Confederation soldiers guarding the Florida Keys from detecting Cortés and his nearly 40,000 man army as they crossed the Florida Straits into the expanse of the Everglades, aided in their endeavor by the Seminole and Cherokee, whom felt nothing but contempt toward the Confederates. After countless months of careful planning, Cortés' day of reckoning was finally at hand.
The scant Confederate garrisons of southern Florida were taken by total surprise on the morning of Christmas Day 1865, when Cortés’ Liberation forces overpowered them into submission, often taking very few war prisoners. As Cortés neared the border with Georgia and with it the first few plantations within his reach, the signal was given to secret agents all over southern Georgia and Alabama to act, and within days dozens of plantations across the region went up in flames as multitudes of slaves made it across Cortés’ lines and joined the Revolutionary’s ranks. Reserve Confederate forces converged on Tallahassee where they intended to engage Cortés, but were too outnumbered, as most of the region’s manpower had already made its way north to fight the invading Union. Tallahassee’s reputation as a center for the slave trade made it the target for the “Black Liberator,” and the town was put to the torch soon after its capture, very much echoing the war in Cuba. The territory captured by the Liberation Army grew rapidly before coagulating around an area corresponding roughly to northwestern Florida, southwestern Georgia, and after the capture of Troy, Alabama, much that state’s southeast. The fears of generations of white southerners had now coalesced in the most violent and brutal way imaginable, and unfortunately to the detriment to the many slaves still held captive beyond Cortés reach.
The summer of 1866 became witness to one of the most gruesome episodes in North American race relations, as blacks across the Confederation fell victim to white vigilante justice, with murderous mobs often lynching any blacks they could come across. Of course, this only had the effect of spurring more blacks to join Cortés and empower them to exact their own justice. In early September Cortés managed to capture Montgomery, where he organized sham tribunals for Alabama Governor William Sandford and many state officials, before ordering their executions in such a macabre manner that sent chills down the collective spines of both Northerners and Southerners alike. The Governor and other state officials were gathered on the outskirts of the state capital and crucified, before all being burned alive, all while Montgomery itself was sacked and burned to ashes. Cortés’ burning crucifixes became a common occurrence as he and his army marched west through the Lower South, wreaking havoc upon central Alabama and burning Selma, Cahawba and Demopolis to the ground. By this point, in late 1866, General Sherman had already taken much of western Mississippi, with the majority of the former slaves living along the Mississippi River leaving the relative safety of Union occupied territory to join Cortés’ ever growing army. Sherman, to his surprise, noted that blacks who chose not to fight contributed in other ways, usually in uplifting recently freed slaves and teaching them how to survive on their own, which had the effect of restarting the local economy and supplying Cortés' army with much needed food later on.
By early 1867, many Confederate soldiers fighting the Union began to make the difficult, but the increasingly popular choice of desertion in order to defend their homes in the Lower South and elsewhere, as a second slave revolt had deeply entrenched itself in South Carolina, aided by Union collaborators in eastern North Carolina, after amphibious operations along the Outer Banks proved most successful. Most of Mississippi was occupied either by the Union or Cortés’ army, and occupied Tennessee became a springboard to invade northern Alabama and Georgia. General Sherman, following his successes in Mississippi was transferred by Frémont to oversee the capture of Atlanta, as Confederation forces built up stiff resistance in an effort to keep the important industrial center out of Union hands. The battle for the city itself was a forgone Union victory, but the Confederates, against all odds, refused to evacuate the city, which was put to siege by Sherman from April until June. By this point all that remained of the Confederation was a sliver of land along the Atlantic coast corresponding to most of the Carolinas and southern Virginia, as Texas had continued the legacy of secession by unilaterally seceding in early July, though it was not in much of a rush to rejoin the Union.
The Battle of Richmond, 1867
The final months of the war were primarily fought in Virginia, as the Army of the Potomac had managed to encircle Richmond but were short of any breakthroughs. President Frémont, never without the need for attention laced with a sprinkling of controversy, and perhaps interpreting his role as Commander-in-chief too literally, demoted Meade from overall command and aimed to lead the army himself to victory. The fighting around Richmond was notoriously brutal due to a new military innovation that involved the use of trenches, but bled the armies of both sides dry.[8] Nevertheless, Frémont’s presence on the front lines was a major morale booster, and the President’s presence happened to coincide with the culmination of several months of work involving the digging of an underground shaft that ran underneath a vital Confederate fortification, and with the aid of explosives intended to destroy it from below. The plan, concocted by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants, himself a former miner from Pennsylvania, went into motion in the early morning of October 25, when approximately 8,000 lbs. of gunpowder was detonated, which resulted in a gigantic explosion which effectively vaporized the Confederate fortifications above, and saw the instant death of several hundred Confederate troops. The resultant crater gave the Union troops the opportunity needed to break through Confederate lines, and by the following day the Siege of Petersburg was at an end, notable in of itself as the first Union soldiers to enter the city were part of a division of Black Union conscripts.[9] General Lee formally surrendered Richmond not very long after. General Davis held out for several more weeks in the Carolinas, but following Sherman’s assault and capture of Columbia in early 1868, the futility of the situation seemed to finally overcome President Cobb, who had fled to Lawrenceville south of Richmond after the capital’s fall, and on January 30, 1868, with the Union barreling down on him from all directions, ordered Davis to agree to Frémont and Meade’s entreaties and that same day Cobb signed a formal instrument of surrender, before he and Davis were apprehended and taken into military custody.
The Confederation of South America ceased to exist after the surrender at Lawrenceville, but the war still raged for a few more months, until May when Texas issued its own surrender and agreed to Union occupation. Texas had stubbornly refused to bow down to Union pressure, but attrition had taken a significant toll on the state, which left it vastly unprepared for Comanche raids from the west, which left much of region in a dilapidated state and served as the final nail in the coffin of Texas’ short lived independence. At the same time fighting still raged between Southerners and Cortés’ Liberation Army, which had managed to carve territory out of both Alabama and Mississippi to form an independent Black republic. With the Confederation defeated, General Sherman brought the might of the Union Army to bear against Cortés, wary of allowing the Black Liberator to run roughshod over redeemed American territory any longer. Sherman pacified most of Cortés’ fiefdom rather quickly, before cornering him and his own personal troop of guards in an abandoned house southwest of Monroeville, Alabama on May 12. After a short firefight Cortés, rather than surrender, ignited the house with him inside and by all accounts perished, though rumors persist to the modern day of his feigned death and escape to Cuba or Africa. Both Sherman and Frémont agreed to a conciliatory approach to all the defeated parties regardless of their skin color, which also included the Tribal nations in Florida whom played a role in the Confederation’s downfall. Some parts of the Lower South had briefly thrived under Cortés, before being destroyed by either ex-Confederate or Union soldiers, though many Blacks remained alive with the knowledge and experience they otherwise may have never achieved had they not freed themselves. By the summer of 1868, all fighting had come to a halt, and for the first time in over eleven years, the North and South were one nation once more.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
The American Civil War was now over, but it left behind a fragile nation with a bitter and divided populace. The toll in human lives was monumentally staggering, with an estimated 1.5 million soldiers and civilians dead and nearly all land south of the Mason-Dixon line in various states of ruin. Despite calls for amicable reconciliation, too many in the North viewed the war as initiated and perpetuated by the South, and President Frémont held no qualms to find specific people to lay all the blame on. The upper echelons of Confederate leadership, including Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs, were tried and all were charged with treason. The former Confederation itself was divided into seven military districts, with the eventual goal of redrawing the borders of the South as an ultimate act of punishment for secession and war. This was widely condemned by many (including Republicans) but the process had already been started in Kentucky and Virginia, the former being readmitted in a reduced form, while the latter was split nearly in half, with Virginia's western and northern counties readmitted as the new state of Appalachia. President Frémont, despite his resounding success in battle and unwavering popularity, faced opposition from within his own government as well, and whispers of a plot against him abound. In many cases it was a bittersweet peace, but all things considered Frémont had little to fear in the impending elections of 1868. It was not an easy job, but he very much enjoyed being President.
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Notes:
[1] Butterflies prevent his all to infamous caning.
[2] I'm still working out the specifics, but the British operate a station there similar to the one at Valparaíso, though with the recent acquisition of Oregon it won't remain there for long.
[3] OTL Victoria, BC.
[4] If it wasn't clear, Mexico pretty much gets Deseret, thanks Santa Anna!
[5] OTL Nueva Gerona.
[6] Ah yes, that William Walker.
[7] Cuba's time as an American colony left it's mark with some town names getting Anglisized. Artemisa became Artemesia, while Colón became Columbus.
[8] Another OTL ripoff.
[9] See above. ^ This one in particular though, apparently the Black division trained to lead the fight in the OTL Battle of the Crater ended up not being the first to fight at the insistence of Meade for fear that the press would go to town with the whole "placing Blacks in the vanguard and all that." Here Frémont sidelines Meade and basically goes according to plan, the press be damned!
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