To those reading: I'll put this in a latest post when I have time to update, but this was a collaborative TL/Open thread that almost nobody ever added an event, etc. to. I've decided to just turn it into a TL in and of itself.
So, why is this here? I don't know when I'll have time to add a lot, so don't expect weekly updates. In fact, this will feel a bit like an Open Thread one because I may well go into different formats, jumping from straight storytelling like my other timelines to headlines and documentaries and stuff like the Selma Massacre one.
Updates will likely be more along the lines of once in while, but if I get a lot of time, I might go kind of fast, especially since I might jump a few decades. Or, maybe I'll get bogged down, I don't know.
Oh, can others post, since it started out thrat way? Well, I've renamed it, but yeah, why not. Just don't create a dystopia out of things.
The following is the start of a collaborative timeline a la Selma Massacre to improve US race relations with a quicker end to the Civil War, Lincoln surviving, and thus not the huge Lost Cause mess or the harsh retribution against Reconstruction there was OTL.
I won’t have lots of time for it, but wanted to start one since I’d had the idea with Selma Massacre to improve things earlier; most people have said they think the 1870s or 1880s is too late, though. So, here it will be even earlier.
While I won’t have time for a lot (and am going on vacation in a week or two), feel free to add me to a group discussion as others move this forward – I’m not sure how to make one of those. And, let’s try to have the same people living as OTL since otherwise that gets even more confusing in an Open Thread/collaborative timeline (sort of the same thing I think) than it does for anyone else.
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From the book, “The Battle of Shiloh, How Two Wrongs Made a Right”
“April 6, 1862 marked a turning point, when…Lew Wallace, probably confused by orders, continued marching and…Grant’s messengers’ horse slipped and reached his intended recipient, Wallace, just as Wallace’s men were noticed by aa Confederate soldier who happened to glance back, expecting reinforcements…”
From Shelby Foote’s “Lincoln”:
“…President Lincoln grew excited by the fact that the Union appeared to be winning after they had retreated. The message had been somewhat jumbled, but he saw that as just one of the common affairs which came because of the fog of war. It was actually far more complex…”
From a review of Ben Hur, 1882:
“The book…was inspired as General Wallace lay in bed recuperating, having lost a leg in the melee which followed his attack on the back of Confederate lines. It would take him years to finish, but it was worth it…”
From “Shiloh, How Two Wrongs Made a Right”
“…Once Wallace advanced, foolish as it was, it allowed Grant to counterattack. Thus, despite the second wrong, after Grant’s army not even expecting an attack… the near rout of Confederate forces occurred mostly because they were more tired than the Union men…
“…Wallace’s men were horribly bloodied, having borne the brunt of the retreating forces. He is lucky he survived, while Albert Sydney Johnston did not. One of the iconic symbols of the battle was a Confederate soldier, who had sprained or possibly even broken his ankle, trying to fight most of the regiment which had come upon him and the others, but surrounded on all sides, finally succumbling…the name was lost for a number of years, but the soldier who died that day was one Nathaniel Bedford Forrest(1)
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(1) It’s not a huge difference at the start, as he almost died lie this at Shiloh anyway,, but butterflies will come slowly