AHC: Make the american civil war longer and bloodier

one thing that would help is for KY to join with them. this would have provided more man power and some extra stragtic depth
 

jahenders

Banned
Longer Civil War -- Tip a couple states or European Involvement

Two possibilities:
1) One or two states that remained union decided to go (or were allowed to go) Confederate. Best candidates would be Kentucky or Maryland. As noted, Kentucky would have improved the Confederate position substantially. Maryland was, in part, prevented from going confederate because it would have made DC untenable, but it's possible that heavier Union losses early on could have provided a path for some/all of Maryland to join the Confederacy. That would have greatly weakened the union, but might have actually ended the war early becuase the Union might have been more or less forced to come to terms.

2) European involvment. If France and/or Britian had supported the Confederacy in 1862 or so it could have extended the war by limiting Union capability to blockade the South or conduct some of their pennisular movements (perhaps trapping a Union army there). A supply of French/British weapons, gunpowder, and money would have strengthened them considerably and, perhaps, have prevented the victory Lincoln needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Then, the war might either have dragged on or ended earlier (with the Union coming to terms).
 
If the blockade was broken that would breathe some life into the Confederacy. There is the tricky issue of getting the British to want to do this, or arranging it so that the French would at least try it without following the British lead.

The Brits may have hoped they union would tear itself apart but they were smart enough to know they had little gain and much to loose involving themselves, even if they won hands down which they weren't certain of. Napoleon III wasn't going to move unless the British did, despite him admiring the South for their spirit and dreaming of a Catholic Empire in Latin America.
 
Maybe some tech setbacks would help as well. I.e. the man backing the iron clad program is drops the ball politically and his program is scrapped, or Dr Gatling dies from the flu before he writes down plans for the Gatling gun. Breech loading and repeating guns are delayed reaching the troops for some reason, etc........
 
Maybe some tech setbacks would help as well. I.e. the man backing the iron clad program is drops the ball politically and his program is scrapped, or Dr Gatling dies from the flu before he writes down plans for the Gatling gun. Breech loading and repeating guns are delayed reaching the troops for some reason, etc........

Neither the Gatling gun or the breach loading guns played a large role in the war and their absence is unlikely to have lengthened it significantly. As for ironclads, the US was actually constructing several different designs at the same time, the Monitor was just the first one to be completed. Even if the Virginia caught the North off guard the South doesn't have enough to be decisive and the North will immediately start construction on their own. The North didn't rely on new technology to win and the South doesn't have enough resources to put any revolutionary ideas in production on a scale that would help.

I think any extension of the war is going to have to take a political POD.
 
Here's an obvious one. Have Abe Lincoln get assassinated in the middle of the secession crisis. This means Maryland and Kentucky flip confederate and the leader of the Union is a much less capable, intelligent man. The Union will eventually win, due to dominance, but it will take longer.
 
Here's an obvious one. Have Abe Lincoln get assassinated in the middle of the secession crisis. This means Maryland and Kentucky flip confederate and the leader of the Union is a much less capable, intelligent man. The Union will eventually win, due to dominance, but it will take longer.

Why on earth would it mean KY and MD flip? I would have thought the terror tactics/radicalism would make it more likely that VA NC and TN flip - to the Union side.
 
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