Alternate Confederate Capital

If the Confederacy were to choose a different capital besides Montgomery/Richmond, which city do you think would be most likely and why? I've thought about them choosing Atlanta because of its centrality within the CSA, but its 1860 population didn't even exceed the 10,000 mark. Which would be other alternate candidates?
 
Columbia, South Carolina. It was the birthplace of the Confederacy and is plenty far enough away from the USA to not have to worry about in case a conflict breaks out.
 
If the Confederacy were to choose a different capital besides Montgomery/Richmond, which city do you think would be most likely and why? I've thought about them choosing Atlanta because of its centrality within the CSA, but its 1860 population didn't even exceed the 10,000 mark. Which would be other alternate candidates?

I don't know how much of a worry Atlanta's small population would be; Montgomery had even fewer people when it was the Confederate capital.

Of the U.S. top 100 cities by population in 1860, only 15 were located in the Confederacy (only counting the 11 states that definitely seceded in 1860-61). Most of these cities are vulnerable, either because they are on the coast (like Charleston, Wilmington, Mobile, and Norfolk) or for being too close to Union lines (Nashville, Alexandria, Memphis). Granted the latter consideration didn't stop them from choosing Richmond. If the Confederacy's founders are more concerned with centrality and defensibility, then the largest cities that are also away from the coasts are Augusta (GA), Columbus (GA), Atlanta (GA), and Montgomery (AL).
 
Columbia, South Carolina. It was the birthplace of the Confederacy and is plenty far enough away from the USA to not have to worry about in case a conflict breaks out.

I was thinking somewhere in S.C. as well. Columbia's far from Union lines, the city was located along a river, the state was a slavery stronghold as well as being the first to secede. One might argue that S.C. was to the CSA what Massachusetts was to the American revolutionaries.
 
New Orleans? Prior to the War, it was the only city in what would be the Confederate states that ranked in the top ten for the nation (Charleston was nowhere near as big, and dropped off the top ten by 1840).
 
I'd expect the more moderate Confederates would want to avoid giving South Carolina the influence that putting a national capital there would involve.

They might also agree on secession, but that doesn't mean that many Confederate leaders didn't have some sympathy for James Petigru's quip about South Carolina being "too small for a republic, too large for an insane asylum."
 

mowque

Banned
New Orleans? Prior to the War, it was the only city in what would be the Confederate states that ranked in the top ten for the nation (Charleston was nowhere near as big, and dropped off the top ten by 1840).

I don't think New Orleans is the part of the South that was really uprising. It was a liberal, large, international urban area with extensive commerical contacts. It had it's own culture AND it was way out west, away from where everyone lived.
 
If they Confederates got their independence recognized, do you think they'd end up building a new Capital somewhere?
 
I like the idea of Atlanta as well, it was a valuable rail crossroads, yes? It was also in the classic Deep South yet not in South Carolina.
 
If they Confederates got their independence recognized, do you think they'd end up building a new Capital somewhere?
I feel like they'd probably keep the capital fixed wherever they decide to plant it. If they chose Atlanta, I think it would definitely change the nature of the war. I wonder if it would take less or more time for the war to conclude.
 
Montgomery is probably the only viable alternative.

The Confederate choice for Richmond was probably the best bet. The Confederacy was made with Virginia and could have been unmade without it. Norfolk and Richmond with the Tredegar Iron Works and most of the South's Industry were crucial for the Confederates, and appeasing Great Virginia was probably in the best interests of the Confederacy.

Unless they go with a compromise city somewhere in Southern Virginia, like Danville was OTL after Richmond fell, there is no real other choice.

New Orleans is too "unique", too Western, too exposed, and too urban.

Atlanta is too small, and before the war wasn't strategic enough to warrant being a capital.

Savannah and Charleston had declined in population and influence.
 
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