"And Bob Lee's Body Lies A-Moulderin' In the Ground"

Japhy

Banned
If I hadn't liked its predecessor so much I'd say no, but HXXL - I want more

It's good to see this timeline back... but I wish you wouldn't leave us hanging.

I'm subscribing.

First off, thank you three Gentlemen, your interest is greatly appreciated.

Secondly, where the hell is Part One of this you ask?

Its arrival like Spring in the Northern Hemisphere is imminent. But I owe you all an explanation, especially as it was in one of these long gaps that I eventually declared the original project dead.

There are two primary reasons for the delay, First off, I'm working on my Capstone Paper for my degree, and thus have spent quite alot of time at the State Archives, driving to the New York Public Library, Manhattenville College and three separate CUNY Libraries to study the New York Police Riot of 1857, as well as countless hours at my own school's --- SUNY Albany --- Special Collections section looking over various state politicians and lawmen's papers, or questing to find papers which in the end were distroyed when the Capitol caught fire years ago.

Second reason partially ties into the first, for example I've learned alot of interesting things researching that paper which are highly relevant to the state of Northern Politics, and which have presented me with new perspectives on the split in the Northern Party in 1860 and in the war that followed. I also bogged myself down on two books about John Brown and a new book that I received as an anniversary present about Lincoln's 1860 campaign itself. All of which of course, bogged me down in lots of research and reorganization for this timeline, because I actually enjoy doing that kind of stuff, which is odd and a bit disturbing to me.

Anyway, The books are done, I'm where I need to be on my research paper, and I've got several pages together and a few more before I get to where I want to be, so, the update will be here shortly. And I pray at this juncture, that the second one does not take so long to process.
 
Thanks for the progress update. I'm glad you're having fun studying, and I'll keep looking forward to the next installment of the TL!
 

Japhy

Banned
So then, here's Part One, with Part Two Closely on the way. Here's to hoping I get to the good stuff as quick as I possibly Can.
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Part One

Wherein The Moderate and Reasonable are Shunned for the Reactionary and the Vengeful and Slave Power Exerts its Force

So, Lee and Brown were both dead on the streets of a small town in Northern Virginia. And the impact of this spread out. Blood had been spilt, not just distant blood in far off Kansas but for the South, one of its noble sons, a hero several times over and the scion of one of its first families had spilt his. And it had been spilt by a Yankee who had sought to murder every decent family in the south in their beds.

The incensed good people of the south of course did not take this sitting down like cowards. The response to Lee’s death would manifest itself in three primary fashions, memorial to the fallen hero, the reorganization and renewal of the militia system and and the invigoration of new blood into the political movement most interested in “defending the Southern way of life”.

The first, Memorial was simple enough. Across the South and in the Halls of Congress there was much talk of the Gallant Lee. Governors, congressmen, mayors, senators, preaches and the doughface Yankee President Buchanan all spoke at great length, in varied degrees of oratory skill about that middle aged Lieutenant Colonel. The man was elevated to the stuff of legend, his actions against Indians, in the Mexican War, Commanding the students at West Point and his own time there, his brilliant engineering work to save St. Louis from flooding and financial ruin; all were built up, expanded on, transformed into the sort of stuff found in the Matter of Britain rather than American History. Novels, articles and serials would do to him what had only before been done to George Washington, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, taking the end of Lee’s mortal life and turning him into an immortal figure of the American legend.

And having at once gotten to work at building the Legend of Lee, the South was not willing to give him up. The United States Military Academy where Lee had served as Commandant and was developing an image as the holy of holies for the military of the Republic of course, was interested in bringing him up to New York to be buried on its grounds like many of his predecessors and late peers. But that northerly movement of their murdered favorite son was unacceptable to the state of Virginia which lobbied the widowed Mary Custis Lee and received permission to bury the colonel in Richmond. And thus it was, a few weeks after his death and temporary burial in a suitable crypt in Hollywood cemetery, that a Grand Monument began to rise at the State Capitol, just uphill and a little behind the statue of George Washington, where an equestrian Lee would soon be immortalized at even height with the father of the country.

Second came the militias. Before Brown’ raid the militia system in the south had turned moribund and was by no standard up-to-date. Its main duty had become since the fading of the threat of English invasion, to suppress Slave revolts, none of which had been forthcoming since Nat Turner had been crushed a generation ago, and the capture of runaways, a duty which had been sidelined due to the rise of an entire Slave Catching industry. But Yankees had now come down to murder good Southern families in their beds. Tied with the continued violence and political divisions caused by Kansas, and Dred Scott, and the rise of the Black Republicans, a reorganization of the militia system was essential. In every state from Maryland to Texas, legislatures increased the funding for uniforms, weapons, and increased drill. But that wasn’t enough for the popular feeling, and thus paramilitary units started to form, radical, passionate and viewed as highly respectable, private militia companies started to form in the cities, towns, and county-seats of the South as well. Units that flew Bonnie Blue Flags, wore their own uniforms, were headed by respectable men with pockets deep enough to cover the fees, units that took up names like The Barbour County Yankee Hunters, The Cherokee Lincoln Killers, and Lee’s Avenging Legion [1]. Of course all of these units were built around a slightly different idea than the official militias, that the South was already besieged, and that radicalism was required to defend the genteel way of life in the South against the dangers of Yankeedom and its agents sent south to trigger slaughter.

The last reaction was related to the second one, movement. Across the South the death of such a figure as Lee by a man like Brown sent a message.

Who after all, was Brown? A Brigand radical who had murdered countless men in Kansas as part of that northern plot to deny that land to the South. And when he had then hid in New York for more than a year, he had been unmolested in a state that under its Republican Governor Seward, a man not forgotten for his leadership of the So-called Conscience Whigs in 1850 [2]. Brown’s papers, found on the corpses and at the rented farm in Maryland that had been his base of operations showed a network of Jacobins who had funded, supplied, and protected Brown as he fought in Kansas, raided into Missouri and plotted his invasion of the South.

Brown had just been a man and his network, a vast conspiracy in the North stretching from Kansas to Ontario [3] and Boston. And to many in the South the lack of opposition to this, the failure of any Northern State to have acted against it before hand was proof of support for its monstrous goal. That Governors Seward, Banks, Chase or Bissell --- Republicans all --- failed to arrest a single man, to stop a single rifle or pike from reaching Brown, or to intercept the wanted killer from Kansas as he criss-crossed their states showed where their hopes had lay. The failure of the Doughfaces of the North to stop these men [4], at the ballot box and in their actions meant that a Black Republican gauntlet had been thrown down. The South was under siege.

And of course for the South there was already a political faction that had been saying such for years. Whom had, before even 1850 spoken of secession as a means by which to preserve the way of life the South held so dear. The heirs of Jefferson and his Spirit of ‘98, of Calhoun and the Nullifiers, of every brave Southern man who had ever Gone to Texas or Filibustered in Cuba, Nicaragua or beyond the Rio Grande. Men who had always shouted down the northern Doughfaces as cowards, and recognized just who the South’s --- now at last, clear --- enemies were. And with the Raid on Harper’s Ferry, tragically too late to impact the years three Gubernatorial Elections their time had at last come. The hour at last had come, the Fire-Eaters were right and their ascendency was to begin[5].

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In the North the death of Brown would produce a different sort of reaction. Politically there could be no rally to damn him or beautify him. Doughfaces cursed his name, while moderates were horrified that he had raised a banner of rebellion and took up arms for his cause. Some abolitionists feared what his brief campaign and failures meant, and prayed that his simple logic, that slavery would have to be ended by violent action would mean, while others praised him for putting his life down in the fight for God’s law. James Buchanan condemned it and with his own base of support in ruin [6] found the southern argument that the treason at Harper’s Ferry would require legal action highly persuasive. It was this decision which would provoke the hardening and unification of the northern response to Harper’s Ferry.

Investigation of the papers which were recovered at Harper’s Ferry and at Brown’s rented farmstead and base in Maryland showed to the militia and and the U.S. Marshalls that Brown had far from acted alone, with support, recruits, finances, and weapons having been delivered from a wide network, which at its core was based on the financial support of six prominent monetary backers and that beyond them a sizeable group of men and women from Canada to Philadelphia were either aware of or pledged to support Brown’s campaign. With the recovery of these papers the question became what the Federal Government should do about it. Leaks of the documents to Southern papers increased the outrage as ties to usual suspects began to appear; Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman, Captain James Montgomery the Kansas Jayhawker all having pledged varied degrees of support to the raid, and the calls for action became ever louder.

Buchanan initially supported as he had so many other times, inaction on the part of the Federal Government. But with pressure mounting a decision was made, and Buchanan ordered Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black to have the Justice Department began prosecutions of “The Secret Six”, Brown’s financial backers. Of course as soon as the first leaks had appeared, promoted by Southern Congressmen, the Six had scattered. By the time Federal charges were leveled in November of 1859, four of the six had fled overseas, President Buchanan decided not to file charges against them at the present time, as one of the two was Brown’s primary financial backer and the other was the only one of the six to publicly speak in support of the raid. And thus it was that former Congressmen Gerrit Smith and the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson were arrested on several Charges of Conspiracy to support an Insurrection and Treason [7].

Smith, arrested in an asylum would first attempt to secure his release by claiming insanity, though a panel of doctors would find him sane noting he was presumably suffering no more than a nervous breakdown. The trial for the two, against much outcry began at the start of December and became a national obsession.

The prosecution's case was mostly based on evidence recovered at Brown’s farm and in Harper’s Ferry. The defense of the two men was divided, with Smith’s lawyers attempted to argue that he was innocent on the grounds of insanity while Higginson’s argued that he was both unaware of Brown’s plan to attack a federal arsenal and that Brown’s plan had not intended to commit treason. This would lead to serious trouble for each man, as their lawyers would fight to produce differing accounts of the evidence. Smith’s would show that the Provisional Constitution of Brown’s planned State showed that Smith must have mentally ill to agree and support it. Higginson’s cited Article Ninety-Six of the same document which read:

These articles not for the overthrow of government.
The foregoing articles shall not be construed so as in any way to encourage the overthrow of any State government, or of the general government of the United States, and look to no dissolution of the Union, but simply to amendment and repeal. And our flag shall be the same that our fathers fought under in the Revolution.​

As proof that the plan of Brown’s operation was only to at its worst, aid in thief of Southern Plantation owner’s property and not to create a revolt against the lawful government of the United States or the southern states.

It may be said, and was very much so at the time that the main problem for the two defendants was that on the grounds that the actions resultant of their conspiracy occurred there, the trial was being held in the Federal District Court of Western Virginia, Judge John W. Brockenbrough presiding [8] and with a Jury raised from that district. It was just by chance that the jury was dominated by a Slaveholding majority. And so it was that the trial dragged on, with the US Attorney building a case that the two men funded Brown and clearly knew enough about it to know what they were getting into, noting clearly the impact --- Lee’s death being brought up repeatedly, tied in with the growing legend of the man --- and questioning the believability that any man could have donated such finances without ever even asking what Brown’s goal was. On the other side, Smith’s lawyers fought to make their man seem mad, and place the real blame on Higginson and the “Fled Four”, while Higginson’s defenders worked to use the trial as a pulpit to denounce slavery and separate their clients financial aid to Brown from the killings in Harper’s Ferry.

Outside of the trial the reaction to all of this was complex. In the South some were satisfied that it was underway, with many more demanding and hoping that the other four would make it to trial, while the growing reactionary front in the South called for everyone from Governor Seward to the Connecticut Pike makers who were hired by Brown to be dragged to the dock as well. In the North much was said about the seeming sanity of Higginson and the key point of their mutual defense, that neither man could be blamed for what Brown did beyond their knowledge, a stance that made contact and became a powerful idea, leading to ever growing popular support for their acquittal. And then in the abolitionist movement growing resentment and horror as two peaceful men were being threatened with the punishment for treason, just for seeking to end Slavery. It seemed to many that the United States was teetering, or had gone over the edge, that Slave Power was not only a threat but was on the cusp of final victory. And for some like Frederick Douglass, the pressure was growing too great, and before the jury would return he would have packed up and begun to move his family to Boston where they would board a steamer, bound for Haiti in February of 1861, settling on the island on arrival and working to help develop a Freedmen’s colony there[9]. Internationally leading lights such as Victor Hugo condemned the proceedings.

But none of that mattered in the Virginia courtroom. Unsurprisingly the Jury took only a day to reach its decision on February 19th, 1860. Both men were found guilty on all counts. In response to the treason conviction, Judge Brockenbrough sentenced both men to death. One month later, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case and the President refusing to sign pardons for either man, both men being held in Virginia were executed by hanging.

Like the murder of Reverend Lovejoy years before the executions of Higginson and Smith sent shockwaves across the country. The Federal Government had executed White Men for opposing Slavery. In the South there was spontaneous celebration, the traitors whom had sought to destroy them had paid for the crime in blood, the celebration only being tempered by the knowledge that others had escaped justice, some even still living free in the northern states.

In the north the reaction was one of near-universal horror. Peaceful protests had been ongoing across the Midwest and New England, and in a few places --- Boston being the most prominent --- the marches that day turned into riots. In other areas across the nation, militias too began to grow, clearly ideological, to more and more it seemed like war was coming, the South was an armed camp and it would do the north good to be prepared. Recruitment into the Republican Party grew by leaps and bounds while supporters of the President were isolated in their own party meetings and in at least one prominent case spat upon while on the street. Calls for Impeachment were heard on the floor of the House of Representatives. In the Democratic Party, and outright split was now beyond inevitable and every day becoming more cemented as fact.

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And a month after that, on April 23rd, 1860, in Charleston, South Carolina, the Democratic National Convention opened.

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Notes

[1] Two of those are OTL from the period. If you’re wondering why they targeted Lincoln like that, he was becoming well known due to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. And there are units that targeted other leading Republicans, they just didn’t have such interesting names. Unless you consider “The Enemies of Seward” to have flair.

[2] That is, that band of dangerous radicals who in 1850 sought to oppose the expansion of Slavery into the Mexican Cession. They had sought to turn that whole territory into two Free States, California and New Mexico. That view, exemplified in the Wilmot Proviso and in President Taylor’s proposed organization of the Cession of course being viewed by so many in the South as a critical danger to their very way of life because letting slavery lie was of course always part of an evil plot to destroy it.

[3] John Brown’s Constitutional Convention which created the basis for his revolutionary government in the Southern United States had in fact occurred in Ontario. Due in part to the fact that Canada was the only safe endpoint on the Underground Railroad and he had hoped to recruit as many escaped slaves as possible to join his force.

[4] Time for a Brief explanation of what the Northern Democratic Party looks like.

[5] The Fire-eaters were basicly the Southern Nationalist wing of the Democratic party. Small government, Anti-Federalist, and not interested in compromise they had been the intellectual foundation for years about Southern secession, a movement that had no northern counterpart since the collapse of the Hartford Federalists forty years beforehand. The name by the way, comes from the fact that they would claim to rather eat flames then sit and talk with the Yankees as opposed by the Southern “Moderates” who would work with Pro-South northerners while still seeking to expand and preserve Slave Territory and Power.

[6] Since the Dredd Scott decision days into Buchanan’s administration and the attempt by the President to assure the entry of Kansas into the Union under a slave constitution, the Democratic party has been ripped by internal division, or more accurately those divisions had moved from disagreement to outright hostility. Since the Compromise of 1850 one faction the Hunkers --- Northerners who sought to continue to North-South Democratic alliance for political dominance --- had fallen apart due to the failure of their own man, Franklin Pierce in the white house. The Doughfaces, those Northerners who clearly supported the South had risen to prominence under Buchanan, a third group the more Whiggish type of Democrats had for the past decade been led by Stephen A. Douglas and generally responded to the ideas of Southern goals with the position of Popular Sovereignty.
The divide between Doughfaces (And those “Moderates” like Buchanan who sided with them) and Douglas Democrats had come to a head over Kansas, in the 1858 Midterms, Buchanan had used federal patronage to run “Dannites” --- Anti-Douglas, Pro-Buchanan --- candidates in State and Congressional races to try and crush his opponents within the Democratic Party. Instead it helped further Republican gains, bottom out his own support and make Douglas as the only vital and prominent Northern Democrat left at the ball.

[7] Smith, the primary banker was also the Liberty Party candidate for President on several occasions, and had as a preventative measure (Just as IOTL) had himself institutionalized when Brown’s raid failed. Higginson IOTL was the only one of the six to not flee or turn his back on Brown, openly praising him and attempting to organize a rescue which Brown refused to accept. During the War he became an officer in the 1st South Carolina Infantry (African Descent), United States Army.

[8] Judge Brockenbrough had been appointed by President Polk, was a slaveowner and one of the founders of Washington Law School (That is Washington and Lee IOTL). Brockenbrough was a political ally of President Buchanan during his term and a supporter in 1861 of the wonderfully ridiculous “Peace Conference” which sought to create a settlement based on the same ideals as the Crittenden Amendments. He resigned his office when Virginia seceded and would become Judge for the Confederate Western District of Virginia, and served in the Confederate Congress. Impartial Judge to run a fair trial no?

[9] Douglass would IOTL shortly after Brown’s execution endorse the idea setting up Freedmen settlement in Haiti and in April 1861 was intending to go himself having lost faith in the struggle. Luckily for the United States just before his departure the war began in Charleston and with renewed vigor Douglass decided to stay in the US and work to transform the nature of the war. Here, his faith is being hammered earlier as its the Federal Government taking the lead in prosecution and they’re going after men who never raised arms against the United States. The prosecution's also cause greater fears for his family as, well, if they’re going after the financial backers what about a man that supported Brown and knew the details of the plan clearly beforehand and was wooed to join the operation?
 
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Japhy

Banned
Wonderful update Japhy. Not normally one for ACW TLs, but this has most definitely caught my interest.

Thanks.

Personally looking it over again I feel the update wasn't as good as it could have been, plus not much of anything is really happening yet.

For old readers I hope the next update now at about complete, will be interesting as it will be further breaks from the original, and of course I hope new readers like it too.

Thoughts and Comments are always welcome.
 
Eagerly anticipating more

I LOVE this timeline. Sad to see John Brown dead--but Lee gone is one less brilliant general for the traitors.

I can see the war getting even nastier than in OTL--much nastier. Since they've hanged (or, to the northerners, murdered) people who never lifted a gun, I can see several results.

Fopr one thing, I would not be surprised to see Buchannan ordering the arrest of northern militia leaders on charges of planning insurrection or some such. Or, alternatively, some militia leaders on one side or the other are murdered by the other side.

The militia groups might even purchase or steal more than rifles...some might be creatively "lost" by sympathetic officers.

It could even, perhaps, lead to more hangings, and an ugly war where rebel leaders, if captured, hang or get shot for treason. (Under the constiturion, they are clearly and legally traitors, and as such, subject to execution after trial.)

If that happens, it gets even worse, as the rebels retaliate, and eventually, there's a no prisoners policy, in fact if not in the rules.

I'm looking forwards to seeing how this turns out--and hope the southerners don't get their so called "redemption" after reconstruction.

VERY INTERESTING!
 
As I said last time this TL saw daylight, I'm not really an ACW kinda guy. Being British, most of the stuff I know about the war, beyond the bare nuts and bolts, comes from this site.

However, I like the style, I like the premise, and as before, I'm a-following.
 

Japhy

Banned
For old readers I hope the next update now at about complete

Hey everyone, remember when I said this and it seemed like I was actually ready to do this?

Yeah, obviously I was correct on that.

I had to rewrite my Capstone paper, basically completely and had to scour through the State Archives and dozens of old Newspaper Archives for weeks instead. That and I read a whole hell of alot of JSTOR that dragged my focus to events in 1862-1866 which of course is useless for a timeline thats still firmly planted in 1860.

Anyway, supposedly, I am intending to go and rewrite what I have, change a few things and have the damn next update coming. This is not dead.

But for now a discussion question for you my abused and neglected readers:

What do you think of changing a mans character?

That is to say for example, if I have someone who supported Slavery or at least lacked the moral courage to ever take a real stand against it, and never wavered in that until his death, without ever showing too much of a sign of changing course, does anyone think I can have the right to redeem this politician?

On one hand I see Lincoln shifting from being a "Free Territories Republican" in 1860-61 to pushing Emancipation in 1862 (The Colonization and "Its the Slaves' Fault stuff, and the "If I can free some but leave others..." letter in 1862 is something I'm not counting as meaningful because if one notes he said all of that between deciding on the Emancipation as a course of action and the Battle of Antietam) and by 1865 supporting Voting rights for educated Blacks and Veterans (Which between the USCT and the Freedmen's Bureau actually means by 1868 giving them all the right to vote).

On the other hand I have a feeling that these are Human beings, as much as I am writing fiction here I can't separate myself from the field I am training in, as a Historian I feel on a level that I would me massively misconstruing things if I took a man who did one thing and completely rebuild him in a way that he's not IOTL. And in doing so, it would seem fake. It would be like all the Liberal Republicans and "New Departure" Democrats in 1870-1874 who claimed on some level to have changed but really just rebranded themselves. Even with everything that happened they were still holding the same views, there was no real change. If I write change into someone is really all I can do, be to make them have their own internal New Departure?
 
On the other hand I have a feeling that these are Human beings, as much as I am writing fiction here I can't separate myself from the field I am training in, as a Historian I feel on a level that I would me massively misconstruing things if I took a man who did one thing and completely rebuild him in a way that he's not IOTL. And in doing so, it would seem fake. It would be like all the Liberal Republicans and "New Departure" Democrats in 1870-1874 who claimed on some level to have changed but really just rebranded themselves. Even with everything that happened they were still holding the same views, there was no real change. If I write change into someone is really all I can do, be to make them have their own internal New Departure?

I suppose it would be the latter- on an issue as seminal as slavery, massive sea changes aren't common.
 
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