Another Civil War WI

(I can hear the collective groan from here, but bear with me:rolleyes:)

April 9th, 1865. What if, while he is riding through the Union picket line at Appomattox, Robert E. Lee is shot and killed by a trigger happy Union picket? Does Longstreet assume command? What happens next?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
No change for the war itself, but an even greater reverence for Lee in the post-war South (if that's possible).
 
I guess what I meant was, does Lee's successor fight on or not? If so, do we have a guerrilla war? If not, how does reconstruction go? I imagine there may be a more bitter and/or longer lasting sectional hatred for the Yankees having gunned down the symbol of the "lost cause" while he was under a flag of truce.
 
Longstreet had already agreed with Lee that the time had come to surrender when they were trapped at Appomattox and I would expect him to try and follow that road.

However the problem occurs when the die-hard loyalist soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia learn that their beloved commander has been killed by the Yankees. Weary and exhausted though they were it the ANV was only one good meal away from fighting on.

Longstreet might consult other Generals in the ANV to see if it was still possible for him to surrender but if the soldiers are suddenly driven by righteous anger over Lee's death than it might not be possible to surrender the Army.

It might end up being one of the great historical last stands all because a trigger-happy Yankee had killed the one man who could bring the fighting to an peaceful end.

In the post-war years, without Lee to sooth the hatred of the South, there will be more violence and hatred in the reconstructionist South. Longstreet himself might be dead so the chief supporter for peace and harmony between North and South amongst former Confederate would be Joe Johnston but he does not have half the sway that Lee does so his attemts would probably be less effective.
 
Top