Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

"...the recently-fought Sino-French War and the Chilean-American conflict was the topic du jour on every cadet's lips at the Naval Academy in Heinrich's [1] final year at the school. That two major naval conflicts had been fought during their time at study was not just a subject of interest to the young students but also to their instructors, and the lessons of that conflict helped inform an entire generation of German naval thinkers. The Crown Prince was no different; his passion for the Navy was not just a love of the sea but also a fascination with strategy and theory. He would devour Mahan in later years, as would every other Naval strategist in Europe (Mahan's ideas being heavily influenced by his own near-death experience in the Tierra del Fuego) [2], and shortly after graduating the Naval Academy spent the summer before his first command in London with his British relatives, picking their brains as well as those of senior Royal Navy officers about lessons to be drawn from both engagements.

The lessons he came away with were that the British remained satisfied with their long-term capital ship strategy, of being able to remain master of the seas and blockade any port at will, but that they could do so out of luxury of being an island nation with no need for an army, a luxury Germany did not enjoy. Though Heinrich admired the Royal Navy's prestige and was quite close to his first cousin, the future George V [3], he viewed the British approach impractical and it was largely in his takeaways in the spring of 1886 that his views on pragmatic "national strategy" developed, views he frequently insisted his father listen to and which he eventually insisted on himself. The model for Germany, he thought, was that of France - the more he read of the Jeune Ecole and how France had managed to rapidly build the world's second best navy out of fast-attack cruisers and torpedo boats fascinated him. That France was a two-theater Navy that had to defend against Britain in the Channel as well as its vast presence in the Mediterranean, and increasingly east of Suez, spoke to his concerns about the Marine Imperiale on Germany's west and the Russian Baltic Fleet on Germany's east - the Reich would need a similarly flexible fleet.

Satisfied that a robust coastal defense force and then quick cruisers to protect the growing German overseas colonial presence and affiliated shipping from "piracy," as he termed Chile's behavior in their brief war with America, rather than a fleet in being to threaten the Royal Navy's hegemony [4], he also took lessons from the considerable decay of the United States' fleet. Despite the attempts to ramp up sloop building during the War of Confederate Succession, then the much-ballyhooed Naval Act of 1869 and the "New Navy" that had been ushered in under Blaine, the United States had been humiliated by a single protected cruiser in the Pacific, the "most modern weapon ever designed," as Heinrich termed it in his essay on the war, and had sat pat in terms of attempting to develop new naval technology to the point that a fleet of wooden steamers had been sunk or so thrashed they were forced into retreat in the icy hell of the Drake Passage.

A successful Germany would require innovation, indigenous shipbuilding capabilities, and flexibility to respond to the strategic changes made in other countries' fleets. Heinrich presented his thoughts to his father shortly before taking over his first command, that of the SMY Hohenzollern, the Imperial yacht [5]..."

- Heinrich: The Life and Legacy of Germany's Goldkaiser [6] (University of St. Andrews Press, 2001)

[1] I went back and forth on whether to use the anglicized version of Heinrich von Hohenzollern, the elder of the two surviving sons of Friedrich III after Willy got brained by an oar and drowned, and settled on using the German version, since Wilhelm II is very rarely called "William II" even in English press. (This is of course the opposite to the approach I took in the textbook on his father, Frederick and Victoria)
[2] More on this, and the USN's reactions to their shitty performance against Chile, in a few updates
[3] Spoiler! We're not going to see an Albert Victor monarchy in this TL either!
[4] Put simply, Hank being a naval officer and keen student of naval warfare (OTL!Heinrich loved being a naval officer and was satisfied in that role) means that he won't make dumb decisions around the fleet, like his brother did, and perhaps most importantly won't defer decisions to Tirpitz, which was the main dumb decision Willy made
[5] What, you thought they were going to let the Crown Prince have an ACTUAL command where he might see combat?
[6] I think I got the translation of "Golden Kaiser" correct, but someone with a better command of German than I can is welcome to correct me. As the title of this book implies, Heinrich's reign is going to have very different consequences for Germany than his brother's

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Lincoln, who found himself politically isolated after his transcription errors had caused a tremendous uproar for Blaine and tremendous confusion in the early days of the war, would not be at the War Department long; shortly after Christmas, David Davis announced his immediate resignation due to failing health after 23 years on the Supreme Court, 21 of them as Chief Justice. At first, Lincoln hoped that he would be named to the bench to replace his fellow Illinoisan; his father even telegraphed Blaine politely suggesting as much [1], an appointment which would have made the 42-year old Lincoln the youngest Chief Justice to date. Blaine declined, however, still angry with the younger Lincoln but afraid to fire him less the elder Lincoln, fond of nursing grievances and effectively the party boss emeritus of the Liberals in most of the Midwest, particularly Illinois (and who was thus personally close to both Hay and Logan) cause him trouble in his historic second term. Instead, Blaine found a straightforward solution - he sent the nomination of Justice Edmunds to the Senate instead, where the controversy over his initial nomination four years earlier had subsided with his substantial body of work on the Court in only four terms (in which he had produced more opinions, concurrences and dissents than any other member). Edmunds' output, cordial relations with Senators even on the bench as a member of Washington society and being in his late fifties suggested a short tenure atop the Court to many Senators, and he was confirmed with only two dissents, those of Senator Bayard of Delaware and Senator Rosecrans of California, and sworn in as Chief Justice on February 1, 1886 - his 58th birthday. To replace Edmunds as Associate Justice, Blaine elected not to appoint Lincoln to that office either, but instead tapped his Attorney General, Wheeler H. Peckham, whom he had considered for the same seat on the bench before going with Edmunds in 1881. Peckham, who had recently come out of an ill spell, accepted the role in anticipating a less managerial job, having already tired of implementing civil service reform on the US Marshal Service and his brusque personality butting heads with a number of US Attorneys. Peckham was confirmed unanimously, viewed as a stellar choice for the bench thanks to his impeccable credentials and reputation for personal honesty and propriety in a time when many Senators were of counsel to railroads and other trusts. [2] The Justice Department thus became the landing spot for Lincoln - in the Cabinet where Blaine could keep an eye on him, but away from the War Department where he had caused the White House such embarrassment..."

- Titan: The Life and Presidency of James G. Blaine

[1] I'm sort of enjoying writing a no-fucks-given, old powerbroker Abe Lincoln with a prestigious (and wealthy!) law practice who's at this point helped steer Robert into a variety of high-profile jobs thanks purely to his wealth and influence within the Liberal Party. Robert has always struck me from my research as a sharp guy who didn't have any particular love of politics, but his father's secular sainthood and his last name in OTL led him to be a major political figure anyways. Here, he's more or less steered into various roles through his dad's influence; a similar life arc (only a bit more prominent, as we'll soon see), albeit for different reasons.
[2] And so Wheeler Peckham gets his Supreme Court spot that he was denied in OTL thanks to infighting between various New York politicians, rather than his brother who was appointed by Grover Cleveland

 

[KingSweden24]

Whew! Lot of updates in one day, and some long ones!

And with that we're into 1886, a year for which I so far have 18 updates planned, before what is going be a barnburner 1887!

Any thoughts, critiques or comments before I dive into next chunk of content?

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Eastern Telegraph Company's technological marvel in running a submarine telegraph cable to Honolulu revolutionized the kingdom's relationship to Canada, seeing as how it came hard on the heels of the connection of Vancouver to Toronto and Montreal via the Canadian Pacific Railroad and concurrent telegraph lines across the Prairies and Rockies there. The great trusts that dominated Hawaii's economy as well as the other growing Anglo-Canadian commercial interests could now communicate directly with Vancouver within hours and have a response back the same day; it allowed stock prices of Hawaiian companies and commodity prices, particularly those of sugars and pineapples, to be communicated to the speculative exchange in Vancouver and onwards to Toronto. Eastern Telegraph did not stop there; after their 1886 accomplishment, they began the process of laying a cable from Honolulu to Fiji, with their eye to eventually connect onwards to Queensland and New South Wales in Australia, and from there the submarine cable network tying those dominions to Hong Kong, Singapore and India. Hawaii was finally becoming the crossroads of the Pacific it had hoped to be.

Not to be undone, the Pacific Telegraph Company of San Francisco took on market capitalization and investors to run a US line to Honolulu, then Midway, and on to Port Hamilton in Korea eventually; Hawaii thus sat at the heart of the burgeoning Anglo-American rivalry in the Pacific (telegraphy being available to the Royal Navy was hugely crucial in German-American Samoa Crisis just a year away), and began the long process of connecting Asia and North America across the vast ocean..."

- The Pineapple Kingdom: Hawaii in the 19th Century

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Li's first priority was to see to it that no other power encroached on China in the way that France had, quickly making sure to develop new "rapprochement" with both Britain and Japan in the aftermath of the disastrous war, buffeted by the complete humiliation of the War Party. With command of court and the trust of Cixi, Li's new concern was twofold - Russia in the northeast and west, and the growing campaign by Germany to seek a treaty port or perhaps even a concession on Chinese land, now that France had gotten a piece and a taste of precious Qing soil..."

- The Dragon Stirs: The Qing Dynasty under the Guangxu Emperor

 

[SilentSpaniard]

Any thoughts, critiques or comments before I dive into next chunk of content?

Well, what can I say? So many chapters! Lots of content, so many things happening at the same time... A whole different world! The timeline is as fascinating and fleshed-out as always.

 

[Elsurnoolvida]

Whew! Lot of updates in one day, and some long ones!

And with that we're into 1886, a year for which I so far have 18 updates planned, before what is going be a barnburner 1887!

Any thoughts, critiques or comments before I dive into next chunk of content?

I only find the peace treaty between the US and Chile strange, they won that war all but in name and still get forced to pay, like they had lost.
I feel like it would have been Chile asking/demanding payment/benefits, or saying they can continue sinking US ships

 

[KingSweden24]

Well, what can I say? So many chapters! Lots of content, so many things happening at the same time... A whole different world! The timeline is as fascinating and fleshed-out as always.

Thank you!

I only find the peace treaty between the US and Chile strange, they won that war all but in name and still get forced to pay, like they had lost.
I feel like it would have been Chile asking/demanding payment/benefits, or saying they can continue sinking US ships

Suffice to say there will be lots of Chileans, especially members/allies of the Navy, who agree with you and feel chafed at the arbitrated settlement imposed on them by Britain (a country with its own big picture and interests to defend when it comes to the US)

the Indemnity is basically just to pay for the Panama incident and is tiny, anyways

 

[KingSweden24]

"...his near-death experience in the Tierra del Fuego thus sparked in Mahan a new interest not only in God but his longstanding fascination with theories of sea power; that he was soon after returning from Rio de Janeiro offered a position at the Naval War College, of which he suddenly found himself the President of when Admiral Stephen Luce was suddenly made head of the North Atlantic Squadron, was a remarkable change in career trajectory for the otherwise unexceptional commander. What he lacked in skills in command of a ship, [1] however, he made up with as a strategic and historic mind that analyzed and developed his studies on sea power. From his lectures at the War College emerged his treatises on the subject, which within a decade were so influential that every naval officer in the world had it as required reading. His "Influence of Sea Power Upon History" shaped the enthusiasm for a robust Navy in future newspaper baron Theodore Roosevelt; inspired the future Kaiser Heinrich I of Germany, a naval man himself; and impressed the Royal Navy's admiralty, who were amazed that an officer from a navy that had just been fought to a grim draw by Chile, of all countries, could produce such a work. At the War College, future staff officers also dissected much more aggressively the logistical failures that had led to the muddled end result of the war; in the end, many of the cadets who would one day serve with distinction in the Great War in the 1910s developed an understanding of what had gone wrong in a relatively minor "distance conflict" and built a robust system of theorems around naval warfare, ship design development, supply chain necessities, and allocation of resources for deployment. Out of Mahan's "first cohort," as the men emerging from the War College in its early years were called, the idea of a General Naval Board emerged as well, to create a European-style general staff for the Navy, and to begin consolidating the disparate bureaus of the Navy under its command to end the plague of "bureauism" within the department.

Mahan's theories were influential in Congress, too. The fallout of the Chilean-American War triggered a heretofore unforeseen investment in the United States Navy; that a single ship had interdicted so much of Pacific shipping was a humiliation, and in a rare hearing by a department head before Congress, Secretary Goff promised that another investment in a line of ships similar to the ABCD vessels that were now finally entering service, too late to effect the war, would mean that "we will never face a peer on the high seas again." Britain, through her extensive network of spies in Washington and New York, understood exactly what that meant - this time the United States intended to make good on the unmet promises laid out in the 1869 Naval Act. The Naval Act of 1886, spearheaded by New York Congressman Levi Morton, would earmark for expenditures in the next five years three times the amount that had been set aside in 1869 over ten. It called for aggressive designs of protected cruisers similar to the Esmeralda. Four such ships - the USS Cleveland (C-2), USS Baltimore (C-3), USS Philadelphia (C-4) and USS San Francisco (C-5), would be built, launched and commissioned by 1890 based on designs bought from Britain's Armstrong; by 1895 an additional ten such vessels, including the Newark which was given the hull code C-1, were in service to complement the first four as well as the still-in-service ABCD ships. The splurge in spending was both stimulatory for the major shipyards of Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York and Baltimore during the early 1890s depression and a major deterrent to other powers; the brief conflict over Samoa just a year after the Naval Act was passed ended in large part due to not only the ABCD ships that were dispatched from San Francisco with haste, but also German fears over the host of cruisers coming ready within just a few short years [2]. The "New Navy" was also political fodder - the spending was part of the Democratic campaign in 1886 against the "Billion Dollar Congress," and such campaigns continued to make the Navy a Liberal redoubt in terms of political support..."

- The Fourth Branch: A Comprehensive History of the United States Navy

[1] OTL Alfred Thayer Mahan really was a pretty mediocre captain; ships in his command tended to collide with other boats in port, for instance
[2] More on this in 1887!

 

[KingSweden24]

"...five years and two days after his near-assassination, Alexander II passed away in his sleep in St. Petersburg. The last three years of his reign he had been Tsar only in theory; all business was conducted by Tsarevich Alexander and his "Council of State," which his son detested. Soon after his burial, and within weeks of his coronation, Alexander III would diminish even the minute role that commoners in the body, which became even more of a sinecure than it already was; he did not, however, dispense with it entirely, and the kernel of constitutional possibility would remain with it.

That said, the young new Tsar had his own ambitions. The tensions with Britain in Central Asia were growing, and the Bear's eyes were turning now to Persia again. Dismayed by the Turkish War's results he had little interest in European affairs, yet was happiest when traveling to the courts of other states, where royals were much safer and freer than the Russian "prison" that security for the Romanovs demanded. As reactionary as he was towards the Narodnaya Volya, and with pogroms starting to ratchet up again with the elder Tsar's death, he nevertheless pursued one major project of reform that he championed to the masses - curtailing the expenses of the litany of Grand Dukes and Duchesses in the Russian elite, cracking aggressively down on his related nobility to end their scandals and spendthrift ways to improve the Empire's budget, and gear it towards the construction of railroads, to the reinvestment in the creaky and underpaid military, and to try to pay back some of the debts owed to British and French banks..."

- Alexander II, Tsar and Autocrat of Russia

 

[KingSweden24]

"...tensions between Chinese and locals in the American West only accelerated into the mid-1880s, especially with the increasing militancy of the Knights of Labor, which was furious over Chinese penetration out of the mining and railroad industry and into the urban trades. In addition to racist views on the "yellow peril," the Knights also complained of wage pressure from what they termed semi-slavery; indeed, the Knights in 1887 would begin novel suits against certain employers with large Chinese workforces that their labor arrangements violated the 13th Amendment, which banned chattel slavery in the United States [1]. In San Francisco, a fire consumed six Chinese laundries in that city's Chinatown in early January of 1886; in Seattle, organizers affiliated with the Knights announced that they were expelling all Chinese from the city in an extrajudicial move and would march them onto a steamship to force them to leave at once, putting together an armed paramilitary that "cleared" Chinatown and was stopped only by judicial intervention and the territorial militia being dispatched by President Blaine. That nobody was killed in the "Seattle race riot" was a small miracle [2], though the affair showed Chinese immigrants that their protection was likely limited by legal institutions and revealed a paramilitary dynamic to the American labor movement that had not been seen before. Things came to a head during the year's later general strike organized by the KoL [3] - in San Francisco, four Chinese men were lynched as "strikebreakers," and a riot nearly burned down a Chinese enclave in Denver home to railroad workers.

The Chinese response was multifold. Many families left Western cities they saw as unsafe; the minimal presence of Chinese in cities like Philadelphia, New York or Chicago, as well as large immigrant communities in those cities, would allow them to more quietly put down roots in places they believed (with good reason) to be less hostile. Others returned to China, having earned good wages for many years in the United States and now able to build better lives in their home country. For those who stayed, though, the Tong became their refuge; the gathering halls for Chinese expats emerged not only as benevolent community societies but also the backbone of Chinese America. Disputes between Chinese, who came to increasingly distrust the US courts, were solved one-on-one within Tongs; sworn brotherhoods for mutual protection and cooperation, secret societies not unlike the Italian Mafia that would emerge on the East Coast within a generation began to form. As their numbers grew, particularly in San Francisco and Seattle, the Tongs of those cities bureaucratized and became more sophisticated - all out of view of the white local population - to better defend the interests of their members..."

- We Come From Canton: Chinese Diaspora in the 19th Century

[1] This is entirely of my invention; no labor groups did this in OTL
[2] Based off an OTL event around the same time
[3] More on this later

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

"...five years and two days after his near-assassination, Alexander II passed away in his sleep in St. Petersburg. The last three years of his reign he had been Tsar only in theory; all business was conducted by Tsarevich Alexander and his "Council of State," which his son detested. Soon after his burial, and within weeks of his coronation, Alexander III would diminish even the minute role that commoners in the body, which became even more of a sinecure than it already was; he did not, however, dispense with it entirely, and the kernel of constitutional possibility would remain with it.

Pity. Russia still seems to be going the same way somewhat.

ALso, wondering why you didn't want to keep Tsarevich Nicholas alive instead of giving it to his younger brother almost the same as OTL.

 

[KingSweden24]

Pity. Russia still seems to be going the same way somewhat.

ALso, wondering why you didn't want to keep Tsarevich Nicholas alive instead of giving it to his younger brother almost the same as OTL.

Shoot, that would have been an idea! I hadn't given Russia a moment of thought when I was cruising through the 1860s (I was doing much less research and tunnel-visioned a bit more on a handful of countries at that time). In hindsight I should have explored that butterfly a bit. Drat.

There's going to be massive changes to Russian royalty anyways, but that would have been a good one!

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the rush of foreign workers, speculators and entrepreneurs to the Witwatersrand was at a level unseen in any gold rush since California in 1849; even rushes in Australia, Canada and Chile in the late 1880s or the Klondike score a decade later in the Yukon did not come close to the explosive growth in the Transvaal. The government of the Free Republics at first welcomed this; Piet Joubert himself commented that the taxes that could be levied on claims would fill the coffers of the otherwise agrarian Boers to finance all their needs for the next century (a dramatic understatement). A Portuguese company would lay rail from Delagoa to the Pretoria area; a British concern out of the Cape proposed to the do the same, egged on by the powerful fruit baron Cecil Rhodes who was an early investor. The Gold Rush led to the foundation of Johannesburg and brought thousands of Natives in from the countryside, particularly from the allied Swazi and Zulu; the working conditions and restrictions upon them put serious strains on relations between the Boers and the Native Kings. The flood of British, German and Americans of both Union and Confederacy to the gold fields created tensions too; the "uitlanders" who started businesses, staked claims and began to pore over the vast mineral wealth were barred from participation in most civil society on account of not being members of the Reformed Church. Reactionaries such as Paul Kruger even wanted to drive the uitlanders from the land and have an exclusively black workforce; "at least we know what the kaffirs are about," [1] he said in a rowdy meeting of the Assembly of the Free Republics. After nearly a decade of peace after the failed British expedition against the Basuto, and growing trade via Delagoa, the Boers were suddenly in the heart of international tensions once again; and it certainly did not help that the various European powers were starting to divvy up their continent amongst themselves..."

- The Land of Plenty: Southern Africa in the 19th Century

[1] As always, super-racist term used purely for historical accuracy

 

[KingSweden24]

"...though nowhere near as opulent as "La Triomphe" the previous fall, the 30th birthday of the Emperor was still a grand affair that included a public holiday for every factory worker in the country [1] as well as a grand fireworks display on the Seine and an encore performance of L'Empire Triomphant. His birthday ball at the Tuileries featured guests as prominent as Prince Arthur of Great Britain, both Emperor Franz Josef and Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and Kaiser Friedrich of Germany; his close friend Leopold, the Duke of Brabant, spent nearly the whole month in Paris with Napoleon, dining and debating politics, science or philosophy and hunting (Napoleon left the heavy drinking and whoring to the Belgian heir). It was the first time Empress Marie Pilar had made a major public appearance since La Triomphe and it was thus one of the first reveals to the world that she was again pregnant; this second pregnancy would be her last, as it was even more difficult than the first. The Emperor danced with his showing wife and let his toddler daughter have the first slice of his cake, revealing a public warmth before his peers that he rarely showed.

Now out of his younger, brasher twenties, those who knew the Young Eagle well commented on how he had mellowed; fatherhood to France as well as to Marie Eugenie had made him calmer, happier, and more curious about the world his children would inherit. The state visits during his birthday celebration was the instigating factor in the start of what became known as the Great Détente - a thawing of relations between the European powers, France and Germany most prominently. While colonial rivalries did not go away, and Paris and London still did not see eye to eye on much, on the continent the last two decades of Napoleon IV's rule would be one of ever-closer relations, even as protectionism in economics rose after the Panic of 1890. Royals became friends or acquaintances; governments had more bilateral contacts, ambassadors keener at understanding their host countries, and much if not all of this peace was driven by Napoleon IV's deep fear of a war that would derail the scientific innovation that he believed promised a "future without want." The Young Eagle, in other words, was no longer an excitable little chick fresh from the egg; he was a grand bird now, thoughtful and cognizant of what shadow his wings may cast when they spread..."

- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905

[1] Nappy going all in on paternalist proto-integralist working class conservatism!

 

[SilentSpaniard]

Hmm... Maybe there's a bit of a Role Reversal here?

California Senator and mining baron George Hearst, who pushed to have his young son William Randolph Hearst given a position at the company's San Francisco headquarters in 1887 when he finished his collegiate studies

His "Influence of Sea Power Upon History" shaped the enthusiasm for a robust Navy in future newspaper baron Theodore Roosevelt

Regardless, no matter the timeline: one way or another, Teddy is always going to be Teddy. "Bully!"

 

[KingSweden24]

Hmm... Maybe there's a bit of a Role Reversal here?


Regardless, no matter the timeline: one way or another, Teddy is always going to be Teddy. "Bully!"

You read my mind

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Hmm... Maybe there's a bit of a Role Reversal here?


Regardless, no matter the timeline: one way or another, Teddy is always going to be Teddy. "Bully!"

In all honesty its actually refreshing to see teddy roosevelt not smash his way into being President for once.

 

[KingSweden24]

In all honesty its actually refreshing to see teddy roosevelt not smash his way into being President for once.

Credit on this one to @HonestAbe1809 - he had the suggestion of making Teddy a Hearst-like newspaper Baron, which was much better than my original (still non-Presidential) idea of making him a prominent and later politically active/inconvenient Admiral

 

[KingSweden24]

"...1886 thus serves as a fulcrum year in the history of American laborism; it was definitively the start of accelerating labor militancy, for which the General Strike (which was certainly not a strike across all industries, but did touch the major ones organized by the Knights of Labor) serves as a prism through which to view it. The Knights called for the strike to begin on May 1, 1886 - May Day - to force an eight hour workday. With their membership of 800,000 working men of all races and ethnicities in the United States and Canada, the General Strike ground many industries, primarily the railroad and steel industries, to a halt. Various Knights seized plants and shops by violence; human chains were formed around buildings as one "line of battle," while men with clubs, chains and rifles waited patiently for the inevitable strikebreakers to arrive. The tone varied state by state; in the West, for instance, the Strike became yet another excuse to target Chinese nonunion laborers, whom were inevitably the preferred scabs; in Philadelphia and Baltimore, many black men refused to cross the picket lines and instead joined up with their fellow working men, linking arms and singing gospel hymns. Lithuanian workers hired to restart a factory in Chicago peacefully turned around and went home rather than try to cross the line; Irish policemen in New York announced they would organize a policing guild and threatened to join the strike as well, plunging the city into chaos and triggering mass riots and recriminations within Tammany Hall.

The coordination, size and strength of the strike shocked the industrialist oligarchy as well as the ruling classes. National guards were called up in nearly every state to "put down the sedition;" to a generation of politicians who had watched the South plunge the country into an ugly war of secession just two decades earlier when they were young men, they viewed the Knights of Labor as a similarly dangerous organization that sought to break the Union's social contract in the way the Confederacy had broken its Constitution and democratic form of government. Violence spiked; the Knights, who by trying to organize "one big union" in a proto-syndicalist movement, suffered from individual chapters cracking under pressure and under the butts of rifles. Massive riots sparked in Haymarket Square in Chicago, Five Points in New York, and along the Philadelphia Docks as a rogue group of Knights tried to prevent non-affiliated dockworkers at the Philadelphia Navy Yard from going to work. The Philadelphia Dockyard Riot was the worst of them; to protect their shipyard workers, who began fighting the Knights, the USS Nantucket, an old ironclad sitting in dock, opened fire with its guns at the rioters, killing seventeen. The Navy's response deepened the resolve of the strikers and heightened the labor movement's antipathy towards the Navy long-term; it also finally induced politicians to nudge industrialists to start dealing with the Knights more aggressively or more directly.

The militancy of the Knights would have multiple knock-on effects, even as employer after employer conceded an eight-hour day and other craft unions who despised the "mobbish" Knights began to push for such privileges of their own. It heightened the hostility between labor and Liberal; organized labor's success at penetrating American political structures ran into a firm wall where New England began. It also triggered a major debate within labor itself; between worker cooperatives and "one big union," as the Knights pushed it and as many politicians slowly became amenable to, or smaller "local" unions that would organize and deal directly with ownership, especially in the crafts; these more moderate unions would that same December form the American Federation of Labor in response to this question..."

- Brothers in Arms: Trade Unionism in the United States