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The Guns of September
"...rightly, the debacle in Maryland that allowed the Confederacy to seize Washington within three days and rapidly advance on Baltimore. However, the chaotic state of affairs in the east disguised that, in the wild opening days of the war, the United States actually accomplished a fair number of its immediate objectives in what would eventually come to be known as the Midlands Theater, particularly the securing of rail links across the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois and more importantly at Cincinnati, preventing their detonation by Confederate soldiers and agents and securing their first bridgeheads on Kentucky soil as a result. This swift reaction on September 9th and 10th was not enough to prevent the successful implosion and destruction of the rail bridge across the Ohio at Louisville, an act that proved largely irrelevant to the war in the long run considering that the Falls of the Ohio adjacent to the city already split the river into two effective theaters.

This was not to say that the first week of the war in the Ohio Valley was not without some color. By the end of the day on the 9th, the Kentucky State Militia had maneuvered artillery pieces into the highlands south of Covington and begun shelling Cincinnati in an indiscriminate manner reminiscent of what was happening in Washington that same day. The Ohio National Guard, however, had prepared for this eventuality and returned fire, beginning a weekslong artillery duel across the river as soldiers sniped at one another from their respective sides. By the end of September, Covington would have largely been suppressed and it was realistic to start pondering an expansion of the bridgehead there; not so in Louisville, where the Indiana National Guard and gunboats from downstream continued to shell the city into submission for weeks thereafter to keep the city's considerable industrial base from being repaired and usable for Confederate forces, flattening much of the central city and eventually forcing the evacuation of much of the intact factories southwards..."

- The Guns of September
 
Gonna make the assumption that you won't read about very many Southern war crimes in Wilson's books.
*snort*

I think that's a safe bet, but also a fools bet.
Besides, Maryland is in the South, and is lost territory, so to speak. They are just reclaiming what is theirs, after all. 🤨🙄

Oddily I can see that as a Wilson POV. "The reclaimation of Maryland began with..."
 
Black families that were captured were, beginning on the 14th, catalogued and then moved across the Potomac into Virginia to be sold into slavery further south, most of them in the Confederate War Department's needs. The fate of Georgetown, rather than striking fear into Blacks north of the Ohio, galvanized them, and as enlistment opened up across the United States to "strike back," Black Americans volunteered at a rate far disproportionate to their share of the population..."
Yeah, I expect this war to have an underlying racial war undertone.
 
*snort*

I think that's a safe bet, but also a fools bet.
Besides, Maryland is in the South, and is lost territory, so to speak. They are just reclaiming what is theirs, after all. 🤨🙄

Oddily I can see that as a Wilson POV. "The reclaimation of Maryland began with..."
I think the most you'll get from Wilson is that the attacks were the product of a few unfortunate bad apples in an otherwise clean Confederate Army. That or "those uppity [blanks] got what was coming to them; if they hadn't have fought back they wouldn't have been slaughtered and sold back into slavery - which, after is, is their natural state of being of course."

The former is what he writes for public consumption, the latter is absolutely what he says at parties.
 
Considering the recent update, and the fact that the Confederates attacked first, I think it's entirely possible that the GAW doesn't have the same cultural impact that the OTL WWI had- the American war at the very least against the CSA will be seen as a war against an evil enemy, and while the suffering will be traumatic it definitely won't be pointless.
 
Considering the recent update, and the fact that the Confederates attacked first, I think it's entirely possible that the GAW doesn't have the same cultural impact that the OTL WWI had- the American war at the very least against the CSA will be seen as a war against an evil enemy, and while the suffering will be traumatic it definitely won't be pointless.
Great point. I would add that given there's no hint of a WWII (at least involving the USA vs CSA) this war does have a hint of finality that WWI didn't have
 
The Ohio National Guard, however, had prepared for this eventuality and returned fire, beginning a weekslong artillery duel across the river as soldiers sniped at one another from their respective sides. By the end of September, Covington would have largely been suppressed and it was realistic to start pondering an expansion of the bridgehead there; not so in Louisville, where the Indiana National Guard and gunboats from downstream continued to shell the city into submission for weeks thereafter to keep the city's considerable industrial base from being repaired and usable for Confederate forces, flattening much of the central city and eventually forcing the evacuation of much of the intact factories southwards..."
And already, not even a week, the CSA is getting their shit pushed in. This bodes poorly for them.
 
Officers looted the Smithsonian Institution's galleries and collections
Okay this is hilarious .the idea of murder and rape going on In the background while Confederate officers are...geeking out about Classical paintings and statues and enjoying a nice day at the museum .

A small militia had formed in Georgetown by the early morning of the 10th, ready to scrap with the Confederate Army as it marched into Washington from the west; many white residents of Washington joined them to defend their home, residents who would have turned them away from their own barbershops and general stores and agitated to deny them jobs at the Navy Yard just a week before.
heartwarming admist the rivers of blood .it was self interest at the moment but I am sure many white Americans will remember there black comrades after the war fondly and that might make things better.

Indiana National Guard and gunboats from downstream continued to shell the city into submission for weeks thereafter to keep the city's considerable industrial base from being repaired and usable for Confederate forces, flattening much of the central city and eventually forcing the evacuation of much of the intact factories southwards..."
and so Kentucky and Tennessee will suffer for the Crimes of Virginia. which to be fair they were probably going to do the same stuff anways so I don't mind
 
The proverbial arrogance and stupidity. Good thing they're only pissing off the Yanks and not the Minbari Federation, like the guys who ignored that warning.
Only TWO men have pissed off the Mimbari Federation. One was the reincarnation of their prophet. The other never met a nuke he didn't immediately love. And the Confederates don't have nukes ;)
 
An Unfinished Revolution: The Second Chinese Republic, 1912-1924
"...major counterattack north of Peking meant to be timed with President Li's visit to the Forbidden City and his address to the garrison and populace there, an excursion that came with not one but two near-successful assassination attempts, including a bomb thrown at his DeDion-Bouton touring automobile. The defeat of this Manchurian attack near Tangshan exhausted both sides and forced the retreat of enemy forces back to Shanhaiguan and Li, afterwards, noted to General Wang that an offensive to the Great Wall may be in order while the enemy had been defeated in a particularly bloody engagement but both shared a mutual skepticism about what exactly could be achieved after that.

The reality was that China was exhausted, and there were still the western provinces to pacify. Back in Nanking, there was an emerging consensus within Li's ruling Jinbudang that now, with the symbolic victory of securing Peking and driving the Qing behind the Great Wall, it was time to focus on building up the Chinese economy and securing their position as its rulers, especially with the Guomindang organizing aggressively after the narrow win in the March elections. In a parallel to the Guomindang's 1940s-era "Inward-Looking Policy" that was developed for largely similar reasons (consolidating the economic and political life of China), many of Li's inner circle - particularly eminence grise Liang Qichao - pushed for a curtailment of the war effort now that the threat to the Yangtze Valley was ended and the Qing back in Manchuria, where they belonged. The Northeast would have to be redeemed at a later time.

Fortunately for Li and his compatriots, a similar attitude had emerged amongst the Russian leadership, who were beginning to come to terms with the reality that they would not have a client state controlling the whole of China north of the Huai He but they could quite easily have Manchuria as a vassal nonetheless. A quiet push had begun in Mukden, chiefly by General Kornilov, for the Russian Foreign Ministry to begin reaching out to Nanking about finding an arrangement they could both live with, one that would include a permanent Qing presence in Manchuria in return for an end to the war..."

- An Unfinished Revolution: The Second Chinese Republic, 1912-1924
 
Gonna make the assumption that you won't read about very many Southern war crimes in Wilson's books.
Yeah no definitely not
Considering the recent update, and the fact that the Confederates attacked first, I think it's entirely possible that the GAW doesn't have the same cultural impact that the OTL WWI had- the American war at the very least against the CSA will be seen as a war against an evil enemy, and while the suffering will be traumatic it definitely won't be pointless.
Yeah, there's definitely not a "why did this happen?!" or "not with a bang, but with a whimper" vibe to the US attitude towards the GAW.
Great point. I would add that given there's no hint of a WWII (at least involving the USA vs CSA) this war does have a hint of finality that WWI didn't have
Yeah, exactly. As of right now, this is the last major peer vs. peer war I have planned for the US (though I've mulled having a round 2 with ur-integralist Brazil eventually, just not sure when or why, though I'd rather have it be an ideological struggle, a little mini-Cold War in the Americas)
Okay this is hilarious .the idea of murder and rape going on In the background while Confederate officers are...geeking out about Classical paintings and statues and enjoying a nice day at the museum .


heartwarming admist the rivers of blood .it was self interest at the moment but I am sure many white Americans will remember there black comrades after the war fondly and that might make things better.


and so Kentucky and Tennessee will suffer for the Crimes of Virginia. which to be fair they were probably going to do the same stuff anways so I don't mind
Glad you enjoyed that little aside! haha
 
I can just see it now when the Confederates reach their maximum gains during the fall/winter, and in their arrogance they try and start peace negotiations and give maximalist starting terms (that they intend to back down from to seem reasonable) that include whacky things like giving over West Virginia or something, and then the utterly flabbergasted looks on their faces when the American diplomats storm out of the room.
 
Nevins said it best.

"In short, the romantic delusions (as I see personally posted here) that had helped beguile the two sections into mutual butchery had been replaced by hard truths."

The political and social realities, both North and South, by 1915-16 could be unrecognizable. The Napoleonic atmosphere in Richmond could be replaced with a strange blend of Cavalier merry-making and Calvinistic desperation, for example, as in IOTL. The destruction, casualties, and shortages of War will do much to eliminate illusions among the radicals everywhere. Even Toombs and Keitt were forced to acknowledge the magnitude and weight of the struggle after a certain point.

The clique composed of the two Smiths, Tillman, Scott, and Daniels could, at least privately, adopt the same sort of discourse the Baptist minister, Rev. H.A. Tupper of Washington, Georgia, espoused at Thanksgiving 1862. These are men, after all, not monolithic caricatures.

"Had it not been for our ignorance of the immense resources of the enemy -- the men he could bring into the field, the damage he could do to us, and the vast proportions of war would assume -- had it not been for our delusive hopes of dissensions among their parties; the uprising of their populace, their succumbing to national bankruptcy, of the necessity for European interference for King Cotton, and the efficiency of our 'militia of the seas' which were to penetrate into every ocean... would we have been so ready to plunge ourselves into the billows of blood?"

They will regretfully realize, like Walter Millis, despite the occupation of D.C., that War, in the age of Industry and Democracy, has simply lost its one saving grace -- decisiveness.
 
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Nevins said it best.

"In short, the romantic delusions (as I see personally posted here) that had helped beguile the two sections into mutual butchery had been replaced by hard truths."

The political and social realities, both North and South, by 1915-16 could be unrecognizable. The Napoleonic atmosphere in Richmond could be replaced with a strange blend of Cavalier merry-making and Calvinistic desperation, for example, as in IOTL. The destruction, casualties, and shortages of War will do much to eliminate illusions among the radicals everywhere. Even Toombs and Keitt were forced to acknowledge the magnitude and weight of the struggle after a certain point.

The clique composed of the two Smiths, Tillman, and Scott could, at least privately, adopt the same sort of discourse the Baptist minister, Rev. H.A. Tupper of Washington, Georgia, espoused at Thanksgiving 1862. These are men, after all, not monolithic caricatures.

"Had it not been for our ignorance of the immense resources of the enemy -- the men he could bring into the field, the damage he could do to us, and the vast proportions of war would assume -- had it not been for our delusive hopes of dissensions among their parties; the uprising of their populace, their succumbing to national bankruptcy, of the necessity for European interference for King Cotton, and the efficiency of our 'militia of the seas' which were to penetrate into every ocean... would we have been so ready to plunge ourselves into the billows of blood?"

They will regretfully realize, like Walter Millis, despite the occupation of D.C., that War, in the age of Industry and Democracy, has simply lost its one saving grace -- decisiveness.
Masterfully written.
Hope this gets included into the canon tl.
 
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