DBWI: A "Lost Cause"

samcster94

Banned
(OOC:Robert E Lee was killed in battle in TTL and a hardliner replaced him) The American Civil War mostly ended in the late 1860's as the South turned to guerrilla warfare. The conflict is widely considered to be a disaster and was seen even by white Southerners, despite their racial attitudes, as an embarrassment. Although race relations after the war were still extremely poor(and remained poor for most of the 20th century), there was little nostalgia for the Confederacy beyond that generation who saw it and the fringe group the "Brothers of the Golden Circle"(OOC:KKK). What can be done to make it possible to depict the Confederacy positively outside of a few obscure books that were commercial failures?
 
(OOC:Robert E Lee was killed in battle in TTL and a hardliner replaced him) The American Civil War mostly ended in the late 1860's as the South turned to guerrilla warfare. The conflict is widely considered to be a disaster and was seen even by white Southerners, despite their racial attitudes, as an embarrassment. Although race relations after the war were still extremely poor(and remained poor for most of the 20th century), there was little nostalgia for the Confederacy beyond that generation who saw it and the fringe group the "Brothers of the Golden Circle"(OOC:KKK). What can be done to make it possible to depict the Confederacy positively outside of a few obscure books that were commercial failures?

Have the US government be soft on punishing the South.

Race relations only remained problematic because no one was working to address the issue on the political level.

Least until the Socialist Party took a massive hold there through the promise of prosperity through race relations and such. Given the success in the south, it seems to be working very well.
 

kernals12

Banned
Have the US government be soft on punishing the South.

Race relations only remained problematic because no one was working to address the issue on the political level.

Least until the Socialist Party took a massive hold there through the promise of prosperity through race relations and such. Given the success in the south, it seems to be working very well.
OOC: This is basically the same as my timeline, although I have a Labor Party instead of Socialist Party.
 

samcster94

Banned
Have the US government be soft on punishing the South.

Race relations only remained problematic because no one was working to address the issue on the political level.

Least until the Socialist Party took a massive hold there through the promise of prosperity through race relations and such. Given the success in the south, it seems to be working very well.
Notably, the Boll Weevil arriving only affected some of the more rural areas and lead to relatively moderate economic toil. A poor South would have been devastated.
 
I suppose that, if they hadn't limited the treason trials and executions to the worst of the worst--the actual instigators of the rebellion--then there would be more people wishing it had been a success. Also, if people a couple of generations later could realistically see the rebellion as having a chance of success, they might see it as a wistful, "It almost was."

Most of all, the murder of Lincoln and other important people after Booth placed multiple barrels of gunpowder in Ford's Theatre hardened attitudes, and killing so many bystanders was seen as an atrocity.
 
Well, while things were a mess in the South for a while, it was only that on paper and the actual racism depended per person. By the time of the 1950s when the Socialism movement began rising up, it helped improve racial tensions all across the nation.

These tensions did keep the US from entering the Great War, as an old essy mentioned. Given how rumors speculate the US would've entered the Great War on the Entente, the Central Powers might've been beaten, especially since they only won by the skin of their teeth and even then, despite their attempts, they only really got French colonial possessions (since the revolution in Russia spread and Central Europe was a quagmire before the Germans basically forced organized them into the Baltic State, New Bohemia and New Ruthenia with help from the Third Bulgarian Empire and the United States of Greater Austria).
 

samcster94

Banned
I suppose that, if they hadn't limited the treason trials and executions to the worst of the worst--the actual instigators of the rebellion--then there would be more people wishing it had been a success. Also, if people a couple of generations later could realistically see the rebellion as having a chance of success, they might see it as a wistful, "It almost was."

Most of all, the murder of Lincoln and other important people after Booth placed multiple barrels of gunpowder in Ford's Theatre hardened attitudes, and killing so many bystanders was seen as an atrocity.
Even to the most racist individual at the time could see the South's secession attempt as a disaster. It had an impossible idea to defend, was recklessly violent, turned to guerrilla warfare at the end, and the death toll was over a million overall. The war ending earlier and possibly Lee(who had few redeeming qualities and tortured slaves he had on a lease from the will of his wife's father, but wasn't crazy like his insane military successor) being alive at the end, might have made it easier to sell the idea of a "Good Confederacy" that also somehow could win beyond the "Golden Circlers".
 
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