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Ok I’ve wanted to write a Confederate victory TL for some time now but have not been sure the best way to go about getting the Confederacy to win. Although I’m still not 100% sure I trust with yall’s input any big things wrong with my turns can be tweaked to be more plausible. Anyways I hope yall enjoy & hope to hear feedback.
Western Theater: Battle of Pittsburgh Landing-summer 1863
As General Albert Sidney Johnston deployed his army early in the morning on April 6,1862 near the town of Pittsburgh landing his Army of Mississippi would take General Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee by surprise. Though there was initial confusion among Confederate lines the Confederate forces would slowly push the Union troops back. In the late morning however one shot would help change the course of the battle when Brigadier General William T. Sherman is struck in the chest while riding along his lines dying instantly. By noon the late Sherman’s divisions would be broken up & retreating from the battlefield allowing Major General William J. Hardee to begin moving around the Union’s right flank & forcing Major General John A. McClernand to pull his division back to the east to keep Hardee from coming up on the Unions rear. With Sherman’s division faltering on the right & fierce Confederate assaults Grants forces would withdraw to a position along a road that would be nicknamed the Hornet’s Nest however by late afternoon being attacked by two sides & General Johnston (who narrowly avoided being shot earlier in the day having his horse hit instead of him) ordering his men to continue attacking it was becoming more & more clear that the day would go to the Confederates.
At 5:45 P.M. as the Union line slowly continued to be pushed back Grant would be hit by a Confederate sniper in the right shoulder. Though he would survive the injury (& the amputation of his right arm) it would keep Grant out of action & unable to return to command until late 1863. With Grant down General McClernand would order the Union retreat & Union forces would withdraw from the battle back up the Tennessee around 6:30 P.M. having lost the battle & 8800 casualties. Although Johnston would want to pursue the retreating troops with his army exhausted & 7500 casualties to tend to he would be forged to hold at Pittsburgh Landing.
The victory at Pittsburgh Landing along with the subsequent victory over Major General Don Carlos Buell on April 8 at Savannah would keep the war out of Mississippi. Although New Orleans would fall to Admiral David Farragut & General Benjamin Butler in May 1862 the Western Theater would be fought throughout Tennessee & Kentucky for the rest of 1862 & into 1863 with Albert Sidney Johnston leading the Army of Mississippi & (after its creation in November 1862) the Army of Tennessee lead by Joseph Johnston engaging the armies of the Ohio & the Tennessee. In keeping the fighting in Tennessee & Kentucky Johnston would keep the Union from cutting the Confederacy in half for the foreseeable future & inadvertently in the third invasion of Kentucky in the spring of 1863 & subsequent large victory at Bowling Green (the Kentucky pro-Confederate capital) on May 20 would also help General Lee in the East.