Down in Dixie: A CSA Victory TL

This is my first timeline so bear with me, this is all I got for the for the timeline right now as I need y'all's input and help with this; so any ideas I will take to make them as plausible as possible, anyways here's my first timeline I hope you all enjoy

Chapter 1: 1861-1900
Montgomery, Alabama- April 9th, 1861

CSA President Jefferson Davis called a cabinet meeting to discuss the situation in Fort Sumter, President Davis had repeatedly gave orders to General PGT Beauregard for the Federal officials to withdraw or surrender the fort to the Confederates. Davis did everything from compensation for the forts and a peace treaty but his Northern counterpart, Abraham Lincoln rejected it. Davis said that if they didn't give up the fort to reduce it everyone in the cabinet agreed with Davis except Secretary of State Robert Toombs, Toombs told Davis that the attack "Will lose us every friend in the North ,you will only strike a hornet's nest, Legions now quiet will swarn out in sting us to death, it is unnecessary, it puts us in the wrong, it is fatal." Davis after careful thought agreed with Toombs and told Francis W Pickens to tell Beauregard to do nothing as "If we fire first, then the act of aggression will be on our heads and we might have hanged this Confederacy."

Fort Sumter- April 12th ,1861

The ships entered with supplies without harm. To Gustavus Fox's surprise, the Confederate Army did nothing but watch. When word reached Lincoln of what happened at Fort Sumter he was flustered, he would have thought Davis would have given the order to be bombarded the fort, Davis called his bluff and he knew it would become a staring contest between the Union and the Confederacy, each one waiting for the other to Blink who would fire the first shot?

All right I'll take any ideas where should I go from here, guys what would happen next let me know with feedback.
 
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Marc

Donor
Your dates are wrong. January 9th was when the Star of the West tried to reach Fort Sumter and was fired on. The ship was sent by President James Buchanan, not Lincoln.
And, if you think that South Carolina would stand down just because some Mississippian told them to, well, good luck with that...
 
Your dates are wrong. January 9th was when the Star of the West tried to reach Fort Sumter and was fired on. The ship was sent by President James Buchanan, not Lincoln.
And, if you think that South Carolina would stand down just because some Mississippian told them to, well, good luck with that...

I fixed the first part

South Carolina was a part of the Confederacy and would have to do as Davis said
 
South Carolina was a part of the United States and would have to do as Buchanan said.

Something doesn't seem quite right.
@Jabe Shepherd, Philip is right, IMO. Jeff Davis is going to need more than just an order to stop Beauregard's men from firing on Sumter.
It's not insurmountable, but you need more than just a note. I'm not sure if it would have been practical for Davis to pay Beauregard a visit to explain the need for the South to paint Lincoln into a corner. I'm not sure if it would work, but just saying Davis would seriously need to interject himself into the situation in South Carolina.

Here's a suggestion. Look at a slightly earlier POD. I'm not sure if it's possible, but following secession, had Davis worked with cooperationists across the South, the trajectory of the civil war could have been very different. I'm not convinced it would have stopped it, but it would have put into the mix some other variables.

While I've never bought the argument of inevitability of union victory, the Union certainly had many advantages and gave them a very strong hand. As you develop your timeline, don't fall into the Turtledove trap of making the union generals and politicians stupid. Bad luck is one thing. For want of a nail type misfortune is also okay. Although, I do wonder how many times Grant's horse has thrown a shoe in Southern Victory scenarios.:rolleyes:

If you choose to pursue your TL here I'll follow it. Eventually I intend to develop my own TL, but will probably do it in the ASB forum and go with a quantum leap type deux ex machina... and part of it is that it's very, very difficult to have a southern victory without skippy the Alien space bat coming to pay a visit.
 
@Jabe Shepherd, Philip is right, IMO. Jeff Davis is going to need more than just an order to stop Beauregard's men from firing on Sumter.
It's not insurmountable, but you need more than just a note. I'm not sure if it would have been practical for Davis to pay Beauregard a visit to explain the need for the South to paint Lincoln into a corner. I'm not sure if it would work, but just saying Davis would seriously need to interject himself into the situation in South Carolina.

Here's a suggestion. Look at a slightly earlier POD. I'm not sure if it's possible, but following secession, had Davis worked with cooperationists across the South, the trajectory of the civil war could have been very different. I'm not convinced it would have stopped it, but it would have put into the mix some other variables.

While I've never bought the argument of inevitability of union victory, the Union certainly had many advantages and gave them a very strong hand. As you develop your timeline, don't fall into the Turtledove trap of making the union generals and politicians stupid. Bad luck is one thing. For want of a nail type misfortune is also okay. Although, I do wonder how many times Grant's horse has thrown a shoe in Southern Victory scenarios.:rolleyes:

If you choose to pursue your TL here I'll follow it. Eventually I intend to develop my own TL, but will probably do it in the ASB forum and go with a quantum leap type deux ex machina... and part of it is that it's very, very difficult to have a southern victory without skippy the Alien space bat coming to pay a visit.

Maybe prehaps The Confederacy stage an attack
 
Maybe prehaps The Confederacy stage an attack
It's worth looking at the first battle of Bull Run to see how well the Confederates did in their first engagement of the war. Wilson's Creek is worth looking at too. The troops were very green. Any first strike is going to involve these green troops.

A first strike must to be incredibly successful, which means it's going to require a tremendous amount of luck on their part and bad luck on the Union's. I suppose it's possible, but incredibly improbable.
If the first strike isn't wildly successful, then Lincoln gets what he wants, an unambiguous casus belli.
 
While it may be slightly unrealistic every story sometimes needs a far fetched event to get the story going the thing to look after is to not let it happen again from now on make sure everything is plausible definitely following.
 
While it may be slightly unrealistic every story sometimes needs a far fetched event to get the story going the thing to look after is to not let it happen again from now on make sure everything is plausible definitely following.

What ideas do you have of where I should go from here?
 
What ideas do you have of where I should go from here?

Backlash by South Carolina against government and the firm solidification of the supremacy of the states and the doctrine of States Rights above that of Federal government such as the right that states can use their militias any way they please and are only under the command of the States.
 
While it may be slightly unrealistic every story sometimes needs a far fetched event to get the story going the thing to look after is to not let it happen again from now on make sure everything is plausible definitely following.
That's what the ASB forum is for. There's nothing wrong with taking a far fetched alt civil war and putting it in ASB.
the more far fetched a scenario in pre1900 is, the more likely it is to be buried under a barrage of negativity.

What are you meaning in your most recent post? Are you suggesting that CSA states are allowing the idea that the states rights supremacy of the states regarding their militias wins out? Or the opposite?
The former would, I think, lead to an early defeat.
 
That's what the ASB forum is for. There's nothing wrong with taking a far fetched alt civil war and putting it in ASB.
the more far fetched a scenario in pre1900 is, the more likely it is to be buried under a barrage of negativity.

What are you meaning in your most recent post? Are you suggesting that CSA states are allowing the idea that the states rights supremacy of the states regarding their militias wins out? Or the opposite?
The former would, I think, lead to an early defeat.

That states rights supremacy of their militias wins out
 
How do you figure that would help with @Jabe Shepherd's scenario? 11 state armies could be defeated in detail by the feds in less than a couple of years, it would seem to me.

the confederate will of course still have armies like it did in real life but what i'm trying to say is that the federal government can't boss the states militias around. Basically people will still flock to the confederate armies and state militias and confederate armies will still cooperate but in the end the states word is law when it comes to state militias.
 

Vuu

Banned
There's the problem with such upstart countries - the branches of government might not want to work together, especially in a confederation
 
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