When is the earliest possible time period that a full-fledged shooting war between the equivalent of the Union and the Confederacy could occur? To be considered an alt-analogue of the ACW, the following criteria should be met: secession must be attempted, the existence of a separate "Southern" nationality should be a mainstay of the conflict, hostilities must last at least three years and affect the USA at large, and the situation must be ambiguous enough that at one point a foreign nation at least discretely supports the secessionists.
The scenario I'm envisioning with this is the creation of a Western Confederacy by refugees from the war. I'm looking for something like Deseret, where an organized migration creates a state based on ideological principles, in this case, alt-Confederates that keep the fight alive. I want to speed up the ACW for this because by the 1860s, railroads were keeping the West together, and the lawlessness and desolation of the frontier in earlier decades were coming to an end.
My precedents are Texas, California, and Deseret, all three of which were independent countries proclaimed by American settlers. This "Western Cofederacy" doesn't necessarily have to survive to modern day, but it would be interesting to see it stick around long enough to have a permanent effect on Westward Expansion and the politics and demographics of the settled region, whether it be Texas, the Great Basin, California, the Southwest, etc.
What do y'all think, is this workable? And if so, what POD and sequence of events could get us there?
The scenario I'm envisioning with this is the creation of a Western Confederacy by refugees from the war. I'm looking for something like Deseret, where an organized migration creates a state based on ideological principles, in this case, alt-Confederates that keep the fight alive. I want to speed up the ACW for this because by the 1860s, railroads were keeping the West together, and the lawlessness and desolation of the frontier in earlier decades were coming to an end.
My precedents are Texas, California, and Deseret, all three of which were independent countries proclaimed by American settlers. This "Western Cofederacy" doesn't necessarily have to survive to modern day, but it would be interesting to see it stick around long enough to have a permanent effect on Westward Expansion and the politics and demographics of the settled region, whether it be Texas, the Great Basin, California, the Southwest, etc.
What do y'all think, is this workable? And if so, what POD and sequence of events could get us there?