Foreign career for Confederate Veterans

I have also thought about the possibility of a few Confederates being cherry picked by some foreign armies.

I think we need to establish what qualities they would bring and why they would seek to leave the United States.
 
Confederate Generals did seek employment in Egypt, Brazil and Mexico, if I recall.

The main advantage would be actual battle experience (and in most cases, at least semi-formal military training) and, for non-American powers, the fact that they were not European, e.g. they weren't here to spy out your fortifications, and Britain/France/Spain wouldn't complain about their presence here. This is especially important for the modernizing states in the Middle East. For American states, the important thing was that they weren't loyal to the USA either, so the same reasoning applies.

Of course, Germans and French advisors were more highly-valued but if the two happened to be engaged in major wars and had to recall their officers, it's not inconceivable that the market for Confederate leaders would have been much higher.
 
I have also thought about the possibility of a few Confederates being cherry picked by some foreign armies.

I think we need to establish what qualities they would bring and why they would seek to leave the United States.

They'd bring combat experience in from a modern war and some very good Western military training.

They'd leave if Radical Reconstruction went through and property of slaveowners was confiscated, leaving many with no livelihood in the US.

Where would they go? Places that want Western advisors, can't pay for German or French ones, and/or don't want to expose their militaries to colonial powers.

As said before, the Middle East would be a good bet. Ethiopia might be another, though I wonder how many would've accepted such an arrangement. I know money doesn't stink, but...
 
Perhaps Persia. in the early 1800s, lots of European and some American mercenaries went to Persia and the Sikh Empire- while the latter is gone after the Civil War, Persia might still be a viable candidate for adventurous veterans.
 
What about Bulgaria? They had to create an army pretty much from scratch in the 1870s and both they and the Russians were using the American made Berdan rifle as their standard issue rifle, which implies that they probably didn't have some weird Eurocentric disdain for America.

Edit: There's a thread on the old board claiming that William Tecumseh Sherman was offered the crown of Bulgaria. If that's true and for whatever reason he took it, I could see him bringing Joseph Johnston with him as a military adviser. Then Johnston could bring over a few Confederate officers to train up the Bulgarian military, or he could just attract some of the more adventurous ones with name recognition. It's probably ASB, but it'd be a pretty cool timeline.
 
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The various CSA wouldn't have that much difficulty hiring themselves out to the poorer countries. They had training and lots of military experience and would ask for less than German and French officers. The Middle East and Latin America stand out and some of the poorer European countries as well.
 
There's a thread on the old board claiming that William Tecumseh Sherman was offered the crown of Bulgaria. If that's true and for whatever reason he took it, I could see him bringing Joseph Johnston with him as a military adviser. Then Johnston could bring over a few Confederate officers to train up the Bulgarian military, or he could just attract some of the more adventurous ones with name recognition. It's probably ASB, but it'd be a pretty cool timeline.

This was raised in a Flashman book by George MacDonald Fraser, unfortunately I can't remember the book as I am reading the Sharpe series again. Mr Fraser was fairly diligent with his research, so there may be a basis for this claim and I have always wanted this to occur in a TL.

As for the Confederate veterans a radical reconstruction sounds fairly interesting, I have been toying with the idea of Confederate veterans travelling to Paraguay or alternatively to Cambodia.
 
The issue with Confederates Veterans in other nations military forces is shown by the example of William W. Loring. He went to Egypt after the war and served as a general in their army for nine years, attempting to modernize it and improve defenses along the coast. He was promised command of a campaign in Abyssinia but instead a Egyptian favorite with no military experiance was chosen instead. When the campaign ended in abject failure the Egyptians blamed Loring and his American/Confederate veterans and then he spent two years in the political wilderness being ridiculed by the natives before being sent home.

The point being, it would be far too easy for any Confederate veterans serving in foreign nations to become scapegoats for military failures.
 
EGYPT

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William Wing Loring

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James Morris Morgan

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Henry McIvor - English Adventurer in Confederate Cavalry and later Egyptian Inspector of Cavalry

First Lieutenant William H. Ward of the C.S. Navy who became Colonel Ward in the Egyptian service. Generals Charles Field and Henry Sibley. Charles Iverson Graves and William P.A. Campbell of the CS Navy

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Raleigh Colston

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Alexander W. Reynolds

France

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Prince Camille Armand Jules Marie de Polignac or General Polecat in Texas was a Frenchie anyway and fought in the Franco-Prussian War.

Mexico

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John Bankhead Magruder would be a Major General in the service of Emperor Maximillian

Matthew F. Maury of the CS Navy was Imperial COmmissioner of Immigration.

The is some argument as to whether J Shelby was actually commissioned as a brigadier general.
 
ACtually, I can see a possibility for massn employment of confederate ( or Union) veterans in 1871. After Sedan and the fall of the Empire, France enacts Union Sacree and fights on. They need veterans and trained troops to act as cadre and stiffeners to the Levee en Masse green recruits, as the professional troops were squandered by Bazaine and Napoleon le Petit....
 
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