Free City of Washington

[Jape]

Idea I had while looking into a CSA timeline. Traditional set-up of Confederate tactical superiority sees the Union routed early (191 set-up), Washington is captured after a siege, Kentucky joins the South etc. and finally an Anglo-French delegation step in to secure peace.

Washington DC was a very important place in the hearts of both sides, and in this set-up it is ultimately political rather than military defeat that sees the Union give in. As such I can't imagine the North being too keen on handing over the city, it would become a sticking point in peace negotiations. As such I'm wondering how likely a Free City would be accepted by the parties, overseen by Union and Confederate officials as a neutral bastion on the border.

 

[Whanztastic]

Either that or a divided Washington with a North DC and South DC, ala East and West Berlin.

 

[Tom Veil]

Very unlikely. A neutral DC would be of no use to the Union, and would go against the Confederate principle that states are the legitimate level of sovereignty. A Free City of DC would have absolutely no economic purpose, either. A small community might have stayed in Georgetown because of the harbor and the Catholic university, or in the Heights to farm. But the Federal City would have become a ghost town as the Federal jobs vanished. More likely, the CSA would be all too glad to return Washington to Maryland, and leave them saddled with the problem of winding down the city.

 

[Jape]

Very unlikely. A neutral DC would be of no use to the Union, and would go against the Confederate principle that states are the legitimate level of sovereignty. A Free City of DC would have absolutely no economic purpose, either. A small community might have stayed in Georgetown because of the harbor and the Catholic university, or in the Heights to farm. But the Federal City would have become a ghost town as the Federal jobs vanished. More likely, the CSA would be all too glad to return Washington to Maryland, and leave them saddled with the problem of winding down the city.

Actually I hadn't thought of that, Washington by the 20th century would be a very strange place, lots of grand buildings with no one to fill them. White House becoming the residence of some opportunistic family buying on the cheap.

So do you think the CSA would end up with Maryland and Washington in such a peace?

 

[Swan Station]

Actually I hadn't thought of that, Washington by the 20th century would be a very strange place, lots of grand buildings with no one to fill them. White House becoming the residence of some opportunistic family buying on the cheap.

More likely the old buildings would go the way of so many other nice, old buildings that were built in cities across the United States in the nineteenth century. Assuming a twentieth century style industrialization still occurs, they'd be torn up and replaced with high-rise tenements, factories and sky scrapers. A few might be saved by historic district groups, but they'd probably still be converted into office buildings.

 

[NKVD]

Unlikely. A "free city" of Washington wouldn't be of much use to either party.

 

[Whanztastic]

But with a negotiated peace, assuming the Confederacy-US border is Maryland-Virginia one, Washington, DC would be an important symbolic victory. If both sides had faught themselves stupid and neither could argue a better successful claim (an Anglo-French negotiated treaty would also probably bias the Confederacy) of DC I think a neutral or divide city is entirely plausible. Just because it does not have any strategic value doesn't mean it is worth nothing.

 

[Xen]

In a timeline I am writing, Washington is absorbed back into Maryland, but does not become a ghost town per se. Free blacks begin to take up occupation of the city, which is all but abandoned by the Federal Government, which still uses the National Mall for public events such as the Presidential Swearing in ceremony. Washington has also replaced Harlem as the center of African-American culture in the United States and is one of the few places in the US where blacks out number whites.

Washington is also undergoing an urban renewal as part of a Federally funded program, turning it from a ghetto which it sunk into a beautiful modern city.

 

[Tom Veil]

In a timeline I am writing, Washington is absorbed back into Maryland, but does not become a ghost town per se. Free blacks begin to take up occupation of the city, which is all but abandoned by the Federal Government, which still uses the National Mall for public events such as the Presidential Swearing in ceremony. Washington has also replaced Harlem as the center of African-American culture in the United States and is one of the few places in the US where blacks out number whites.

Washington is also undergoing an urban renewal as part of a Federally funded program, turning it from a ghetto which it sunk into a beautiful modern city.

I'm pretty sure that the National Mall didn't exist at the time of the Civil War. Until the 1910s, it consisted of swampland, botanical gardens, railroad tracks, and a farmers' market.