General Jefferson Davis (1847)

POD: Davis' wife dies in 1847. Davis stays in the military and remains healthy.

Jefferson Davis seemed destined for military leadership. On his first day of battle in the Mexican American War Davis single handedly captured twenty enemy soldiers. A few months later he lead a small force which successful scattered the forces of none other than the infamous General Santa Ana. The following day he defeated Mexican forces at Buena Vista even though he was wounded early in the fighting and his forces were outnumbered three to one.

Immediately after the battle at Buena Vista a letter caught up with Jefferson Davis giving him the tragic news of the death of his wife, Varina. Davis fell into a deep emotional slump. When he returned to Washington DC he found the social life politics required to be unappealing. Without Varina the whole thing seemed empty and only saddened him further.

He inquired if President Polk's offer of generalship was still open. Polk, of course, answered in the affirmative.

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In OTL Davis declined Polks offer to be a general. Also in OTL Davis contracted herpes during the war and this advanced into neuralgia which often left him blind and bed ridden for weeks at a time. Several times it brought him to the brink of death. In ATL the encounter where he contracted herpes is butterflied away.

I don't really have a timeline in mind for this. It was just a thought that came to mind. What next?
 
Is Jefferson a sectionalist in this timeline or is a die-hard patriot committed to maintaining the United States of America?
 
Is Jefferson a sectionalist in this timeline or is a die-hard patriot committed to maintaining the United States of America?

He was a "good" slave owner. He let his slave go to town unaccompanied, he taught his slaves to read, he had a doctor on staff, and brought in one of the first dentist in the region to treat his slaves. He thought that slavery was an absolutely necessary institution. The farmers needed slaves, and the slaves needed paternalistic owners. He seemed to believe that owners who mistreated their slaves should be punished under the law, but he also thought that abolitionist were wrong headed.

As early as 1851 OTL he hinted that the South should leave the union if they were pressed too far on the slave issue.

I think these beliefs would be present even with a 1847 POD.

I'm thinking General Davis could be called upon to keep the peace in Kansas in the mid 1850's. He also could turn the Utah War from failure to success.
 
Well as long as the Federal government doesn't try to impose itself to far onto the state governments and the slavery issue General Davis (or whatever rank he is) should have no problem serving the Union. Or he could go batshit crazy and be the Confederate version of John Brown.
 
POD: Davis' wife dies in 1847. Davis stays in the military and remains healthy.

Jefferson Davis seemed destined for military leadership. On his first day of battle in the Mexican American War Davis single handedly captured twenty enemy soldiers. A few months later he lead a small force which successful scattered the forces of none other than the infamous General Santa Ana. The following day he defeated Mexican forces at Buena Vista even though he was wounded early in the fighting and his forces were outnumbered three to one.

Immediately after the battle at Buena Vista a letter caught up with Jefferson Davis giving him the tragic news of the death of his wife, Varina. Davis fell into a deep emotional slump. When he returned to Washington DC he found the social life politics required to be unappealing. Without Varina the whole thing seemed empty and only saddened him further.

He inquired if President Polk's offer of generalship was still open. Polk, of course, answered in the affirmative.

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In OTL Davis declined Polks offer to be a general. Also in OTL Davis contracted herpes during the war and this advanced into neuralgia which often left him blind and bed ridden for weeks at a time. Several times it brought him to the brink of death. In ATL the encounter where he contracted herpes is butterflied away.

I don't really have a timeline in mind for this. It was just a thought that came to mind. What next?

Is this a brevet promotion which goes away after the war, or a permanent promotion? That will make a big difference as to the course future events would take. If its just a brevet promotion, Davis probably still retires from the military after the war and goes into politics, or simply retires to his plantation and civilian life.

If it is a permanent promotion, Davis will choose the Army as a career, and will still be in the Army in 1861. If the Civil War still happens on schedule, Davis being a General in the U.S. Army at the outbreak of war would create major butterflies of it's own. He won't be offered the Presidency of the Confederacy, but will be offered a military command, and assuming he follows his State when it secedes, he will be one of the original Full Generals of the Confederate Army. Since his commission in the U.S. Army dates from 1847, he may, indeed, be the highest ranking General in the Confederate Army at the outset of the war. He will likely be given command of one of the main field armies right from the outset, although, if he is the highest ranking General, he may be made General in Chief and kept behind a desk in Richmond.
 
I think Davis in Bleeding Kansas would be most interesting. As a military commander Davis was lively and had a great deal of initiative. In OTL free soil and pro-slavery militias were actively engaged in a civil war of their own and there was little to no peace keeping effort by the federal government.

In ATL Gen. Jefferson Davis might be sent to keep things from boiling over in Kansas by his friendly aquaintance President Buchanon who was rapidly losing control of the country. After the Pottawattomie Massacre, Davis confronts and deals with the "army" of John Brown, relegating him to brief a footnote in history instead of the Martyr he became after the Harper's Ferry raid. On hearing the fate of John Brown and Davis's public assurance that he will hunt down and hang any "practitioner of lawlessness," an uneasy but sturdy peace comes to bleeding Kansas.

Because of Davis' success and to keep the newly won peace for the upcoming popular sovereignty vote on slavery, Buchanon appoints Davis military governor of the Kansas Territory. Davis in turn because of his pro-slavery sentiment, enforces voting laws more strictly on the free-soilers than the pro-slavery camp and Kansas winds up with a constitution that permits slavery, (as it nearly did in OTL).

Kansas would have been admitted as a state earlier because there were no 're-votes' or state constitutional crises with Davis ensuring that everything runs smoothly. So Kansas becomes a state in 1857 and a slave-owning southern population takes a foothold and the culture has four years to entrench before the coming of the Civil War.

Davis marries a Kansas girl, resigns from the army and builds a new plantation home near the state capitol at Lecompton (The original pro-slavery capitol of the state). In 1861, Kansas secedes after Lincoln's call for volunteers to surpress the Rebellion and so does Missouri emboldened by her neighbor's action and a more pervasive western slaveholding culture.

Davis offers his services to the Confederacy and begins raising troops in Kansas, fully expecting to be recalled to Virginia to head the Armies there. However Confederate President Alexander H. Stephens is slow to act on Davis's comission and the two quickly have a falling out. Because of Stephens' distaste for the commander Davis is relegated to theater level command.

First he leads a large force of Kansas and Missouri rebels to St. Louis where he annihilates Gen. Nathaniel Lyon's very small contingent of Regulars and Unionist militia. Then Davis marches his growing army triumphantly into Kentucky. His quick and overwhelming victories there lead to Kentucky's pitched entry into the war on behalf of the Confedercy.

In the East Rebel Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, a capable commander in his own right, does not encounter Grant as he did in OTL, but McDowell and then McClellan. He is moderately successful, but in 1862 when he is wounded in the Seven Day's Campaign a talented Virginian named Robert E. Lee takes command and hammers an Army of the Potomac whose numbers are severely depleted by Lincoln as he funnels his best officers and vast majority of new recruits west in an attempt to stop Davis's Confederate juggernaut.

In July 1863 Davis invades Ohio and settles into a stalemate against Grant and his able Generals including George G. Meade (who comes west as part of Lincoln's troop surge). Lee, fresh from his great victory at Chancellorsville leads the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania and Lincoln finds himself fighting a defensive war on two fronts. When John Reynolds turns down command of the Army of the Potomac Lincoln sends for Meade, but the long trek from Ohio slows Meade down. As a result when Henry Heth stumbles into John Buford near Gettysburg Lee finds himself fighting Gen. John Hooker. Lee smashes the Army of the Patomac with it's lesser numbers and command. On July, 2nd Hood's division surges over Little Roundtop where they meet little resistance and Hooker is routed once more. Pickett's fresh division never sees action.

What's left of the Army of the Potomac can do little more than harass Lee's force as he marches on Washington, where Pickett's Charge, as it becomes known, successfully breaks through the city's defenses.

Lincoln is spirited safely out of the capitol, but within a few weeks of DC's capture he receives word that Britain has given diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy and that Maryland will shortly hold a secession convention. In order to prevent war with Britain and the further loss of United States territory Lincoln capitulates, and signs a peace treaty recognizing the Confederacy under the stipulation that Maryland and the western territories remain in the Union. President Stephens graciously accepts.

After Stephens' presidential term Lee runs for the presidency against Robert Toombs and is elected along with his running-mate Davis. Upon Lee's death in 1870, Jefferson Davis is sworn in as the 3rd President of the Confederate States of America.

:D Sorry, didn't mean to be so long-winded but this played out so easily in my head after Bleeding Kansas was mentioned by Airship.
 
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Because of Davis' success and to keep the newly won peace for the upcoming popular sovereignty vote on slavery, Buchanon appoints Davis military governor of the Kansas Territory. Davis in turn because of his pro-slavery sentiment, enforces voting laws more strictly on the free-soilers than the pro-slavery camp and Kansas winds up with a constitution that permits slavery, (as it nearly did in OTL).

Kansas would have been admitted as a state earlier because there were no 're-votes' or state constitutional crises with Davis ensuring that everything runs smoothly. So Kansas becomes a state in 1857 and a slave-owning southern population takes a foothold and the culture has four years to entrench before the coming of the Civil War.

The bolded part has what I think is the biggest weakness in your POD. To imagine abolitionists would have so passively accepted this seems unlikely. It may have pushed the nation even closer to civil war that much sooner. Though with the weakness and inaction on Buchanan's part much like IOTL, the insurgents may have had greater earlier success.

Much of what you wrote is an imaginary hagiography, but it does make an interesting counterpoint to the many Confederate apologists who lay blame for the insurgents' loss on the CSA politicians (esp Davis), since they usually admire the generals.

One longterm affect is that the CSA pres would be a more baldfaced white supremacist and defender of slavery based on race.

Alexander Stephens, VP of the Confederacy: “...the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”

So apologists for the white supremacist insurgents have a more difficult case to make.
 
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Because of Davis' success and to keep the newly won peace for the upcoming popular sovereignty vote on slavery, Buchanon appoints Davis military governor of the Kansas Territory. Davis in turn because of his pro-slavery sentiment, enforces voting laws more strictly on the free-soilers than the pro-slavery camp and Kansas winds up with a constitution that permits slavery, (as it nearly did in OTL).

Kansas would have been admitted as a state earlier because there were no 're-votes' or state constitutional crises with Davis ensuring that everything runs smoothly. So Kansas becomes a state in 1857 and a slave-owning southern population takes a foothold and the culture has four years to entrench before the coming of the Civil War.

The bolded part has what I think is the biggest weakness in your POD. To imagine abolitionists would have so passively accepted this seems unlikely. It may have pushed the nation even closer to civil war that much sooner.

I have to agree there. If the Federal Government, in the form of the United States Army, was seen as actively supporting the pro-slavery side in Kansas (or indeed, either side), rather than trying to even-handedly keep the peace between the two groups, it would be a complete disaster. Indeed, you might well have Northern States seceding over the issue prior to 1860. At the very minimum, you have polarized the 1860 election even more than it was already, virtually guaranteeing the election of whoever the Republican candidate happens to be, and the automatic secession of the South from the Union. The interesting thing is the new President might not be Abraham Lincoln, who was seen, in the North, as a moderate. Instead, the Northern public may be of a mind to "screw moderation," and go with somebody really, really radical...but probably less gifted as a war leader than Lincoln.
 
I can understand where you both are coming from, which is why I said an "uneasy peace" settled over Kansas. I don't think the free-soil party would have taken the issue lying down. Nor am I suggesting that Davis would blatantly make Free-Soilers obey and Pro-Slavery forces get away with murder, more like an extra squad of soldiers checking for imposters at free-soil heavy polling stations. Keep in mind also in OTL Kansas approved a pro-slavery constitution several times before pro-slavery forces migrating from Missouri abandoned the issue to free-soilers who weilded more power than them in Congress which refused to approve the constitution. So, this happened without any POD. Ergo I would suggest even if Davis showed no favoritism with his military governorship and a force of federal troops keeping the peace, the issue would have been moot, and the Lecompton Constitution would have stood.

There is no hagiography here. It's what I see as the likely outcome of the War in this proposed ATL. It's undisputed that the Confederacy had a great deal of success on the battlefield and came very close to even greater success on a number of occaisions. Give them another military advantage, such as Davis in the field and Lee facing a smaller, even more poorly led Army of the Potomac and I think it takes very little imagination to see them achieving their ultimate goal. Additionally I don't hold the Confederacy as sacred, which AmIndHistoryAuthor seems to imply. I do admire many Confederates, as well as Unionists and I see very little difference between Southern bigotry and Northern bigotry. The idea that the North was some paragon of abolitionist virtue that initiated a holy war to free the slaves is equally as ludicrous as any Southern attempt to deny the institution of slavery as being the major issue that precipitated the war.

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Alexander Stephens believed in the superiority of the white man at the outset of the war no more than did Davis, or even Lincoln for that matter. Not to mention quite a few abolitionists saw slavery more as cruelty to an inferior being, than cruelty to an equal. White supremacy was by far the majority view in the 1860s, one could argue even into the 1960s. Also, even if Stephens had been a bigger racist than Davis, which I find absolutley no proof of, why does that effect the ATL in any way?

Another point I'd like to make here are the Confederate achievments in Indian Territory with great commanders like Cherokee Chief and Rebel Gen. Stand Waite. A bitter civil war was fought in it's own right amongst the Civilized Tribes in IT. With IT being surrounded North, South and East by Confederate states in ATL it's not hard to picture slave culture taking hold in IT even more than it already had in OTL. As it is the majority of citizens in the Civilized Tribes sided with Confedracy in OTL, (which treated them far better than the US government I dare say), it would have been even more so in ATL and a great source of uncontested men and matériel to the South, far from the frontlines.

Just an aside, I am not an apologist for white supremacy in any way, shape or form, in fact a significant amount of Native American blood runs through my veins. Racism of the day was just a simple and all-pervaisive, fact. It was not by any means just "a Confederate thing."
 
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Jefferson Davis seemed destined for military leadership. On his first day of battle in the Mexican American War Davis single handedly captured twenty enemy soldiers. A few months later he lead a small force which successful scattered the forces of none other than the infamous General Santa Ana. The following day he defeated Mexican forces at Buena Vista even though he was wounded early in the fighting and his forces were outnumbered three to one.

All of the US forces at Buena Vista were outnumbered 3-to-1, not just Davis' regiment. Performing well at lower command is not a guarantee of success at higher levels, John Bell Hood being a notable example.

Hood is also a notable example of Davis' ability to pick subordinates. Throughout the ACW, he supported some rather incompetant friends while quarreling with some of the best generals the Confederacy had. Lee is the only real exception to this pattern.

Immediately after the battle at Buena Vista a letter caught up with Jefferson Davis giving him the tragic news of the death of his wife, Varina. Davis fell into a deep emotional slump. When he returned to Washington DC he found the social life politics required to be unappealing. Without Varina the whole thing seemed empty and only saddened him further.

He inquired if President Polk's offer of generalship was still open. Polk, of course, answered in the affirmative.

In OTL Davis became a recluse for 8 years when his first wife died. I don't expect he would deal with the loss of a second wife any better.

And in OTL, Davis refused Polk's offer, arguing the Constitution gave the power of appointing militia officers to the states, not the Federal government. I don't see Davis changing his mind on that just because his wife died.
 
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