Military History of the CSA

A Military History Of The Confederate States Of America
Volume 1: 1861-1900
The Confederate States of America has a long history of war. From it’s founding in 1861 to present, the CSA has waged war in many different parts of the globe. Some of it has been for expanding it’s country’s boundaires, others, it has defended itself from attacks led by those who wish to destroy it. Just like the United States, it had to fight for its independence from being ruled by a foreign power ( in this case, the US). But also like the US, it came close to loosing the fight for independence. Through this early struggle the CSA was forged in fire and blood. Men who fought for the Confederacy became heroes in their own right. Just as George Washington was deemed “the father of his country” by the USA, Robert E. Lee was deemed the same in the CSA. Men like Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Pat Cleburne, and others rose to the top rank in the military and left their mark on the CSA.
The CSA relied on its army and navy to protect it from those who wish to impose their will on the CSA. Their were many who thought that the confederacy would not last 10 years before they came running back to the USA or collapsed on itself. But as the years came and went, the CSA continued to awe and inspire those other countries who wished they were like the confederacy. The CSA would be the first to enlist African Americans into the army to fight for their country just as the white man would. They also would be the first to intergrate them into existing regiments(there was no segregate units) and these black men fought just as hard for their country as their white counterparts did.
When it came to weapons, the Confederacy was always eager to adopte and used new wepaons like the breech-loading rifles, the machine gun, the land mine (which oddly enough, they claimed that it was their invention in the first place), and others.
 
This introduction is a top notch example of Confederate apologetics; a fantastic work of mythology.

Just like the United States, it had to fight for its independence from being ruled by a foreign power ( in this case, the US). But also like the US, it came close to loosing the fight for independence. Through this early struggle the CSA was forged in fire and blood. Men who fought for the Confederacy became heroes in their own right. Just as George Washington was deemed “the father of his country” by the USA, Robert E. Lee was deemed the same in the CSA. Men like Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Pat Cleburne, and others rose to the top rank in the military and left their mark on the CSA.

Sorry, but the but the heritage of those who fought to preserve the right of states to maintain an economic system based on people owning people is a brutal and indefensible one, one that I have great disdain for.

Their were many who thought that the confederacy would not last 10 years before they came running back to the USA or collapsed on itself. But as the years came and went, the CSA continued to awe and inspire the CSA continued to awe and inspire those other countries who wished they were like the confederacy.

There is no way whatsoever that other countries would be filled with awe or be inspired by the "way of life" embodied in the Southern Confederacy.

The CSA would be the first to enlist African Americans into the army to fight for their country just as the white man would. They also would be the first to intergrate them into existing regiments(there was no segregate units).

This from the CSA that enshrined the buying, selling and cruel treatment of blacks in their Constitution, and then carried those traditions forward in the Jim Crow laws of the American South of the early 20th century.

These black men fought just as hard for their country as their white counterparts did.

Their country? They were considered sub-human animals by their "benevolent" owners. They were commodities not citizens. Why would blacks willingly fight for the CSA and for its way of life?
 
This introduction is a top notch example of Confederate apologetics.

I'll have to agree with your assessment, but maybe it was done on purpose? I think the TL is written from the perspective of a history schoolbook, which tend to be overly jingoistic.
 
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I think its wonderful that people tend to say what they think cannot happen because it happen that way in our time line, but I think that in alternate history, who has the right to say what would or would not happen?

Case in point is the comment that blacks would not fight for the Confederacy because the csa was founded on the principle of states rights and trying to uphold slavery. If that is the case, then people need to tell atl authors like harry turtledove and others that their books mean nothing.

As for me, I never will support slavery on any basis, wether it's one person owning another or sell a person to be a sex slave, it is no excuse! In parting, I must say that I have read many atl's that have the csa winning and latter frees its slaves. So I am not the first to suggest such a thing, nor will I be the last, but I will say that yes, this is an atl being told from a present day book and if you do not like what I write, then kindly go to another atl writer and bother him. But I tell you one thing and this is that: this is an alternate history story, so what do you expect?

p.s.

I am sorry about my spelling, it was never my strongest subject.
 
Case in point is the comment that blacks would not fight for the Confederacy because the csa was founded on the principle of states rights and trying to uphold slavery.

The CSA wasn't founded on state's rights. Well, that is, unless you count the right to secede and own slaves.

I think its wonderful that people tend to say what they think cannot happen because it happen that way in our time line, but I think that in alternate history, who has the right to say what would or would not happen?

It depends. When's the POD for this timeline? Is this an alternate universe where the CSA never had slavery to begin with? Because, from reading it, the tone differs considerably from OTL.

I have read many atl's that have the csa winning and latter frees its slaves.

Indeed. However, they are fairly inaccurate when put in perspective with OTL, for a number of reasons.

I will say that yes, this is an atl being told from a present day book and if you do not like what I write, then kindly go to another atl writer and bother him. But I tell you one thing and this is that: this is an alternate history story, so what do you expect?

Indeed, however, by putting up a TL for everybody to read, it's inevitable those who read it will come around with some constructive criticism. For alternate history to be good, it has to be in the very least plausible, otherwise, it's ASB.
 
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If you have a deep problem with Slavery, you have a deep problem with any CSA victorious timeline. Here's why. It's from a speech by Alexander Steven from March of 1861, before a good section of the upper South seceeded and before he got himself elected Vice President of the Confederacy (so you don't get to call him some radical nobody listened).

"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. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition." - Alexander Stevens, March 1861

The South seceded over slavery, fought for slavery, and were willing to die for slavery. And this isn't Gone With The Wind - 12 Years A Slave is the dramatic depiction that comes closer to the mark. This is our original sin as a nation, our version of Orwell's "a boot in a human face, forever" that the South is founded on.

Because I've used it twice in the last week, I'm dubbing this The North Korea Conunudrum, to be applied to any timeline with the "we all cool know, blacks and whites love us some Confederacy" crap in it. Any victorious CSA would have been founded on the willingness to fight a war to protect the right to treat the ancestors of a large number of its citizens like they were in a North Korean labor camp for the profit of the remainder. They did, and continue to, deploy all the language of the Enlightenment to enshrine this decision as righteous. (Think I'm exagerating? Just a few days ago on these boards, someone described Sherman's freeing of slaves along his line of march as a "rape.")

That's some heavy lift, almost to the point of "then we deploy the steampunk mindcontrol lasers and all the brown people in the CSA start loving Gone With The Wind!" Any future CSA is going to have far more of a racial caste system than OTL South (and north for that matter). Becuase it was always about slavery, and subjugation, and dominance.

Edit: Im thinking, and I realize that maybe a better shorthand for the racial caste system baked into the CSA would be The Country-Fried Draka Problem? Keep it more folks'y, y'all...
 
He was elected CSA VP in November of 1861, prior he'd been VP of the provisional Government out of the Confederate Congress before that thought, so I take your point though. I'm going to blame the "Steven" on autocorrect... But regardless, the point here is that Stephens isn't some crazy dude, he's someone they all wanted as No. 2 man, so we can assume his views were popular, and somewhat representative of the CSA elite.

Still though, the Cornerstone Speech is something that I think should be required reading on these boards before anyone starts on the "it was about states' rights, no slavery here..." ramble.
 
The CSA would be the first to enlist African Americans into the army to fight for their country just as the white man would. They also would be the first to intergrate them into existing regiments(there was no segregate units) and these black men fought just as hard for their country as their white counterparts did.

Umm, what?
 
I think its wonderful that people tend to say what they think cannot happen because it happen that way in our time line, but I think that in alternate history, who has the right to say what would or would not happen?

On this website we don't just accept any POD as likely and any outcome as acceptable. There is a bar on this website, and I recommend reading some other timelines about the Civil War to see the kind of TL's that we've already seen.
 
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