My "No Confederate Nostalgia" TL

[MerryPrankster]

Once upon a time, the legendary banned member MEJ posted a thread pondering how to make it so there was no Confederate nostalgia in the United States.

It quickly turned into a flamewar, but I posted a scenario attempting to honestly answer the question.

(Which, predictably, was ignored.)

Basically the Confederacy wins the Civil War and over the subsequent decades begins to experience various problems--slave revolts, the Boll Weevil, collapses in cotton prices due to competition with India and Egypt, the flight of poor whites due to abuses by planters (I can imagine trying to plantationize poor whites' land, especially once their own land is ruined by cotton).

Over the years, individual states break off and either rejoin the Union or trying to go it alone (probably Texas could manage the latter).

The idea is that the Confederates get enough rope to hang themselves and they do. The U.S. is reunited eventually, but nobody remembers the Confederacy with any fondness--it had gotten so dystopic nobody CAN defend it anymore.

Despite my title, I don't really have a full TL in mind. What do you all think?

 

[vultan]

So, you're making a TL out of this?
If so, I eagerly await.

 

[MerryPrankster]

So, you're making a TL out of this?
If so, I eagerly await.

Not really, although I do have some elements of it in my steampunk TL I'm working on.

 

[vultan]

Not really, although I do have some elements of it in my steampunk TL I'm working on.

Oh.... (filler)

 

[thekingsguard]

Honestly, just get rid of the KKK, and have the Radical Republicans original plan of dividing the plantations between the balcsk and poor white happen. Aside from the few rich white planters that started the war in the first place, few could call that a bad deal.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Oh.... (filler)

Don't worry. I've got some parts of the steampunk TL pretty well fleshed-out, including the Confederacy's conquest of Northern Mexico (an embattled Maximillian makes a deal with the devil) and how, after a TL-191-esque destruction of the Confederate Supreme Court by the president, Texas and the ex-Mexican states go independent (Texas later has to fight Mexico for the latter), Tennessee counter-secedes back to the Union, and Virginia is only prevented from following by armed force.

It gets worse. The Confederacy starts to collapse, air pirates begin operating out of fringe territory like Arkansas, and there's a Confederate Nazi party analogue run by poor whites who want to nationalize the slaves and use their labor to pay for "socialism for white people."

 

[vultan]

Don't worry. I've got some parts of the steampunk TL pretty well fleshed-out, including the Confederacy's conquest of Northern Mexico (an embattled Maximillian makes a deal with the devil) and how, after a TL-191-esque destruction of the Confederate Supreme Court by the president, Texas and the ex-Mexican states go independent (Texas later has to fight Mexico for the latter), Tennessee counter-secedes back to the Union, and Virginia is only prevented from following by armed force.

It gets worse. The Confederacy starts to collapse, air pirates begin operating out of fringe territory like Arkansas, and there's a Confederate Nazi party analogue run by poor whites who want to nationalize the slaves and use their labor to pay for "socialism for white people."

Sounds interesting. Can't wait to see it!

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Honestly, just get rid of the KKK, and have the Radical Republicans original plan of dividing the plantations between the balcsk and poor white happen. Aside from the few rich white planters that started the war in the first place, few could call that a bad deal.

The thing he wanted to do was the reverse. Show how farsical it was actually, how dark.. or just fail lame, and so too pathetic for symapthies.

 

[Badshah]

Don't worry. I've got some parts of the steampunk TL pretty well fleshed-out, including the Confederacy's conquest of Northern Mexico (an embattled Maximillian makes a deal with the devil) and how, after a TL-191-esque destruction of the Confederate Supreme Court by the president, Texas and the ex-Mexican states go independent (Texas later has to fight Mexico for the latter), Tennessee counter-secedes back to the Union, and Virginia is only prevented from following by armed force.

It gets worse. The Confederacy starts to collapse, air pirates begin operating out of fringe territory like Arkansas, and there's a Confederate Nazi party analogue run by poor whites who want to nationalize the slaves and use their labor to pay for "socialism for white people."

Actually, with a war between these two, I think Mexico would own the CSA, and take back Texas, and Arizona, if the CSA owns them.

 

[MerryPrankster]

The thing he wanted to do was the reverse. Show how farsical it was actually, how dark.. or just fail lame, and so too pathetic for symapthies.

His suggestion actually works--if Reconstruction provides great material benefits for the former slaves and poor whites and severes the latter from the planter class, they might remember the Civil War rather different.

However, I was more interested in whether people thought my sketch-timeline was plausible.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Actually, with a war between these two, I think Mexico would own the CSA, and take back Texas, and Arizona, if the CSA owns them.

It's more of an attempt by Maximillian to save his throne by bringing in the CSA to squash the Juaristas in exchange for territory than a war between a united Mexico and the Confederacy.

And Mexico in this period was in the middle of civil war, so although a Confederate invasion would be a very dicey proposition (if anything, the disease environment would be awful), Mexico being organized enough to actually invade the CSA and take territory is a bit of a stretch.

Plus there's the possibility the U.S. wouldn't let them--they want that territory back themselves.

Don't worry--you'll get a Latin spanking of the overconfident Gringos when the Confederates invade Cuba, have their outdated fleet mauled by the smaller but more modern Spanish fleet, and have to pay massive reparations to get their soldiers evacuated from Cuba before the army gets attrited to bits or all dies of yellow fever.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

His suggestion actually works--if Reconstruction provides great material benefits for the former slaves and poor whites and severes the latter from the planter class, they might remember the Civil War rather different.

However, I was more interested in whether people thought my sketch-timeline was plausible.

Hum, I can see a point there indeed.

 

[jakewilson]

I've often pondered what it would take to get my fellow Southerners to hero-worship Southern Unionists instead of Lee and the rest. If someone made that happen in a timeline, I would love them forever.

 

[MerryPrankster]

I've often pondered what it would take to get my fellow Southerners to hero-worship Southern Unionists instead of Lee and the rest. If someone made that happen in a timeline, I would love them forever.

Maybe Lee goes with the Union or sits out the war entirely and someone either particularly incompetent or particularly atrocious commands the Confederate armies?

Imagine the "kill every black soldier and every white officer commanding black soldiers" enforced in every Confederate army, without regard for Union reprisals against Confederate prisoners.

 

[Johnrankins]

I would like to see a timeline of this myself.

 

[Snake Featherston]

That could work. I'd be interested in reading it.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Maybe Lee goes with the Union or sits out the war entirely and someone either particularly incompetent or particularly atrocious commands the Confederate armies?

Imagine the "kill every black soldier and every white officer commanding black soldiers" enforced in every Confederate army, without regard for Union reprisals against Confederate prisoners.

The first describes virtually every Confederate commander save Lee and while he was the most successful he swallowed a full 200,000 out of the 800,000 soldiers who served in CS armies throughout the war.

The second was OTL, where this happened in every theater of the war and Lee's army was responsible for the biggest massacre of black US soldiers by Confederate soldiers in the entire war, far bigger than Fort Pillow.

 

[Johnrankins]

The first describes virtually every Confederate commander save Lee and while he was the most successful he swallowed a full 200,000 out of the 800,000 soldiers who served in CS armies throughout the war.

The second was OTL, where this happened in every theater of the war and Lee's army was responsible for the biggest massacre of black US soldiers by Confederate soldiers in the entire war, far bigger than Fort Pillow.

Which massacre was that?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Which massacre was that?

The one at the Battle of the Crater. General Mahone's men were responsible for a massacre that dwarfed what Forrest and his men did at Fort Pillow, but Marble Man Lee escaped responsibility for this along with so much else. It was under Lee's authority, none of the men were ever so much as given a slap on the wrist, and it was a war crime even by the standard of the time. Of course subsequent histories waxed grandly about the monstrous crimes of Sherman and not those of Forrest and Mahone where it was people slain in cold blood, as opposed to houses burned.

 

[Johnrankins]

The one at the Battle of the Crater. General Mahone's men were responsible for a massacre that dwarfed what Forrest and his men did at Fort Pillow, but Marble Man Lee escaped responsibility for this along with so much else. It was under Lee's authority, none of the men were ever so much as given a slap on the wrist, and it was a war crime even by the standard of the time. Of course subsequent histories waxed grandly about the monstrous crimes of Sherman and not those of Forrest and Mahone where it was people slain in cold blood, as opposed to houses burned.

True enough, Mahone should have been, at the very least, sacked for that.