Ficboy
Banned
Many of us know Harry Turtledove very well including his 11 novel series Southern Victory or Timeline-191, it's been the subject of various discussions and fanmade creations such as TL-191: Filling the Gaps, TL-191: After the End and Photos from Featherston's Confederacy as well as Cody Franklin and EmperorTigerstar's video series on the subject
Here, we're going to talk about some of the stuff transpires in the series and how plausible any of it could happen in a realistic Confederate victory scenario:
The POD (Point of Divergence):
1. Basically the Confederate messenger of the Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) doesn't accidentally lose Special Order 191 and delivers to Robert E. Lee on time. In OTL, Special Order 191 was of course the instructions by Robert E. Lee himself that were supposed to be given to his commanders for what to do for the eventual invasion of Maryland and it was accidentally discovered by Union soldiers of Army of the Potomac (AOP) on Best Farm (yes that it's actual name) and sent to George B. McClellan who reading it himself said "Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home" this of course led to the Battle of South Mountain and Battle of Antietam which were Union victories more or less coupled with the double whammy at Perryville, Kentucky and the Emancipation Proclamation. In TL-191, because Special Order 191 is never lost and remains firmly in Confederate hands there is no Battle of South Mountain and Battle of Antietam let alone even an Emancipation Proclamation instead there is a Battle of Camp Hill which in turn leads to the Army of Northern Virginia destroying the Army of the Potomac and capturing Philadelphia thus leading to the end of the Civil War or War of Secession as it is known in this universe with Britain and France recognizing the Confederate States and establishing diplomatic relations with them.
2. Okay, let's get a few things out of the way: The POD is plausible enough and not having Special Order 191 lost and recovered by the Union could have happened no less. Here is what is said in Special Order 191:
1. The citizens of Fredericktown being unwilling while overrun by members of the army, to open their stores, in order to give them confidence, and to secure the officers and men purchasing supplies for benefit of this command, all officers and men of this army are strictly prohibited from visiting Fredericktown except on business, in which cases they will bear evidence of this in writing from division commanders. The provost-marshal in Fredericktown will see that his guard rigidly enforces that order.
2. Major [Walter H.] Taylor will proceed to Leesburg, Virginia, and arrange for transportation of the sick and those unable to walk to Winchester, securing the transportation of the country for this purpose. The route between this and Culpepper Court-House east of the mountains being unsafe, will no longer be traveled. Those on the way to this army already across the river will move up promptly; all others will proceed to Winchester collectively and under the command of officers, at which point, being the general depot of this army, its movements will be known and instructions given by commanding officer regulating further movements.
3. The army will resume its march tomorrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General [Stonewall] Jackson's command will form the advance, and after passing Middletown, with such portion as he may select, take the route towards Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday morning take the possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, capture such of them as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harpers Ferry.
4. General [James] Longstreet's command will pursue the same road as far as Boonsborough (the 19th century name for Boonsboro, Maryland), where it will halt, with reserve, supply and baggage trains of the army.
5. General [Lafayette] McLaws, with his own division and that of General R.H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown will take the route to Harpers Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harpers Ferry and vicinity.
6. General [Lindsay] Walker, with his division, after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend the its right bank to Lovettsville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable by Friday morning, Key's Ford to his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac to his right. He will, as far as practicable, cooperate with Generals McLaws and Jackson, and intercept retreat of the enemy.
7. General D.H. Hill's will form the rear guard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery, ordnance, and supply trains, &c, will precede to General Hill.
8. General [J.E.B.] Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the command of Generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of his army, bringing up the stragglers that may have been left behind.
9. The command of Generals Jackson, McLaws and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown.
10. Each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in its regimental ordnance-wagons, for use of the men at their encampments, to procure wood &c.
By Command of General R.E. Lee
R.H. Chilton, Assistant Adjutant General
The plan for the Army of Northern Virginia in the Maryland Campaign was to have Jackson, McLaws and Walker go to either Boonsborough or Hagerstown after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was captured and going the route through Sharpsburg and Cheek's Ford respectively when they cross the Potomac River, Harpers Ferry and Martinsburg in West Virginia was taken, Taylor had moved from Leesburg to Winchester for supplies and Longstreet, Anderson and McLaws arrive in Maryland Heights.
As far as decisively destroying the Army of the Potomac (AOP) at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania and capturing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is concerned I see it as very unlikely since no army in the Civil War was outright destroyed entirely with the exception of the Army of Tennessee (AOT) in the Battle of Nashville and even then it was already obvious it was going to be a Union victory by the Army of the Tennessee anyway. The Confederate States had also never really managed to recapture the major cities in the Western Theatre such as Nashville and Memphis in Tennessee or New Orleans in Louisiana not to mention Norfolk in Virginia in the Eastern Theatre and they only managed to capture one United States' capital in the entire war: Frankfort in Kentucky and even then it was for four days before the Battle of Perryville. Confederate armies were also smaller compared to the Union armies in term of population (19.2 million vs 8 million in 1860). A more likely scenario for a no Lost Order 191 Army of Northern Virginia would be to advance into Pennsylvania and capture a few towns such as Chambersburg, Shippensburg and Carlisle before getting to Camp Hill and fighting the Army of the Potomac there as well as capturing not Philadelphia but instead the state capital of Harrisburg (in OTL there were fears of Confederate invasion so much that the state government of Pennsylvania would mobilize the State Guard and seek potential relocation to another city). Assuming the Army of Northern Virginia does capture Camp Hill and Harrisburg it would demoralize the Union cause so much with a defeat on their soil.
The After Effects:
1. As for Kentucky by the time Special Order-191 had been drafted by the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee himself, the Army of Tennessee (AOT) under Braxton Bragg had captured the town of Richmond (not to be confused with the Confederate capital in Virginia) and were about to take Munfordville, Frankfort (the state capital) and Augusta (no relation to the Georgia city of the same name) in the following weeks of September 1862. So a Confederate victory in Camp Hill and Philadelphia/Harrisburg would embolden them to defeat the Union Army at Perryville and eventually march on Louisville as opposed to OTL's results that resulted in the opposite (the Union holding onto Kentucky for the rest of the conflict).
2. For Britain and France granting official recognition of the Confederacy and putting an end to the Civil War/War of Secession, the former was very much neutral under Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell respectively since while they had trade ties via cotton and shipbuilding they also were economic partners with America via corn, grain and industry as well as finding their cotton in their colonies of India and Egypt so they would seek to mediate in the conflict and not take any sides. As Palmerston said about the United Kingdom recognizing the Confederate States: "We ought to know that their separate independence is a truth and a fact" in other words if they won decisively then foreign recognition would come.
After the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862, Palmerston told Russell that "The Federals got a complete smashing, and it seems not altogether likely that still greater disasters await them, and that even Washington or Baltimore may fall into the hands of the Confederates. If this should happen, would it not be time for us to consider whether...England and France might not address the contending parties and recommend an arrangement upon the basis of separation?" he also added that if the United States didn't except mediation then they should "acknowledge the independence of the South as an established fact" and "we ought to ourselves to recognize the Southern States as an independent State" and there were also plans to meet in October with Russia about the plan but due to the Battle of Antietam and Battle of Perryville this was put on hold and never reconsidered again. In Timeline-191, Britain and France became allies of the Confederacy only because it abolishes slavery during the Second Mexican War given their hostility towards the institution.
If we're looking at Britain and France attitudes towards the Confederacy although they did oppose slavery it was not the issue for them rather it was whether this new nation was viable for independence or not as Palmerston's statement above says it all. France under Napoleon III wanted to recognize the Confederacy because it was tied up fighting rebels in Mexico after it installed a puppet monarchy there but they were unwilling to do so without Britain. Arguably France would be allies of the Confederate States (assuming Napoleon III isn't badly defeated in the Franco-Prussian War) but Britain while friendly towards them would remain neutral given their economic ties with them and the United States respectively and thus a Second Mexican War and the abolishment of slavery in that conflict is unlikely to ever occur.
3. Missouri stays with the United States despite offers from the Confederate States to divide the state in two. This is pretty correct given that Missouri was firmly under American control after the Battle of Island No. 10 on February 28, 1862-April 8, 1862 and even before that the Battle of Springfield in October 25, 1861 and Nathaniel Lyon's capture of St. Louis.
4. The Confederate States acquires Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexico/Second Mexican Empire and Cuba from Spain. Southern filibusters long wanted to expand into Latin America/South America and the Caribbean for new slave states especially people such as William Walker who briefly controlled Lower California, Sonora and Nicaragua for a while from 1856 to 1857 until his eventual execution by firing squad in 1860 and Narciso Lopez who led a failed invasion of Cuba in 1851 with the help of Southerners such as John A. Quitman of Mississippi for instance. A group known as the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) also sought to annex the entirety of Mexico, Central America (Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador), Cuba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, various Caribbean islands and portions of Venezuela and Colombia as slave states and part of the Confederacy. However all of this happened when the antebellum South had been part of the United States and was increasingly being dwarfed by the North in terms of population and as for the Confederate States I doubt they would ever actually gain control of Sonora and Chihuahua let alone Cuba since the former two belong to Mexico and handing them over might damage their reputation amongst their own people and the latter as attractive as option as it may be the independence movement there was anti-slavery and aren't interested in joining the Confederacy. However, the Confederate States could spread it's influence across Latin America/South America and the Caribbean by supporting puppet governments and overthrowing existing regimes in conflicts such as the Ten Years War (1868-1878) and the Banana Wars (1898-1934 or earlier depending on how the timeline goes).
5. The abolishment of slavery by the Confederate States in Timeline-191 as mentioned before happens due to Britain and France being disgusted by the institution and refusing to support them in the Second Mexican War unless they get rid of it which they do but we already gone over things that make it incredibly unlikely. If and when the Confederate States actually abolishes the peculiar institution it will be out of pragmatic and economic reasons while the vast majority don't have any qualms about the system when the 1880s rolls around and industry starts to become more prominent they will get rid in order to compete with their rival the United States and they'll have to amend a part of their constitution that forbids doing it. The Panic of 1873 would negatively impact the Confederacy's top trading partners Britain and France and lead to the beginning of the end of antebellum slavery as we know it.
6. James Longstreet is President of the Confederate States (POTCS) during the Second Mexican War. In OTL, he was a fairly popular general during the Civil War having fought in both the Eastern Theatre and Western Theatre respectively from 1861-1865. During Reconstruction, he supported the United States government's policies towards the conquered 11 Southern states and became a member of the Republican Party which led to him commanding a Black militia against the White League during the Battle of Liberty Palace in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 14, 1874 this is what eventually led to him being demonized by a certain ideology you've all heard of (the Lost Cause). Given the status of a post-War of Secession Confederacy and his service in the Army of Northern Virginia with no Gettysburg and Reconstruction, it's not hard to imagine James Longstreet becoming Confederate President and being a beloved figure.
7. Germany becomes an ally of the United States after the Second Mexican War and remain as such throughout the First Great War and the Second Great War respectively before potentially becoming enemies in an alternate version of the Cold War. While the North/America had a large population of Germans and even ties going back to the Revolutionary War, by the 1880s tensions between the country and Germany were growing thanks to tariffs over pork, beef and wheat in 1881 and the Samoan Crisis in 1887-1889 and opposition to the Monroe Doctrine (which stated that no foreign power can interfere with America's sphere of influence). So America and Germany remain neutral at best, friendly rivals at worst.
8. Blacks in the Timeline-191 Confederate States while free they possess little to no rights in the new nation and they aren't even allowed to have surnames so they go by Greco-Roman names. Black slaves in the United States often tended to share White names like their masters or what they would name them this included surnames so one aspect of the series is unlikely to happen. On the other hand, segregation will be very different in the Confederate States versus it's post-Reconstruction South counterpart for one groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League and the Redshirts and all the lynchings and massacres such as in Colfax, Louisiana will not exist whatsoever since Reconstruction never happens and thus race relations between White Confederates/White Southerners and Black Confederates/Black Southerners will be ironically far less worse than OTL and all the restrictive measures like literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes may not even exist though that's not to say both races would be equal.
Blacks in the Confederacy are also laborers on antebellum era plantations as we see with Anne Colleton and Tom Colleton and this is based off the sharecropping system implemented during and after Reconstruction but even in a Confederate victory it would not exist or at least not to the extent we saw in OTL. Also the series doesn't take much into account the yeoman farmers and poor Whites who will not be happy competing with Blacks in the job market and thus the Confederacy might reluctantly have to side with the former two this could also lead to the latter going to the North in search of a better life similar to the Great Migration and some slaves did escape to the North in the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War. An alternate Black migration to the North will be very different from OTL since for starters they are obviously not citizens of the United States and are fleeing from the Confederate States it would also be a bit less spread out usually concentrated in the Northeast and Old Northwest and to a lesser extent the Southwest as opposed to nearly everywhere and the states near the Mason-Dixon Line or at least adjacent to it will receive an influx of them (i.e. Baltimore, Maryland) so Harlem, New York becomes an Italian/Jewish neighborhood for instance or alternatively cities that already have a pre-existing black population, the communities they build will be poverty stricken and poor ghettos not to mention the hostility from White Americans/White Northerners that aren't interested in having them in their cities aside from a few exceptions.
9. Abraham Lincoln founds the Socialist Party and it becomes a major political force in the Timeline-191 United States throughout the Great Depression and the Second Great War with it's most notable members being Upton Sinclair and Hosea Blackford. In OTL, Abraham Lincoln was good friends with Karl Marx (one of the founders of Communism and Marxism) so it is possible he could have founded another political party but given how he was part of the Republican Party an organization that's now hated in America for losing the War of Secession to the Confederacy he may or may not continue to pursue a political career any longer. The Republican Party remains a minor political party after the Second Mexican War but let's face it they would likely diminish in popularity after the War of Secession and unlikely to get elected again in the Presidency for a while so they will stay the second major party in the United States they may or may not dissolve altogether and be replaced by the Socialist Party or some other party.
10. Baseball is an obscure regional sport mostly played in New England and Football is the national sport of the United States and the Confederate States respectively. OTL begs to differ since baseball was played by both Union and Confederate prisoners throughout the Civil War and that's not getting into the fact football was a sport invented in America specifically the Northeast by Rutgers (New Jersey), Princeton (New Jersey), Harvard (Massachusetts) and Yale (Connecticut). The inverse is in effect with baseball becoming the national sport of America and the Confederacy while football remains popular only in the former. On the other hand, since gridiron football is based off rugby and since it is a British sport it might become really popular amongst the Americans and the Confederates.
11. By the time the Great War/First Great War breaks out in 1914 after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Woodrow Wilson is the President of the Confederate States (POTCS) as a member of the Whig Party and Theodore Roosevelt is the President of the United States (POTUS) as a member of the Democrat Party. Theodore Roosevelt had Southern ancestors from Georgia such as the Bullochs and Stewarts (Daniel, Archibald, James and William) via his mother Martha as much as he had Northern ancestors through the Roosevelts and Schuylers (Philip, Elliott, Cornelius and Corinne) via his father Theodore Sr on the other hand he was very much a New York-born and bred native so the other half of his family might excuse him from facing any opposition to becoming President but even before he wanted to become a politician he had been a writer and naturalist responsible for the book The Naval War in 1812 which was widely praised by many and still read to this very day so it could butterfly his career as American President entirely and someone else could have held this role in 1904-1912 or the inverse happens. If Theodore Roosevelt ever does fight in a major conflict it certainly won't be the Spanish-American War for obvious reasons and his military career with an alternate version of the Rough Riders starts with the Ghost Dance War since a religious movement by that name would emerge to oppose the United States and he would certainly participate in it given that in both OTL and Timeline-191 he moved to the Dakota Territory to hunt for bison and built Elkhorn Ranch there. As for Woodrow Wilson his path to the Presidency in OTL was when he became a Presbyterian Minister in Augusta, Georgia followed by attending school there, moving to Columbia, South Carolina as a member of the First Presbyterian Church there, attended Davidson College in North Carolina, graduated at Princeton University in Trenton, New Jersey where he was also school president there, became a lawyer in Georgia, studied in Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and became Governor of New Jersey despite being from Virginia. Woodrow Wilson in a Confederate victory would be very different for starters he would not be a student and school president of Princeton University not to mention his parents were part of the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States (PCCS) and he had been a Presbyterian minister as mentioned so he might not even be President or it could more or less go like OTL with the big difference being that he is a prominent alumni at Davidson College in North Carolina and if he does transfer to another college it will be in Georgia specifically Augusta University and when he ever does become Governor it will likely be one of those states he lived in as part of his life.
12. Germany creates the Statue of Remembrance (TL-191's Statue of Liberty) and give it to the United States since they are allies. The Statue of Liberty itself is very much a creation of France and they originally intended to hand it over to Egypt but due to financial problems it was cancelled and so it was changed to instead the United States but it takes a while for financing to put it there specifically New York City, New York. Of course, Germany and America would not be allies as explained above and France assuming if it does lose the Franco-Prussian War might lead to the otherwise pro-Confederate Napoleon III deposed and replaced by the Third Republic which might be neutral or hostile towards the Confederacy. Simply put, the Statue of Liberty or whatever it's called either comes to America or doesn't depending on how things go in France in the 1860s-1870s.
13. George Armstrong Custer and his army wins the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 over the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapho rather than being obliterated by the tribes and goes on to become a major figure in the United States military during the First Great War as well as becoming Governor of Canada up until his death. Custer himself participated in the Civil War as a general in the Army of the Potomac and later became more well-known for his death against the tribes of the Dakota Territory (now North Dakota and South Dakota). Given that the Battle of Little Bighorn would more or less happen even if in a Confederate victory world the results would more or less be the same with Custer's death and all.
14. Alaska remains firmly under the control of Russia thanks to America suffering from a financial recession after the War of Secession ends. After the Seven Days Battles, there had been a panic on Wall Street over the Confederate victory. In so far as the status of Alaska, they certainly were not going to sell it to Britain or it's newly created dominion Canada given their bitter feelings towards them in the Crimean War and they already had friendly relations with the United States so they might wait for another decade or two to sell the territory to them. Thus Alaska may still become part of the United States depending on the circumstances.
15. Hawaii is more or less known as the Sandwich Islands because it joined Britain as a dominion rather than a a state in the United States. In OTL, the island had ties to the British as early as the late 1700s when James Cook met Kamehameha during his expeditions and handed him the Union Jack hence why the state has that symbol as part of its flag and also a brief occupation in 1843 but at the same time the Americans also had interest in the place due to the sugar plantations and imposed tariffs on them as well as some fighting in the Civil War. Since Britain wasn't anymore interested Hawaii anymore after 1843, America could have still taken over the place.
And that's all the the after effects of Southern Victory before World War I analyzed through a realistic lens. Overall, the series is basically "it could happen here" for European politics from the 1900s-1940s transplanted to North America and not all of it is plausible but it can be an entertaining read at times.
Here, we're going to talk about some of the stuff transpires in the series and how plausible any of it could happen in a realistic Confederate victory scenario:
The POD (Point of Divergence):
1. Basically the Confederate messenger of the Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) doesn't accidentally lose Special Order 191 and delivers to Robert E. Lee on time. In OTL, Special Order 191 was of course the instructions by Robert E. Lee himself that were supposed to be given to his commanders for what to do for the eventual invasion of Maryland and it was accidentally discovered by Union soldiers of Army of the Potomac (AOP) on Best Farm (yes that it's actual name) and sent to George B. McClellan who reading it himself said "Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home" this of course led to the Battle of South Mountain and Battle of Antietam which were Union victories more or less coupled with the double whammy at Perryville, Kentucky and the Emancipation Proclamation. In TL-191, because Special Order 191 is never lost and remains firmly in Confederate hands there is no Battle of South Mountain and Battle of Antietam let alone even an Emancipation Proclamation instead there is a Battle of Camp Hill which in turn leads to the Army of Northern Virginia destroying the Army of the Potomac and capturing Philadelphia thus leading to the end of the Civil War or War of Secession as it is known in this universe with Britain and France recognizing the Confederate States and establishing diplomatic relations with them.
2. Okay, let's get a few things out of the way: The POD is plausible enough and not having Special Order 191 lost and recovered by the Union could have happened no less. Here is what is said in Special Order 191:
1. The citizens of Fredericktown being unwilling while overrun by members of the army, to open their stores, in order to give them confidence, and to secure the officers and men purchasing supplies for benefit of this command, all officers and men of this army are strictly prohibited from visiting Fredericktown except on business, in which cases they will bear evidence of this in writing from division commanders. The provost-marshal in Fredericktown will see that his guard rigidly enforces that order.
2. Major [Walter H.] Taylor will proceed to Leesburg, Virginia, and arrange for transportation of the sick and those unable to walk to Winchester, securing the transportation of the country for this purpose. The route between this and Culpepper Court-House east of the mountains being unsafe, will no longer be traveled. Those on the way to this army already across the river will move up promptly; all others will proceed to Winchester collectively and under the command of officers, at which point, being the general depot of this army, its movements will be known and instructions given by commanding officer regulating further movements.
3. The army will resume its march tomorrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General [Stonewall] Jackson's command will form the advance, and after passing Middletown, with such portion as he may select, take the route towards Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday morning take the possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, capture such of them as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harpers Ferry.
4. General [James] Longstreet's command will pursue the same road as far as Boonsborough (the 19th century name for Boonsboro, Maryland), where it will halt, with reserve, supply and baggage trains of the army.
5. General [Lafayette] McLaws, with his own division and that of General R.H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown will take the route to Harpers Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harpers Ferry and vicinity.
6. General [Lindsay] Walker, with his division, after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend the its right bank to Lovettsville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable by Friday morning, Key's Ford to his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac to his right. He will, as far as practicable, cooperate with Generals McLaws and Jackson, and intercept retreat of the enemy.
7. General D.H. Hill's will form the rear guard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery, ordnance, and supply trains, &c, will precede to General Hill.
8. General [J.E.B.] Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the command of Generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of his army, bringing up the stragglers that may have been left behind.
9. The command of Generals Jackson, McLaws and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown.
10. Each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in its regimental ordnance-wagons, for use of the men at their encampments, to procure wood &c.
By Command of General R.E. Lee
R.H. Chilton, Assistant Adjutant General
The plan for the Army of Northern Virginia in the Maryland Campaign was to have Jackson, McLaws and Walker go to either Boonsborough or Hagerstown after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was captured and going the route through Sharpsburg and Cheek's Ford respectively when they cross the Potomac River, Harpers Ferry and Martinsburg in West Virginia was taken, Taylor had moved from Leesburg to Winchester for supplies and Longstreet, Anderson and McLaws arrive in Maryland Heights.
As far as decisively destroying the Army of the Potomac (AOP) at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania and capturing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is concerned I see it as very unlikely since no army in the Civil War was outright destroyed entirely with the exception of the Army of Tennessee (AOT) in the Battle of Nashville and even then it was already obvious it was going to be a Union victory by the Army of the Tennessee anyway. The Confederate States had also never really managed to recapture the major cities in the Western Theatre such as Nashville and Memphis in Tennessee or New Orleans in Louisiana not to mention Norfolk in Virginia in the Eastern Theatre and they only managed to capture one United States' capital in the entire war: Frankfort in Kentucky and even then it was for four days before the Battle of Perryville. Confederate armies were also smaller compared to the Union armies in term of population (19.2 million vs 8 million in 1860). A more likely scenario for a no Lost Order 191 Army of Northern Virginia would be to advance into Pennsylvania and capture a few towns such as Chambersburg, Shippensburg and Carlisle before getting to Camp Hill and fighting the Army of the Potomac there as well as capturing not Philadelphia but instead the state capital of Harrisburg (in OTL there were fears of Confederate invasion so much that the state government of Pennsylvania would mobilize the State Guard and seek potential relocation to another city). Assuming the Army of Northern Virginia does capture Camp Hill and Harrisburg it would demoralize the Union cause so much with a defeat on their soil.
The After Effects:
1. As for Kentucky by the time Special Order-191 had been drafted by the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee himself, the Army of Tennessee (AOT) under Braxton Bragg had captured the town of Richmond (not to be confused with the Confederate capital in Virginia) and were about to take Munfordville, Frankfort (the state capital) and Augusta (no relation to the Georgia city of the same name) in the following weeks of September 1862. So a Confederate victory in Camp Hill and Philadelphia/Harrisburg would embolden them to defeat the Union Army at Perryville and eventually march on Louisville as opposed to OTL's results that resulted in the opposite (the Union holding onto Kentucky for the rest of the conflict).
2. For Britain and France granting official recognition of the Confederacy and putting an end to the Civil War/War of Secession, the former was very much neutral under Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell respectively since while they had trade ties via cotton and shipbuilding they also were economic partners with America via corn, grain and industry as well as finding their cotton in their colonies of India and Egypt so they would seek to mediate in the conflict and not take any sides. As Palmerston said about the United Kingdom recognizing the Confederate States: "We ought to know that their separate independence is a truth and a fact" in other words if they won decisively then foreign recognition would come.
After the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862, Palmerston told Russell that "The Federals got a complete smashing, and it seems not altogether likely that still greater disasters await them, and that even Washington or Baltimore may fall into the hands of the Confederates. If this should happen, would it not be time for us to consider whether...England and France might not address the contending parties and recommend an arrangement upon the basis of separation?" he also added that if the United States didn't except mediation then they should "acknowledge the independence of the South as an established fact" and "we ought to ourselves to recognize the Southern States as an independent State" and there were also plans to meet in October with Russia about the plan but due to the Battle of Antietam and Battle of Perryville this was put on hold and never reconsidered again. In Timeline-191, Britain and France became allies of the Confederacy only because it abolishes slavery during the Second Mexican War given their hostility towards the institution.
If we're looking at Britain and France attitudes towards the Confederacy although they did oppose slavery it was not the issue for them rather it was whether this new nation was viable for independence or not as Palmerston's statement above says it all. France under Napoleon III wanted to recognize the Confederacy because it was tied up fighting rebels in Mexico after it installed a puppet monarchy there but they were unwilling to do so without Britain. Arguably France would be allies of the Confederate States (assuming Napoleon III isn't badly defeated in the Franco-Prussian War) but Britain while friendly towards them would remain neutral given their economic ties with them and the United States respectively and thus a Second Mexican War and the abolishment of slavery in that conflict is unlikely to ever occur.
3. Missouri stays with the United States despite offers from the Confederate States to divide the state in two. This is pretty correct given that Missouri was firmly under American control after the Battle of Island No. 10 on February 28, 1862-April 8, 1862 and even before that the Battle of Springfield in October 25, 1861 and Nathaniel Lyon's capture of St. Louis.
4. The Confederate States acquires Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexico/Second Mexican Empire and Cuba from Spain. Southern filibusters long wanted to expand into Latin America/South America and the Caribbean for new slave states especially people such as William Walker who briefly controlled Lower California, Sonora and Nicaragua for a while from 1856 to 1857 until his eventual execution by firing squad in 1860 and Narciso Lopez who led a failed invasion of Cuba in 1851 with the help of Southerners such as John A. Quitman of Mississippi for instance. A group known as the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) also sought to annex the entirety of Mexico, Central America (Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador), Cuba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, various Caribbean islands and portions of Venezuela and Colombia as slave states and part of the Confederacy. However all of this happened when the antebellum South had been part of the United States and was increasingly being dwarfed by the North in terms of population and as for the Confederate States I doubt they would ever actually gain control of Sonora and Chihuahua let alone Cuba since the former two belong to Mexico and handing them over might damage their reputation amongst their own people and the latter as attractive as option as it may be the independence movement there was anti-slavery and aren't interested in joining the Confederacy. However, the Confederate States could spread it's influence across Latin America/South America and the Caribbean by supporting puppet governments and overthrowing existing regimes in conflicts such as the Ten Years War (1868-1878) and the Banana Wars (1898-1934 or earlier depending on how the timeline goes).
5. The abolishment of slavery by the Confederate States in Timeline-191 as mentioned before happens due to Britain and France being disgusted by the institution and refusing to support them in the Second Mexican War unless they get rid of it which they do but we already gone over things that make it incredibly unlikely. If and when the Confederate States actually abolishes the peculiar institution it will be out of pragmatic and economic reasons while the vast majority don't have any qualms about the system when the 1880s rolls around and industry starts to become more prominent they will get rid in order to compete with their rival the United States and they'll have to amend a part of their constitution that forbids doing it. The Panic of 1873 would negatively impact the Confederacy's top trading partners Britain and France and lead to the beginning of the end of antebellum slavery as we know it.
6. James Longstreet is President of the Confederate States (POTCS) during the Second Mexican War. In OTL, he was a fairly popular general during the Civil War having fought in both the Eastern Theatre and Western Theatre respectively from 1861-1865. During Reconstruction, he supported the United States government's policies towards the conquered 11 Southern states and became a member of the Republican Party which led to him commanding a Black militia against the White League during the Battle of Liberty Palace in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 14, 1874 this is what eventually led to him being demonized by a certain ideology you've all heard of (the Lost Cause). Given the status of a post-War of Secession Confederacy and his service in the Army of Northern Virginia with no Gettysburg and Reconstruction, it's not hard to imagine James Longstreet becoming Confederate President and being a beloved figure.
7. Germany becomes an ally of the United States after the Second Mexican War and remain as such throughout the First Great War and the Second Great War respectively before potentially becoming enemies in an alternate version of the Cold War. While the North/America had a large population of Germans and even ties going back to the Revolutionary War, by the 1880s tensions between the country and Germany were growing thanks to tariffs over pork, beef and wheat in 1881 and the Samoan Crisis in 1887-1889 and opposition to the Monroe Doctrine (which stated that no foreign power can interfere with America's sphere of influence). So America and Germany remain neutral at best, friendly rivals at worst.
8. Blacks in the Timeline-191 Confederate States while free they possess little to no rights in the new nation and they aren't even allowed to have surnames so they go by Greco-Roman names. Black slaves in the United States often tended to share White names like their masters or what they would name them this included surnames so one aspect of the series is unlikely to happen. On the other hand, segregation will be very different in the Confederate States versus it's post-Reconstruction South counterpart for one groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League and the Redshirts and all the lynchings and massacres such as in Colfax, Louisiana will not exist whatsoever since Reconstruction never happens and thus race relations between White Confederates/White Southerners and Black Confederates/Black Southerners will be ironically far less worse than OTL and all the restrictive measures like literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes may not even exist though that's not to say both races would be equal.
Blacks in the Confederacy are also laborers on antebellum era plantations as we see with Anne Colleton and Tom Colleton and this is based off the sharecropping system implemented during and after Reconstruction but even in a Confederate victory it would not exist or at least not to the extent we saw in OTL. Also the series doesn't take much into account the yeoman farmers and poor Whites who will not be happy competing with Blacks in the job market and thus the Confederacy might reluctantly have to side with the former two this could also lead to the latter going to the North in search of a better life similar to the Great Migration and some slaves did escape to the North in the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War. An alternate Black migration to the North will be very different from OTL since for starters they are obviously not citizens of the United States and are fleeing from the Confederate States it would also be a bit less spread out usually concentrated in the Northeast and Old Northwest and to a lesser extent the Southwest as opposed to nearly everywhere and the states near the Mason-Dixon Line or at least adjacent to it will receive an influx of them (i.e. Baltimore, Maryland) so Harlem, New York becomes an Italian/Jewish neighborhood for instance or alternatively cities that already have a pre-existing black population, the communities they build will be poverty stricken and poor ghettos not to mention the hostility from White Americans/White Northerners that aren't interested in having them in their cities aside from a few exceptions.
9. Abraham Lincoln founds the Socialist Party and it becomes a major political force in the Timeline-191 United States throughout the Great Depression and the Second Great War with it's most notable members being Upton Sinclair and Hosea Blackford. In OTL, Abraham Lincoln was good friends with Karl Marx (one of the founders of Communism and Marxism) so it is possible he could have founded another political party but given how he was part of the Republican Party an organization that's now hated in America for losing the War of Secession to the Confederacy he may or may not continue to pursue a political career any longer. The Republican Party remains a minor political party after the Second Mexican War but let's face it they would likely diminish in popularity after the War of Secession and unlikely to get elected again in the Presidency for a while so they will stay the second major party in the United States they may or may not dissolve altogether and be replaced by the Socialist Party or some other party.
10. Baseball is an obscure regional sport mostly played in New England and Football is the national sport of the United States and the Confederate States respectively. OTL begs to differ since baseball was played by both Union and Confederate prisoners throughout the Civil War and that's not getting into the fact football was a sport invented in America specifically the Northeast by Rutgers (New Jersey), Princeton (New Jersey), Harvard (Massachusetts) and Yale (Connecticut). The inverse is in effect with baseball becoming the national sport of America and the Confederacy while football remains popular only in the former. On the other hand, since gridiron football is based off rugby and since it is a British sport it might become really popular amongst the Americans and the Confederates.
11. By the time the Great War/First Great War breaks out in 1914 after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Woodrow Wilson is the President of the Confederate States (POTCS) as a member of the Whig Party and Theodore Roosevelt is the President of the United States (POTUS) as a member of the Democrat Party. Theodore Roosevelt had Southern ancestors from Georgia such as the Bullochs and Stewarts (Daniel, Archibald, James and William) via his mother Martha as much as he had Northern ancestors through the Roosevelts and Schuylers (Philip, Elliott, Cornelius and Corinne) via his father Theodore Sr on the other hand he was very much a New York-born and bred native so the other half of his family might excuse him from facing any opposition to becoming President but even before he wanted to become a politician he had been a writer and naturalist responsible for the book The Naval War in 1812 which was widely praised by many and still read to this very day so it could butterfly his career as American President entirely and someone else could have held this role in 1904-1912 or the inverse happens. If Theodore Roosevelt ever does fight in a major conflict it certainly won't be the Spanish-American War for obvious reasons and his military career with an alternate version of the Rough Riders starts with the Ghost Dance War since a religious movement by that name would emerge to oppose the United States and he would certainly participate in it given that in both OTL and Timeline-191 he moved to the Dakota Territory to hunt for bison and built Elkhorn Ranch there. As for Woodrow Wilson his path to the Presidency in OTL was when he became a Presbyterian Minister in Augusta, Georgia followed by attending school there, moving to Columbia, South Carolina as a member of the First Presbyterian Church there, attended Davidson College in North Carolina, graduated at Princeton University in Trenton, New Jersey where he was also school president there, became a lawyer in Georgia, studied in Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and became Governor of New Jersey despite being from Virginia. Woodrow Wilson in a Confederate victory would be very different for starters he would not be a student and school president of Princeton University not to mention his parents were part of the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States (PCCS) and he had been a Presbyterian minister as mentioned so he might not even be President or it could more or less go like OTL with the big difference being that he is a prominent alumni at Davidson College in North Carolina and if he does transfer to another college it will be in Georgia specifically Augusta University and when he ever does become Governor it will likely be one of those states he lived in as part of his life.
12. Germany creates the Statue of Remembrance (TL-191's Statue of Liberty) and give it to the United States since they are allies. The Statue of Liberty itself is very much a creation of France and they originally intended to hand it over to Egypt but due to financial problems it was cancelled and so it was changed to instead the United States but it takes a while for financing to put it there specifically New York City, New York. Of course, Germany and America would not be allies as explained above and France assuming if it does lose the Franco-Prussian War might lead to the otherwise pro-Confederate Napoleon III deposed and replaced by the Third Republic which might be neutral or hostile towards the Confederacy. Simply put, the Statue of Liberty or whatever it's called either comes to America or doesn't depending on how things go in France in the 1860s-1870s.
13. George Armstrong Custer and his army wins the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 over the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapho rather than being obliterated by the tribes and goes on to become a major figure in the United States military during the First Great War as well as becoming Governor of Canada up until his death. Custer himself participated in the Civil War as a general in the Army of the Potomac and later became more well-known for his death against the tribes of the Dakota Territory (now North Dakota and South Dakota). Given that the Battle of Little Bighorn would more or less happen even if in a Confederate victory world the results would more or less be the same with Custer's death and all.
14. Alaska remains firmly under the control of Russia thanks to America suffering from a financial recession after the War of Secession ends. After the Seven Days Battles, there had been a panic on Wall Street over the Confederate victory. In so far as the status of Alaska, they certainly were not going to sell it to Britain or it's newly created dominion Canada given their bitter feelings towards them in the Crimean War and they already had friendly relations with the United States so they might wait for another decade or two to sell the territory to them. Thus Alaska may still become part of the United States depending on the circumstances.
15. Hawaii is more or less known as the Sandwich Islands because it joined Britain as a dominion rather than a a state in the United States. In OTL, the island had ties to the British as early as the late 1700s when James Cook met Kamehameha during his expeditions and handed him the Union Jack hence why the state has that symbol as part of its flag and also a brief occupation in 1843 but at the same time the Americans also had interest in the place due to the sugar plantations and imposed tariffs on them as well as some fighting in the Civil War. Since Britain wasn't anymore interested Hawaii anymore after 1843, America could have still taken over the place.
And that's all the the after effects of Southern Victory before World War I analyzed through a realistic lens. Overall, the series is basically "it could happen here" for European politics from the 1900s-1940s transplanted to North America and not all of it is plausible but it can be an entertaining read at times.
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