Screwing US without Balkanization

The stroke that killed Lee strikes just before Appomatox.

Alexander proposal to scatter the army is accepted. Most of the soldiers simply go home but a certain amount of hardliners intreprets this order as a go ahead for a guerrilla warfare. Other confederate commanders follow the example, with similar results.

There is no formal surrender of the confederate armies (they simply melt away) and, since the Federal Government did not recognize the Confederation, even the words of the political brass have no relevance so the war is not officially ended.

What could (let's say 10,000 fighters) do with the support of a friendly population? We have the example of the James-Younger band: a dozen of determined man kept in turmoil a whole state for a decade. Multiply by 1000 and you have assinations, kidnapping, hostages, summary executions, lynchings, arson etc. etc. all over the South, for at least a decade. Sometimes in the late 1870's the rebellion does eventual peter out but the legacy of hate and revenge poisons US life up to present day.
 
The stroke that killed Lee strikes just before Appomatox.

Alexander proposal to scatter the army is accepted. Most of the soldiers simply go home but a certain amount of hardliners intreprets this order as a go ahead for a guerrilla warfare. Other confederate commanders follow the example, with similar results.

There is no formal surrender of the confederate armies (they simply melt away) and, since the Federal Government did not recognize the Confederation, even the words of the political brass have no relevance so the war is not officially ended.

What could (let's say 10,000 fighters) do with the support of a friendly population? We have the example of the James-Younger band: a dozen of determined man kept in turmoil a whole state for a decade. Multiply by 1000 and you have assinations, kidnapping, hostages, summary executions, lynchings, arson etc. etc. all over the South, for at least a decade. Sometimes in the late 1870's the rebellion does eventual peter out but the legacy of hate and revenge poisons US life up to present day.

This is the best pre-1900 POD I've seen. Especially if you handwave Booth.:mad:
 
It seems some 80% of posters are ignoring the OP's stipulation of having more or less OTL US borders. Under that restriction, making the USA even into a dystopia is OK, provided you have the 50 states.

Most of this seems to center around Settlement/1812/Mexican War/ACW strife. Those PODs are too distant to keep the USA together as we know it.

I would suggest, for maintaining the 50 states, something simpler. Like screwing up America's handling of the Great Depression and pretty much everything that happened after that. 1929 to modern day dystopia.

I see a few possibilities of things to screw the USA only.

1) Have no treaty ending the War with Mexico acceptable to 2/3 of the US Senate with the Northern senators wanting significantly less than the Southern Senators... It might lead to a long term no mans land in the Southwest.
2) Uglier reconstruction. Knock out Lee, Andrew Johnson, and Grant and we could still have a generation more of attempts to control the south.
3) Similar lack of end to the Spanish American War, what if more than 1/3 of the Senators don't want any land gains from the war?
4) TR doesn't get elected bottling up the anti-trust efforts for a decade or more. Possible violent reaction there with either that or the counter reaction leading to a dystopia
5) Similarly FDR. (like the above poster)
 

Maur

Banned
I was responding to your observation that "political coalition between north-west and south, focusing on free trade" would lead to "nascent northern industry faltering and the whole country going the way of resource economy a la rest of OTL Americas."

What I was attempting to make clear was that the lack of free trade in the antebellum period was a very bad thing, and free trade would have made things better. Tariiffs were repeatedly heightened during the antebellum period, and that was a very bad thing, for the reasons I mentioned.
Hm. The tariffs prior to civil war were not increasingly higher. They swung from low to high to low to high again.

I only mentioned those differences to demonstrate how OTL protectionism made them considerably worse, and how free trade would have helped ease them.

Your claim that industry could not thrive without protectionism is, frankly, incorrect. In fact, the introduction of free trade has consistently fostered industry, and protectionism has consistently crippled it.
Protectionism did not make its worse, it made it (industrialisation of USA) possible. That some regions - here, south, or north-west lagged is to be expected. Same thing happened everywhere.

This is also incorrect, I must say. Britain, for instance, experienced its greatest industrial development in a period when it embraced free trade and did away with outdated mercantillist nonsense. In fact, they did away with that nonsense because free trade advocates (such as Adam Smith) has theorized that free trade would be benificial, while protectionism was detrimental. those theories have been proven correct time and again.

Do forgive me for this somewhat digressive post; I wanted to answer your points, even though it takes us away from the actual point of this thread. To recapitulate: I found myself in disagreement with your opinion that free trade would lead to negative effects, and wished to present a counter-argument. In my view, the introduction of free trade would not lead to the negative results you predict. On the contrary: the South's OTL lack of industry was, as I explained, partially caused by protectionism. Free trade would mean more Southern industrialization. That's the opposite of a USA-screw, I'd say. :D
Britain, and thats all, because Britain position was special due to its being the first and without competition. Everyone else had to raise barriers to succeed, from Prussia in mid XIX century to China in late XX.
 
How would you screw US without balkanization (or as little as possible) keeping the OTL maps of US as similar to the screw as posible?

Look at Argentina. In late 19th century, it was a rich European settler colony. Not quite as rich as USA, UKoGBaI or Australia, but in 1913 richer than Germany or France and far richer than Brazil. In the previous 40 years, 1870 to 1910, Argentina had enjoyed fastest economic growth in the world, faster than USA.

Since then... long term economic and political maladies.

And not unique to Argentina! Chile and Uruguay are sometimes slightly better off than Argentina, but not much, and nowhere close to Spain and Portugal.

Yet the external borders and internal federal map of Buenos Aires was in place by 1880s. Argentina had crises in 20th century but did not balkanize.

Now, the outer borders of USA were fixed by 1867, save Hawaii, 1898. The inner borders of the western States matched those of the Territories, save Oklahoma and Indian Territories (joined in 1907) and Dakota Territory (split in two in 1889). The last territory defined in West had been Wyoming Territory, in 1868.

Could you get a PoD somewher in 1872...1873? Worse handling of the 1873 crises, leading to long term economic and political maladies.

Argentina OTL did NOT have a single crash. Rather, it was a bunch of crises and missed opportunities over a century. The Crisis of 1914 his both USA and Argentina, but Argentina did, in the end, fare slightly worse. The 1929 depression again hit both USA and Argentina, and Argentina again did slightly worse. Then Peron vs. Truman, then Peron vs. Nixon...

Could you get this kind of long term maladies for USA with a PoD in 1872...1873? No big crash, but crises worse than OTL and recoveries more lackluster, consistently. US borders stay, Hawaii still annexed (maybe poorer but at the same time more aggressive USA in 1893...1898), the Western territories still admitted as States. And USA screwed.
 
The stroke that killed Lee strikes just before Appomatox.

Alexander proposal to scatter the army is accepted. Most of the soldiers simply go home but a certain amount of hardliners intreprets this order as a go ahead for a guerrilla warfare. Other confederate commanders follow the example, with similar results.

There is no formal surrender of the confederate armies (they simply melt away) and, since the Federal Government did not recognize the Confederation, even the words of the political brass have no relevance so the war is not officially ended.

What could (let's say 10,000 fighters) do with the support of a friendly population? We have the example of the James-Younger band: a dozen of determined man kept in turmoil a whole state for a decade. Multiply by 1000 and you have assinations, kidnapping, hostages, summary executions, lynchings, arson etc. etc. all over the South, for at least a decade. Sometimes in the late 1870's the rebellion does eventual peter out but the legacy of hate and revenge poisons US life up to present day.

Here's the thing - do they all go into the Bush? I mean, if Lee's army are all Lost Causers, sure. They're fighting for their raaaights and their fighting for freedom. But Lost Causers don't exist yet - these are Confederate soldiers, and not carriers of each new generations invention of what non-slavery thing the South was *really* fighting for. The OTL Confederate army was heavily conscripted by this point. All moonlight and magnolias aside, every adult male in an age bracket without 20 slaves was called up. They had quite a desertion problem as is. They just been through a long and brutal siege at Petersburg.

OTL, there was quite a bit of violence directed at Unionists and freedmen in the South. The brutal truth is that regular violence against black people in the South was a fact. These acts of violence were pageants, party like events for a hundred years after the Civil War. Still are, if someone's playing music you don't like or wears a hoodie. How far does the volume have to be pumped up on his in an ATL to have a greater effect?

I still think the PoD comes out of the Civil War - so much else of US history does, after all. I'm not sure Lost Causer guerrillas is doable though.
 
Alcohol prohibition introduced in the late 1890s is not repealed.
Over time penalties increase and more and more people go to jail.
Police get more powers to enforce the law and civil rights are reduced.
Tobacco is banned at the time as the 1937 anti-marijuana law.
Prostitution, Adultery,Gambling and any thing else that could be seen as damaging to to society could be added to the the every expanding list of federal crimes.
Jails are are over crowded and a massive jail build programme becomes part of the public works in the depression.
Travel out side America is limited to to help stop Americas being exposed to people drink and smoking abroad.
 
Last edited:
I still think the PoD comes out of the Civil War - so much else of US history does, after all. I'm not sure Lost Causer guerrillas is doable though.

I think for a guerrillas movement to take hold you would need the Union army to start killing prisoners in large number and burning the farms and home of people who had family in the CSA military.
So the guerrillas cannot go home and have nothing to lose.

The Union reacting harshly enough for a long term guerrilla war to be fought is not very plausible.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Worth remembering is that

Here's the thing - do they all go into the Bush? I mean, if Lee's army are all Lost Causers, sure. They're fighting for their raaaights and their fighting for freedom. But Lost Causers don't exist yet - these are Confederate soldiers, and not carriers of each new generations invention of what non-slavery thing the South was *really* fighting for. The OTL Confederate army was heavily conscripted by this point. All moonlight and magnolias aside, every adult male in an age bracket without 20 slaves was called up. They had quite a desertion problem as is. They just been through a long and brutal siege at Petersburg.

OTL, there was quite a bit of violence directed at Unionists and freedmen in the South. The brutal truth is that regular violence against black people in the South was a fact. These acts of violence were pageants, party like events for a hundred years after the Civil War. Still are, if someone's playing music you don't like or wears a hoodie. How far does the volume have to be pumped up on his in an ATL to have a greater effect?

I still think the PoD comes out of the Civil War - so much else of US history does, after all. I'm not sure Lost Causer guerrillas is doable though.

Worth remembering is that there were more southern-born men wearing blue by the time of Appomatox than there were wearing grey.

Certainly more of them getting a paycheck from Uncle Abe than from Uncle Jeff.

But those realities rarely penetrate the moonlight and magnolias crowd.

Best,
 
Here's the thing - do they all go into the Bush? I mean, if Lee's army are all Lost Causers, sure.

The 10,000 I posited are the total contribution from all the Confederate armies and Home Guard units in the field, not just from ANV. They are a tiny percentage of the total (at this stage of the war, southerners think only of going home, provided they still have a home...).

Another factor comes from geography. ANV had several units from Texas at Appomatox. Pray, tell me how they could "report back to their Governor"? they had no alternative but either surrender or melt away and leave off land (euphemism for pillaging the civilian population and possibly Union depots). There you have soldiers whose last project is starting a guerrilla but they end up sucked into it.

Add to the mix guys like Custer (who would have had a hardon if there had been a semi-legal way of stringing up rebels) and you have all the fuel and all the matches you need to start a jolly bonfire.

Conventional armies were not trained to handle a guerrilla (even nowadays they make more mistakes than right moves) and the vicious circle of violence->reprisals->alienation of the population->more support for the insurgents->more violence starts easily.

Anyway, since I sense that this subject is putting into question some of the mantras of this community I resolve that this is my last post in this thread. Over and out.
 
Top