This is my first timeline (and first post) on this website, so please be patient with me. Anyways, I thought perhaps writing some alternate history would be a good way to combat boredom. So, without further ado, I present to you a timeline on a very obscure topic!
For Reference: The Sonderbund War was a brief three-week conflict in November of 1847. A culmination of the centuries-long Swiss religious conflicts, the Sonderbund War was waged between the Catholic cantons of the Sonderbund, a cantonal alliance formed in 1845, and the Swiss Confederation, which was mainly Protestant. The fighting was sparked when the Swiss Diet demanded that the Sonderbund be disbanded. This task was undertaken by General Henri Dufour, a capable commander whos' clever strategy prevented what could have been a brutal and devastating war. Instead, the war would claim less than 100 dead in total (though the accounts from Lucerne Canton suggested otherwise).
(I will also be using the French spellings of Cantons for the most part; my apologies to those who speak German, and also to whoever is Swiss out there for butchering their history)
Behind the Point of Divergence: This timeline will be exploring what would happen if the war had become a lengthy bloodbath similar to the American Civil War. To explore that, the timeline will diverge from actual history before and during the Battle of Gisikon. The bloodiest battle of the war and the culmination of Dufour's Lucerne Campaign, Gisikon would be the decisive battle that would destroy the Sonderbund, as it would open up a crucial road to Lucerne City, the center of Sonderbund resistance. Though tens of thousands of soldiers were engaged, there were less than 150 casualties in total. In contrast, at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in the American Civil War, of 17,000 troops engaged during the battle, 2,000 would become casualties, including the Union commander, General Nathaniel Lyon. Some of the factors that resulted in Gisikon becoming very light in casualties were due to poor accuracy of the Swiss troops (I guess we can't change the fact that the Swiss aimed too high...), the poor performance of artillery (due to the nature of the Swiss Countryside), and the poor morale of the Sonderbund forces (most Sonderbund troops weren't eager to die for a cause they half-believed in).
The Point(s) of Divergence (Kind of...): Five days before the Battle of Gisikon broke out, Konstantin Siegwart-Müller, leader of the Sonderbund, rode out to address the troops positioned along the river Reuss at the villages of Gisikon and Meiskappel. There he, accompanied by General Sans-Soligo, the commander of the Sonderbund forces, would give a rousing speech calling for the troops to resist the Confederates with all their strength. If they didn't, Müller warned, they would be enslaved by the corrupt atheists of Geneva and Zurich, and Catholicism would be purged from Switzerland. "By God!" cried Müller, "By God, you must stop them!". Roused into action by the inspiring speech, the Sonderbund forces would later offer determined resistance to the Confederate troops. Meanwhile, their spirits boosted after repulsing a Confederate assault a week before (This battle happened in real life), the canton of Fribourg, isolated from the rest of the Sonderbund, would decide to hold firm against the masses of Confederate troops threatening the canton (Fribourg would actually surrender after the successful defense). Fribourg, a thorn in the side of the Confederates, was to be taken before the offensive on Luzern, according to Dufour's plan, but under pressure from the Diet, Dufour was forced to take action against Luzern canton while the siege persisted, therefore tying down troops that should have been involved in the Luzern campaign. The day after Müller's speech, 4,000 troops primarily from Valais canton abandoned their positions at a strategic pass leading to Valais Canton to join the troops along the Reuss. They slowly made their way towards the troops at Gisikon, unaware of the events unfolding there...
Chapter One: The Battle Begins
Henri Dufour was feeling generally confident as he marched toward Lucerne City. He had brushed aside all Sonderbund resistance he had encountered and now made his way towards the capital itself. He knew that his opponent, General Sans-Soligo, was waiting for him somewhere before Lucerne City, but where and in what numbers, he had the faintest clue. He did know, correctly, that however many Sonderbund troops await him, Dufour's army would certainly outnumber them. However, one thing did not rest easy with Dufour: the bastion of Sonderbund resistance at Fribourg threatening the interior of the Confederate territories. If the Diet had let him conclude the campaign in Fribourg, Dufour would have been able to bring at least one more division with him on the campaign. Without those men, Sans-Soligo might have even been thinking he'd enjoy a fair fight!
Meanwhile, the Sonderbund troops laid in wait eagerly. They had fortified both sides of the Reuss river which the Confederate troops were marching along. Entrenched artillery positions covered the road that the Confederates would come marching down, and perhaps a mile or two from the village at Gisikon, running along the edge of Zug Lake, lay a vast, wooded hill. The hill was covered with a patchwork of Sonderbund barricades and entrenchments, with the entire rifleman contingents of Obwalden and Niwalden cantons laying positioned along the hill. They were reinforced by artillery from Luzern as well as Landstrum, armed peasantry, which fortified the peak of the hill.
The Confederate troops would be greeted by the faces of hundreds of Sonderbund troops lining hedges and stone walls as they approached the bridge at Gisikon. The battle at Gisikon would soon commence with both sides exchanging ultimately ineffective artillery fire. After the short gunnery battle, the Confederate troops would advance, spearheaded by the troops of the Brunner Battalion, a unit from Zurich canton...
The artillery battle and subsequent reports of rifle fire from the green-coated Luzern riflemen had left a thick smoke on the battlefield. Positioned along the road on a small elevation lay Captain Mazzolo's artillery company, hailing from Luzern. Captain Mazzolo, unfazed by the artillery fire from the Confederate batteries, had failed to notice the signs that the time had come to limber the guns and pull back from his position. As the advance guard of Luzern riflemen retreated past his position, Mazzolo noticed a large body of troops approaching his position, but could not tell if they were friendly riflemen from Luzern or the advancing Confederates due to the thick smoke. One of his corporals, Pfieffer, volunteered to go and see who the men were. After a few minutes, a panicked Pfieffer returned sprinting towards the guns. "Fire, sir! It's the enemy!", Pfieffer screamed. Mazzolo ordered for his guns to be loaded with canister, and waited for the Confederate troops to get closer to maximize the effectiveness. When Mazzolo's battery was close to being within range of the Confederate muskets, Mazzolo, ordered for the battery to commence firing. Te canister ripped into the lines of the Brunner Battalion, causing no less than two dozen casualties. A Confederate Major took the Battalion's standard out of the hands of the dead standard-bearer, and planted it in the ground, urging his men to hold firm, but another brutal volley of canister from the Sonderbund guns soon sent the troops of the Brunner Battalion fleeing. The route of the battalion stalled the advance and caused confusion among the Confederate lines. General Dufour rode up to the frontlines, appalled at the losses, but soon set out to rally the men and continue the advance towards the bridge over the Reuss...