Could see places like Tennesse and Virginia being much more industrialized earlier, too, without being the theaters of operation for most of the war, which will likely change their demographics/attractiveness to immigrants earlier
The American System: A Henry Clay TL
- Thread starter TheHedgehog
- Start date
Speaking of, is American industry more developed ITTL because of Clays policies or is it about the same as OTL?
Indeed -- especially once they find coal in western Virginia, Petersburg and Richmond could become major industrial centers.
More industrialized, the increased spending on internal improvements and the construction of more railroad lines has made the north significantly more industrialized than OTL and the south a little more industrialized.
Just as a side note (and somewhat of an interesting fact imo), Jefferson Davis was actually born in Kentucky, which is why they put a statue of him up. Kentucky likes to play up an idea that they're the crossroads between north and south, and the main thing they usually point to is Davis and Lincoln both being born Kentucky.
While the upper south won't, as you said, buy into the lost cause as much, the states that seceded will go into it hard. And the fact that the war is less about slavery will feed into a more widespread, both north and south, romanticizing of the Confederacy.
18. An Irrepressible Conflict
18. An Irrepressible Conflict
“The bombardment of the Merrimack had worked out exactly as President Seward intended. The upper south had been driven further into the arms of the Union, and men from across the union rushed to enlist into the 60,000-man army. Within hours of Seward’s proclamation, Massachusetts regiments began assembling on Boston Common. The Governor of Iowa, initially worried about manpower shortages, soon found that recruiters were forced to turn away many hopeful enlistees. Faced with such enthusiasm for the fight, Seward amended his proclamation to call for 75,000 men, the maximum size allowed under the law.
The enlistees were mostly untrained, and the army lacked the means to quickly equip and train them. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott envisioned that the first six months of war [1] would be spent readying the army for proper combat, after which the fighting could begin. However, while this was a strategically sound plan, it was not politically sound. The brewing Civil War was borne from a bitter political dispute, and the conflict would be shaped just as much by political concerns as military ones.
At the onset of open hostilities, Union armories held more than 500,000 rifles and small arms, though some 90,000 of those weapons were in Confederate-controlled armories [2]. While the Confederate states scrambled to gather more weapons, including requisitioning hunting rifles and shotguns from backwoodsmen, the Union was also having trouble procuring more arms. The north had a greater ability to manufacture weapons, but the army camps of Washington, Norfolk, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, and Raleigh were clogged with inexperienced, undisciplined 90-day volunteers milling about. While General Scott wanted to wait and consolidate the newly expanded army, President Seward was under intense pressure to march on Charleston and deal the Confederacy a fatal blow.
…While the President deliberated his options, the first land battle of the Civil War was fought. Despite deciding to remain in the union, loyalties in Tennessee were still divided. The western third of the state in particular was a hotbed of secessionism. With Confederate support, a group of secessionists led by Governor Isham Harris raised a secessionist militia. The goal was to rally the western and central portions of the state to the Confederate cause. Harris and his allies planned to seize Nashville, forcibly dissolve the unionist legislature, and hold a new secession convention that would bring Tennessee into the Confederacy. General Nathaniel Lyon, the commander of the recently reinforced Nashville garrison, was made aware of this development. As Harris’s 5,000-strong militia marched towards Nashville, they found Lyon’s army blocking the road. In the first battle of the Civil War (though it was more of a skirmish), the small Union force of 2,000 forced the secessionists to retreat.
…On February 7th, 1862, President Seward appointed Irvin McDowell to lead the Army of the Carolinas, with the ultimate goal of taking Charleston. Several smaller Union forces, each numbering around 10-15,000 men, had attempted to invade South Carolina but had been halted by skirmishes and minor battles. McDowell, however, was given command of 30,000 men camped in Raleigh and Fayetteville. It was predicted that this would give him a sizeable numerical advantage over whatever force the Confederates managed to amass. The 90-day mark was nearing, and McDowell was restricted by popular and political pressure from spending much time training his men. Though the cool weather of early March prevented heat from becoming an issue for the army, the soldiers were still green and unaccustomed to marching [3]. This meant that McDowell’s journey to Rockingham took an extra week.”
-From THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES by Elissa Marconi, published 1998
“The Confederates hastily raised a force of 20,000 from state militia within two months of the bombardment of the Merrimack. This army was, like the Union army camped just across the border, very green. Unlike the Union, the Confederate army also faced a dire equipment shortage. The overwhelming majority of U.S. army arsenals lay in Union states, leaving the state militias of the Confederacy woefully underprepared in comparison to the equally untrained northern army.
Worse, the Confederate Congress was debating a measure that would ban the export of cotton in order to force the United Kingdom and the French Republic to recognize the Confederacy. This, combined with President Seward’s order for the Union navy to blockade southern ports, threatened to cut off the Confederacy from arms shipments before they could even put up a proper fight. Stephens intervened, warning that “our Confederacy will be destroyed within a month without arms, and we cannot get arms without selling cotton.” Stephens used the still-nebulous factions withing the Confederate Congress to defeat the proposed self-boycott [4]. The Confederate army placed orders with European companies for large quantities of rifles, cannon, ammunition, and other vital supplies. The steady stream of foreign-made materiel flowing into southern ports led President Seward to expedite the formation of his blockade. Dozens of new steam frigates and gunboats were ordered to chase down ships violating the blockade, while the vast majority of the existing fleet was put to work turning away ships bound for southern ports. Seward also dispatched his diplomats to dissuade Britain and France from further aiding the Confederacy. Though these efforts were initially met with indifference, by the end of the year, Britain and France would change their tune…”
-From DIPLOMACY IN THE CIVIL WAR by Eugene McConnell, published 2001
“McDowell drew up an ambitious plan of attack. Marching south from Rockingham, he would advance along the road to Camden, an important regional railroad hub. Once Camden was secured, he would then seize the state capital of Columbia, another important railroad city. Meanwhile, P.G.T. Beauregard was camped with his army of 20,000 in Traveler’s Rest, a town in between Columbia and Camden. When Beauregard received a report that McDowell had broken camp and was headed along the road to Camden, he gave the order to his army to head north. While the Union army slowly proceeded south, the Confederates set up defensive works near the small town of Lynchbrook, about fifteen miles north of Camden. The two armies first made contact on the morning of February 21st, when two cavalry patrols met and skirmished.
Beauregard had hoped to wait until a promised reinforcement of 7,000 soldiers had arrived, but McDowell arrived first. After cavalry skirmishes indicated where the Confederate army was positioned, McDowell launched his attack on the morning of March 6th, at 3:40. He dispatched two divisions to flank Beauregard’s army on the right, near the town of New Market. The Union troops ran into trouble early on, as the inexperienced soldiers struggled to maintain proper formations, and the roads they marched on were too narrow for a whole column’s width. Thus, the two divisions only reached New Market at 5:10, having been greatly delayed. This allowed Beauregard to reposition his right to secure the flank. By the time the Union troops began their attack on the Confederate right flank, it was well-guarded, and the fighting quickly became brutal.
While the right flank descended into bloody fighting, Union artillery began bombarding Confederate positions in and around Lynchbrook, including Beauregard’s headquarters. Confederate troops began making feinting attacks, but miscommunication and inexperienced troops made these ineffective. In one instance, two Confederate brigades were ordered to attack a Union position, but only one actually obeyed the command. In the ensuing battle, the Union soldiers brutally repulsed the Confederate assault. The morning phase, plagued by poor communications and green, sluggish troops, ended with the Confederates falling back to await the imminent arrival of reinforcements.
The Union army was too weakened by the morning fighting to disrupt the Confederate withdrawal, but by 1pm, McDowell decided that the army had recovered enough and moved to attack before the Confederate reinforcements could organize. An initial Union advance was halted by a cavalry company, and several Union officers were killed. As the rest of the Union army moved in for the attack, Confederate troops, disguised in Union uniforms, managed to capture two Union cannon that had been left poorly guarded. The fighting around the Confederate positions had turned into a slow, vicious slog. With the capture of the artillery and the entry of the reinforcements into battle, the tide began to turn. The inexperienced Union soldiers were unable to maintain morale in the face of the Confederate reinforcements and the increased casualties. Sensing Union weakness, Beauregard ordered a counterattack. McDowell attempted to exhort his men to keep up the fight, but his exhausted army began to disintegrate.
By 3:20, the Union army had been driven back from the Confederate positions, and Beauregard’s army began to advance in pursuit. Seeing his army begin to panic, McDowell gave the order to retreat at 3:40. The retreat was initially orderly, but as the Confederates pursued and inexperienced soldiers panicked, the withdrawal became a general rout, and the Union army fled back to Rockingham, leaving a trail of equipment in their wake.
The reasons for the Union defeat were many – the army was inexperienced, its march towards Camden was delayed, McDowell was too busy wrangling nearby brigades to direct the battle as a whole. The battle was the bloodiest in American history up to that point, with nearly 1,000 killed and 3,000 wounded in total. Northerners were shocked at the defeat, as the press had crowed that “a decisive victory is soon at hand” and that the Confederates would be crushed “with a single swift blow.” Instead, the Union army had all but fled back to North Carolina. The public demanded that someone face the blame for Lynchbrook, and so Seward unceremoniously relieved Irvin McDowell of his command on March 14th. George McClellan, who had distinguished himself in the Battle of Yorkville, was selected to replace him. The Hero of the Union [5] had entered the fray…”
-From BROTHER KILLING BROTHER: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR by Michael Yates, published 2019
[1] OTL, Scott wanted to spend a whole year preparing the army, as the performance of volunteer units in the Mexican American War left him unimpressed with their discipline. TTL, without such a war, Scott has less experience with volunteer forces to inform his planning process.
[2] OTL, it was 135,000. With fewer states seceding and no plot by Buchanan’s Secretary of War to ship northern arms to southern armories, the Confederacy has fewer weapons to seize.
[3] Apparently, soldiers would just wander off the road to pick apples or get water.
[4] OTL, the Confederacy used the months where the Union blockade was still porous to halt exports of cotton to try and strongarm Britain and France into recognizing their independence. TTL, they don’t try such a stupid gamble.
[5] With apologies to George Thomas, of course.
“The bombardment of the Merrimack had worked out exactly as President Seward intended. The upper south had been driven further into the arms of the Union, and men from across the union rushed to enlist into the 60,000-man army. Within hours of Seward’s proclamation, Massachusetts regiments began assembling on Boston Common. The Governor of Iowa, initially worried about manpower shortages, soon found that recruiters were forced to turn away many hopeful enlistees. Faced with such enthusiasm for the fight, Seward amended his proclamation to call for 75,000 men, the maximum size allowed under the law.
The enlistees were mostly untrained, and the army lacked the means to quickly equip and train them. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott envisioned that the first six months of war [1] would be spent readying the army for proper combat, after which the fighting could begin. However, while this was a strategically sound plan, it was not politically sound. The brewing Civil War was borne from a bitter political dispute, and the conflict would be shaped just as much by political concerns as military ones.
At the onset of open hostilities, Union armories held more than 500,000 rifles and small arms, though some 90,000 of those weapons were in Confederate-controlled armories [2]. While the Confederate states scrambled to gather more weapons, including requisitioning hunting rifles and shotguns from backwoodsmen, the Union was also having trouble procuring more arms. The north had a greater ability to manufacture weapons, but the army camps of Washington, Norfolk, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, and Raleigh were clogged with inexperienced, undisciplined 90-day volunteers milling about. While General Scott wanted to wait and consolidate the newly expanded army, President Seward was under intense pressure to march on Charleston and deal the Confederacy a fatal blow.
…While the President deliberated his options, the first land battle of the Civil War was fought. Despite deciding to remain in the union, loyalties in Tennessee were still divided. The western third of the state in particular was a hotbed of secessionism. With Confederate support, a group of secessionists led by Governor Isham Harris raised a secessionist militia. The goal was to rally the western and central portions of the state to the Confederate cause. Harris and his allies planned to seize Nashville, forcibly dissolve the unionist legislature, and hold a new secession convention that would bring Tennessee into the Confederacy. General Nathaniel Lyon, the commander of the recently reinforced Nashville garrison, was made aware of this development. As Harris’s 5,000-strong militia marched towards Nashville, they found Lyon’s army blocking the road. In the first battle of the Civil War (though it was more of a skirmish), the small Union force of 2,000 forced the secessionists to retreat.
…On February 7th, 1862, President Seward appointed Irvin McDowell to lead the Army of the Carolinas, with the ultimate goal of taking Charleston. Several smaller Union forces, each numbering around 10-15,000 men, had attempted to invade South Carolina but had been halted by skirmishes and minor battles. McDowell, however, was given command of 30,000 men camped in Raleigh and Fayetteville. It was predicted that this would give him a sizeable numerical advantage over whatever force the Confederates managed to amass. The 90-day mark was nearing, and McDowell was restricted by popular and political pressure from spending much time training his men. Though the cool weather of early March prevented heat from becoming an issue for the army, the soldiers were still green and unaccustomed to marching [3]. This meant that McDowell’s journey to Rockingham took an extra week.”
-From THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES by Elissa Marconi, published 1998
“The Confederates hastily raised a force of 20,000 from state militia within two months of the bombardment of the Merrimack. This army was, like the Union army camped just across the border, very green. Unlike the Union, the Confederate army also faced a dire equipment shortage. The overwhelming majority of U.S. army arsenals lay in Union states, leaving the state militias of the Confederacy woefully underprepared in comparison to the equally untrained northern army.
Worse, the Confederate Congress was debating a measure that would ban the export of cotton in order to force the United Kingdom and the French Republic to recognize the Confederacy. This, combined with President Seward’s order for the Union navy to blockade southern ports, threatened to cut off the Confederacy from arms shipments before they could even put up a proper fight. Stephens intervened, warning that “our Confederacy will be destroyed within a month without arms, and we cannot get arms without selling cotton.” Stephens used the still-nebulous factions withing the Confederate Congress to defeat the proposed self-boycott [4]. The Confederate army placed orders with European companies for large quantities of rifles, cannon, ammunition, and other vital supplies. The steady stream of foreign-made materiel flowing into southern ports led President Seward to expedite the formation of his blockade. Dozens of new steam frigates and gunboats were ordered to chase down ships violating the blockade, while the vast majority of the existing fleet was put to work turning away ships bound for southern ports. Seward also dispatched his diplomats to dissuade Britain and France from further aiding the Confederacy. Though these efforts were initially met with indifference, by the end of the year, Britain and France would change their tune…”
-From DIPLOMACY IN THE CIVIL WAR by Eugene McConnell, published 2001
“McDowell drew up an ambitious plan of attack. Marching south from Rockingham, he would advance along the road to Camden, an important regional railroad hub. Once Camden was secured, he would then seize the state capital of Columbia, another important railroad city. Meanwhile, P.G.T. Beauregard was camped with his army of 20,000 in Traveler’s Rest, a town in between Columbia and Camden. When Beauregard received a report that McDowell had broken camp and was headed along the road to Camden, he gave the order to his army to head north. While the Union army slowly proceeded south, the Confederates set up defensive works near the small town of Lynchbrook, about fifteen miles north of Camden. The two armies first made contact on the morning of February 21st, when two cavalry patrols met and skirmished.
Beauregard had hoped to wait until a promised reinforcement of 7,000 soldiers had arrived, but McDowell arrived first. After cavalry skirmishes indicated where the Confederate army was positioned, McDowell launched his attack on the morning of March 6th, at 3:40. He dispatched two divisions to flank Beauregard’s army on the right, near the town of New Market. The Union troops ran into trouble early on, as the inexperienced soldiers struggled to maintain proper formations, and the roads they marched on were too narrow for a whole column’s width. Thus, the two divisions only reached New Market at 5:10, having been greatly delayed. This allowed Beauregard to reposition his right to secure the flank. By the time the Union troops began their attack on the Confederate right flank, it was well-guarded, and the fighting quickly became brutal.
While the right flank descended into bloody fighting, Union artillery began bombarding Confederate positions in and around Lynchbrook, including Beauregard’s headquarters. Confederate troops began making feinting attacks, but miscommunication and inexperienced troops made these ineffective. In one instance, two Confederate brigades were ordered to attack a Union position, but only one actually obeyed the command. In the ensuing battle, the Union soldiers brutally repulsed the Confederate assault. The morning phase, plagued by poor communications and green, sluggish troops, ended with the Confederates falling back to await the imminent arrival of reinforcements.
The Union army was too weakened by the morning fighting to disrupt the Confederate withdrawal, but by 1pm, McDowell decided that the army had recovered enough and moved to attack before the Confederate reinforcements could organize. An initial Union advance was halted by a cavalry company, and several Union officers were killed. As the rest of the Union army moved in for the attack, Confederate troops, disguised in Union uniforms, managed to capture two Union cannon that had been left poorly guarded. The fighting around the Confederate positions had turned into a slow, vicious slog. With the capture of the artillery and the entry of the reinforcements into battle, the tide began to turn. The inexperienced Union soldiers were unable to maintain morale in the face of the Confederate reinforcements and the increased casualties. Sensing Union weakness, Beauregard ordered a counterattack. McDowell attempted to exhort his men to keep up the fight, but his exhausted army began to disintegrate.
By 3:20, the Union army had been driven back from the Confederate positions, and Beauregard’s army began to advance in pursuit. Seeing his army begin to panic, McDowell gave the order to retreat at 3:40. The retreat was initially orderly, but as the Confederates pursued and inexperienced soldiers panicked, the withdrawal became a general rout, and the Union army fled back to Rockingham, leaving a trail of equipment in their wake.
The reasons for the Union defeat were many – the army was inexperienced, its march towards Camden was delayed, McDowell was too busy wrangling nearby brigades to direct the battle as a whole. The battle was the bloodiest in American history up to that point, with nearly 1,000 killed and 3,000 wounded in total. Northerners were shocked at the defeat, as the press had crowed that “a decisive victory is soon at hand” and that the Confederates would be crushed “with a single swift blow.” Instead, the Union army had all but fled back to North Carolina. The public demanded that someone face the blame for Lynchbrook, and so Seward unceremoniously relieved Irvin McDowell of his command on March 14th. George McClellan, who had distinguished himself in the Battle of Yorkville, was selected to replace him. The Hero of the Union [5] had entered the fray…”
-From BROTHER KILLING BROTHER: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR by Michael Yates, published 2019
[1] OTL, Scott wanted to spend a whole year preparing the army, as the performance of volunteer units in the Mexican American War left him unimpressed with their discipline. TTL, without such a war, Scott has less experience with volunteer forces to inform his planning process.
[2] OTL, it was 135,000. With fewer states seceding and no plot by Buchanan’s Secretary of War to ship northern arms to southern armories, the Confederacy has fewer weapons to seize.
[3] Apparently, soldiers would just wander off the road to pick apples or get water.
[4] OTL, the Confederacy used the months where the Union blockade was still porous to halt exports of cotton to try and strongarm Britain and France into recognizing their independence. TTL, they don’t try such a stupid gamble.
[5] With apologies to George Thomas, of course.
Last edited:
Well, with the CSA unable to field massive armies TTL, McClellan will be a bit bolder…
From all I heard and read of McClellan as long as there is so much even the possibility of defeat, no matter how unlikely, he will find it.
Though he was good at logistics and training so maybe he does that then dies before he can screw up the campaign, leaving him as a hero postmortem.
I don't think he was that incompetent -- if he faced smaller Confederate armies and was a bit more acclimated to a large command, he wouldn't make some of his more egregious errors.
I disagree. The guy insisted no matter what, he was outnumbered. Refused to really take any risks, even with Lee's goddamn battleplan in his possession, had zero qualms badmouthing his commander in chief when the guy was keeping him in command....
Good at organizing and training, yes. Bad at actually rolling the iron dice of war less he suffer a loss.
I discussed this with @TheRockofChickamauga and he was of the opinion that the early Union defeats in the war like Bull Run, combined with a fear of failure/high casualties and a very rapid advance up the chain of command made McClellan so unsuited to major command. TTL, he faces smaller Confederate armies and has a decent victory at Yorkville (which I'll go into a bit more detail in a coming chapter) under his belt. He won't be some bold, aggressive general, but he'll be better at taking the initiative and the like.
19. Ordinance Day
19. Ordinance Day
“Just two months ago, the Sisters of the South were the most popular name in country music. Every radio station south of the Mason-Dixon line, and quite a few to the north, played their top hits. Their latest album, By the Wayside, had sold over 350,000 copies. They played concerts to crowds of thousands and had broken into northern music markets to become the biggest country music act and the biggest all-female act in music history. But a month ago, everything changed for Amanda, Jessica, and Marianne Denton. They had just done a concert in St. Joseph, Missouri when they stopped by the local television news station for an interview. Dennis Michaels, the host, asked the sisters what they were doing for Ordinance Day [1].
For our northern readers who might have never heard of Ordinance Day, it’s a state holiday in many southern states that commemorates the date of South Carolina’s secession from the Union in 1862. Schools and most businesses are closed, and people traditionally host cookouts for their family and friends. It was first declared a state holiday in South Carolina in 1896, just days before the last slaves in the south were set to be freed by the 13th Amendment [2]. By the end of the century, most of the deep south had adopted the holiday, and a number of cities in the upper south had done so as well.
“Well, we used to have a cookout, invite our families and friends over, but we’re not gonna do that this year,” Jessica Denton said. Michaels inquired why, and what would they be doing differently. “We’re not celebrating it at all, as a matter of fact,” Amanda interjected. “Y’know, we kind of decided all three of us, we did some reading. And none of us think, honestly, that Ordinance Day is worth celebrating. It commemorates secession, so basically treason, and it was in an effort to stop the abolition of slavery, which didn’t even happen until the 1880s. So, we’re not celebrating Ordinance Day anymore, because we don’t agree with what it stands for.”
The backlash has proved intense. Within minutes of the interview, social media was flooded with color commentary. “I used to be such a huge fan of the Sisters, but I am so furious about what they just said,” one user wrote on Nexus [3]. Others were harsher: “WTAF is wrong with Ordinance Day, you idiots!” wrote one. “It’s a day off from school and work, be grateful and shut up.” People posted videos of themselves burning concert posters, CDs, and merchandise such as T-shirts. The Dentons reported that they had received death threats and, after a garbage can was set on fire in Jessica Denton’s driveway, all three women hired private security details. Dozens of radio stations pulled their music from the air, citing a deluge of angry feedback from listeners. Jack Grady, another country music star, posted that the sisters were “northerners in south-face” and claimed that “there is nothing racist about Ordinance Day and nothing racist about the Confederacy. The Sisters are the real racists.” But the backlash is not just from the ordinary citizen or fellow country stars – numerous politicians have also weighed in.
“I’d expect this kind of disrespect from those wannabe-Yankees in Virginia, but never from a real southerner [4],” Mark Hammond groused. And Hammond is not just any angry fan – he’s the Mayor of Brandon, Mississippi. Brandon is the Dentons’ hometown, and just days before The Incident, Mr. Hammond was going to award the sisters the Key to the City. Now, Hammond says, “there’s no chance in hell that’ll happen. We don’t reward this kind of disrespect in Brandon. That’s not who we are, and frankly I’m ashamed that this city produced three ungrateful, mean-spirited, condescending women. They aren’t fit to have ‘Southern’ in their name.”
“It does sting, y’know, to have this reaction to just an opinion,” Amanda Denton mused in an interview two days ago on ANC. She also has no plans to apologize: “None of us feel we did anything wrong. I don’t, and my sisters don’t, hold it against anyone who celebrates Ordinance Day. It’s a nice day off. We just don’t feel comfortable having a big get-together because of the history of the holiday.” Marianne Denton criticized Hammond in particular. “It was just so personal. We never attacked or demeaned anyone. We just shared our personal beliefs, and he can think what he wants but that was more disrespectful than anything we’ve ever said.”
Many southern politicians have joined Hammond rushed to condemn, with House Minority Leader Alex Sessions of South Carolina calling the sisters’ remarks “an affront to southern culture” in a post to Nexus. In an appearance on ANC, he claimed that they were “casting aspersions on not just southern culture, but on our history. The south has a rich history and they’re trying to help the liberals and Whigs paint us as a bunch of racists.” Senator Howell Yarborough of Alabama posted on Nexus that “what the Sisters of the South don’t realize was that the south didn’t secede over slavery, otherwise slavery would have ended with the War Between the States and not with Blaine [5]. The war was fought because the north wanted to destroy the south’s political power, and they unfortunately succeeded.”
Others have come to the sisters’ defense. President Charlie Breathitt called the backlash “unsettling and disheartening. Let’s all engage in respectful discourse.” The transformative former President Warren Burke released a recorded speech in which he professed to be a “big fan” of the Sisters and said that “you can disagree with what they said, but this is America, and they have the right to say it. Sending death threats and setting things on fire in other people’s driveways is no way to handle a difference of opinion. It’s un-American and the lowlifes partaking in such activities should be ashamed of themselves.”
Fellow southerners like former President Harlan Hampton, a North Carolinian, declared in a statement that “regardless of what your personal opinion of Ordinance Day is, the Sisters of the South have every right to express their opinion without death threats or vicious insults. You can criticize them but this level of vitriol and hate over a simple opinion is shocking and gross.” Bill Matheson, a colorful country music legend, said in a video posted to his Nexus account that “the people who are so up in arms over a goddamn innocuous comment are major wusses. I mean, get a life you people and stop telling these girls to kill themselves ‘cause of your hurt feelings. Maybe don’t be so damn sensitive all the time and grow some balls.”
Throughout the firestorm of the past month, the Denton sisters have made no apologies, and don’t intend to make any anytime soon. And Amanda Denton is already moving past the controversy – “it just doesn’t concern me. What happens, happens. I’ve already got some ideas for our next album. We might call it Can’t Change the Past or something like that.””
-From SISTERS’ CONTROVERSY ROCKS COUNTRY MUSIC SCENE by Joanne Boucher, published in National Magazine, June 17th, 2021
[1] As mentioned in part 17, Ordinance Day falls on September 19th.
[2] A bit of a spoiler.
[3] Basically a mixture of Facebook and Twitter.
[4] As someone pointed out, there will likely be starker cultural differences between the loyal upper south and the secessionist deep south.
[5] The Lost Cause isn’t too different from OTL, all things considered. No Lee worship though, so that’s nice.
“Just two months ago, the Sisters of the South were the most popular name in country music. Every radio station south of the Mason-Dixon line, and quite a few to the north, played their top hits. Their latest album, By the Wayside, had sold over 350,000 copies. They played concerts to crowds of thousands and had broken into northern music markets to become the biggest country music act and the biggest all-female act in music history. But a month ago, everything changed for Amanda, Jessica, and Marianne Denton. They had just done a concert in St. Joseph, Missouri when they stopped by the local television news station for an interview. Dennis Michaels, the host, asked the sisters what they were doing for Ordinance Day [1].
For our northern readers who might have never heard of Ordinance Day, it’s a state holiday in many southern states that commemorates the date of South Carolina’s secession from the Union in 1862. Schools and most businesses are closed, and people traditionally host cookouts for their family and friends. It was first declared a state holiday in South Carolina in 1896, just days before the last slaves in the south were set to be freed by the 13th Amendment [2]. By the end of the century, most of the deep south had adopted the holiday, and a number of cities in the upper south had done so as well.
“Well, we used to have a cookout, invite our families and friends over, but we’re not gonna do that this year,” Jessica Denton said. Michaels inquired why, and what would they be doing differently. “We’re not celebrating it at all, as a matter of fact,” Amanda interjected. “Y’know, we kind of decided all three of us, we did some reading. And none of us think, honestly, that Ordinance Day is worth celebrating. It commemorates secession, so basically treason, and it was in an effort to stop the abolition of slavery, which didn’t even happen until the 1880s. So, we’re not celebrating Ordinance Day anymore, because we don’t agree with what it stands for.”
The backlash has proved intense. Within minutes of the interview, social media was flooded with color commentary. “I used to be such a huge fan of the Sisters, but I am so furious about what they just said,” one user wrote on Nexus [3]. Others were harsher: “WTAF is wrong with Ordinance Day, you idiots!” wrote one. “It’s a day off from school and work, be grateful and shut up.” People posted videos of themselves burning concert posters, CDs, and merchandise such as T-shirts. The Dentons reported that they had received death threats and, after a garbage can was set on fire in Jessica Denton’s driveway, all three women hired private security details. Dozens of radio stations pulled their music from the air, citing a deluge of angry feedback from listeners. Jack Grady, another country music star, posted that the sisters were “northerners in south-face” and claimed that “there is nothing racist about Ordinance Day and nothing racist about the Confederacy. The Sisters are the real racists.” But the backlash is not just from the ordinary citizen or fellow country stars – numerous politicians have also weighed in.
“I’d expect this kind of disrespect from those wannabe-Yankees in Virginia, but never from a real southerner [4],” Mark Hammond groused. And Hammond is not just any angry fan – he’s the Mayor of Brandon, Mississippi. Brandon is the Dentons’ hometown, and just days before The Incident, Mr. Hammond was going to award the sisters the Key to the City. Now, Hammond says, “there’s no chance in hell that’ll happen. We don’t reward this kind of disrespect in Brandon. That’s not who we are, and frankly I’m ashamed that this city produced three ungrateful, mean-spirited, condescending women. They aren’t fit to have ‘Southern’ in their name.”
“It does sting, y’know, to have this reaction to just an opinion,” Amanda Denton mused in an interview two days ago on ANC. She also has no plans to apologize: “None of us feel we did anything wrong. I don’t, and my sisters don’t, hold it against anyone who celebrates Ordinance Day. It’s a nice day off. We just don’t feel comfortable having a big get-together because of the history of the holiday.” Marianne Denton criticized Hammond in particular. “It was just so personal. We never attacked or demeaned anyone. We just shared our personal beliefs, and he can think what he wants but that was more disrespectful than anything we’ve ever said.”
Many southern politicians have joined Hammond rushed to condemn, with House Minority Leader Alex Sessions of South Carolina calling the sisters’ remarks “an affront to southern culture” in a post to Nexus. In an appearance on ANC, he claimed that they were “casting aspersions on not just southern culture, but on our history. The south has a rich history and they’re trying to help the liberals and Whigs paint us as a bunch of racists.” Senator Howell Yarborough of Alabama posted on Nexus that “what the Sisters of the South don’t realize was that the south didn’t secede over slavery, otherwise slavery would have ended with the War Between the States and not with Blaine [5]. The war was fought because the north wanted to destroy the south’s political power, and they unfortunately succeeded.”
Others have come to the sisters’ defense. President Charlie Breathitt called the backlash “unsettling and disheartening. Let’s all engage in respectful discourse.” The transformative former President Warren Burke released a recorded speech in which he professed to be a “big fan” of the Sisters and said that “you can disagree with what they said, but this is America, and they have the right to say it. Sending death threats and setting things on fire in other people’s driveways is no way to handle a difference of opinion. It’s un-American and the lowlifes partaking in such activities should be ashamed of themselves.”
Fellow southerners like former President Harlan Hampton, a North Carolinian, declared in a statement that “regardless of what your personal opinion of Ordinance Day is, the Sisters of the South have every right to express their opinion without death threats or vicious insults. You can criticize them but this level of vitriol and hate over a simple opinion is shocking and gross.” Bill Matheson, a colorful country music legend, said in a video posted to his Nexus account that “the people who are so up in arms over a goddamn innocuous comment are major wusses. I mean, get a life you people and stop telling these girls to kill themselves ‘cause of your hurt feelings. Maybe don’t be so damn sensitive all the time and grow some balls.”
Throughout the firestorm of the past month, the Denton sisters have made no apologies, and don’t intend to make any anytime soon. And Amanda Denton is already moving past the controversy – “it just doesn’t concern me. What happens, happens. I’ve already got some ideas for our next album. We might call it Can’t Change the Past or something like that.””
-From SISTERS’ CONTROVERSY ROCKS COUNTRY MUSIC SCENE by Joanne Boucher, published in National Magazine, June 17th, 2021
[1] As mentioned in part 17, Ordinance Day falls on September 19th.
[2] A bit of a spoiler.
[3] Basically a mixture of Facebook and Twitter.
[4] As someone pointed out, there will likely be starker cultural differences between the loyal upper south and the secessionist deep south.
[5] The Lost Cause isn’t too different from OTL, all things considered. No Lee worship though, so that’s nice.
Last edited:
My God. To think that a Henry Clay TL could be so cursed… Slavery until almost the 20th century? The horror
In this era, election authorities did not provide pre-printed ballots to be marked.
Instead, parties or factions printed up ballots listing their own candidates, which they distributed to their supporters. A voter could modify such a ballot before casting it, by crossing out or writing in a name. (In OTL 1860, Lincoln modified his own ballot by cutting his name off, as he considered it somehow improper to vote for himself.)
Ballots were also hand-written by the voter in person. And there was no ballot secrecy.
Interesting… I see mainstream Southern politics hasn’t gotten any less toxic/bizarre, at least, nor the great American tradition of sending celebrities death threats when they say something you don’t like