Now while those of you old-timers currently groaning at the prospect of yet ANOTHER Confederate Victory timeline are quite right to resent such lack of imagination, may I please ask any interested parties if they would be kind enough to hear me out and offer suggestions to help firm up my mental image of a fledgling concept?
In a nutshell it struck me that while it is perfectly plausible that Robert Edward Lee would be the second Confederate President (assuming it were possible for the South to survive the American Civil War as an independent nation, of course) it is equally possible that he would die in office of a stroke very similar to the one that felled him in 1870 as we know it.
I imagine that the possible repercussions and storytelling potential of such an idea are quite obvious, but in a nutshell the "George Washington of the Confederacy" has just been elected and has dropped dead shortly thereafter; one imagines that this would cause a great deal of alarm, not least because his Vice President is likely to be quite as much an obscurity (if not an outright nobody) as any US Vice President of the Era and has just entered the Highest Office in a Nation with a very, Very Angry Neighbour and a (probably painful) Process of Consolidation ahead of it.
It can't be a very happy start in office to be handed a job National Heroes would flinch from right after the most Famous Hero in the Confederate States dropped dead while attempting to work it; in fact the Vice President of the Confederate States has just become the most important man in the South on more than one level because even more than most National Leaders his choices may make or break an entire Country, with the Slaves almost certainly restless and the North doubtless contemplating some payback.
So ladies and gentleman let me ask you - who do YOU think is the candidate most likely to have been Elected as Vice-President to Robert Edward Lee? (My only ideas on Mr Golden Dilemma are that he is unlikely to have been a Virginia Man and would almost certainly be a practiced politician).
In a nutshell it struck me that while it is perfectly plausible that Robert Edward Lee would be the second Confederate President (assuming it were possible for the South to survive the American Civil War as an independent nation, of course) it is equally possible that he would die in office of a stroke very similar to the one that felled him in 1870 as we know it.
I imagine that the possible repercussions and storytelling potential of such an idea are quite obvious, but in a nutshell the "George Washington of the Confederacy" has just been elected and has dropped dead shortly thereafter; one imagines that this would cause a great deal of alarm, not least because his Vice President is likely to be quite as much an obscurity (if not an outright nobody) as any US Vice President of the Era and has just entered the Highest Office in a Nation with a very, Very Angry Neighbour and a (probably painful) Process of Consolidation ahead of it.
It can't be a very happy start in office to be handed a job National Heroes would flinch from right after the most Famous Hero in the Confederate States dropped dead while attempting to work it; in fact the Vice President of the Confederate States has just become the most important man in the South on more than one level because even more than most National Leaders his choices may make or break an entire Country, with the Slaves almost certainly restless and the North doubtless contemplating some payback.
So ladies and gentleman let me ask you - who do YOU think is the candidate most likely to have been Elected as Vice-President to Robert Edward Lee? (My only ideas on Mr Golden Dilemma are that he is unlikely to have been a Virginia Man and would almost certainly be a practiced politician).