The Worst American Civil War Alternate History Cliche

Mitro

Mitro

I've been posing this question elsewhere, so why not here? In your opinion, what is the "worst" cliche of American Civil War alternate histories?

This is the cliche that bothers you the most and yet it keeps appearing again and again and again. It doesn't necessarily have to be implausible, but its something that keeps appearing in every timeline you read, watch, listen to, etc.
 

JT Daerd

That if the Confederacy wins, Canada must inevitably, at some point, become part of the Union.

Because obviously, in the minds of the authors, the USA cannot end up smaller than before the Civil War. No, they have to compensate the USA with Canada to ensure bigness.

8 times out of 10, Canada gets annexed to the Union.
 

Japhy

Banned
High speed, Post Victory Confederate Abolition. That and the bullshit of "The CSA frees slaves to fight for them" timelines.
 
A Most Sovereign Lady

A Most Sovereign Lady

The Union losing because of contrived circumstances. (In seriousness: CSA freeing their slaves, you know, the slavery that they literally encoded into their constitution and most sacred laws of their land.)
 

Jared

DN Jenkins said:
That if the Confederacy wins, Canada must inevitably, at some point, become part of the Union.

Because obviously, in the minds of the authors, the USA cannot end up smaller than before the Civil War. No, they have to compensate the USA with Canada to ensure bigness.

8 times out of 10, Canada gets annexed to the Union.
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Because, hey, the North is bound to think, "We got our arses handed to us by a third-rate bunch of slavers, let's just go pick a fight with the biggest industrial superpower on the planet."
 

Kerney

Japhy said:
High speed, Post Victory Confederate Abolition. That and the bullshit of "The CSA frees slaves to fight for them" timelines.
Click to expand...

Freeing slaves who would fight was considered otl, when the south had a reasonable chance of winning and was done on a small scale at the end. Both Grant and Sherman felt such units would have served faithfully.

Eventual abolition was definitely more probable than slavery until the present day.

Worst cliche I think is everyone in the south was peachy keen with slavery. Second is that Southerners were proto Nazis.
 
A Most Sovereign Lady

A Most Sovereign Lady

Kerney said:
Freeing slaves who would fight was considered otl, when the south had a reasonable chance of winning and was done on a small scale at the end. Both Grant and Sherman felt such units would have served faithfully.

Eventual abolition was definitely more probable than slavery until the present day.

Worst cliche I think is everyone in the south was peachy keen with slavery. Second is that Southerners were proto Nazis.
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Went to war over treating men as subhuman and property, they were plenty peachy keen with slavery.
 

Alex Zetsu

The South could have won if they did X. Without outside help, they were doomed.

You wouldn't need one POD and one miracle win to get a Southern win, you'd need multiple miracles.

A more recent example is WW2. If Nazi Germany won the battle of Stalingrad and 3,000,000 enemies surrender... then they still lose.
 

Kerney

TheAstronomicon said:
Went to war over treating men as subhuman and property, they were plenty peachy keen with slavery.
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AP Hill was an abolitionist, but he felt that the North did not have the right to force the south back into the Union.

E. Porter Alexander explicitly explained to his Northern Commanding Officer upon resigning that he was fighting to defend the right to succeed rather than slavery.

Cleburne suggest recruiting Negro units.

Lee personally opposed Slavery.

Reality: Yes, slavery was the number one reason the south succeeded. That said, there were plenty who would not fight for slavery (in and of itself) but would because they felt the North had any right to force the South to stay.

And plenty of enlisted men were fighting because the Yankees were invaded.

Yes, the South succeeded because of slavery. The Confederacy could not be sustained as long as it did only defending slavery.

This is called reality.
 

BellaGerant

Jared said:
Because, hey, the North is bound to think, "We got our arses handed to us by a third-rate bunch of slavers, let's just go pick a fight with the biggest industrial superpower on the planet."
Click to expand...
Worse because most realistic scenarios involving a victorious South involve said biggest industrial superpower's direct involvement to begin with. And we all know how two-front wars tend to go...
 
Arnold d.c

Arnold d.c

Jackson not getting shot on 2nd May and having absolutely no butterfly effects until Gettysburg on 1st July is a very common alternate history cliche.

People seem to forget the fact that the fighting at Chancellorsville lasted until 3rd May and 3rd May was the second bloodiest day in the American Civil War. How would Jackson's survival affect that?

There was also the fact that Jackson was planning for A.P Hill's division to strike against the U.S Ford to cut the Union army off. However, this would lead to A.P. Hill's division to slam into the I and V Corps. Unfortunately for the Union, since both A.P Hill and Jackson got shot, A.P Hill never struck the U.S Ford.
 
EnglishCanuck

EnglishCanuck

The North fought the war with one hand tied behind its back. It was said by one scholar, exactly one. The evidence does not point to the North not pulling out all the stops to win the war, the first income tax, major conscription, emancipation, ect.

That or the one that all Union commanders were political incompetents who only won the war by grinding the South down with sheer numbers. Thomas, Rosencrans, Sherman, et all beg to disagree.
 

John7755 يوحنا

Most cliché is simply Civil War threads. It is perhaps my least favorite area for tls and the most ideologically driven piece of history on this site. It needs its own place or just throw it in after 1900...
 
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