I think Craigo is a real author now.
bunch of us wanted to keep this thing alive.
bunch of us wanted to keep this thing alive.
TL-191: Filling the Gaps
- Thread starter Craigo
- Start date
Yes, I've noticed an older post of his and there is some info on his novel even at the Atomic Rockets site. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.
I added a paragraph to Henry Cabot Lodge Part V to set up the next post. Please let me know if it is too off the wall. The new Lodge post will be up by the weekend of the 27th. It is going to be quick and cover 1905-1912, bguy did such a great job on the Nelson Aldrich post. Mine will be discussing the militarist opposition to Nelson in the Democratic party and mostly the 1912 election.
I am waiting for vesica's stuff on GW2 before i finish the netherlands article.
I have a great future project about the Great War Naval War. My friend who is a legit naval historian is wiriting it. i gave him the Great War Books and he is pumped. Teaser, it will go into: the US Navy seizure of the Sandwich Islands, the USN closing off the access to Canada, the seizure of the Canadian Maritimes, the Confederate Battlecruiser Raids on the New Jersey Coast, US Navy attack on Bermuda, CS Submerible warfare and the US Marine raids on the Hampton Roads subpens. Despite the nom de plume I'm an ex army officer. He is a legit Navy historian and has sent articles to the diplomat. Sorry I'm just excited to see when its done.
I think this forum needs more graphics. I have a few I have been working on for the Frontlines each year. Here is a quick teaser of the naval battles of the Great War I made the blue X's ae OTL battles and the red x's are speculated TL 191 battles.
I am waiting for vesica's stuff on GW2 before i finish the netherlands article.
I have a great future project about the Great War Naval War. My friend who is a legit naval historian is wiriting it. i gave him the Great War Books and he is pumped. Teaser, it will go into: the US Navy seizure of the Sandwich Islands, the USN closing off the access to Canada, the seizure of the Canadian Maritimes, the Confederate Battlecruiser Raids on the New Jersey Coast, US Navy attack on Bermuda, CS Submerible warfare and the US Marine raids on the Hampton Roads subpens. Despite the nom de plume I'm an ex army officer. He is a legit Navy historian and has sent articles to the diplomat. Sorry I'm just excited to see when its done.
I think this forum needs more graphics. I have a few I have been working on for the Frontlines each year. Here is a quick teaser of the naval battles of the Great War I made the blue X's ae OTL battles and the red x's are speculated TL 191 battles.
Lew Wallace (1827-1905)
Early Life
Lew Wallace was born to Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to David Wallace and Esther French Wallace née Test. The Wallaces were not a rich family but an important family. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress.
One of Lew’s earliest memories was watching his father drill the local town militia in the Blackhawk War. This left a lasting impression on the young Lew. In 1842, when Wallace learned of Texas’ War of Independence, he and a friend provisioned a canoe and set out down the White River to offer their services to James Bowie and Davy Crockett. Lew’s grandfather apprehended them a few miles downriver. Wallace was 15.
With reluctance, Wallace followed his father into the legal profession. He was preparing for the Indiana bar exam when the United States declared war with Mexico in 1846. The 19-year-old tried to complete his studies, but his mind was already with General Taylor. “Of what consequence was a license to practice law?” he wrote. “How petty the soul, which could be screwed down to prefer a court to a camp!” In his autobiography, he recalled appending a note to his hastily completed bar exam, to release him from his completed exams to join the US Army.
Wallace imagined the conquest of Mexico would be full of the glory he read about in novels. Instead, his regiment was ordered to garrison an unnamed camp at the mouth of the Rio Grande, across the river from a small Mexican smuggler’s outpost, which the soldiers called “Bagdad.” The camp was soon beset with an epidemic of diarrhea so fatal that the survivors ran out of wood for coffins. The men heard of Gen. Zachary Taylor’s victories from passing steamboats. Mexico failed to live up to Wallace’s romantic notions of war.
Wallace returned to Indianapolis Indiana after the war. Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
It was also during this period that he first met Abraham Lincoln. Wallace in his autobiography remembers Lincoln at a small inn in Danville, Illinois engaged in a story telling contest with other local lawyers. Lincoln was far and away the best storyteller there. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, he defected from the Democratic Party to the Republican, more out of a commitment to the Union, and a growing admiration for Lincoln, than any ardent abolitionist feeling.
War of Secession
When Fort Sumter came under fire in April, Indiana’s Republican governor, Oliver P. Morton, called on Wallace to help him organize Indiana’s volunteers, a duty Wallace accepted on the condition that he might command one of the state’s six regiments once they’d been mustered. Morton agreed, and Wallace was commissioned a colonel. On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Wallace played an important role at the Battle of Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send a brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand despite orders from Grant to avoid a general engagement. Wallace's decision stopped the forward movement of the Confederates and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Battle of Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant. The long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory.
Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union’s right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, 20 miles to the south.
On April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant’s order, issued verbally and transcribed and delivered by an aide, was lost in the course of the battle; its contents would become the subject of acrimonious debate. Grant claimed that he ordered Wallace to march to Pittsburg Landing, via the river road. Wallace said the order simply instructed him to join up with the right of the Union lines. He took the shunpike.
Wallace’s detractors would later claim that he had simply lost his way in the Tennessee woods. The truth is more complicated. From Crump’s Landing, where he’d been stationed, there were two roads leading to the Union front: one that hugged the river to Pittsburg Landing, the other a so-called shunpike that led to Shiloh Church, where Sherman was camped. Having surveyed his position in the days prior to the Confederate attack, Wallace had judged the shunpike to be the most passable, and had ordered his cavalry to make further improvements to it in case he needed to march his division quickly to the front.
What Wallace didn’t know was that by the time his men began marching, the Union army was no longer where he thought it was. Sherman’s position had been overrun, pushed back toward the river. Had Wallace marched to the end of the shunpike he’d have found himself behind enemy lines, cut off from the rest of the Union army. Impatient for Wallace to arrive, Grant sent an aide who Informed Wallace of the new disposition of Union forces. Wallace reversed course and marched his men to the new lines. Wallace arrived just after dusk, too late to fire a shot in the first day’s fight.
With Wallace’s division finally in place, and Buell’s reinforcements having arrived overnight, Grant unleashed a vicious counterattack on April 7, pushing the rebels back over ground still littered with the dead and dying from the previous day’s fight. Realizing they were now outnumbered, the Confederates beat a retreat in the afternoon.
Shiloh was initially hailed as a Union triumph. Among the Confederate dead was Albert Sidney Johnston, who’d been shot while leading his men in a charge. He would be the highest-ranking officer on either side to be killed in action during the War of Secession or Second Mexican War. As casualty figures made their way north, newspapers began to portray the battle as a scandalous failure. Questions arose regarding Grant’s competence; there were rumors he’d been drunk during the battle. Lincoln’s famously said about Grant after Shiloh—“I can’t spare this man; he fights,” as members of Congress, and even the governor of Grant’s home state of Ohio, called for his head.
After Shiloh
Grant’s career survived Shiloh for the moment; Wallace’s did not. The north needed someone to blame for the heavy casualties, which exceeded those of all the war’s previous battles combined. Wallace’s “dilatoriness” gave Grant cover for his own lack of preparedness, and he implicated Wallace in his official reports. The press, with the help of Grant’s staff, grabbed hold of the story of the missing division. Though Wallace received no official reprimand for his actions, by July he had been relieved of his field command.
In September Robert E. Lee launched his war ending Camp Hill Campaign. The beginning of the end in the east would come in on October 1st, 1862 with Lee’s destruction of the Army of the Potomac. The capture of Harrisburg then Philadelphia on October 16th sealed the fate of the Union cause. By November 1st Lincoln had agreed to a ceasefire across all lines, however neither parties felt bound by it in the Western Theater where Confederate and Union forces were still battling for control of Kentucky.
After the destruction of the Army of the Potomac General and Chief Halleck order a substantial part of Grant’s Army of the Tennessee and The Army of the Ohio to reinforce east. Halleck was organizing a new Army of the Susquehanna west of Harrisburg. Grant still won two defensive victories in late 1862 at Second Corinth and Iuka. He defeated Confederate general Van Dorn twice despite inferior numbers, yet the credit for the victory went to William Rosecrans. Who went on to preside over the US Army's defeat in the Second Mexican War.
While Grant was blunting Confederate attacks in Western Tennessee, Lew Wallace was fighting in Kentucky. With the Disasters in the East Wallace was reactivated and given a command in the much reduced Army of the Ohio under General Don Carlos Buell. Halleck gave Buell the task of fending of the joint attack on Kentucky by Braxton Bragg and Kirby Smith. Unlike Grant the task was too much for Buell. The forces under Bragg easily defeated Buell’s army helping to secure Kentucky’s inclusion in the Confederacy during the Treaty of Arlington. Wallace did win back some of his honor when he helped to defeat an attempted Confederate invasion of Ohio. The point of these attacks was to pressure the US into accepting further territorial Concessions in West Virginia and New Mexico. Wallace’s successful defense at Cincinnati Landing worked to restore his reputation.
Wallace knew with his reputation would prevent him from finding a career in the post war army. Wallace instead chose to volunteer to defend officers at the Union Military Courts. When fighting ended everywhere in early 1863, the Union began courts of inquiry into the performance of many of its General Officers. The purpose of the court was to deflect blame away from the Republican Party towards the incompetence of the West Point led war effort. Over the next two years dozens of officers were dismissed for cowardice, incompetence and even collusion with the enemy. Wallace considered a reliable Republican was allowed to defend several high level officers. These included William Tecumseh Sherman, Ambrose Burnsides, Joseph Hooker and George Thomas. His most famous defense was that of Ulysses S. Grant where fought bravely to defend the man who did nothing to defend his own reputation. Grant got the success for Shiloh, but resigned in the face of charges he was drunk on duty. Thanks to his efforts Grant was finally given the credit for his victory at Shiloh and in doing so restored his own. In exchange Wallace got the thanks of Lincoln who was always a fan of Grant and John Sherman, William Tecumseh Sherman’s brother.
Inter War Period
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1865 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him. He again returned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress in 1868 and 1870, and supported Republican presidential candidate Roscoe Conkling in the 1876 election. However Wallace’s and the Republicans misfortune meant he had to continue working as an attorney. It was during this period that he began working on his most famous novel Ben-Hur. The inspiration for this work came from a chance meeting with Robert Ingersoll a fellow veteran of Shiloh and the nations most famous atheist. Wallace and Ingersoll met on September 19, 1876 on The train was bound for Indianapolis and the Third National Soldiers Reunion, where thousands of Union Army veterans planned to rally.
Ingersoll traveled the country debating the existence of god and arguing for a separation of church and state. In a conversation that lasted most of the train ride Wallace remembered “He went over the whole question of the Bible, of the immortality of the soul, of the divinity of God, and of heaven and hell,” Wallace later recalled. “He vomited forth ideas and arguments like an intellectual volcano.” Wallace was surprised at how little he knew of the actual life of christ. Knowing he did not have the patience for liturgical study for its own sake, he began a writing project that would educate him on the life of Jesus.
Over the next four years Wallace researched the life of Jesus including; the historical events surrounding his life and the flora and fauna of the Holy Land. Luckily his legal and political aspirations brought him to the nations de Jura and de facto capitols. He frequently visited the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the Smithsonian institutes. Unfortunately he did not have the time to complete the novel during his legal work. In 1880 he campaigned for Congressman Blaine, as a reward he was given the governorship of the New Mexico territory.
Second Mexican War
Wallace had hoped that his time as governor would give him the chance to write. However when Blaine promised war over the Confederate purchase of Sonora and Chihuahua, Wallace knew he would be too busy. On arrival Wallace began to immediately to recruit troops for the Territorial Militia. Wallace began campaigning for a command in the new Army of Ohio, but Blaine asked Wallace to stay as governor of New Mexico. Forces in the New Mexico Department were under the command of Major General George Stoneman. Stoneman was busy organizing federal forces and neglected the states militia. As a former Militia commander Wallace crisscrossed the state recruiting and organizing volunteers. Some of these notable units were the Tucson Volunteers, Santa Fe Irregulars, Albuquerque Independent Militia and Tombstone Rangers.
Unfortunately for the Union Stoneman was easily outmaneuvered by Stuart. Stuart managed to bluff the US commander at Contention City into surrendering, which impressed the Apaches under Geronimo and lead to an alliance between the two forces. After this, they successfully lured US cavalry into an ambush at the Battle of Madera Canyon before fighting the Battle of Tombstone. After the fall of Tombstone Stoneman was sacked. Wallace personally assumed command of all Militia forces. He quickly levied more militia troops and prevented a Confederate drive on the more populated areas of the territory.
The war ended before he could receive a new Regular Army command. Wallace spent the rest of the war chasing Apaches out of the territory and guarding against future Confederate raids. Wallace stayed on after the war until 1883 overseeing reconstruction in the territory. Throughout this period Wallace continued to work on his novel. For his successful handling of the New Mexico Territory President Blaine promised him any position he wanted. Wallace asked for the recently vacated position of Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Post SMW
Wallace arrived in Istanbul in the autumn of 1883. Wallace was well received in Istanbul. There was a great deal of sympathy in the Ottoman Empire for the United States. Before intervening on behalf of the Confederacy the British Empire had bombarded Alexandria then and seized control of Egypt. As a fellow victim of British imperialism many in the empire he quickly found friends and academics that invited him to explore and explain the many realms of the empire. Wallace had most of the novel completed before he arrived, yet he still desired to see Palestine.
While he was exploring the Holy Land, the United States was being transformed by the Remembrance movement. His beloved Republican party had splintered and was worse then after the War of Secession. From Istanbul Wallace gave his support to Blaine, however he was unsurprised by Blaine’s defeat. He respected Blaine’s opponent General Hancock, but was weary of the Remembrance movement surrounding Hancock. He read of the ideology of militarism and vengeance was spreading like a cancer across the nation. He read of Lincoln’s running as a Socialist candidate. Despite the overt atheism of many Socialists, Wallace still deeply respected Lincoln and refused to speak ill of him.
After General Hancock’s victory he knew his time in the Near East was over. He hurried to finish his book and prepared for his return to the states. By Christmas 1884 he was confident his novel was complete and began contacting publishers. He assumed he would be dismissed by incoming President Hancock and sent an advanced copy to his old hero ex-president Lincoln. Hancock informed Wallace that he would not be replaced immediately, but he should be prepared to be relieved by the fall of 1885. Meanwhile Wallace used this time to work with publishers to refine his research and travel to Rome to gain further incites.
In July of 1886 Wallace was replaced by Solomon Hirsch, a Democratic leader of Washington State’s Jewish community. Before leaving however he received a letter from the recently deceased Lincoln. Who conveyed his enjoyment of the conciliatory message of his novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Ben Hur
Wallace returned to New York and began shopping for a publisher. Meanwhile he traveled to Philadelphia to meet friends in the shrunken Republican Party. There he saw the political wrangling over the proposed Conscription Bill. He saw the secret hand of Emory Upton at work. He had met Upton in the 1870’s during his Legal work at the capitol. Even then he feared the impact on the army of that “small man of ferocious and towering intellect.” He saw Upton as the chief architect of the nations new militarism. This experience led to Wallace’s tweaking his work to reflect his growing fears.
In October of 1885 the final version of the novel was published. It was not an immediate success; the overt depictions of Christ were controversial. Slowly the novel gained in popularity. It’s resonated with the newly wealthy yet still deeply religious members of the Gilded Age. The rise of its protagonist Ben Hur is a rags-to-riches story, in the mode of Wallace’s contemporary, Horatio Alger. Judah’s virtuousness is tested, and richly rewarded, throughout the novel. The book referenced the Gospel of Matthew reminding its audience that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. In Ben-Hur, Wallace suggests that piety brings with it prosperity—an alluring prospect to readers eager to take part in Gilded Age affluence.
At the same time it drew support from both sides of the aisle, appealing to those that want war and those that looked for reconciliation. It quickly found an audience in those in the country who rejected the Remembrance Democrat’s messianic mission to re-organize the state for the purpose of revenge. Judah having vanquished Messala in the Antioch arena, Judah sets out for Jerusalem to continue his campaign of retribution, a Jewish William Wallace bent on freeing Judea from its Roman oppressors. But when he arrives in the Holy Land he encounters a rabbi from Nazareth, a man promising not an earthly kingdom but a heavenly one. Lest Judah have any doubt as to the truth of the rabbi’s Jesus teachings, the Nazarene cures his mother and sister of the leprosy they’ve conveniently contracted while wasting away in a Roman jail. After witnessing Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, Judah lays down his sword and instead takes up the work of honoring Christ’s message of forbearance. The novel closes with Judah deciding to spend his vast wealth to finance a catacomb where Christian martyrs can be buried and venerated. Offering the satisfaction of a revenge plot while preaching the gospel of compassion, Ben-Hur resonated with Republicans and Christian Socialists like Lincoln, that were moving from vengeance to forgiveness.
Ben Hur also had international appeal. In Ben-Hur’s portrait of the Jewish people, readers in the Confederacy found a noble, slaveholding people, yet sympathetically described. Despite being authored by a Union general, the book found an avid readership in the Confederacy, making Ben-Hur among the first mass entertainments to transfix all corners of North American.
Contemporary politicians could see the illusions to Emory Upton in Emperor Augustus, a short statured shrewd man who dominated the new state. Many could also see the ruthlessness of the roman governors and the imposition of Roman law across the empire as criticism of the British Empire. By 1890 it was the best selling novel in the United States and by 1895 it was the best selling novel in the Confederacy, Canada and Great Britain.
Later Career
Lew’s Literary success afforded his retirement from the practice of law. From then on he devote his life to literary pursuits and being a political benefactor. The book became the most successful book in the Union, far surpassing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It became the best selling work in the CSA with nothing to compare it too. Wallace built a study in his home of Crawfordsville, Illinois. An appropriate workspace to finish his work on The Prince of India or Why Constantinople Fell (1893), which began in Istanbul. Wallace supported Garfield in 1888 and sided with John Sherman in 1892. He believed Sherman’s new Midwest and farmer focused strategy of ‘92. Despite being non- denominational he supported religious candidates, especially in Indiana.
Wallace came to see the new Remembrance Democrats as rejecting the visions of the founding fathers and building a new nation more like the Britain they had left. A new nation; godless, devoid of the American dream, where the people were subservient to the interest of the state and bereft of compassion for their former kinsmen. Wallace spent much of the 1890’s funding republican candidates and speaking throughout the state. His free spending and popularity helped to engender the disproportionate power of the Republicans in the Indiana. He also donated large money to those Socialist who preached a message inline to his former hero Lincoln. As a result the Socialist movement in Indiana was more religious and centrist then in most states. He was especially fond of Eugene V. Debs the first Socialist Senator, elected by Illinois in 1906. The weakness of the Democrats in Indiana was compared to the other Midwestern states was a strong political factor well into the 1940s.
In 1895 Wallace sold the rights to Ben Hur to a theater group. Fears of representing Jesus on stage made Wallace uneasy. Wallace would only agree to the production if Jesus was represented by one of the new Tesla spotlight. The plays first performance was on Broadway in 1896 and was soon a runaway hit. It remained a fixture of Broadway and the regional theaters for the next 20 years. And like the novel, it soon overcame any clerical objections. William Jennings Bryan (who Wallace was a primary benefactor) called it “the greatest play on stage when measured by its religious tone and moral effect.”
Like the novel, it found it an international audience. Regional theaters were so eager to host the show that they conducted renovations in order to accommodate the elaborate production. In the 1904 and 1905 season alone it played in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Columbus, St. Louis, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Birmingham, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, Louisville, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toronto, the new de facto national capital of Philadelphia and the Confederate capital of Richmond. If the novel had introduced many Americans to fiction-reading, the play introduced even more to the theater.
Death
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, so it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Despite his writings on reconciliation Wallace was quick to volunteer his military service in first showing of national crises. He volunteered during the Haitian Crises, the Nicaragua Crises and despite his advanced age and illness the 1905 Morocco Crises. Despite his gallantry, Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on August 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville’s Oak Hill Cemetery.
Early Life
Lew Wallace was born to Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to David Wallace and Esther French Wallace née Test. The Wallaces were not a rich family but an important family. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress.
One of Lew’s earliest memories was watching his father drill the local town militia in the Blackhawk War. This left a lasting impression on the young Lew. In 1842, when Wallace learned of Texas’ War of Independence, he and a friend provisioned a canoe and set out down the White River to offer their services to James Bowie and Davy Crockett. Lew’s grandfather apprehended them a few miles downriver. Wallace was 15.
With reluctance, Wallace followed his father into the legal profession. He was preparing for the Indiana bar exam when the United States declared war with Mexico in 1846. The 19-year-old tried to complete his studies, but his mind was already with General Taylor. “Of what consequence was a license to practice law?” he wrote. “How petty the soul, which could be screwed down to prefer a court to a camp!” In his autobiography, he recalled appending a note to his hastily completed bar exam, to release him from his completed exams to join the US Army.
Wallace imagined the conquest of Mexico would be full of the glory he read about in novels. Instead, his regiment was ordered to garrison an unnamed camp at the mouth of the Rio Grande, across the river from a small Mexican smuggler’s outpost, which the soldiers called “Bagdad.” The camp was soon beset with an epidemic of diarrhea so fatal that the survivors ran out of wood for coffins. The men heard of Gen. Zachary Taylor’s victories from passing steamboats. Mexico failed to live up to Wallace’s romantic notions of war.
Wallace returned to Indianapolis Indiana after the war. Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
It was also during this period that he first met Abraham Lincoln. Wallace in his autobiography remembers Lincoln at a small inn in Danville, Illinois engaged in a story telling contest with other local lawyers. Lincoln was far and away the best storyteller there. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, he defected from the Democratic Party to the Republican, more out of a commitment to the Union, and a growing admiration for Lincoln, than any ardent abolitionist feeling.
War of Secession
When Fort Sumter came under fire in April, Indiana’s Republican governor, Oliver P. Morton, called on Wallace to help him organize Indiana’s volunteers, a duty Wallace accepted on the condition that he might command one of the state’s six regiments once they’d been mustered. Morton agreed, and Wallace was commissioned a colonel. On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Wallace played an important role at the Battle of Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send a brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand despite orders from Grant to avoid a general engagement. Wallace's decision stopped the forward movement of the Confederates and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Battle of Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant. The long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory.
Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union’s right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, 20 miles to the south.
On April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant’s order, issued verbally and transcribed and delivered by an aide, was lost in the course of the battle; its contents would become the subject of acrimonious debate. Grant claimed that he ordered Wallace to march to Pittsburg Landing, via the river road. Wallace said the order simply instructed him to join up with the right of the Union lines. He took the shunpike.
Wallace’s detractors would later claim that he had simply lost his way in the Tennessee woods. The truth is more complicated. From Crump’s Landing, where he’d been stationed, there were two roads leading to the Union front: one that hugged the river to Pittsburg Landing, the other a so-called shunpike that led to Shiloh Church, where Sherman was camped. Having surveyed his position in the days prior to the Confederate attack, Wallace had judged the shunpike to be the most passable, and had ordered his cavalry to make further improvements to it in case he needed to march his division quickly to the front.
What Wallace didn’t know was that by the time his men began marching, the Union army was no longer where he thought it was. Sherman’s position had been overrun, pushed back toward the river. Had Wallace marched to the end of the shunpike he’d have found himself behind enemy lines, cut off from the rest of the Union army. Impatient for Wallace to arrive, Grant sent an aide who Informed Wallace of the new disposition of Union forces. Wallace reversed course and marched his men to the new lines. Wallace arrived just after dusk, too late to fire a shot in the first day’s fight.
With Wallace’s division finally in place, and Buell’s reinforcements having arrived overnight, Grant unleashed a vicious counterattack on April 7, pushing the rebels back over ground still littered with the dead and dying from the previous day’s fight. Realizing they were now outnumbered, the Confederates beat a retreat in the afternoon.
Shiloh was initially hailed as a Union triumph. Among the Confederate dead was Albert Sidney Johnston, who’d been shot while leading his men in a charge. He would be the highest-ranking officer on either side to be killed in action during the War of Secession or Second Mexican War. As casualty figures made their way north, newspapers began to portray the battle as a scandalous failure. Questions arose regarding Grant’s competence; there were rumors he’d been drunk during the battle. Lincoln’s famously said about Grant after Shiloh—“I can’t spare this man; he fights,” as members of Congress, and even the governor of Grant’s home state of Ohio, called for his head.
After Shiloh
Grant’s career survived Shiloh for the moment; Wallace’s did not. The north needed someone to blame for the heavy casualties, which exceeded those of all the war’s previous battles combined. Wallace’s “dilatoriness” gave Grant cover for his own lack of preparedness, and he implicated Wallace in his official reports. The press, with the help of Grant’s staff, grabbed hold of the story of the missing division. Though Wallace received no official reprimand for his actions, by July he had been relieved of his field command.
In September Robert E. Lee launched his war ending Camp Hill Campaign. The beginning of the end in the east would come in on October 1st, 1862 with Lee’s destruction of the Army of the Potomac. The capture of Harrisburg then Philadelphia on October 16th sealed the fate of the Union cause. By November 1st Lincoln had agreed to a ceasefire across all lines, however neither parties felt bound by it in the Western Theater where Confederate and Union forces were still battling for control of Kentucky.
After the destruction of the Army of the Potomac General and Chief Halleck order a substantial part of Grant’s Army of the Tennessee and The Army of the Ohio to reinforce east. Halleck was organizing a new Army of the Susquehanna west of Harrisburg. Grant still won two defensive victories in late 1862 at Second Corinth and Iuka. He defeated Confederate general Van Dorn twice despite inferior numbers, yet the credit for the victory went to William Rosecrans. Who went on to preside over the US Army's defeat in the Second Mexican War.
While Grant was blunting Confederate attacks in Western Tennessee, Lew Wallace was fighting in Kentucky. With the Disasters in the East Wallace was reactivated and given a command in the much reduced Army of the Ohio under General Don Carlos Buell. Halleck gave Buell the task of fending of the joint attack on Kentucky by Braxton Bragg and Kirby Smith. Unlike Grant the task was too much for Buell. The forces under Bragg easily defeated Buell’s army helping to secure Kentucky’s inclusion in the Confederacy during the Treaty of Arlington. Wallace did win back some of his honor when he helped to defeat an attempted Confederate invasion of Ohio. The point of these attacks was to pressure the US into accepting further territorial Concessions in West Virginia and New Mexico. Wallace’s successful defense at Cincinnati Landing worked to restore his reputation.
Wallace knew with his reputation would prevent him from finding a career in the post war army. Wallace instead chose to volunteer to defend officers at the Union Military Courts. When fighting ended everywhere in early 1863, the Union began courts of inquiry into the performance of many of its General Officers. The purpose of the court was to deflect blame away from the Republican Party towards the incompetence of the West Point led war effort. Over the next two years dozens of officers were dismissed for cowardice, incompetence and even collusion with the enemy. Wallace considered a reliable Republican was allowed to defend several high level officers. These included William Tecumseh Sherman, Ambrose Burnsides, Joseph Hooker and George Thomas. His most famous defense was that of Ulysses S. Grant where fought bravely to defend the man who did nothing to defend his own reputation. Grant got the success for Shiloh, but resigned in the face of charges he was drunk on duty. Thanks to his efforts Grant was finally given the credit for his victory at Shiloh and in doing so restored his own. In exchange Wallace got the thanks of Lincoln who was always a fan of Grant and John Sherman, William Tecumseh Sherman’s brother.
Inter War Period
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1865 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him. He again returned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress in 1868 and 1870, and supported Republican presidential candidate Roscoe Conkling in the 1876 election. However Wallace’s and the Republicans misfortune meant he had to continue working as an attorney. It was during this period that he began working on his most famous novel Ben-Hur. The inspiration for this work came from a chance meeting with Robert Ingersoll a fellow veteran of Shiloh and the nations most famous atheist. Wallace and Ingersoll met on September 19, 1876 on The train was bound for Indianapolis and the Third National Soldiers Reunion, where thousands of Union Army veterans planned to rally.
Ingersoll traveled the country debating the existence of god and arguing for a separation of church and state. In a conversation that lasted most of the train ride Wallace remembered “He went over the whole question of the Bible, of the immortality of the soul, of the divinity of God, and of heaven and hell,” Wallace later recalled. “He vomited forth ideas and arguments like an intellectual volcano.” Wallace was surprised at how little he knew of the actual life of christ. Knowing he did not have the patience for liturgical study for its own sake, he began a writing project that would educate him on the life of Jesus.
Over the next four years Wallace researched the life of Jesus including; the historical events surrounding his life and the flora and fauna of the Holy Land. Luckily his legal and political aspirations brought him to the nations de Jura and de facto capitols. He frequently visited the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the Smithsonian institutes. Unfortunately he did not have the time to complete the novel during his legal work. In 1880 he campaigned for Congressman Blaine, as a reward he was given the governorship of the New Mexico territory.
Second Mexican War
Wallace had hoped that his time as governor would give him the chance to write. However when Blaine promised war over the Confederate purchase of Sonora and Chihuahua, Wallace knew he would be too busy. On arrival Wallace began to immediately to recruit troops for the Territorial Militia. Wallace began campaigning for a command in the new Army of Ohio, but Blaine asked Wallace to stay as governor of New Mexico. Forces in the New Mexico Department were under the command of Major General George Stoneman. Stoneman was busy organizing federal forces and neglected the states militia. As a former Militia commander Wallace crisscrossed the state recruiting and organizing volunteers. Some of these notable units were the Tucson Volunteers, Santa Fe Irregulars, Albuquerque Independent Militia and Tombstone Rangers.
Unfortunately for the Union Stoneman was easily outmaneuvered by Stuart. Stuart managed to bluff the US commander at Contention City into surrendering, which impressed the Apaches under Geronimo and lead to an alliance between the two forces. After this, they successfully lured US cavalry into an ambush at the Battle of Madera Canyon before fighting the Battle of Tombstone. After the fall of Tombstone Stoneman was sacked. Wallace personally assumed command of all Militia forces. He quickly levied more militia troops and prevented a Confederate drive on the more populated areas of the territory.
The war ended before he could receive a new Regular Army command. Wallace spent the rest of the war chasing Apaches out of the territory and guarding against future Confederate raids. Wallace stayed on after the war until 1883 overseeing reconstruction in the territory. Throughout this period Wallace continued to work on his novel. For his successful handling of the New Mexico Territory President Blaine promised him any position he wanted. Wallace asked for the recently vacated position of Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Post SMW
Wallace arrived in Istanbul in the autumn of 1883. Wallace was well received in Istanbul. There was a great deal of sympathy in the Ottoman Empire for the United States. Before intervening on behalf of the Confederacy the British Empire had bombarded Alexandria then and seized control of Egypt. As a fellow victim of British imperialism many in the empire he quickly found friends and academics that invited him to explore and explain the many realms of the empire. Wallace had most of the novel completed before he arrived, yet he still desired to see Palestine.
While he was exploring the Holy Land, the United States was being transformed by the Remembrance movement. His beloved Republican party had splintered and was worse then after the War of Secession. From Istanbul Wallace gave his support to Blaine, however he was unsurprised by Blaine’s defeat. He respected Blaine’s opponent General Hancock, but was weary of the Remembrance movement surrounding Hancock. He read of the ideology of militarism and vengeance was spreading like a cancer across the nation. He read of Lincoln’s running as a Socialist candidate. Despite the overt atheism of many Socialists, Wallace still deeply respected Lincoln and refused to speak ill of him.
After General Hancock’s victory he knew his time in the Near East was over. He hurried to finish his book and prepared for his return to the states. By Christmas 1884 he was confident his novel was complete and began contacting publishers. He assumed he would be dismissed by incoming President Hancock and sent an advanced copy to his old hero ex-president Lincoln. Hancock informed Wallace that he would not be replaced immediately, but he should be prepared to be relieved by the fall of 1885. Meanwhile Wallace used this time to work with publishers to refine his research and travel to Rome to gain further incites.
In July of 1886 Wallace was replaced by Solomon Hirsch, a Democratic leader of Washington State’s Jewish community. Before leaving however he received a letter from the recently deceased Lincoln. Who conveyed his enjoyment of the conciliatory message of his novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Ben Hur
Wallace returned to New York and began shopping for a publisher. Meanwhile he traveled to Philadelphia to meet friends in the shrunken Republican Party. There he saw the political wrangling over the proposed Conscription Bill. He saw the secret hand of Emory Upton at work. He had met Upton in the 1870’s during his Legal work at the capitol. Even then he feared the impact on the army of that “small man of ferocious and towering intellect.” He saw Upton as the chief architect of the nations new militarism. This experience led to Wallace’s tweaking his work to reflect his growing fears.
In October of 1885 the final version of the novel was published. It was not an immediate success; the overt depictions of Christ were controversial. Slowly the novel gained in popularity. It’s resonated with the newly wealthy yet still deeply religious members of the Gilded Age. The rise of its protagonist Ben Hur is a rags-to-riches story, in the mode of Wallace’s contemporary, Horatio Alger. Judah’s virtuousness is tested, and richly rewarded, throughout the novel. The book referenced the Gospel of Matthew reminding its audience that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. In Ben-Hur, Wallace suggests that piety brings with it prosperity—an alluring prospect to readers eager to take part in Gilded Age affluence.
At the same time it drew support from both sides of the aisle, appealing to those that want war and those that looked for reconciliation. It quickly found an audience in those in the country who rejected the Remembrance Democrat’s messianic mission to re-organize the state for the purpose of revenge. Judah having vanquished Messala in the Antioch arena, Judah sets out for Jerusalem to continue his campaign of retribution, a Jewish William Wallace bent on freeing Judea from its Roman oppressors. But when he arrives in the Holy Land he encounters a rabbi from Nazareth, a man promising not an earthly kingdom but a heavenly one. Lest Judah have any doubt as to the truth of the rabbi’s Jesus teachings, the Nazarene cures his mother and sister of the leprosy they’ve conveniently contracted while wasting away in a Roman jail. After witnessing Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, Judah lays down his sword and instead takes up the work of honoring Christ’s message of forbearance. The novel closes with Judah deciding to spend his vast wealth to finance a catacomb where Christian martyrs can be buried and venerated. Offering the satisfaction of a revenge plot while preaching the gospel of compassion, Ben-Hur resonated with Republicans and Christian Socialists like Lincoln, that were moving from vengeance to forgiveness.
Ben Hur also had international appeal. In Ben-Hur’s portrait of the Jewish people, readers in the Confederacy found a noble, slaveholding people, yet sympathetically described. Despite being authored by a Union general, the book found an avid readership in the Confederacy, making Ben-Hur among the first mass entertainments to transfix all corners of North American.
Contemporary politicians could see the illusions to Emory Upton in Emperor Augustus, a short statured shrewd man who dominated the new state. Many could also see the ruthlessness of the roman governors and the imposition of Roman law across the empire as criticism of the British Empire. By 1890 it was the best selling novel in the United States and by 1895 it was the best selling novel in the Confederacy, Canada and Great Britain.
Later Career
Lew’s Literary success afforded his retirement from the practice of law. From then on he devote his life to literary pursuits and being a political benefactor. The book became the most successful book in the Union, far surpassing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It became the best selling work in the CSA with nothing to compare it too. Wallace built a study in his home of Crawfordsville, Illinois. An appropriate workspace to finish his work on The Prince of India or Why Constantinople Fell (1893), which began in Istanbul. Wallace supported Garfield in 1888 and sided with John Sherman in 1892. He believed Sherman’s new Midwest and farmer focused strategy of ‘92. Despite being non- denominational he supported religious candidates, especially in Indiana.
Wallace came to see the new Remembrance Democrats as rejecting the visions of the founding fathers and building a new nation more like the Britain they had left. A new nation; godless, devoid of the American dream, where the people were subservient to the interest of the state and bereft of compassion for their former kinsmen. Wallace spent much of the 1890’s funding republican candidates and speaking throughout the state. His free spending and popularity helped to engender the disproportionate power of the Republicans in the Indiana. He also donated large money to those Socialist who preached a message inline to his former hero Lincoln. As a result the Socialist movement in Indiana was more religious and centrist then in most states. He was especially fond of Eugene V. Debs the first Socialist Senator, elected by Illinois in 1906. The weakness of the Democrats in Indiana was compared to the other Midwestern states was a strong political factor well into the 1940s.
In 1895 Wallace sold the rights to Ben Hur to a theater group. Fears of representing Jesus on stage made Wallace uneasy. Wallace would only agree to the production if Jesus was represented by one of the new Tesla spotlight. The plays first performance was on Broadway in 1896 and was soon a runaway hit. It remained a fixture of Broadway and the regional theaters for the next 20 years. And like the novel, it soon overcame any clerical objections. William Jennings Bryan (who Wallace was a primary benefactor) called it “the greatest play on stage when measured by its religious tone and moral effect.”
Like the novel, it found it an international audience. Regional theaters were so eager to host the show that they conducted renovations in order to accommodate the elaborate production. In the 1904 and 1905 season alone it played in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Columbus, St. Louis, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Birmingham, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, Louisville, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toronto, the new de facto national capital of Philadelphia and the Confederate capital of Richmond. If the novel had introduced many Americans to fiction-reading, the play introduced even more to the theater.
Death
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, so it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Despite his writings on reconciliation Wallace was quick to volunteer his military service in first showing of national crises. He volunteered during the Haitian Crises, the Nicaragua Crises and despite his advanced age and illness the 1905 Morocco Crises. Despite his gallantry, Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on August 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville’s Oak Hill Cemetery.
LZ104 Mission to East Africa
When most think of airpower in the Great War they think of the fighter scout air battles over the Western Front in France or Maryland in the United States. Most forget that the majority of air operations during the Great War were balloon and dirigible operations. Hot air balloons conducted most of the aerial observation and artillery spotting. As a result most fighter scout operations were conducted to suppress these observations balloons. Airships or Zeppelins played an equally important part in aerial observation, especially at sea.
Germany was a pioneer in such technology. During the war almost 1,000 Zeppelin missions were flown over the North Sea alone, compared to about 50 strategic bombing raids. The German Navy had some 15 Zeppelins in commission by the end of 1915 and was able to have two or more patrolling continuously at any one time. However these operations were limited by weather conditions.
Germany also experimented with using Zeppelins as long-range bombers. On 6 August 1914 the German Army Zeppelin Z VI bombed the Belgian city of Liège, killing nine civilians. Over the course of 1915 and 1916 Airships made about 51 bombing raids on England during the war. These killed 557 and injured another 1,358 people. More than 5,000 bombs were dropped on towns across Britain, causing £1.5 million in damage. 84 airships took part, of which 30 were lost, either shot down or lost in accidents.
Because of their fragility by 1917 long-range bomber aircraft had replaced airships as the primary instruments of aerial bombardment. The German government instead decided to use airships observation as a means of long-range communication with their overseas colonies and allies. Unlike the Quadruple Entente the member nations of the Quadruple Alliance were largely cut off from one another. Germany could easily communicate with its continental allies and the Ottoman Empire. However once the Allied blockade began, Germany was unable to trade with its colonies in Africa and Asia or its allies in the Americas.
At first Long-range submarines were use to get around this. In 1915 the German High Seas Fleet and US Navy conducted 12 rendezvous in the mid Atlantic. The purpose of these missions were to exchange military personnel and military equipment. In this way the US received blueprints and parts for aircraft in exchange for US machine gun and flamethrower technology. The increasing vigilance and code breaking techniques of the Royal Navy, made this more hazardous. As a result Germany turned to its Zeppelin fleet.
In November 3rd, 1915 one retrofitted super-zepplin left eastern Belguim in an attempt to cross the Atlantic via the English Channel. This was forced to turn back, but on February 2nd L31 commanded by Zeppelin ace Heinrich Mathy accomplished the first trans-Atlantic airship flight. Departing from Belgium the L31 traveled through the English channel and across the Atlantic. It arrived in occupied New Brunswick two week later. On board was technical specifications for the new German Albatross Fighter Scout.
Over the next five more trans-Atlantic flights were conducted. One of which failed to arrive and was believed lost over the Atlantic. Another was intercepted by R.A.F. fighter scouts off the southern coast of Ireland. After this the longer route of circumnavigating Britain via the north sea was used. Three of these missions were able to make the return journey to Germany. These missions proved invaluable training for Germanys attempt to resupply its beleaguered forces in East Africa led by the brilliant General Lettow-Vorbeck.
In late 1916 the German General Staff proposed to resupply General Vorbeck in South Africa via airship. Because it would be impossible to resupply the airship with hydrogen gas upon its arrival in Africa, (unlike its missions to the United States), It was decided that no return trip would be made. Instead, it was planned that every part of the ship be cannibalized for use by Lettow-Vorbeck's bush army. The outer envelope would be used for tents, muslin linings would become bandages, the duralumin framework would be used for wireless towers, and so on. In addition to its own structure, L 59 carried 15 tons of supplies. The cargo included machine guns plus spares and ammunition, food, medical supplies, a medical team and Iron Cross medals.
The General Staff chose commander Hugo Eckener, commander of more then a dozen bombing missions over Britain and one of the three successful commanders of a trans-Atlantic flight mission. On 4 April 1917, after a 29 hour flight from Friedrichshafen the L59 airship arrived at Yambol (Jamboli) in Bulgaria. This was the last available airbase before flying over two thousand miles across the Mediterranean and Entente-held Africa.
L.59's two initial attempts at starting the journey were foiled by weather in the Mediterranean, but on 21 April 1917 her third departure was successful and the ship made good time over Adrianople, the Sea of Marmara and the coast of Asia Minor. The experience of the crew in flying trans-Atlantic missions proved invaluable as the mission was plagued by one disaster after another. She crossed over the African coast at 0515 on 22 April near Mersa Matruh and via the Dakhla Oasis set a dog-leg course up the Nile. That afternoon, an engine malfunctioned when a reduction gear housing cracked; the loss of this powerplant eliminated the prospect of radio transmission, although wireless messages could be received. The next morning she nearly crashed when heat turbulence from the dunes below and subsequent cooling reduced the buoyancy of her gas. The crew also suffered from headaches, hallucinations and general fatigue in the mid-day heat and freezing cold at night.
Despite these difficulties, L.59 continued on over Sudan, only to be turned back on 23 April, with the ship 125 miles (201 km) due west of Khartoum when she received an "abort" message. L.59's, despite Captain Eckner’s misgivings the crew implored the commander to continue After some misgivings on the part of Cpt. Eckner, he decided to continue on. After the war the abort command turned out to be the work of British intelligence.
After 6 more days of alternating intense heat and biting cold, the crew arrived in German East Africa. General Vorbeck himself met the L.59 crew at the appointed rendez-vous point near Mahenge in southern German East Africa. After a short ceremony in which the crew of L.59, they and a Battalion led personally by General Vorbecks dismantled the airship. Crew members were all given battlefield promotions for there brave journey and incorporated into his East African Army.
The supplies were desperately needed. Despite the success of Lettow Vorbecks guerilla campaign, British forces led by South African General Vans Smuts were regrouping for a major assault. With news of the Russian collapse and the French mutinies arriving in 1917, Smuts finally moved against Lettow-vorbeck at Morogoro. The battle was a tactical stalemate and both withdrew, though Smuts suffered heavier losses. These were due to the newly acquired German copies of American made Browning M1918 BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) and Browning M1917 (Model 1917) Belt-Fed, Water-Cooled Heavy Machine Gun.
News of the British armistice arrived before fighting could resume and drive the Entente forces from East Africa. The resupply was invaluable in Lettow Vorbecks efforts. It helped to keep this campaign alive and retain German claims on its African colonies. Unlike its pacific colonies which it was forced to surrender in the Treaty of Potsdam. As a result of the Mission Hugo Eckener entered the pantheon of early aviation pioneers like Orville and Wilbur Wright, Santos-Dumont, Heinrich Mathy, and Charles Lindbergh.
When most think of airpower in the Great War they think of the fighter scout air battles over the Western Front in France or Maryland in the United States. Most forget that the majority of air operations during the Great War were balloon and dirigible operations. Hot air balloons conducted most of the aerial observation and artillery spotting. As a result most fighter scout operations were conducted to suppress these observations balloons. Airships or Zeppelins played an equally important part in aerial observation, especially at sea.
Germany was a pioneer in such technology. During the war almost 1,000 Zeppelin missions were flown over the North Sea alone, compared to about 50 strategic bombing raids. The German Navy had some 15 Zeppelins in commission by the end of 1915 and was able to have two or more patrolling continuously at any one time. However these operations were limited by weather conditions.
Germany also experimented with using Zeppelins as long-range bombers. On 6 August 1914 the German Army Zeppelin Z VI bombed the Belgian city of Liège, killing nine civilians. Over the course of 1915 and 1916 Airships made about 51 bombing raids on England during the war. These killed 557 and injured another 1,358 people. More than 5,000 bombs were dropped on towns across Britain, causing £1.5 million in damage. 84 airships took part, of which 30 were lost, either shot down or lost in accidents.
Because of their fragility by 1917 long-range bomber aircraft had replaced airships as the primary instruments of aerial bombardment. The German government instead decided to use airships observation as a means of long-range communication with their overseas colonies and allies. Unlike the Quadruple Entente the member nations of the Quadruple Alliance were largely cut off from one another. Germany could easily communicate with its continental allies and the Ottoman Empire. However once the Allied blockade began, Germany was unable to trade with its colonies in Africa and Asia or its allies in the Americas.
At first Long-range submarines were use to get around this. In 1915 the German High Seas Fleet and US Navy conducted 12 rendezvous in the mid Atlantic. The purpose of these missions were to exchange military personnel and military equipment. In this way the US received blueprints and parts for aircraft in exchange for US machine gun and flamethrower technology. The increasing vigilance and code breaking techniques of the Royal Navy, made this more hazardous. As a result Germany turned to its Zeppelin fleet.
In November 3rd, 1915 one retrofitted super-zepplin left eastern Belguim in an attempt to cross the Atlantic via the English Channel. This was forced to turn back, but on February 2nd L31 commanded by Zeppelin ace Heinrich Mathy accomplished the first trans-Atlantic airship flight. Departing from Belgium the L31 traveled through the English channel and across the Atlantic. It arrived in occupied New Brunswick two week later. On board was technical specifications for the new German Albatross Fighter Scout.
Over the next five more trans-Atlantic flights were conducted. One of which failed to arrive and was believed lost over the Atlantic. Another was intercepted by R.A.F. fighter scouts off the southern coast of Ireland. After this the longer route of circumnavigating Britain via the north sea was used. Three of these missions were able to make the return journey to Germany. These missions proved invaluable training for Germanys attempt to resupply its beleaguered forces in East Africa led by the brilliant General Lettow-Vorbeck.
In late 1916 the German General Staff proposed to resupply General Vorbeck in South Africa via airship. Because it would be impossible to resupply the airship with hydrogen gas upon its arrival in Africa, (unlike its missions to the United States), It was decided that no return trip would be made. Instead, it was planned that every part of the ship be cannibalized for use by Lettow-Vorbeck's bush army. The outer envelope would be used for tents, muslin linings would become bandages, the duralumin framework would be used for wireless towers, and so on. In addition to its own structure, L 59 carried 15 tons of supplies. The cargo included machine guns plus spares and ammunition, food, medical supplies, a medical team and Iron Cross medals.
The General Staff chose commander Hugo Eckener, commander of more then a dozen bombing missions over Britain and one of the three successful commanders of a trans-Atlantic flight mission. On 4 April 1917, after a 29 hour flight from Friedrichshafen the L59 airship arrived at Yambol (Jamboli) in Bulgaria. This was the last available airbase before flying over two thousand miles across the Mediterranean and Entente-held Africa.
L.59's two initial attempts at starting the journey were foiled by weather in the Mediterranean, but on 21 April 1917 her third departure was successful and the ship made good time over Adrianople, the Sea of Marmara and the coast of Asia Minor. The experience of the crew in flying trans-Atlantic missions proved invaluable as the mission was plagued by one disaster after another. She crossed over the African coast at 0515 on 22 April near Mersa Matruh and via the Dakhla Oasis set a dog-leg course up the Nile. That afternoon, an engine malfunctioned when a reduction gear housing cracked; the loss of this powerplant eliminated the prospect of radio transmission, although wireless messages could be received. The next morning she nearly crashed when heat turbulence from the dunes below and subsequent cooling reduced the buoyancy of her gas. The crew also suffered from headaches, hallucinations and general fatigue in the mid-day heat and freezing cold at night.
Despite these difficulties, L.59 continued on over Sudan, only to be turned back on 23 April, with the ship 125 miles (201 km) due west of Khartoum when she received an "abort" message. L.59's, despite Captain Eckner’s misgivings the crew implored the commander to continue After some misgivings on the part of Cpt. Eckner, he decided to continue on. After the war the abort command turned out to be the work of British intelligence.
After 6 more days of alternating intense heat and biting cold, the crew arrived in German East Africa. General Vorbeck himself met the L.59 crew at the appointed rendez-vous point near Mahenge in southern German East Africa. After a short ceremony in which the crew of L.59, they and a Battalion led personally by General Vorbecks dismantled the airship. Crew members were all given battlefield promotions for there brave journey and incorporated into his East African Army.
The supplies were desperately needed. Despite the success of Lettow Vorbecks guerilla campaign, British forces led by South African General Vans Smuts were regrouping for a major assault. With news of the Russian collapse and the French mutinies arriving in 1917, Smuts finally moved against Lettow-vorbeck at Morogoro. The battle was a tactical stalemate and both withdrew, though Smuts suffered heavier losses. These were due to the newly acquired German copies of American made Browning M1918 BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) and Browning M1917 (Model 1917) Belt-Fed, Water-Cooled Heavy Machine Gun.
News of the British armistice arrived before fighting could resume and drive the Entente forces from East Africa. The resupply was invaluable in Lettow Vorbecks efforts. It helped to keep this campaign alive and retain German claims on its African colonies. Unlike its pacific colonies which it was forced to surrender in the Treaty of Potsdam. As a result of the Mission Hugo Eckener entered the pantheon of early aviation pioneers like Orville and Wilbur Wright, Santos-Dumont, Heinrich Mathy, and Charles Lindbergh.
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Excellent updates President Mahan! Can't wait for the next Lodge update.
I myself still haven't finished my 1885 CS election article, but I hope to have it finished within a few weeks time (after I get some schoolwork finished).
Can't wait for the next Lodge update. I myself still haven't finished my 1885 CS election article, but I hope to have it finished within a few weeks time (after I get some schoolwork finished).
I remember it being the non-stop from Germany to Washington DC as a passenger liner that was so novel. Plus the ridiculous mooring station on top of the Washington Monument, which fit perfectly. Anyway I can salvage this? Anyway to make it more in line with The Center Canot Hold? Like the Zepplin landing in Newfoundland.
Lodge Part VI (1905-1909) will be up by the end of this weekend. This one will be short..er bguy handled the period so masterfully it doesn't need much more.
Lodge Part VI (1905-1909) will be up by the end of this weekend. This one will be short..er bguy handled the period so masterfully it doesn't need much more.
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ThePest179
Banned
Just a question: do the books ever say how much of Africa is controlled by Germany after the Great War (aside from the Congo)?
I think what they can take from france(meaning cameron and Morocco for prestige and extra fuck you to france, as minimum) and maybe convice portugar of give Angola for uniting their colonies. The rest the brits would defended or german would not care as long recover their stuff(except their asian that is gone to japanese).
Post WW2, either what they can get from britain that not become independant(Egypt, South Africa rhodesia and kenya as examples) would fall into german hands.
the books only mention th Congo. In OTL Britain and Germany were on the verge of reaching an agreement in purchasing Portugese colonies when the war broke out. Germany probably would have taken Portugal. In general it seems Britain did not give up anything to Germany. It wasn't defeated as much as quit.
Henry Cabot Lodge Part VI (1905-1913)
1905
Henry Cabot Lodge returned to Philadelphia after his election to the Senate. There he monitored the situation unfolding in Manchuria, looking for developments the US could exploit. He offered to mediate a settlement on several occasion, but neither he nor the combatants were serious about it. Lodge was with Mahan as the Great White Fleet returned to its homeport of New York. Roosevelt who recently failed in primary for Governor of New York was with them. Lodge remained as Secretary of State until December 15rd, 1905. He then resigned his office and took up his seat as Senator from Massachusetts. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon,[1] took his position until his replacement William Rufus Day was confirmed.
Aldrich like Mahan took the oath on the Eastern Front of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. As former Secretary of State he was present on the dais of the Capitol, seated behind President Mahan. Aldrich speech was brief, but extraordinary. He outlined an ambitious plan that was markedly different from his last two predecessors. He had spoken little of his foreign policy plans during the presidential election, but Nelson Aldrich entered the Presidency with a vision of peace. Thanks to America’s new found military strength and global status, the US could afford to make peace. He would bring about a rapprochement with the Entente nations and in particular the Confederate States.(This was becoming the common name for the CSA, France, Britain despite having no formal alliance defensive). Aldrich believed rapprochement would lead to a new era of prosperity. By allowing for greatly expanded US trade with the Confederate States, while also allowing for the US to finally reduce defense spending. The US could instead devote its resources to economic development. Greater prosperity would in turn remove the appeal of the radical movements, and thus also give the United States domestic tranquility. Lodge and Mahan looked on in quiet disagreement. The two left and immediately boarded trains, Lodge headed back to Philadelphia and Mahan to New York and retirement.
The landscape of the Senate had changed during his tenure as Secretary of State. Like in the primary the summer before, the Senate was no longer divided between Bourbon and Remembrance Democrats. As Remembrance Democrats predominated, the new division was over the extent the government should interfere in the economy and whether the US should acquire overseas territory. Lodge increasingly found himself on the sideline of this debate. Lodge supported a strong Federal government to afford the military he had fought so hard to create. However unlike his allies Beveridge and Roosevelt, Lodge had more reservations about the unchecked use of federal powers for social programs. Lodge chose to use this time to write and make public his position. Together he and Roosevelt republished an updated and expanded version of their earlier work Hero Tales From American History. A series of stories designed to inspire the younger generations. He wrote several articles for the Atlantic on the need for the Trans-Atlantic Partnership with Germany. He also wrote several pieces on the Russo-Japanese War or Manchurian War as he preferred to call it. In these articles he refused to overtly criticize President Aldrich, unlike Roosevelt and Beveridge.
When the Morroco Crises began and Aldrich faced his second major foreign policy test, again Lodge was silent. One of the Aldrich administrations biggest weakness’s was the administrations lack of foreign policy experience. Secretary of State Willam Rufus Day was a lawyer and not known for his strong foreign policy expertise, outside tariff law. This meant the administration would have to rely heavily on longtime State Department Staff expertise.
Luckily for Aldrich, over the previous two administration the state department had gained in prestige and attracted some of the best and brightest Americans. Most of the day to day operations were left to Assistant Secretary of State Alvey A. Adee. A native of Astoria, New York, Adee got his start in diplomacy by when he became the private secretary of Daniel Sickles. Adee accompanied Sickles to Madrid, when he was named the U.S. Minister to Spain in 1869. In 1882, he was promoted to Third Assistant Secretary, and in 1886, he was promoted again to Second Assistant Secretary, 1903 promoted to Assistant Secretary of State. He accompanied Lodge to Germany and there became a friend of Friedrich von Holstein. The two first met when he was sent as a member of the mission to Berlin in the wake of the Second Mexican War. The two kept up a correspondence during that time with the intention of bringing the two nations closer together. The two did much of the behind the scenes work to complete the details of the alliance. He and Holstein remained in close contact until Holstein’s death in 1909. Adee in remained in this position until 1924, his death. Adee never married and fathered no children. He was well known for his annual summer bicycling trips through Europe, which he continued until the outbreak of the Great War.
As Lodge was finding his place in the new party, he did not overtly attack the President. Lodge dined with Aldrich on several occasions in the early part of the Presidency. He hoped to be a bridge between the President and the Senate like he had for both Reed and Mahan. Mahan wanted to temper the Presidents agenda, but this plan quickly fell apart. The first blow came with the Presidents reduction of the Army to 800,000.[2] Lodge had worked tirelessly for the Upton Army Plan and was terrified to see such a radical reduction.
Their second break came over the Lodge Navy Bill. Reports that the British were building a revolutionary new battleship that would make all existing battleships obsolete led to a clamor amongst the Mahan Democrats for a new Naval bill to overhaul the American fleet. The Navy General Staff had knew of the Dreadnought for years and saw it as the US’s best chance to catch up with the British Navy. As a result the Navy had begun construction of the New York Class, the US’s own all big gun Battleship. Lodge thus proposed the 4 for 4 Bill where the US would construct 4 dreadnoughts a year for the next 4 years. Aldrich, while accepting the necessity for building some dreadnoughts, was horrified at the proposed cost of Lodge’s bill. Aldrich insisted he would only support building 2 dreadnoughts a year for the next 4 years and would veto any bill beyond that. Despite a valiant effort by Lodge, ultimately only approve a 2 for 4 Bill. Former President Mahan was in Europe and naturally assumed the country would do all it could to catch up with the British. On hearing of the 2 for 4 Bill, he vowed to more actively aide Lodge in the future to protect the gains they had made.
Finally 1905 would see the loss of John Hay, a towering figure in the Republican Party. An important figure in Philadelphia and Washington since the Lincoln administration, Hay had always been kind to both Lodge and Roosevelt when they first arrived in Philadelphia. However as the years went on the two drifted apart. Lodge never forgave Hay for running against Mahan, a man who had appointed him the ambassador to France. Lodge was also sensitive to the rumors that Hay and his wife Nannie Lodge had, had an affair in the late 1890’s. Though there was never any evidence, rumors persisted throughout Philadelphia and helped to further estrange the couple. Lodge was the only member of his old dinner club friends not to attend Hay’s funeral.
1906
Over the course of 1906 the President and Lodge found few reasons to spar, the President and Aldrich agreed on many economic issues. Lodge supported the Presidents Hannah-Fish Tariff; it was very popular in New England and especially his home state of Massachusetts. Lodge also supported the Presidents Trade Dispute Act. Unlike Beveridge and Roosevelt, he was a more classic reform candidate. He supported Civil Service and limited economic reform, but was virulently anti-union.
On the domestic side Lodge spent much of 1906 trying to canvass support for his new immigration restriction bill. Lodge had become alarmed at the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Bill set national quotes for immigration that were designed to ensure that an equal number of immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe as came from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Bill would tend overall restrict overall immigration, since the majority of new immigrants were not from the traditional sources of northern and western Europe. It also excluded all immigration from Asia. The Bill had some support among Midwesterner Republicans and Socialists, but few Socialists back East or Democrats. The booming economy and demand for cheap labor meant the bill would never make it to the floor.
There one brief disagreement that year was over the Commercial Treaty with the CSA. He rightly believed that the Presidents hard handed measure against the Unions and his conciliatory attitude towards the CSA would alienate moderates and hardcore Remembrance men. Lodge was right, while the Democrats still retained large majorities in both houses of Congress, their losses were sufficient that for the first time since 1885 they no longer had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.
1907
1907 saw Lodge return to the national spot light, because of the debate over the Philadelphia Naval conference. In order to afford his domestic agenda, Aldrich was looking to prevent a new Dreadnought race before it began. As a result Aldrich held a Naval Conference in June, which included representatives of United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Japan, and the Confederate States all attend. Unfortunately, Aldrich’s hopes were quickly dashed.
Before delegates even arrived Lodge and other Mahan Democrats held protests in the cities bombarded by the Royal Navy. Lodge gave speeches in many New England cities and cities along the Great Lakes. When the British delegates arrived they warned that their safety could not be guaranteed if they ventured in to Irish neighborhoods and those with a heavy presence of Soldiers Circle men.
Fortunately for Lodge and the Mahan Democrats neither the British nor the Germans were looking to end the arms race at this point. The British took a hard line right from the start, insisting that the dreadnought ratio between the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany would have to be 2:1:1. Germany flatly refused to consider such an unfavorable ratio. Lodge warned Aldrich that the U.S. Senate would never ratify any treaty with a ratio below 4:3:3. Aldrich attempted to compromise with a 3:2:2 ratio, but that proved unacceptable to both the British and Germans. In a last gasp Aldrich would propose an agreement where the British could build up to 24 dreadnoughts, the United States would build up to 12, and Germany could build up to 18; in exchange for US tariff reductions against the two countries. The British though still refused to consider any treaty that would leave the United States and Germany with more dreadnoughts than they had, and so the conference broke up in failure.
To further add insult to injury in the wake of the failure of the Conference, the nations of France, Great Britain, the Russian Empire and the Confederate States of America met in Paris to formerly put into writing their defensive alliance. Each power had been in a de facto defensive alliance with one another, each having an alliance with one member or another. The Paris Conference formerly ushered in the Entente Cordial, which now meant each nation was legally bounded to go to war if any member was attacked. In a speech before the Senate Lodge railed against Aldrich, declaring that his attempt to shirk the responsibility of the US to defend itself behind a mere piece of paper made the enemies of the American people perceive our weakness and align against us. With the formalizing of the Entente, Lodge began building support for a campaign to challenge Aldrich at the Convention.
1908
The year 1908 would begin with a series of set backs President Aldrich and his Congressional agenda. The death of Senator Mark Hanna helped weaken the power of the Conservative Democrats in Congress. As a result bills regulating the countries Food and Drug Industry and banning Child Labor was passed. The Party was split into four factions, the Conservative and Reform Mahan Democrats and Conservative and Reform Reed Democrats. Aldrich was most popular with the Conservative Reed Democrats. The Presidents failure to sign the Child Labor Bill infuriated Reform Democrats. As a result there was talk of several possible Reform challengers. There was the Mahan Reformers Theodore Roosevelt, Anthony Beveridge and the Reed Reformers Philander Knox and Adlai Stevenson.
Thanks to Aldrich’s détente policy it quickly became apparent only a Mahan Democrat could mount a successful challenge. Theodore Roosevelt was in the midst of a campaign for Governor of New York and the torch naturally fell to Anthony Beveridge. Beveridge began to openly campaign in spring of ’08, crisscrossing the country condemning the President for his weak foreign policy and his failure to address the plight of the working man. Despite his powerful oratory skills and his popularity with ordinary citizens, Beveridge was not popular with the Party leadership.
Understanding Aldrich’s unpopularity with Mahan Democrats and Beveridge’s unpopularity with the Party leadership, Lodge worked behind the scene to build himself as a compromise candidate. As Mahan’s closest advisor Lodge was popular with all Mahan Democrats. However he was relatively conservative on most economic issues. He believed he was in the perfect spot to be a compromise candidate, should the convention deadlock.
He began a limited speaking tour denouncing the President’s Foreign Policy, while refraining from attacking his domestic policies. The Democrats held their convention in Chicago in June, many feared that this would be the most contentious convention of a sitting President since the 1880’s. The President failed to carry the convention on the first ballot, however the Reform vote was still split between Reed and Mahan Reformers. However hopes that the Part would return to the pre-Remembrance norm of single term Presidents were unfounded and by the third ballot Lodge’s hope for a deadlock were squashed. The power of the Party bosses slowly won over insurgent reformers. Lodge saw which way the wind was blowing and released his delegates for Aldrich.
The Republicans met later that month and nominated the dissatisfied and Reform Reed Democrat Philander Knox. The Republicans hoped that by nominating an easterner they might be able to overcome the perception of them as a regional western party and make some inroads into the vote rich eastern states. They also hoped to draw away Reform Democrats but Knox proved an ineffective campaigner, as his cautious, legalistic speaking style did little to excite voters.
At first Lodge did not campaign for Aldrich. However in the wake of the convention Lodge realized his best chance for winning a future nomination was to gain the support of the party power bosses. When Aldrich came to him ask him to campaign for him and ask his advice. The Mahan Democrats wanted the President to do something to check the growth of British involvement in the Western Hemisphere. Aldrich quickly announced an agreement had been reached for a formal US alliance with Chile and Paraguay. Aldrich otherwise did little active campaigning as he felt it was beneath the dignity of the office, and he was content to rely upon the country being prosperous and at peace (and the Democrat’s enormous campaign finance advantage) to carry him to victory. Lodge
Election Day would see Nelson Aldrich narrowly be reelected. Aldrich again carried 44% of the popular vote, sweeping the coastal states and carrying most of the Mid-West. La Follette though improved upon his 1904 showing by winning 40% of the vote while Knox lost ground for the Republicans and only won 14% of the vote. Aldrich had triumphed, but the Democrats saw much cause for concern in the election results. La Follette had broken through in the industrial Mid-West states, carrying Illinois and coming dangerously close in both Indiana and Ohio. Lodge took notice, intending to run in 1912. Lodge knew he would have to balance popularity with the common man, while at the same time gaining the backing of the party bosses.
Despite Aldrich’s efforts to curb Naval spending the US Navy continued to operate far beyond US shores. The US Navy’s continued to capitalize on the experience gained on it’s circumnavigation of the globe. The US North East Atlantic squadrons routinely visited Germany and it's South West Squadron began scheduled visits to the new base in Monrovia, Liberia. The new South Atlantic Squadron also on occasion visited the US's new Allies in the Mediterranean. It was on one of these South Atlantic Cruises that a US Naval taskforce was divert to the Mediterranean after the eruption of Mount Etna, on Dec. 22, 1908. The city of Messina, Italy was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami. President Aldrich ordered the a task force of three American Cruisers and one Battleship near the Canary Islands on the way back to the US from Liberia diverted to Messina. In one of his last act’s as Senator, Beveridge put before the Senate a Bill requesting relief aid for the beleaguered people of Sicily. The taskforce arrived six days later and sailors of the American ships helped to rescue Italian citizens trapped in the badly damaged Messina. A second mission of four more cruisers arrived three weeks later filled with medical supplies food.
The move was very popular with Many Italian Americans, who often felt alienated from the Democratic Party. This wasdue to Irish American’s domination of the Democratic Party inner-city machine. The mission was a huge success with the people of Italy, as well. The commander of the mission Rear Adm. Charles S. Sperry, was offered a knighthood by King Victor Emmanuelle III, however he was forced to decline due to the 15th Amendment.[3] This act helped to further cement the Quadruple Alliance in the wake of the formation of the Quadruple Entente.
[1] Lodge obviously can’t be Secretary of State and a Senator at the same time so Robert Bacon get’s a recess appointment.
[2] In actuality the active army was never a million men. 1 million men was the size of the Army would be in 1915, when the Upton reforms were to be completed. By 1904 the US Army strength was 625,000 roughly the size of the German Army at the time. The CSA Army had similarly not reached its peek peacetime strength of 550,000 and was still hovering around 400,000. Cutting the size of the army would mean decreasing the cost of constructing barracks and training facilities for the future army.
[3] 15th Amendment (1884): Prohibited Americans from accepting titles of nobility. Originally introduced as part of the Bill of Rights, it was ratified by the states during the anti-foreign backlash following the Second Mexican War. Congress later clarified the amendment to allow US citizens to accept decorations and honors from foreign allies such as Germany. *Craigo
1905
Henry Cabot Lodge returned to Philadelphia after his election to the Senate. There he monitored the situation unfolding in Manchuria, looking for developments the US could exploit. He offered to mediate a settlement on several occasion, but neither he nor the combatants were serious about it. Lodge was with Mahan as the Great White Fleet returned to its homeport of New York. Roosevelt who recently failed in primary for Governor of New York was with them. Lodge remained as Secretary of State until December 15rd, 1905. He then resigned his office and took up his seat as Senator from Massachusetts. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon,[1] took his position until his replacement William Rufus Day was confirmed.
Aldrich like Mahan took the oath on the Eastern Front of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. As former Secretary of State he was present on the dais of the Capitol, seated behind President Mahan. Aldrich speech was brief, but extraordinary. He outlined an ambitious plan that was markedly different from his last two predecessors. He had spoken little of his foreign policy plans during the presidential election, but Nelson Aldrich entered the Presidency with a vision of peace. Thanks to America’s new found military strength and global status, the US could afford to make peace. He would bring about a rapprochement with the Entente nations and in particular the Confederate States.(This was becoming the common name for the CSA, France, Britain despite having no formal alliance defensive). Aldrich believed rapprochement would lead to a new era of prosperity. By allowing for greatly expanded US trade with the Confederate States, while also allowing for the US to finally reduce defense spending. The US could instead devote its resources to economic development. Greater prosperity would in turn remove the appeal of the radical movements, and thus also give the United States domestic tranquility. Lodge and Mahan looked on in quiet disagreement. The two left and immediately boarded trains, Lodge headed back to Philadelphia and Mahan to New York and retirement.
The landscape of the Senate had changed during his tenure as Secretary of State. Like in the primary the summer before, the Senate was no longer divided between Bourbon and Remembrance Democrats. As Remembrance Democrats predominated, the new division was over the extent the government should interfere in the economy and whether the US should acquire overseas territory. Lodge increasingly found himself on the sideline of this debate. Lodge supported a strong Federal government to afford the military he had fought so hard to create. However unlike his allies Beveridge and Roosevelt, Lodge had more reservations about the unchecked use of federal powers for social programs. Lodge chose to use this time to write and make public his position. Together he and Roosevelt republished an updated and expanded version of their earlier work Hero Tales From American History. A series of stories designed to inspire the younger generations. He wrote several articles for the Atlantic on the need for the Trans-Atlantic Partnership with Germany. He also wrote several pieces on the Russo-Japanese War or Manchurian War as he preferred to call it. In these articles he refused to overtly criticize President Aldrich, unlike Roosevelt and Beveridge.
When the Morroco Crises began and Aldrich faced his second major foreign policy test, again Lodge was silent. One of the Aldrich administrations biggest weakness’s was the administrations lack of foreign policy experience. Secretary of State Willam Rufus Day was a lawyer and not known for his strong foreign policy expertise, outside tariff law. This meant the administration would have to rely heavily on longtime State Department Staff expertise.
Luckily for Aldrich, over the previous two administration the state department had gained in prestige and attracted some of the best and brightest Americans. Most of the day to day operations were left to Assistant Secretary of State Alvey A. Adee. A native of Astoria, New York, Adee got his start in diplomacy by when he became the private secretary of Daniel Sickles. Adee accompanied Sickles to Madrid, when he was named the U.S. Minister to Spain in 1869. In 1882, he was promoted to Third Assistant Secretary, and in 1886, he was promoted again to Second Assistant Secretary, 1903 promoted to Assistant Secretary of State. He accompanied Lodge to Germany and there became a friend of Friedrich von Holstein. The two first met when he was sent as a member of the mission to Berlin in the wake of the Second Mexican War. The two kept up a correspondence during that time with the intention of bringing the two nations closer together. The two did much of the behind the scenes work to complete the details of the alliance. He and Holstein remained in close contact until Holstein’s death in 1909. Adee in remained in this position until 1924, his death. Adee never married and fathered no children. He was well known for his annual summer bicycling trips through Europe, which he continued until the outbreak of the Great War.
As Lodge was finding his place in the new party, he did not overtly attack the President. Lodge dined with Aldrich on several occasions in the early part of the Presidency. He hoped to be a bridge between the President and the Senate like he had for both Reed and Mahan. Mahan wanted to temper the Presidents agenda, but this plan quickly fell apart. The first blow came with the Presidents reduction of the Army to 800,000.[2] Lodge had worked tirelessly for the Upton Army Plan and was terrified to see such a radical reduction.
Their second break came over the Lodge Navy Bill. Reports that the British were building a revolutionary new battleship that would make all existing battleships obsolete led to a clamor amongst the Mahan Democrats for a new Naval bill to overhaul the American fleet. The Navy General Staff had knew of the Dreadnought for years and saw it as the US’s best chance to catch up with the British Navy. As a result the Navy had begun construction of the New York Class, the US’s own all big gun Battleship. Lodge thus proposed the 4 for 4 Bill where the US would construct 4 dreadnoughts a year for the next 4 years. Aldrich, while accepting the necessity for building some dreadnoughts, was horrified at the proposed cost of Lodge’s bill. Aldrich insisted he would only support building 2 dreadnoughts a year for the next 4 years and would veto any bill beyond that. Despite a valiant effort by Lodge, ultimately only approve a 2 for 4 Bill. Former President Mahan was in Europe and naturally assumed the country would do all it could to catch up with the British. On hearing of the 2 for 4 Bill, he vowed to more actively aide Lodge in the future to protect the gains they had made.
Finally 1905 would see the loss of John Hay, a towering figure in the Republican Party. An important figure in Philadelphia and Washington since the Lincoln administration, Hay had always been kind to both Lodge and Roosevelt when they first arrived in Philadelphia. However as the years went on the two drifted apart. Lodge never forgave Hay for running against Mahan, a man who had appointed him the ambassador to France. Lodge was also sensitive to the rumors that Hay and his wife Nannie Lodge had, had an affair in the late 1890’s. Though there was never any evidence, rumors persisted throughout Philadelphia and helped to further estrange the couple. Lodge was the only member of his old dinner club friends not to attend Hay’s funeral.
1906
Over the course of 1906 the President and Lodge found few reasons to spar, the President and Aldrich agreed on many economic issues. Lodge supported the Presidents Hannah-Fish Tariff; it was very popular in New England and especially his home state of Massachusetts. Lodge also supported the Presidents Trade Dispute Act. Unlike Beveridge and Roosevelt, he was a more classic reform candidate. He supported Civil Service and limited economic reform, but was virulently anti-union.
On the domestic side Lodge spent much of 1906 trying to canvass support for his new immigration restriction bill. Lodge had become alarmed at the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Bill set national quotes for immigration that were designed to ensure that an equal number of immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe as came from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Bill would tend overall restrict overall immigration, since the majority of new immigrants were not from the traditional sources of northern and western Europe. It also excluded all immigration from Asia. The Bill had some support among Midwesterner Republicans and Socialists, but few Socialists back East or Democrats. The booming economy and demand for cheap labor meant the bill would never make it to the floor.
There one brief disagreement that year was over the Commercial Treaty with the CSA. He rightly believed that the Presidents hard handed measure against the Unions and his conciliatory attitude towards the CSA would alienate moderates and hardcore Remembrance men. Lodge was right, while the Democrats still retained large majorities in both houses of Congress, their losses were sufficient that for the first time since 1885 they no longer had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.
1907
1907 saw Lodge return to the national spot light, because of the debate over the Philadelphia Naval conference. In order to afford his domestic agenda, Aldrich was looking to prevent a new Dreadnought race before it began. As a result Aldrich held a Naval Conference in June, which included representatives of United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Japan, and the Confederate States all attend. Unfortunately, Aldrich’s hopes were quickly dashed.
Before delegates even arrived Lodge and other Mahan Democrats held protests in the cities bombarded by the Royal Navy. Lodge gave speeches in many New England cities and cities along the Great Lakes. When the British delegates arrived they warned that their safety could not be guaranteed if they ventured in to Irish neighborhoods and those with a heavy presence of Soldiers Circle men.
Fortunately for Lodge and the Mahan Democrats neither the British nor the Germans were looking to end the arms race at this point. The British took a hard line right from the start, insisting that the dreadnought ratio between the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany would have to be 2:1:1. Germany flatly refused to consider such an unfavorable ratio. Lodge warned Aldrich that the U.S. Senate would never ratify any treaty with a ratio below 4:3:3. Aldrich attempted to compromise with a 3:2:2 ratio, but that proved unacceptable to both the British and Germans. In a last gasp Aldrich would propose an agreement where the British could build up to 24 dreadnoughts, the United States would build up to 12, and Germany could build up to 18; in exchange for US tariff reductions against the two countries. The British though still refused to consider any treaty that would leave the United States and Germany with more dreadnoughts than they had, and so the conference broke up in failure.
To further add insult to injury in the wake of the failure of the Conference, the nations of France, Great Britain, the Russian Empire and the Confederate States of America met in Paris to formerly put into writing their defensive alliance. Each power had been in a de facto defensive alliance with one another, each having an alliance with one member or another. The Paris Conference formerly ushered in the Entente Cordial, which now meant each nation was legally bounded to go to war if any member was attacked. In a speech before the Senate Lodge railed against Aldrich, declaring that his attempt to shirk the responsibility of the US to defend itself behind a mere piece of paper made the enemies of the American people perceive our weakness and align against us. With the formalizing of the Entente, Lodge began building support for a campaign to challenge Aldrich at the Convention.
1908
The year 1908 would begin with a series of set backs President Aldrich and his Congressional agenda. The death of Senator Mark Hanna helped weaken the power of the Conservative Democrats in Congress. As a result bills regulating the countries Food and Drug Industry and banning Child Labor was passed. The Party was split into four factions, the Conservative and Reform Mahan Democrats and Conservative and Reform Reed Democrats. Aldrich was most popular with the Conservative Reed Democrats. The Presidents failure to sign the Child Labor Bill infuriated Reform Democrats. As a result there was talk of several possible Reform challengers. There was the Mahan Reformers Theodore Roosevelt, Anthony Beveridge and the Reed Reformers Philander Knox and Adlai Stevenson.
Thanks to Aldrich’s détente policy it quickly became apparent only a Mahan Democrat could mount a successful challenge. Theodore Roosevelt was in the midst of a campaign for Governor of New York and the torch naturally fell to Anthony Beveridge. Beveridge began to openly campaign in spring of ’08, crisscrossing the country condemning the President for his weak foreign policy and his failure to address the plight of the working man. Despite his powerful oratory skills and his popularity with ordinary citizens, Beveridge was not popular with the Party leadership.
Understanding Aldrich’s unpopularity with Mahan Democrats and Beveridge’s unpopularity with the Party leadership, Lodge worked behind the scene to build himself as a compromise candidate. As Mahan’s closest advisor Lodge was popular with all Mahan Democrats. However he was relatively conservative on most economic issues. He believed he was in the perfect spot to be a compromise candidate, should the convention deadlock.
He began a limited speaking tour denouncing the President’s Foreign Policy, while refraining from attacking his domestic policies. The Democrats held their convention in Chicago in June, many feared that this would be the most contentious convention of a sitting President since the 1880’s. The President failed to carry the convention on the first ballot, however the Reform vote was still split between Reed and Mahan Reformers. However hopes that the Part would return to the pre-Remembrance norm of single term Presidents were unfounded and by the third ballot Lodge’s hope for a deadlock were squashed. The power of the Party bosses slowly won over insurgent reformers. Lodge saw which way the wind was blowing and released his delegates for Aldrich.
The Republicans met later that month and nominated the dissatisfied and Reform Reed Democrat Philander Knox. The Republicans hoped that by nominating an easterner they might be able to overcome the perception of them as a regional western party and make some inroads into the vote rich eastern states. They also hoped to draw away Reform Democrats but Knox proved an ineffective campaigner, as his cautious, legalistic speaking style did little to excite voters.
At first Lodge did not campaign for Aldrich. However in the wake of the convention Lodge realized his best chance for winning a future nomination was to gain the support of the party power bosses. When Aldrich came to him ask him to campaign for him and ask his advice. The Mahan Democrats wanted the President to do something to check the growth of British involvement in the Western Hemisphere. Aldrich quickly announced an agreement had been reached for a formal US alliance with Chile and Paraguay. Aldrich otherwise did little active campaigning as he felt it was beneath the dignity of the office, and he was content to rely upon the country being prosperous and at peace (and the Democrat’s enormous campaign finance advantage) to carry him to victory. Lodge
Election Day would see Nelson Aldrich narrowly be reelected. Aldrich again carried 44% of the popular vote, sweeping the coastal states and carrying most of the Mid-West. La Follette though improved upon his 1904 showing by winning 40% of the vote while Knox lost ground for the Republicans and only won 14% of the vote. Aldrich had triumphed, but the Democrats saw much cause for concern in the election results. La Follette had broken through in the industrial Mid-West states, carrying Illinois and coming dangerously close in both Indiana and Ohio. Lodge took notice, intending to run in 1912. Lodge knew he would have to balance popularity with the common man, while at the same time gaining the backing of the party bosses.
Despite Aldrich’s efforts to curb Naval spending the US Navy continued to operate far beyond US shores. The US Navy’s continued to capitalize on the experience gained on it’s circumnavigation of the globe. The US North East Atlantic squadrons routinely visited Germany and it's South West Squadron began scheduled visits to the new base in Monrovia, Liberia. The new South Atlantic Squadron also on occasion visited the US's new Allies in the Mediterranean. It was on one of these South Atlantic Cruises that a US Naval taskforce was divert to the Mediterranean after the eruption of Mount Etna, on Dec. 22, 1908. The city of Messina, Italy was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami. President Aldrich ordered the a task force of three American Cruisers and one Battleship near the Canary Islands on the way back to the US from Liberia diverted to Messina. In one of his last act’s as Senator, Beveridge put before the Senate a Bill requesting relief aid for the beleaguered people of Sicily. The taskforce arrived six days later and sailors of the American ships helped to rescue Italian citizens trapped in the badly damaged Messina. A second mission of four more cruisers arrived three weeks later filled with medical supplies food.
The move was very popular with Many Italian Americans, who often felt alienated from the Democratic Party. This wasdue to Irish American’s domination of the Democratic Party inner-city machine. The mission was a huge success with the people of Italy, as well. The commander of the mission Rear Adm. Charles S. Sperry, was offered a knighthood by King Victor Emmanuelle III, however he was forced to decline due to the 15th Amendment.[3] This act helped to further cement the Quadruple Alliance in the wake of the formation of the Quadruple Entente.
[1] Lodge obviously can’t be Secretary of State and a Senator at the same time so Robert Bacon get’s a recess appointment.
[2] In actuality the active army was never a million men. 1 million men was the size of the Army would be in 1915, when the Upton reforms were to be completed. By 1904 the US Army strength was 625,000 roughly the size of the German Army at the time. The CSA Army had similarly not reached its peek peacetime strength of 550,000 and was still hovering around 400,000. Cutting the size of the army would mean decreasing the cost of constructing barracks and training facilities for the future army.
[3] 15th Amendment (1884): Prohibited Americans from accepting titles of nobility. Originally introduced as part of the Bill of Rights, it was ratified by the states during the anti-foreign backlash following the Second Mexican War. Congress later clarified the amendment to allow US citizens to accept decorations and honors from foreign allies such as Germany. *Craigo
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bguy
Donor
Good update. As a former Navy man myself, I particularly enjoyed seeing that even in TL-191 the US Navy is still performing its international disaster relief mission. (And the good will from that mission may help explain why Italy decided to stay neutral in the First Great War.) Looking forward to seeing Lodge in the FGW.
Bully! I am tempted to jump straight to Roosevelts administrations. The only story i really want to tell about the second Aldrich adminsitration from Lodge's perspective is the contest between Lodge and Roosevelt from the nomination.
I think one of the interesting yet untouched stories is the relationship between US -Austria-Hungary and Italy.
Gaius Julius Magnus
Gone Fishin'
US/Austro-Hunarian relations would be interesting. Maybe the German influenced militarized U.S. serves as a model for reformers throughout the empire on how to keep the empire's nationalities united, also how to avoid having breakdown and split up like the U.S. and C.S.
Another excellent update on Henry Cabot Lodge. I've been waiting for this for a quite a while and it was well worth it.
I've been waiting for this for a quite a while and it was well worth it. Confederate States presidential election, 1885
In 1885, while the United States of America was downtrodden and humiliated, the Confederate States of America a proud and triumphant nation. Having won a second war against the United States, the Second Mexican War, and having solidified their alliances with Great Britain and France in the process, the Confederate States of America gained a great amount of prestige and proved its place amongst the major powers on the world stage. To bring the Confederate States further into this new era of prestige and rising power, the Manumission Amendment to the Confederate Constitution was ratified on New Year’s Day, 1884. With that, any discomfort other major or minor nations had about allying with and/or recognizing a slave-based nation were gone, as the amendment would gradually rid the Confederate States of the controversial institution of slavery. By 1885, almost all nations in Europe and the Americas recognized the CSA. Between 1882 and 1885, the CSA gained new recognition from the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Portugal, Italy and the Ottoman Empire. The rest of the nations in Europe and the America’s would follow suit by 1890. Some of the last nations to recognize the CSA were the Empire of Japan, which did so in 1901 during the Boxer Rebellion, and the nations of Haiti and Liberia, for obvious reasons, which both finally and reluctantly did so in October of 1903, soon after the last Confederate slave was freed.
As a result of all this, President and former War of Succession general James Longstreet, nicknamed "Old Pete", was an extremely popular figure with Confederate politicians and the general public alike. As a result of Longstreet's popularity, by 1885 the newly formed Whig Party, officially formed on New Year’s Day, 1880 as a result of the success of the 1879 Confederate Convention of Commerce in Atlanta, had grown immensely in both electoral and overall power. By 1885, most Confederate governors, though not all, were Whigs, the rest being independents of varying sorts. In 1885, with the presidential election coming up in November, most knew that the Whig Party's increased power meant that they would most likely win the election, said election being decided at the upcoming state conventions. Nevertheless, many wondered who Longstreet’s successor would be. Vice President Lucius Q.C. Lamar was a popular choice among many, but in February of 1885 he declined to run for the Presidency. This shocked many in the Confederate political establishment, though there was no shortage of other Whig presidential hopefuls to replace him. By March of 1885, a number of different candidates had thrown their hats into the ring for the Whig presidential nomination. These included General Edward Alexander Porter of Georgia, General States Rights Gist of South Carolina, Senator Thomas G. Jones of Alabama, Governor Richard Coke of Texas, Governor John Calhoun Sheppard of South Carolina, Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama and Senator Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky. In terms of Independent Confederate presidential hopefuls, by March of 1885 a few men, such as Governor Rufus W. Cobb of Alabama, Governor John Brown Gordon of Georgia, Senator Joseph E. Brown of Georgia and Governor and former Cuban military governor John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky, men who all wanted to keep the CSA free of political parties, all threw their hats into the ring. It is interesting to note how fewer independents sought to run for the Presidency in 1885, due directly to the increasing power of the Whig Party.
However, there was one person, and a very popular one at that, who had not thrown his hat into the ring, and who despite not doing so, many in the Whig Party wanted as their party's Presidential candidate. This man was none other than Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson. Jackson, as the undefeated hero of both the War of Succession and the Second Mexican War, was an extremely popular figure and overall hero in the CSA. As a result, Jackson was called to run for President by many in the Whig Party establishment, as well by a number of different Whig newspapers and even many average Confederate citizens. However, Jackson himself, despite the mass of people calling on him to run for the Presidency, was very-much reluctant and hesitant about doing-so. This was due to the fact that Jackson had always been, for the most-part, apathetic towards politics in general and much more comfortable in and with the military. Jackson was only convinced to throw his hat into the ring by his longtime friend and sometimes rival President James Longstreet. Longstreet had wanted Jackson to run since mid-1882, not long after the aborted coup by Senator Wade Hampton III. Jackson had refused back then, but when Longstreet called upon Jackson to run in 1885, things were different. For one thing, the Manumission Amendment had proved highly controversial. Almost all the presidential hopefuls, Whig or Independent, took a side on the issue. Many saw it as the antithesis to what the Confederate States stood for and why they split from the United States in the first place. Others argued that the split between the North and the South was a natural one based more on their different cultures and the issue of states’ rights than solely slavery, and further argued that gradually abolishing slavery was essential to bringing the CSA into the modern age as a strong North American regional power. Further still, some candidates wanted to keep the Manumission Amendment in place, others wanted to retard its effects and some other more minor candidates called for undoing it all together (though most historians agree that by 1885 this would have been nearly impossible to achieve). While the issue of manumission was the most divisive, there were a number of other divisive issues as well, such as tariffs, the continuation of the CSA's alliance with Britain and France, the state of the CS military and the constitutionality of a Confederate Transatlantic Railroad. As a result of all this, Longstreet and Jackson eventually agreed that Jackson himself was the only man and name with the gravity to ensure the successful implementation of manumission and the retention of Britain and France as Confederate allies. Thus on April 2nd, 1885, Jackson threw his hat into the ring and announced his candidacy for the Whig Party presidential nomination at a Whig Party rally in Richmond. Soon after announcing his candidacy, Jackson, a slave owner himself, set a good example by voluntarily manumitting his own slaves.
With that said and done, all of the aforementioned Whig candidates gradually dropped out of the race by April 25th, and by that same time all pledged their support in one way or another to Jackson. Jackson himself chose former Presidential hopeful Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky to be his running mate, to balance the ticket between the old war hero and an experienced politician, as well as between an eastern Confederate candidate and a more regionally central Confederate candidate.
As for the independent candidates, most dropped out of the Presidential race and after doing so did not support Jackson and the Whigs. Joseph E. Brown and John Hunt Morgan both saw no use in going up against the all-powerful Whigs or criticizing the much beloved Jackson, a man they themselves both greatly respected. However, Rufus W. Cobb and John Gordon Brown saw no reason to admit defeat, seeing that it would only serve embolden their Whig political rivals, and the two had no wish to see the Whigs become even more powerful. While Cobb and Brown originally intended to run on their own and find their own running mates, after a number of meetings with each other and discovering they had many of the same political views in the process, the two agreed to combine their efforts in early May, with Cobb running as President and Brown as his running mate.
Meanwhile, campaign season in the Confederacy was well underway. Whig Party candidate Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson spent the next six months from May to November campaigning for the Presidency by personally travelling and speaking across the country, along with his running mate J.C.S. Blackburn. The two ran on a platform of many promises, such as implementing and continuing with manumission as planned, but also increasing financial compensation to former slave owners, appealing to many who wouldn't have otherwise supported Manumission, Jackson and the Whig Party. Other promises included continuing and strengthening the alliance with Great Britain and France, continuing with Confederate militarization, enacting peacetime conscription, construction of a transcontinental railroad, construction of a port in the city of Guyamas, Sonora and a raising of tariffs. It should be noted that most of these promises, save for manumission and the raising of tariffs, had do with Confederate preparedness for another possible war with the United States. While most every politician in the CSA knew a war with the USA in the very near future was next to impossible, very many saw a future war on the horizon at least ten or twenty years down the line, what with the United States' new friendship and military cooperation with the German Empire. Jackson himself argued that the only way that the CSA could win a war against the USA as quickly and easily as possible, and with the least amount of causalities, was to continue and strengthen their alliance with Britain and France, the nation's which secured Confederate independence in the first place, proved to be her saving grace in the Second Mexican War, and would defend the CSA if ever attacked by the revenchist USA. Jackson argued for peacetime conscription on the grounds that it was very possible the USA would implement said policy in the coming years, and so wanted the CS to be one step ahead of their northern rival. Jackson also argued for the necessity and constitutionality of a transcontinental railroad, stating that not only would it allow for a quicker and easier flow of goods and resources from one side of the country to the other, but also for an easier and quicker flow of armies, armies which could be more quickly deployed from the heartland of the Confederacy to Sonora and Chihuahua, just in case another US-CS war were to brake out and American armies decided to strike in those states first. Considering that those states were the whole reason the US started the Second Mexican War in the first place, they seemed very likely targets to a future, revanchist USA. Jackson further argued said railroad's constitutionality on these grounds and as a matter of national defense. Lastly, Jackson argued for a port in Guaymas as it would give Confederate navies and merchant fleets a tangible presence in the Pacific, which would naturally lead to new markets in Anglo-French Pacific colonies, Australia, New Zealand and perhaps even China, thus increasing Confederate wealth, and also because it would allow, in the event of a new war with the US, for new Confederate Pacific navies to join up with British and French navies and together better harass US navies in the Pacific. Jackson's arguments proved very persuasive and as a result won him many new potential voters.
Meanwhile, Independent's Cobb and Rufus also campaigned throughout May to November, and did so the same way Jackson and Stiles did, by personally travelling and speaking across the country. The two ran on a platform which promised a number of things, such as a slowing down of the Manumission amendment, thus making the increasing of financial compensation, something which Cobb saw as a vast waste of government money, simply unnecessary. The Independent platform was also against any kind of peacetime conscription and called for a downsize on military spending. While Cobb acknowledged the strong possibility of a future war with the US, he still saw it as grossly unnecessary to conscript civilians in peacetime, let alone when no war was bound to happen for at least a decade with the USA so soundly and heavily defeated. The Independent platform also promised, like the Whig platform, to maintain and strengthen the alliance with Britain and France, as Cobb knew all to well how both nations were instrumental to the country's survival. Lastly, the Independent platform promised to keep tariffs as they were, as raising them would prove harmful to Confederate farmers, and the creation of a Confederate Department of Agriculture, both promises heavily appealing to farmers and more rural voters, many against the so-called Confederate aristocracy and planter class that dominated the Whig Party. Cobb and Brown barley mentioned the issue of the transcontinental railroad and never at all mentioned the issue of the Guaymas port during their campaign. Nevertheless, on a few occasions, Cobb stated that a transcontinental railroad was constitutional on the grounds of national defense but not necessary at the (then) present time. At another point he stated that such a railroad should only be completed by 1900 at the latest.
When the state conventions came in November, there was little doubt in anyone's mind about who would win the election. Jackson appealed to voters not only by being who he was, a immensely popular war hero, but also through his promises of bringing the Confederate States into the modern age with manumission and his many promises to keep the Confederate military strong in case of a new war with their northern neighbor. Jackson also had the support of the country's mostly Whig planter elite and businessmen, which pretty much made Jackson unbeatable. Cobb managed to appeal to farmers, rural voters and various types of anti-Whig politicians and voters in general, but compared to Jackson's popularity and support from the higher ups of Confederate society, most historians agree than it was almost impossible for Cobb to win the election. Jackson won the state conventions in his home state of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, his running mate Stiles' home state of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Cobb on the other hand won his home state of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, both Louisiana and Texas long fed up with the supposed eastern Confederate domination of the Whig Party, and the Hispanic states of Cuba, Sonora and Chihuahua, also disenchanted with the "Anglo" dominated Whig Party, which voters from these states saw as apathetic to Hispanic-Confederate interests. Nevertheless, this opposition to the Whig Party, disorganized and with varied interests, was not enough defeat said party in this election, and Jackson won the election easily, gaining 94 EV as opposed to Cobb's 55 EV. Interestingly enough, after his victory many compared Jackson to former US President and fellow Virginian Zachary Taylor, a popular general and war hero who was elected president as a result of his popularity despite little political experience.
With Jackson's victory, what everyone in the Confederacy already knew was further confirmed; that the new Whig Party was, hands down, the dominant party in Confederate politics. All other political parties in the country were either small in scale or regionally based, and so had no hope of surpassing the Whigs in power any time soon. Not to mention even before the Whig Party was officially established in 1880, all CS Presidents before Longstreet were essentially de-facto Whigs, sharing the same political views and policies of the future Whig Party, and as a result are considered Whigs by most historians. The Confederate election of 1885 also would prove significant for number of other reasons. For one thing, this election was the first Confederate election held after the Second Mexican War and last in which an independent would run. More importantly, the 1885 election saw the beginning of a more politically organized system of presidential elections in the CSA, with two sets of candidates running. Come the next election in 1891, a new two party system would be in place.
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (W-VA)/Joseph C. S. Blackburn (W-KY): 94 EV
Rufus W. Cobb (I-AL)/John Gordon Brown (I-GA): 55 EV
In 1885, while the United States of America was downtrodden and humiliated, the Confederate States of America a proud and triumphant nation. Having won a second war against the United States, the Second Mexican War, and having solidified their alliances with Great Britain and France in the process, the Confederate States of America gained a great amount of prestige and proved its place amongst the major powers on the world stage. To bring the Confederate States further into this new era of prestige and rising power, the Manumission Amendment to the Confederate Constitution was ratified on New Year’s Day, 1884. With that, any discomfort other major or minor nations had about allying with and/or recognizing a slave-based nation were gone, as the amendment would gradually rid the Confederate States of the controversial institution of slavery. By 1885, almost all nations in Europe and the Americas recognized the CSA. Between 1882 and 1885, the CSA gained new recognition from the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Portugal, Italy and the Ottoman Empire. The rest of the nations in Europe and the America’s would follow suit by 1890. Some of the last nations to recognize the CSA were the Empire of Japan, which did so in 1901 during the Boxer Rebellion, and the nations of Haiti and Liberia, for obvious reasons, which both finally and reluctantly did so in October of 1903, soon after the last Confederate slave was freed.
As a result of all this, President and former War of Succession general James Longstreet, nicknamed "Old Pete", was an extremely popular figure with Confederate politicians and the general public alike. As a result of Longstreet's popularity, by 1885 the newly formed Whig Party, officially formed on New Year’s Day, 1880 as a result of the success of the 1879 Confederate Convention of Commerce in Atlanta, had grown immensely in both electoral and overall power. By 1885, most Confederate governors, though not all, were Whigs, the rest being independents of varying sorts. In 1885, with the presidential election coming up in November, most knew that the Whig Party's increased power meant that they would most likely win the election, said election being decided at the upcoming state conventions. Nevertheless, many wondered who Longstreet’s successor would be. Vice President Lucius Q.C. Lamar was a popular choice among many, but in February of 1885 he declined to run for the Presidency. This shocked many in the Confederate political establishment, though there was no shortage of other Whig presidential hopefuls to replace him. By March of 1885, a number of different candidates had thrown their hats into the ring for the Whig presidential nomination. These included General Edward Alexander Porter of Georgia, General States Rights Gist of South Carolina, Senator Thomas G. Jones of Alabama, Governor Richard Coke of Texas, Governor John Calhoun Sheppard of South Carolina, Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama and Senator Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky. In terms of Independent Confederate presidential hopefuls, by March of 1885 a few men, such as Governor Rufus W. Cobb of Alabama, Governor John Brown Gordon of Georgia, Senator Joseph E. Brown of Georgia and Governor and former Cuban military governor John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky, men who all wanted to keep the CSA free of political parties, all threw their hats into the ring. It is interesting to note how fewer independents sought to run for the Presidency in 1885, due directly to the increasing power of the Whig Party.
However, there was one person, and a very popular one at that, who had not thrown his hat into the ring, and who despite not doing so, many in the Whig Party wanted as their party's Presidential candidate. This man was none other than Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson. Jackson, as the undefeated hero of both the War of Succession and the Second Mexican War, was an extremely popular figure and overall hero in the CSA. As a result, Jackson was called to run for President by many in the Whig Party establishment, as well by a number of different Whig newspapers and even many average Confederate citizens. However, Jackson himself, despite the mass of people calling on him to run for the Presidency, was very-much reluctant and hesitant about doing-so. This was due to the fact that Jackson had always been, for the most-part, apathetic towards politics in general and much more comfortable in and with the military. Jackson was only convinced to throw his hat into the ring by his longtime friend and sometimes rival President James Longstreet. Longstreet had wanted Jackson to run since mid-1882, not long after the aborted coup by Senator Wade Hampton III. Jackson had refused back then, but when Longstreet called upon Jackson to run in 1885, things were different. For one thing, the Manumission Amendment had proved highly controversial. Almost all the presidential hopefuls, Whig or Independent, took a side on the issue. Many saw it as the antithesis to what the Confederate States stood for and why they split from the United States in the first place. Others argued that the split between the North and the South was a natural one based more on their different cultures and the issue of states’ rights than solely slavery, and further argued that gradually abolishing slavery was essential to bringing the CSA into the modern age as a strong North American regional power. Further still, some candidates wanted to keep the Manumission Amendment in place, others wanted to retard its effects and some other more minor candidates called for undoing it all together (though most historians agree that by 1885 this would have been nearly impossible to achieve). While the issue of manumission was the most divisive, there were a number of other divisive issues as well, such as tariffs, the continuation of the CSA's alliance with Britain and France, the state of the CS military and the constitutionality of a Confederate Transatlantic Railroad. As a result of all this, Longstreet and Jackson eventually agreed that Jackson himself was the only man and name with the gravity to ensure the successful implementation of manumission and the retention of Britain and France as Confederate allies. Thus on April 2nd, 1885, Jackson threw his hat into the ring and announced his candidacy for the Whig Party presidential nomination at a Whig Party rally in Richmond. Soon after announcing his candidacy, Jackson, a slave owner himself, set a good example by voluntarily manumitting his own slaves.
With that said and done, all of the aforementioned Whig candidates gradually dropped out of the race by April 25th, and by that same time all pledged their support in one way or another to Jackson. Jackson himself chose former Presidential hopeful Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky to be his running mate, to balance the ticket between the old war hero and an experienced politician, as well as between an eastern Confederate candidate and a more regionally central Confederate candidate.
As for the independent candidates, most dropped out of the Presidential race and after doing so did not support Jackson and the Whigs. Joseph E. Brown and John Hunt Morgan both saw no use in going up against the all-powerful Whigs or criticizing the much beloved Jackson, a man they themselves both greatly respected. However, Rufus W. Cobb and John Gordon Brown saw no reason to admit defeat, seeing that it would only serve embolden their Whig political rivals, and the two had no wish to see the Whigs become even more powerful. While Cobb and Brown originally intended to run on their own and find their own running mates, after a number of meetings with each other and discovering they had many of the same political views in the process, the two agreed to combine their efforts in early May, with Cobb running as President and Brown as his running mate.
Meanwhile, campaign season in the Confederacy was well underway. Whig Party candidate Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson spent the next six months from May to November campaigning for the Presidency by personally travelling and speaking across the country, along with his running mate J.C.S. Blackburn. The two ran on a platform of many promises, such as implementing and continuing with manumission as planned, but also increasing financial compensation to former slave owners, appealing to many who wouldn't have otherwise supported Manumission, Jackson and the Whig Party. Other promises included continuing and strengthening the alliance with Great Britain and France, continuing with Confederate militarization, enacting peacetime conscription, construction of a transcontinental railroad, construction of a port in the city of Guyamas, Sonora and a raising of tariffs. It should be noted that most of these promises, save for manumission and the raising of tariffs, had do with Confederate preparedness for another possible war with the United States. While most every politician in the CSA knew a war with the USA in the very near future was next to impossible, very many saw a future war on the horizon at least ten or twenty years down the line, what with the United States' new friendship and military cooperation with the German Empire. Jackson himself argued that the only way that the CSA could win a war against the USA as quickly and easily as possible, and with the least amount of causalities, was to continue and strengthen their alliance with Britain and France, the nation's which secured Confederate independence in the first place, proved to be her saving grace in the Second Mexican War, and would defend the CSA if ever attacked by the revenchist USA. Jackson argued for peacetime conscription on the grounds that it was very possible the USA would implement said policy in the coming years, and so wanted the CS to be one step ahead of their northern rival. Jackson also argued for the necessity and constitutionality of a transcontinental railroad, stating that not only would it allow for a quicker and easier flow of goods and resources from one side of the country to the other, but also for an easier and quicker flow of armies, armies which could be more quickly deployed from the heartland of the Confederacy to Sonora and Chihuahua, just in case another US-CS war were to brake out and American armies decided to strike in those states first. Considering that those states were the whole reason the US started the Second Mexican War in the first place, they seemed very likely targets to a future, revanchist USA. Jackson further argued said railroad's constitutionality on these grounds and as a matter of national defense. Lastly, Jackson argued for a port in Guaymas as it would give Confederate navies and merchant fleets a tangible presence in the Pacific, which would naturally lead to new markets in Anglo-French Pacific colonies, Australia, New Zealand and perhaps even China, thus increasing Confederate wealth, and also because it would allow, in the event of a new war with the US, for new Confederate Pacific navies to join up with British and French navies and together better harass US navies in the Pacific. Jackson's arguments proved very persuasive and as a result won him many new potential voters.
Meanwhile, Independent's Cobb and Rufus also campaigned throughout May to November, and did so the same way Jackson and Stiles did, by personally travelling and speaking across the country. The two ran on a platform which promised a number of things, such as a slowing down of the Manumission amendment, thus making the increasing of financial compensation, something which Cobb saw as a vast waste of government money, simply unnecessary. The Independent platform was also against any kind of peacetime conscription and called for a downsize on military spending. While Cobb acknowledged the strong possibility of a future war with the US, he still saw it as grossly unnecessary to conscript civilians in peacetime, let alone when no war was bound to happen for at least a decade with the USA so soundly and heavily defeated. The Independent platform also promised, like the Whig platform, to maintain and strengthen the alliance with Britain and France, as Cobb knew all to well how both nations were instrumental to the country's survival. Lastly, the Independent platform promised to keep tariffs as they were, as raising them would prove harmful to Confederate farmers, and the creation of a Confederate Department of Agriculture, both promises heavily appealing to farmers and more rural voters, many against the so-called Confederate aristocracy and planter class that dominated the Whig Party. Cobb and Brown barley mentioned the issue of the transcontinental railroad and never at all mentioned the issue of the Guaymas port during their campaign. Nevertheless, on a few occasions, Cobb stated that a transcontinental railroad was constitutional on the grounds of national defense but not necessary at the (then) present time. At another point he stated that such a railroad should only be completed by 1900 at the latest.
When the state conventions came in November, there was little doubt in anyone's mind about who would win the election. Jackson appealed to voters not only by being who he was, a immensely popular war hero, but also through his promises of bringing the Confederate States into the modern age with manumission and his many promises to keep the Confederate military strong in case of a new war with their northern neighbor. Jackson also had the support of the country's mostly Whig planter elite and businessmen, which pretty much made Jackson unbeatable. Cobb managed to appeal to farmers, rural voters and various types of anti-Whig politicians and voters in general, but compared to Jackson's popularity and support from the higher ups of Confederate society, most historians agree than it was almost impossible for Cobb to win the election. Jackson won the state conventions in his home state of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, his running mate Stiles' home state of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Cobb on the other hand won his home state of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, both Louisiana and Texas long fed up with the supposed eastern Confederate domination of the Whig Party, and the Hispanic states of Cuba, Sonora and Chihuahua, also disenchanted with the "Anglo" dominated Whig Party, which voters from these states saw as apathetic to Hispanic-Confederate interests. Nevertheless, this opposition to the Whig Party, disorganized and with varied interests, was not enough defeat said party in this election, and Jackson won the election easily, gaining 94 EV as opposed to Cobb's 55 EV. Interestingly enough, after his victory many compared Jackson to former US President and fellow Virginian Zachary Taylor, a popular general and war hero who was elected president as a result of his popularity despite little political experience.
With Jackson's victory, what everyone in the Confederacy already knew was further confirmed; that the new Whig Party was, hands down, the dominant party in Confederate politics. All other political parties in the country were either small in scale or regionally based, and so had no hope of surpassing the Whigs in power any time soon. Not to mention even before the Whig Party was officially established in 1880, all CS Presidents before Longstreet were essentially de-facto Whigs, sharing the same political views and policies of the future Whig Party, and as a result are considered Whigs by most historians. The Confederate election of 1885 also would prove significant for number of other reasons. For one thing, this election was the first Confederate election held after the Second Mexican War and last in which an independent would run. More importantly, the 1885 election saw the beginning of a more politically organized system of presidential elections in the CSA, with two sets of candidates running. Come the next election in 1891, a new two party system would be in place.
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (W-VA)/Joseph C. S. Blackburn (W-KY): 94 EV
Rufus W. Cobb (I-AL)/John Gordon Brown (I-GA): 55 EV
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This could not have taken place. The CS Constitution limited the President to one six year term. Longstreet could not have run again, period. People would not have called for him to run again without also calling for an amendment to the Constitution. Longstreet would not have taken any special efforts to announce he would not bee seeking another term.
Justice of the Supreme Court (Chief or Associate) was not an elected position in the CSA (or in the USA, for that matter). A perspective justice was nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate (as in the US). Therefore, Lamar couldn't "seek" the position in any meaningful way beyond telling anyone who would listen "Boy, I really, really want to be Chief Justice someday. That would be SOO great", and hoping like hell the incumbent Chief died while the Whigs controlled the presidency and the Senate.