I didn't say they didn't have an agrarian base, I said they didn't have a Plains base.
I've lived in the Midwest my entire life. We're not the Plains.
TL-191: Filling the Gaps
- Thread starter Craigo
- Start date
I didn't say they didn't have an agrarian base, I said they didn't have a Plains base.
I've lived in the Midwest my entire life. We're not the Plains.
I don't think there's any convention there. The CSA seems to be like the OTL USA there with no formal colors.Thank you very kindly for explaining this Turquoise Blue; out of curiosity, may I please ask if there is any similar convention for the Confederacy and if there is just what the logic underpinning the choice of colours is? (I must admit that I love such little tidbits of 'Behind the Scenes' knowledge).
I would recommend going with orange for the Whigs, purple for the Rad-Libs (Or silver, it's not a bad idea, but purple sounds better) and butternut for Freedom.
Though I'll settle for the argument that there is the Great Lakes Midwest, and then there is that spot of land to the west that could also be attached to the Midwest.
The Census Bureau thinks so, for reasons of census.
I don't really think so, we're just really different.
Alright sure, I'll just assume Turtledove meant the census definition.
Yes, but that was 1944, and they won Kansas as well. That election is pretty much a freak one.
bguy
Donor
But there's also this quote from Blood and Iron:
"But the Republicans, mostly farm-belt Congressmen from the Mid-West, also proved to have little sympathy for the colored man's plight."
I usually take "Farm belt" to mean Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. (Though I agree it is rather odd to call those states part of the Mid-West.)
There was also this quote from "In at the Death".
"The Republican candidate, the energetic young Governor of Minnesota, stole his home state and Wisconsin from the Socialists in three-cornered races, and also took traditional Republican strongholds like Indiana and Kansas."
So the GOP seems to have at least been strong in Kansas among the plains states.
According to Flora Hamburger in TCCH: Indiana and Wisconsin were reliable Socialist strongholds, Kansas was solidly Democratic since the 19th century, and Republicans were competitive in Illinois, Michigan and Iowa.
The same person, IATD: Republicans take Minnesota and Wisconsin, and "traditional Republican strongholds" like Indiana and Kansas.
Hrmph.
Well, TCCH was in the 1910s, IATD was in the 1940s. No reason why a party's base can't change over 30 years.
And "traditional Republican strongholds". Note "traditional". I assume that means 19th century. Or states where they do better down-ballot.
That TCCH figure was from 1928.
And I think you're reading a little much into the word "traditional."
Oh yeah, got it mixed up with one of the WWI books.
Well, the GOP is quite small at that time.
bguy
Donor
So putting aside for the moment the contradictions of Kansas somehow being both a Democrat and Republican stronghold and Indiana being both a Republican and Socialist stronghold, that would make the Republicans at least somewhat competitive at the state-wide level in:
Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
(I would also assume they are competitive in Nebraska, though that isn't explicitly stated anywhere in the novels.)
I am only sorry that I was unable to equal the likes of Mr President Mahan and Zoidberg by giving a character profile that spanned the entirety of the subject's life in some detail AND managed to include details fleshing out the political situation at the time beyond the obvious.
They are the masters and I am merely a journeyman word-smith!
In all honesty a good part of what drew me into posting on this thread was the masterful biography of Confederate President Semmes that gave a sketch of an abortive coup in Richmond that contained material substantial enough that novels have been built on weaker foundations, which in fact inspired me to imagine a novel focussing exclusively on the twists and turns in Confederate politics between the Wars (entitled AMERICAN EMPIRE: PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS, which I imagine as a tragedy forming a sort of Democratic Response to the Freedom Party focus in the series which likely makes their triumph seem more inevitable than it was ... now if only I knew how to finish it and sell Mr Turtledove on the prospect of a little franchising!).
I thought it was really good. Small, concise and to the point.
Start out small dude, but with big ambitions, you can do more.
Well now that you mention it …
Wade Hampton V
b. 19th January 1876 SC.
d. August 1922 AL.
- Learning that he shared a birthday with the legendary Robert E. Lee himself and had been born in the Centennial Year besides might well have been enough in itself for the young Wade Hampton V to become convinced that he must have been born to achieve Great Things; yet in truth The Quest for Greatness was also thrust upon him by the Black Mark that had long hung over his family name and more specifically attached itself to that of his own namesake Grandfather.
Wade Hampton III had been a hero during the War of Secession; the only Rank Amateur to equal his achievements in the field had been the first Nathan Bedford Forrest - but he had also been the man who came within a hairs-breadth of triggering the Third American Revolution at the expense of the Confederate States, driven by his disgust over the Manumission mandated by President Longstreet.
Having been thwarted in his attempt to persuade South Carolina to secede from the Confederacy as it had seceded from The Union, Grandfather Wade had only narrowly been able to escape with his life, but outside South Carolina the family's name was mud (at least in the mouths of those that mattered most).
Confronted with this blot on his family's escutcheon, Wade Hampton the Fifth (not quite ten years old) decided that it was his duty to erase it and further decided that he would do so not only by equalling the achievements of Robert Lee but by excelling upon them.
- Determined not only to emulate the manner of Lee "dignity without hauteur, grandeur without pride" as well as a complete control of his passions, the youngest Wade Hampton was also determined to follow in his footsteps so far as was humanly possible; applying for a place as a cadet at West Point* Hampton was polite in the face of opposition but utterly refused to be rejected even in the face of acute discomfort on the part of the United States Military Academy.
Despite the incipient hostility of the other cadets, Hampton persevered until his years of study were completed and distinguished himself in the course of those studies (due not least to a fine quality of politic discretion, a knack for keeping his hands clean and a gift for intrigue); he even managed to make a few friends.
Returning to the Confederacy Hampton entered the ranks of the CS Army; in his letter of application he noted that were he not accepted as an officer, he would be content to enlist as a private soldier ("a gentleman ranker" to use his own words).
As it turned out, such a show of humility would not be required; he was commissioned into the Confederate Cavalry without undue trouble.
(*A curious choice for a Southerner but as it turned out a shrewd and useful one - the Virginia Military Institute would have blackballed his admission, taking up the place at The Citadel marked out for him since birth would have been submitting to a destiny as a Big Fish in a small pond and at West Point he would become intimately familiar with the men who would become his future opponents in the Great War.)
- Possessed of an instinct for aggression, excellent manners, an aptitude for intrigue and an interest in the rude mechanics of War somewhat unusual for a cavalryman of his generation, perhaps the greatest blessing enjoyed by Lieutenant Hampton was that elusive ability to walk with kings, yet never lose the Common Touch; it was a capacity to make himself loved (or at least well-liked) by his men without compromising either military efficiency or discipline that laid the foundations for Wade Hampton Vs rise to the most prestigious field command in the Confederate Armed Services - The Army of Northern Virginia itself.
It was a path to high command and martial glory that would not run smooth; it would pass over the bones of the last Apache hostiles and those Comanche or Kiowa braves who preferred to ride on as renegades rather than submit to the CS-USA rapprochement that left these Privateers of the Great Plains deprived of the safe harbours which had kept them from going the way of the Lakota, as well as the Cuban Rebels who remained persistent (although no longer endemic) even as late as the turn of the Twentieth Century.
It was a path which would also take him through thickets of opposition from those officers reluctant to see the grandson of Wade Hampton III achieve the highest positions of trust in the Confederate Army; he would face this opposition with courage, conviction, courtesy and a gift for soldiering too substantial to be allowed to moulder (aided and abetted by skilled his ability to walk the line between Fire-Eaters and the Louisville School (both philosophically and politically).
In the end, coupled with the lingering prestige of his name and fortune, as well as a certain amount of political in-fighting, General Wade Hampton V was offered the Army of Northern Virginia and accepted with delight equalled only by that with which he had experienced on being accepted as husband not only by a daughter of the Famous Lee Family but by the Family itself.
- From the outbreak of the Great War General Wade Hampton showed himself to be an educated solider and a commander of the utmost aggression; almost alone of the Armies which launched themselves upon one another in that bloody year 1914, The Army of Northern Virginia managed to complete its initial objectives and came close enough to fulfilling its ultimate objectives for the United States, arguably at the very peak of its military preparedness and disposing of immense power, to experience a thrill of fear that might have shivered its leadership into fatal errors had the Government been headed by a President less redoubtable than Theodore Roosevelt.
While sheer good luck played its part (TWO enemy commanders put out of action with heart attacks), the fighting spirit with which the Army of Northern Virginia had been invested by its commander, his shrewd exploitation of the opportunities offered him and his technical proficiency in command (not to mention his cultivation of one of the strongest intelligence networks of the War and assiduous acquisition of resources) played an equal role in carrying the Confederacy into their enemies De Jure capital (excelling the achievement of Robert Lee, who had avoided the fortified outworks of Washington and those who had merely shelled the city into submission during the Second Mexican War) and to the very gates of Philadelphia, the beating heart of the United States War Effort in actual fact.
The effectiveness with which Wade Hampton V had conducted his campaigns can be measured with the simple fact that under his leadership the Army of Northern Virginia had advanced further than any other Confederate Force and had never yet yielded an inch of its native soil to the Enemy at the time of his relief.
The price of these successes in human lives cannot be overstated; yet in all fairness it should also be noted that he had never wilfully targeted civilian populations in the course of his depredations against the United States and those of his soldiers who had were subject to summary military justice.
The same cannot be said of the United States Army.
- What brought about General Hampton's relief and honourable retirement? Quite frankly he was a political soldier, had always been a political soldier and now he was a political soldier who had reached too high and found that his reach exceeded his grasp.
Having attempted to use his successes in Maryland and Pennsylvania as the springboard that would launch him to the heights of the General Staff that would allow him a better platform from which to advocate a negotiated peace with the United States he faltered; Having anyway made an attempt to convince his superiors to make a separate peace with the United States upon realising that his successes in the field were not mirrored elsewhere and further that his Armies successes could not be sustained in the face of dwindling reserves he failed.
He was persuaded to yield up his command to another man and reassigned; as commander of the Virginia Militia (and therefore of the last line of defence in the steadily-increasing likelihood of a Yankee descent upon the National Capitol) his new position was far from an insult, but it was a serious demotion and an equally-serious brake upon his ambitions.
- The truth was that The Army of Northern Virginia was the pinnacle of his ambitions, but not the very limit of his hopes; throughout his career Wade Hampton V had kept half an eye on the Grey House, intending it to be the culmination of his career in public service - and with the Whig Establishment tarred with black mark of the first Lost War in the history of the Confederacy, from which he had emerged as the only Confederate General to retain his laurels (however battered and barbed they might be), his chances of securing nomination as a dark horse candidate were as good as they would ever be.
Paired with a rock-solid Whig who would act as his tutor in the technicalities of Confederate Politics and the personalities of the Whig Party (not to mention temper Hampton's tendency to lose sight of practicality when in the throes of the Grand Ideas that frequently visited him - sometimes implemented to spectacular effect, sometimes resulting in a whimper and not a bang), Wade Hampton would be elected as the Eleventh President of the Confederate States after triumphing in the Election of 1920.
It was, by any standard, a spectacular reversal of fortunes for a general who had been honourably relieved of his command, especially one who was also the grandson of a disgraced man - it would also, as it turned out, be the last triumph President Hampton would ever enjoy.
- In August 1922 President Wade Hampton was in Birmingham Alabama, attending the funeral of one Francis Shelley White, a former Senator; in theory he was there only to pay his respects - in practice he was cocking a snook at the Freedom Party in one of its strongholds (as well as working to build up a rapport with the local population that would cut into the Party hold on their imaginations).
He was (courtesy of the intelligence network which he had never neglected to maintain) keenly aware that the Freedom Party fiercely resented his actions, but equally aware that it's leadership were not stupid enough to go any farther in their acts of Political Violence than the Whigs themselves had (Wade Hampton had never encouraged such acts on the part of his own supporters, but had turned a blind eye to those who had in the interests of meeting fire with fire) which stopped far short of assault on a Public Figure powerful enough to avenge such an insult tenfold.
He was as a result confident in his personal safety and equally confident in his supporters to look after themselves, especially when bolstered by his own security detail. Nevertheless he was enough of an old soldier to take all necessary precautions and a few more besides; his bodyguards were expecting trouble and were prepared accordingly for anything up to a battalion strength attack.
They were NOT prepared for a lone gunman to take advantage of the distraction offered by a wedge of Freedom Party stalwarts to gun down the President of the Confederate States - executing the first successful assassination of a American President, CS or US, in the history of those republics - but then neither were the Freedom Party themselves.
Wade Hampton V
b. 19th January 1876 SC.
d. August 1922 AL.
- Learning that he shared a birthday with the legendary Robert E. Lee himself and had been born in the Centennial Year besides might well have been enough in itself for the young Wade Hampton V to become convinced that he must have been born to achieve Great Things; yet in truth The Quest for Greatness was also thrust upon him by the Black Mark that had long hung over his family name and more specifically attached itself to that of his own namesake Grandfather.
Wade Hampton III had been a hero during the War of Secession; the only Rank Amateur to equal his achievements in the field had been the first Nathan Bedford Forrest - but he had also been the man who came within a hairs-breadth of triggering the Third American Revolution at the expense of the Confederate States, driven by his disgust over the Manumission mandated by President Longstreet.
Having been thwarted in his attempt to persuade South Carolina to secede from the Confederacy as it had seceded from The Union, Grandfather Wade had only narrowly been able to escape with his life, but outside South Carolina the family's name was mud (at least in the mouths of those that mattered most).
Confronted with this blot on his family's escutcheon, Wade Hampton the Fifth (not quite ten years old) decided that it was his duty to erase it and further decided that he would do so not only by equalling the achievements of Robert Lee but by excelling upon them.
- Determined not only to emulate the manner of Lee "dignity without hauteur, grandeur without pride" as well as a complete control of his passions, the youngest Wade Hampton was also determined to follow in his footsteps so far as was humanly possible; applying for a place as a cadet at West Point* Hampton was polite in the face of opposition but utterly refused to be rejected even in the face of acute discomfort on the part of the United States Military Academy.
Despite the incipient hostility of the other cadets, Hampton persevered until his years of study were completed and distinguished himself in the course of those studies (due not least to a fine quality of politic discretion, a knack for keeping his hands clean and a gift for intrigue); he even managed to make a few friends.
Returning to the Confederacy Hampton entered the ranks of the CS Army; in his letter of application he noted that were he not accepted as an officer, he would be content to enlist as a private soldier ("a gentleman ranker" to use his own words).
As it turned out, such a show of humility would not be required; he was commissioned into the Confederate Cavalry without undue trouble.
(*A curious choice for a Southerner but as it turned out a shrewd and useful one - the Virginia Military Institute would have blackballed his admission, taking up the place at The Citadel marked out for him since birth would have been submitting to a destiny as a Big Fish in a small pond and at West Point he would become intimately familiar with the men who would become his future opponents in the Great War.)
- Possessed of an instinct for aggression, excellent manners, an aptitude for intrigue and an interest in the rude mechanics of War somewhat unusual for a cavalryman of his generation, perhaps the greatest blessing enjoyed by Lieutenant Hampton was that elusive ability to walk with kings, yet never lose the Common Touch; it was a capacity to make himself loved (or at least well-liked) by his men without compromising either military efficiency or discipline that laid the foundations for Wade Hampton Vs rise to the most prestigious field command in the Confederate Armed Services - The Army of Northern Virginia itself.
It was a path to high command and martial glory that would not run smooth; it would pass over the bones of the last Apache hostiles and those Comanche or Kiowa braves who preferred to ride on as renegades rather than submit to the CS-USA rapprochement that left these Privateers of the Great Plains deprived of the safe harbours which had kept them from going the way of the Lakota, as well as the Cuban Rebels who remained persistent (although no longer endemic) even as late as the turn of the Twentieth Century.
It was a path which would also take him through thickets of opposition from those officers reluctant to see the grandson of Wade Hampton III achieve the highest positions of trust in the Confederate Army; he would face this opposition with courage, conviction, courtesy and a gift for soldiering too substantial to be allowed to moulder (aided and abetted by skilled his ability to walk the line between Fire-Eaters and the Louisville School (both philosophically and politically).
In the end, coupled with the lingering prestige of his name and fortune, as well as a certain amount of political in-fighting, General Wade Hampton V was offered the Army of Northern Virginia and accepted with delight equalled only by that with which he had experienced on being accepted as husband not only by a daughter of the Famous Lee Family but by the Family itself.
- From the outbreak of the Great War General Wade Hampton showed himself to be an educated solider and a commander of the utmost aggression; almost alone of the Armies which launched themselves upon one another in that bloody year 1914, The Army of Northern Virginia managed to complete its initial objectives and came close enough to fulfilling its ultimate objectives for the United States, arguably at the very peak of its military preparedness and disposing of immense power, to experience a thrill of fear that might have shivered its leadership into fatal errors had the Government been headed by a President less redoubtable than Theodore Roosevelt.
While sheer good luck played its part (TWO enemy commanders put out of action with heart attacks), the fighting spirit with which the Army of Northern Virginia had been invested by its commander, his shrewd exploitation of the opportunities offered him and his technical proficiency in command (not to mention his cultivation of one of the strongest intelligence networks of the War and assiduous acquisition of resources) played an equal role in carrying the Confederacy into their enemies De Jure capital (excelling the achievement of Robert Lee, who had avoided the fortified outworks of Washington and those who had merely shelled the city into submission during the Second Mexican War) and to the very gates of Philadelphia, the beating heart of the United States War Effort in actual fact.
The effectiveness with which Wade Hampton V had conducted his campaigns can be measured with the simple fact that under his leadership the Army of Northern Virginia had advanced further than any other Confederate Force and had never yet yielded an inch of its native soil to the Enemy at the time of his relief.
The price of these successes in human lives cannot be overstated; yet in all fairness it should also be noted that he had never wilfully targeted civilian populations in the course of his depredations against the United States and those of his soldiers who had were subject to summary military justice.
The same cannot be said of the United States Army.
- What brought about General Hampton's relief and honourable retirement? Quite frankly he was a political soldier, had always been a political soldier and now he was a political soldier who had reached too high and found that his reach exceeded his grasp.
Having attempted to use his successes in Maryland and Pennsylvania as the springboard that would launch him to the heights of the General Staff that would allow him a better platform from which to advocate a negotiated peace with the United States he faltered; Having anyway made an attempt to convince his superiors to make a separate peace with the United States upon realising that his successes in the field were not mirrored elsewhere and further that his Armies successes could not be sustained in the face of dwindling reserves he failed.
He was persuaded to yield up his command to another man and reassigned; as commander of the Virginia Militia (and therefore of the last line of defence in the steadily-increasing likelihood of a Yankee descent upon the National Capitol) his new position was far from an insult, but it was a serious demotion and an equally-serious brake upon his ambitions.
- The truth was that The Army of Northern Virginia was the pinnacle of his ambitions, but not the very limit of his hopes; throughout his career Wade Hampton V had kept half an eye on the Grey House, intending it to be the culmination of his career in public service - and with the Whig Establishment tarred with black mark of the first Lost War in the history of the Confederacy, from which he had emerged as the only Confederate General to retain his laurels (however battered and barbed they might be), his chances of securing nomination as a dark horse candidate were as good as they would ever be.
Paired with a rock-solid Whig who would act as his tutor in the technicalities of Confederate Politics and the personalities of the Whig Party (not to mention temper Hampton's tendency to lose sight of practicality when in the throes of the Grand Ideas that frequently visited him - sometimes implemented to spectacular effect, sometimes resulting in a whimper and not a bang), Wade Hampton would be elected as the Eleventh President of the Confederate States after triumphing in the Election of 1920.
It was, by any standard, a spectacular reversal of fortunes for a general who had been honourably relieved of his command, especially one who was also the grandson of a disgraced man - it would also, as it turned out, be the last triumph President Hampton would ever enjoy.
- In August 1922 President Wade Hampton was in Birmingham Alabama, attending the funeral of one Francis Shelley White, a former Senator; in theory he was there only to pay his respects - in practice he was cocking a snook at the Freedom Party in one of its strongholds (as well as working to build up a rapport with the local population that would cut into the Party hold on their imaginations).
He was (courtesy of the intelligence network which he had never neglected to maintain) keenly aware that the Freedom Party fiercely resented his actions, but equally aware that it's leadership were not stupid enough to go any farther in their acts of Political Violence than the Whigs themselves had (Wade Hampton had never encouraged such acts on the part of his own supporters, but had turned a blind eye to those who had in the interests of meeting fire with fire) which stopped far short of assault on a Public Figure powerful enough to avenge such an insult tenfold.
He was as a result confident in his personal safety and equally confident in his supporters to look after themselves, especially when bolstered by his own security detail. Nevertheless he was enough of an old soldier to take all necessary precautions and a few more besides; his bodyguards were expecting trouble and were prepared accordingly for anything up to a battalion strength attack.
They were NOT prepared for a lone gunman to take advantage of the distraction offered by a wedge of Freedom Party stalwarts to gun down the President of the Confederate States - executing the first successful assassination of a American President, CS or US, in the history of those republics - but then neither were the Freedom Party themselves.
Very very nice, i do enjoy Hampton V's profile.
I do recall that General Jeb Jr. had been serving in a senior position of the ANV for a time.. I wonder if Hampton and Jeb ever crossed paths and what their relationship would have been like, both before and after Jeb Jr was reassigned to the General Staff.
I do recall that General Jeb Jr. had been serving in a senior position of the ANV for a time.. I wonder if Hampton and Jeb ever crossed paths and what their relationship would have been like, both before and after Jeb Jr was reassigned to the General Staff.
Really?
Ok, biography aside, I think you need to reconsider some of your birthday years. Seriously, many of them just seem too young. To me, i always got the feeling that Wade Hampton was significantly older than Burton Mitchell - well several years at least - and that Mitchell still had several on Featherston, but that they were still close enough. Personally i would give several more years to Hampton here. I would go Hampton in his 50s, Burton in his 40s and Featherston in his 30 around the time of Hamptons death.
And again, Ferdinand Koenig is not going to be 20 years old. He would be 19-20 at the time when Featherston performed his successful coup in 1919-1920. He is way too young to be the someone who was the Party Secretary. He also has to be closer in age to Featherston, if not a little bit older.
Wade Hampton V definitely has to be older than 46. The man commanding the army of Northern Virginia in 1914 would have to be older than 38. It was more like he was 58 or older. The Confederate General Corp by that time was pretty conservative in the eyes of Jake Featherston. I have to imagine like Commanders in most Professional Armies at the outbreak of the war, the CSA Army commanders would be in there late 50s and 60s. The Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia would be the most coveted command in the CS Army. There is no way they would give to anyone but one of the senior most officers and that means three decades of service minimum. Google the Chiefs of Staff and Field Commanders of World Wr I in 1914: Pershing 54, Nivelle 58, Joffre 62, Foch 63, Haige 53, Hindenburg 67, Moltke the younger 66.
There is not alot of talk of the aborted Wade Hampton III coup in the books. I imagined that Longstreet would have swept any talk of a potential coup under the rug, just to save the amendment. It probably wasn't widely known, except by some powerful insiders.
I agree with your overall description of his personality. I would imagine flashy and cavalier, but at the core good organizational skills and ability to understand what those around him most want to hear.
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