I imagine that Wade Hampton V would have been born either in 1863 or 1864, after the POD in September of 1862. This would make him 51 or 50 when the First Great War broke out, either of which seems like a good enough age for him to be commanding the Army of Northern Virginia. What do you guys think?
TL-191: Filling the Gaps
- Thread starter Craigo
- Start date
I would think that his opponent in the 1921 election, one Sergeant Featherston of the First Richmond Howitzers in the Army of Northern Virginia, would have mentioned that in his rants about Whig backstabbing.
I think making him CiC ANV was mostly this thread. That said, the fact that he is a Whig makes anyone on Jakes Shitlist.
I think that the time has come for me to gracefully bow to the consensus and concede your expertise in the subject matter besides - please forgive my lack of aptitude for picking out birthdays (although I hope that the days I have chosen work well enough, even if the dates seem inappropriate).
One detail I would like to preserve is that both the day and the year of Wade Hampton the Fifth's birth have some kind of historical significance in the Confederacy - the sort of coincidence that would give an impressionable youngster a conviction that he was born to Destiny, a conviction that would help support him in the face of what I imagine would be the humiliation of his Grandfather's treasonable conduct (even if the Confederate citizen at large is unaware of this, I would imagine it obsesses the Hampton family).
That was actually my mental image of the whole business myself - I took the liberty of imagining that Wade Hampton III would simultaneously seek to turn opposition to the ratification process for the Manumission Amendment in South Carolina into something more like a Secession Movement (very publicly in fact), while covertly working out a coup that would topple the Presidency and the Manumission Amendment.
I imagine that his namesake son played a crucial role in foiling the coup before it could seriously get off the ground and that Old Pete (whom I tend to imagine as the Eminence Gris behind the Jackson Presidency) was therefore willing to hush the whole thing up - but that the Confederate Establishment bore enough of a grudge to reduce the Hampton Family to big fish in a small pond (South Carolina) in perpetuity.
Does this make sense? (It makes Wade Hampton III an old shame for his family, but not a public scandal).
Could somebody please post appropriate quotations indicating the relative ages of the Freedom Party leadership? (It seems I have some changes to make and I would like to get a first-hand account so that I can tighten up the internal chronology involved).
I would be very grateful if someone were to do so.
Thank you very kindly Vesica!
Well the new consensus seems to be pointing to the fact that Hampton was the slightly older contemporary of JEB Stuart Junior (who, given that he seems younger than his parallel in Our Timeline may in fact be a younger son of JEB Stuart - I'd like to think that his older brother resumed the name of his Grandfather after the War of Secession was fought out and family relations patched up a little, leaving his father's name free to be bestowed on Junior).
So far as relations with Hampton go, I suspect that in some ways Stuart is his minder - given that 'Slick' Hampton is not only Ambitious and Yankee educated (as well as the Grandson of a Traitor) but a decidedly slippery customer to boot!
I hope that you enjoyed the article too!
I imagine that Wade Hampton V is a man determined to be seen as the Heir of Lee, meticulous in emulating his personal style and far more like his Grandfather (who at least in our own history seems to have been something of a Bond Villain after the Civil War) than he would perhaps like to admit.
He is it must be said a man of genuine Gifts, but a little TOO determined to wrap them up in shiny wrapping paper and a pretty little bow!
I think that the time has come for me to gracefully bow to the consensus and concede your expertise in the subject matter besides - please forgive my lack of aptitude for picking out birthdays (although I hope that the days I have chosen work well enough, even if the dates seem inappropriate).
One detail I would like to preserve is that both the day and the year of Wade Hampton the Fifth's birth have some kind of historical significance in the Confederacy - the sort of coincidence that would give an impressionable youngster a conviction that he was born to Destiny, a conviction that would help support him in the face of what I imagine would be the humiliation of his Grandfather's treasonable conduct (even if the Confederate citizen at large is unaware of this, I would imagine it obsesses the Hampton family).
Well, what if Lee still dies onetime in in 1870. Then maybe you can have Hampton born in 1870. Of course, that still makes him 51 upon his death. I'd probably make him few years older, maybe 1867.
I do not think that this will ever be fixed properly. I think the general assumption is that JEB Jr no1 died sometime in, say, 1863 - which made Mr and Mrs JEB become frisky and then name their next child JEB Jr no2.
Of course its not out of fashion - and there is historical precedent - to actually name your children the same name.
But even i think that is confusing.
Reggie Bartlett
Banned
What about other Confederate POV characters?
Nathan Bedford Forrest III? How does the first Forrest fair after the war ends and how does that effect his great grandson and his military prowess?
Tom Colleton? What was life like for that family that turned Anne, Jacob and Tom into inversely different people?
Nathan Bedford Forrest III? How does the first Forrest fair after the war ends and how does that effect his great grandson and his military prowess?
Tom Colleton? What was life like for that family that turned Anne, Jacob and Tom into inversely different people?
Could somebody please post appropriate quotations indicating the relative ages of the Freedom Party leadership? (It seems I have some changes to make and I would like to get a first-hand account so that I can tighten up the internal chronology involved).
I would be very grateful if someone were to do so.
That's about as appropriate a quotation as you're going to find. Featherston was in his mid-thirties between 1917 and 1924, a few years short of fifty in 1934, and in his early fifties in 1943; Koenig and Potter were in their sixties in Settling Accounts.
Bedford Forrest III was not a POV character.
I have no detailed thoughts concerning the Colletons of Marshlands at present, but in brief I believe them to be descended in some way from the Colleton Baronets (who were significant figures in the early days of South Carolina - I am inclined to assign Miss Anne 18th February as her birthday in honour of this collection), most probably from a younger son.
So far as the disparate personalities of the siblings go, I would guess that Miss Anne developed as she did because she was obliged to act as the head of the household from an early age after the death of her parents (probably in some kind of accident), but was obliged to do so in devious and underhanded ways owing to the somewhat stifling social mores of the Confederacy (hence her disinterest in perpetuating them should they fail to suit her), a tendency likely reinforced by the lack of any person able to tell her 'No' and be heard (doubtless despite the best efforts of Scipio, who while rather a gentleman was still an employee and not a guardian).
Tom Colleton, by contrast, was the eldest boy and therefore the duties of Family Head fell to him - since Miss Anne was busy enjoying the Power inherent to that position, she is likely to have moulded his way of thinking in such a way as to emphasise his role as guardian of the family reputation and thereby made him a useful figurehead rather than a rival.
I suspect he may well have been fundamentally good-natured to boot - not surprising since his birth endowed him with the privileges of wealth and rank, while his sister relieved him of the burdens one must bear in order to preserve the same.
It probably helps that his war record was one of responsibility, rather than tragedy.
Jacob Colleton, as the younger brother, might simply have been indulged as a pet by his sister and was probably the Colleton sibling least familiar with strict paternal discipline (as opposed to fraternal discipline, which involves a lot more argument!).
He is likely to have been permitted to run wild to a degree and may simply have resented Miss Anne's rather dominating personality more than his brother - who would enjoy at least the SHOW of respect.
Of course getting gassed and half-crippled cannot have sweetened his disposition either.
That is all I have to say about that.
Concerning Nathan Bedford Forrest, my understanding is that an earlier article in this thread condemned him to existence as a Hero in the War of Secession, but rather a footnote in the history of the Confederate States -owing to his having fought one last duel and lost his life in the process.
I'd guess that his family fortune declined steadily after his death (family determined to be known as Gentlemen of the Whig Party instead of rough-riders), but took a nosedive after Manumission.
Smart money says that the Forrest Family were thick as thieves with Wade Hampton III as he plotted his coup (given their family fortune derived from slave-trading) and that their involvement left them rather outside the Golden Circle of Confederate Gentry.
I'd also bet smart money that Nathan Bedford Forrest II was an early convert to the Freedom Party and their man in Tennessee (or Georgia or wheresoever he wound up in this timeline).
Any man who was a Grand Dragon in the KKK in our own timeline would almost certainly be thick as thieves with Snake Featherston in Timeline-191; my guess would be that it was this family connection which sold the Freedom Party on the political reliability of Nathan Bedford Forrest III, hence his elevation to such a high military position at so young an age (although I doubt nepotism was the only reason - Jake the Snake does not seem to suffer fools at all).
If I had to guess quite a lot of N.B. Forrest IIIs command style would revolve around the co-ordinated use of Aircraft and Tanks (a nod to his role as a Brigadier General in the US Bomber command in our own timeline); it's probable the CS retains an Army Air Corps rather than a dedicated Air Force.
So far as the disparate personalities of the siblings go, I would guess that Miss Anne developed as she did because she was obliged to act as the head of the household from an early age after the death of her parents (probably in some kind of accident), but was obliged to do so in devious and underhanded ways owing to the somewhat stifling social mores of the Confederacy (hence her disinterest in perpetuating them should they fail to suit her), a tendency likely reinforced by the lack of any person able to tell her 'No' and be heard (doubtless despite the best efforts of Scipio, who while rather a gentleman was still an employee and not a guardian).
Tom Colleton, by contrast, was the eldest boy and therefore the duties of Family Head fell to him - since Miss Anne was busy enjoying the Power inherent to that position, she is likely to have moulded his way of thinking in such a way as to emphasise his role as guardian of the family reputation and thereby made him a useful figurehead rather than a rival.
I suspect he may well have been fundamentally good-natured to boot - not surprising since his birth endowed him with the privileges of wealth and rank, while his sister relieved him of the burdens one must bear in order to preserve the same.
It probably helps that his war record was one of responsibility, rather than tragedy.
Jacob Colleton, as the younger brother, might simply have been indulged as a pet by his sister and was probably the Colleton sibling least familiar with strict paternal discipline (as opposed to fraternal discipline, which involves a lot more argument!).
He is likely to have been permitted to run wild to a degree and may simply have resented Miss Anne's rather dominating personality more than his brother - who would enjoy at least the SHOW of respect.
Of course getting gassed and half-crippled cannot have sweetened his disposition either.
That is all I have to say about that.
Concerning Nathan Bedford Forrest, my understanding is that an earlier article in this thread condemned him to existence as a Hero in the War of Secession, but rather a footnote in the history of the Confederate States -owing to his having fought one last duel and lost his life in the process.
I'd guess that his family fortune declined steadily after his death (family determined to be known as Gentlemen of the Whig Party instead of rough-riders), but took a nosedive after Manumission.
Smart money says that the Forrest Family were thick as thieves with Wade Hampton III as he plotted his coup (given their family fortune derived from slave-trading) and that their involvement left them rather outside the Golden Circle of Confederate Gentry.
I'd also bet smart money that Nathan Bedford Forrest II was an early convert to the Freedom Party and their man in Tennessee (or Georgia or wheresoever he wound up in this timeline).
Any man who was a Grand Dragon in the KKK in our own timeline would almost certainly be thick as thieves with Snake Featherston in Timeline-191; my guess would be that it was this family connection which sold the Freedom Party on the political reliability of Nathan Bedford Forrest III, hence his elevation to such a high military position at so young an age (although I doubt nepotism was the only reason - Jake the Snake does not seem to suffer fools at all).
If I had to guess quite a lot of N.B. Forrest IIIs command style would revolve around the co-ordinated use of Aircraft and Tanks (a nod to his role as a Brigadier General in the US Bomber command in our own timeline); it's probable the CS retains an Army Air Corps rather than a dedicated Air Force.
bguy
Donor
Well at an absolute minimum we know that Featherston, Koenig, and Knight all had to be at least 35 by March 4, 1922 since Featherston ran for President in 1921, Koenig ran for Vice President that same year, and Knight was upset that Featherston didn't pick him for his veep that year (which obviously means Knight was old enough to be constitutionally eligible to be Vice President, since he would have no reason to be upset about being passed over for a position he couldn't legally serve.) As such none of those three could have been born after March 4, 1887.
Anyway, if Koenig was, lets say 64 in in 1944 that would mean he was born in 1880. That would in turn make him 41 when he ran for Vice President in 1921. Since Featherston was probably no more than 35 or 36 that same year, that age works pretty well with Tiro's idea of the Freedom Party as the party of angry, young men since both their president and vice president candidates in 1921 would have been very young (by political standards anyway.)
Tiro, what are your thoughts on Amos Mizzel? (In particular I've always wondered what his ultimate fate was since we never hear anything about him again after Featherston is elected.)
I did not actually have any until you asked about him, but having looked him up I'd say that like Nathan Bedford Forrest he became involved with an extremist political organisation and like Forrest he seems to have come to regret it later; given that he seems to have come to actively oppose Featherston and the Freedom Party (after playing a crucial role in its rise to power by forging a link with the Redemption League) his most likely fate would be to suffer the consequences of his actions.
I suspect that Featherston's attitude to apostates would have been heartily approved of by the Spanish Inquisition.
In terms of character I tend to see Mizzel as a gifted organiser of strong opinion, but lacking in the personal charisma to make a go of it as a Politician himself; I'd guess that after the Great War he was infuriated by Defeat and furious with the Establishment - looking for an alternative to the Whigs, but repulsed by the Radical Liberals* he seems to have fastened on the Redemption League and the Freedom Party, probably because their membership seems to have been grounded in demobilised soldiers just as angry as the head of the Tin Hats.
However Mr Mizzel's attitudes seem to have moderated over time - I'd guess he simply developed a new life outside the army and became more invested in Civil Society, as well as more interested in change brought about by the ballot rather than the bullet … or the bully.
Put simply he wasn't interested in seeing the Confederacy torn apart by a Civil War and he was increasingly aware that if Featherston wasn't elected into the Highest Office he might very well seek to seize it by main force.
By one of those ironies of History, he therefore found himself in opposition to the very Movement he had helped to set rolling; in fact I suspect he was crushed under its weight and momentum, while the Tin Hats were carefully dismantled and 're-educated' as brand new members of the Freedom Party (one wonders if the Freedom Party Guards were mainly recruited from ex-members of the Tin Hats).
I suspect that Featherston's attitude to apostates would have been heartily approved of by the Spanish Inquisition.
In terms of character I tend to see Mizzel as a gifted organiser of strong opinion, but lacking in the personal charisma to make a go of it as a Politician himself; I'd guess that after the Great War he was infuriated by Defeat and furious with the Establishment - looking for an alternative to the Whigs, but repulsed by the Radical Liberals* he seems to have fastened on the Redemption League and the Freedom Party, probably because their membership seems to have been grounded in demobilised soldiers just as angry as the head of the Tin Hats.
However Mr Mizzel's attitudes seem to have moderated over time - I'd guess he simply developed a new life outside the army and became more invested in Civil Society, as well as more interested in change brought about by the ballot rather than the bullet … or the bully.
Put simply he wasn't interested in seeing the Confederacy torn apart by a Civil War and he was increasingly aware that if Featherston wasn't elected into the Highest Office he might very well seek to seize it by main force.
By one of those ironies of History, he therefore found himself in opposition to the very Movement he had helped to set rolling; in fact I suspect he was crushed under its weight and momentum, while the Tin Hats were carefully dismantled and 're-educated' as brand new members of the Freedom Party (one wonders if the Freedom Party Guards were mainly recruited from ex-members of the Tin Hats).
Given that Koenig is no longer to be the Enfant Terrible of the Freedom Party I have considered his background; do you think it would be reasonable to depict him as a policeman who found himself in sympathy with the Freedom Party manifesto? (in part due to anger with the Establishment over the prejudice against his Germany ancestry that it condoned).
In this case he would be still more in sympathy with Jake Featherston - another able, albeit unpleasant man from an unfashionable background who had been denied all advancement for being a little too prone to speak his mind instead of say what his superiors wanted to hear.
Perhaps his running interference on behalf of Party Members helps explain how they managed to get away with such spectacularly thuggish political tactics before their Rise to Power reached its apex?
In this case he would be still more in sympathy with Jake Featherston - another able, albeit unpleasant man from an unfashionable background who had been denied all advancement for being a little too prone to speak his mind instead of say what his superiors wanted to hear.
Perhaps his running interference on behalf of Party Members helps explain how they managed to get away with such spectacularly thuggish political tactics before their Rise to Power reached its apex?
Dunno if we can really say he was a policeman. I mean, he was the record keeper of the Freedom Party before Featherston took over when he became Jake's no2. Its not to say he couldn't be a policeman, but considering the people he is based upon - such as Hess, Goering and Himmler - i have my doubts.
Its not hard to image he may have been in the army somehow during the great war, maybe perhaps he was far from the front-lines though. Say like a transport/munition/supply man instead of a soldier on the front.
Perhaps say he never really got the chance to fight it out before the war ended and was bitter about that, hence why he joined the Freedom party.
...
In all honesty, the only one who could seem like a cop/private investigator besides Potter was Pinkard. That would have suited him well as a different career. I can't see koenig as one, tbh. plus, if Koenig was always a heavy-set guy before the war, then i doubt he would be a cop
bguy
Donor
It's funny you should say that. I once gave some thought to doing an alt TL-191 timeline where the Confederates won the First Great War. The idea never really took off, but I did have some very rough character bios worked out in my head for many of the characters, and for Koenig I did envision him as being a (corrupt) beat cop. So yeah, I could easily see him as having a law enforcement background.
I doubt Koenig would have had enough juice with the Richmond Police to protect the party in that way. (If he was a cop, I can't really imagine he ever got any higher than Sergeant, so his influence would have been pretty limited except at his own precinct.)
It occurs to me that if Koenig were a clerk working for the Police he MIGHT be better able to shield the Freedom Party to a degree (by 'losing' crucial paperwork or fouling up the process of filing evidence or just giving The Party advance warning of when The Police are feeling liverish) than if he were a beat copper.
I love the mental image of a rather chunky, physically-powerful man reduced to pushing papers because he's (A) good at it and (B) held to be not fit for anything else! (At least before he meets the Freedom Party).
If Ferdinand Koenig were first a cop stuck on desk duty, then a military clerk and then a police clerk forever condemned to be a very long way from wherever the Action (and the promotion) happens to be, then one could easily explain the violent frustrations with the current order of things (especially his own place in that pecking order) which I suspect underpins the loyalty of so many Freedom Party members (especially the leadership cadre).
Do any of you think this helps make his Character Arc more coherent? - it takes him from nobody to nonentity to Nightmare (with anti-German prejudice adding fuel to the fires of his anger with the World).
I love the mental image of a rather chunky, physically-powerful man reduced to pushing papers because he's (A) good at it and (B) held to be not fit for anything else! (At least before he meets the Freedom Party).
If Ferdinand Koenig were first a cop stuck on desk duty, then a military clerk and then a police clerk forever condemned to be a very long way from wherever the Action (and the promotion) happens to be, then one could easily explain the violent frustrations with the current order of things (especially his own place in that pecking order) which I suspect underpins the loyalty of so many Freedom Party members (especially the leadership cadre).
Do any of you think this helps make his Character Arc more coherent? - it takes him from nobody to nonentity to Nightmare (with anti-German prejudice adding fuel to the fires of his anger with the World).
Grady Calkins
b. October 18th 1896 LA.
d. August 1922 AL.
- The circumstances into which Grady Calkins was born and the tenor of his youth can best be summed up with the simple truth that he joined the Army in the year before the Great War (underage) because quite frankly it could feed him and maintain him in a style far greater than he himself or his family could ever afford to.
At the time of his assassin's birth Wade Hampton V was poised to make a name for himself in the course of that most pivotal of his early independent commands, only a few years away from the suppression of the Kiowa Renegades which would write a finish to the bloody years when deniability was the weapon most commonly used against their great rival by the Confederate and United States, as well as write his name into the Golden Book of the Confederate Military.
The two of them would never meet.
- Having found himself in the front lines of the Great War, Calkins proceeded to defy the odds by serving on the Roanoke Front for the duration; it cannot be said that he enjoyed his service (he had hoped to become a sniper, but was doomed to be forever a spotter for artillery) but he survived with body and mind intact.
Calkins was, as the testimony of those who served with him would later note, a thoroughly unpleasant fellow but no madder than most Political Extremists; In fact he seems to have throve more on the camaraderie of the unit and the ordered patterns of military life than on bloodshed or brutality.
Moreover he was noted as being utterly loyal; he received a bravery award for saving the life of a comrade who had gone missing and been presumed dead in No-Man's Land, had never been given an order he failed to follow and was almost frighteningly willing to cover up for any crime that might have been committed by his colleagues.
While not a Model Soldier by any means (prone to be unsociable, prey to mood-swings and prone to peculiar fixations) he was certainly a trooper.
- On being dismissed from the Army after the Great War he found his world crumbling to pieces; desperate for a sense of purpose and some larger whole to belong to, he seems to have flirted with the Radical Liberals but finally been seduced by the Freedom Party after hearing Jake Featherston speak in the streets of Richmond.
The two of them met briefly, but their interaction seems to have been limited to a handshake and a few sentences as Calkins left for Alabama as one of a number of Stalwarts looking to spread the word in the Middle States of the Confederacy (and in fact as the least amongst them).
- Settled in Birmingham his record was as a rock-solid Stalwart, almost always to be found acting as Lookout for war-parties raiding other Political Rallies, hanging around the edges of Party Meetings (mostly silent yet in deadly earnest, often reading the latest party literature) or banging away with an elderly but meticulously-maintained rifle at whichever shooting range he felt inclined to patronise today.
He seems to have been fixated on the idea of becoming a sharpshooter, but has been described by those who observed him as a diligent but amateur shootist at best.
- Having attempted to bring the Freedom Party into Louisiana alongside a small party of fellow Stalwarts and been robustly repulsed by the all-conquering Radical Liberals who were the more representative natives to the state (even before the Governorship of Mr Huey Long), Calkins returned to Alabama slumped with the humiliating defeat yet found comfort in marriage to one Nellie Grooms after a brief courtship, as well as the Party's chances in the '21 Election.
Once again he was to be disappointed.
- His attitude towards Wade Hampton V seems to have epitomised that of his Party; upon learning that their new President was in town, they resolved to oppose him in every possible fashion and offer him every possible act of aggression short of murder.
Upon learning this, Grady Calkins is said to have stood up and asked why they need stop there; upon being told that "The Leader says 'don't let them catch you getting into trouble we can't talk you out of' … for now" he simply sat down again with no particularly memorable expression visible.
At the Whig Rally, later, he hung back as though to play his usual role as Lookout; but while his fellow Stalwarts surged forward to break up the event and break some bones in the process he put his prized 'Sharpshooter' to his shoulder, took aim over open sights, pulled that hair-trigger he'd worked so hard upon … and the first President of the North American Republics to fall victim to a successful assassination attempt was stone dead … along with the Freedom Party's chances in any foreseeable election.
Calkins was himself shot dead by the Alabama State Police less than an hour later. Most of the fame attaching to his name can safely be described as a much diminished reflection of that enjoyed by the man he killed - the rest owes everything to the amateur nature of his own marksmanship; his shooting position was so unpromising that the Presidential Security detail simply couldn't believe any sensible sniper would pick it.
So he shot his bolt, fell victim to the consequences, was buried in an unmarked grave, was disavowed by his own party and never knew his only child. That is all I have to say about that.
b. October 18th 1896 LA.
d. August 1922 AL.
- The circumstances into which Grady Calkins was born and the tenor of his youth can best be summed up with the simple truth that he joined the Army in the year before the Great War (underage) because quite frankly it could feed him and maintain him in a style far greater than he himself or his family could ever afford to.
At the time of his assassin's birth Wade Hampton V was poised to make a name for himself in the course of that most pivotal of his early independent commands, only a few years away from the suppression of the Kiowa Renegades which would write a finish to the bloody years when deniability was the weapon most commonly used against their great rival by the Confederate and United States, as well as write his name into the Golden Book of the Confederate Military.
The two of them would never meet.
- Having found himself in the front lines of the Great War, Calkins proceeded to defy the odds by serving on the Roanoke Front for the duration; it cannot be said that he enjoyed his service (he had hoped to become a sniper, but was doomed to be forever a spotter for artillery) but he survived with body and mind intact.
Calkins was, as the testimony of those who served with him would later note, a thoroughly unpleasant fellow but no madder than most Political Extremists; In fact he seems to have throve more on the camaraderie of the unit and the ordered patterns of military life than on bloodshed or brutality.
Moreover he was noted as being utterly loyal; he received a bravery award for saving the life of a comrade who had gone missing and been presumed dead in No-Man's Land, had never been given an order he failed to follow and was almost frighteningly willing to cover up for any crime that might have been committed by his colleagues.
While not a Model Soldier by any means (prone to be unsociable, prey to mood-swings and prone to peculiar fixations) he was certainly a trooper.
- On being dismissed from the Army after the Great War he found his world crumbling to pieces; desperate for a sense of purpose and some larger whole to belong to, he seems to have flirted with the Radical Liberals but finally been seduced by the Freedom Party after hearing Jake Featherston speak in the streets of Richmond.
The two of them met briefly, but their interaction seems to have been limited to a handshake and a few sentences as Calkins left for Alabama as one of a number of Stalwarts looking to spread the word in the Middle States of the Confederacy (and in fact as the least amongst them).
- Settled in Birmingham his record was as a rock-solid Stalwart, almost always to be found acting as Lookout for war-parties raiding other Political Rallies, hanging around the edges of Party Meetings (mostly silent yet in deadly earnest, often reading the latest party literature) or banging away with an elderly but meticulously-maintained rifle at whichever shooting range he felt inclined to patronise today.
He seems to have been fixated on the idea of becoming a sharpshooter, but has been described by those who observed him as a diligent but amateur shootist at best.
- Having attempted to bring the Freedom Party into Louisiana alongside a small party of fellow Stalwarts and been robustly repulsed by the all-conquering Radical Liberals who were the more representative natives to the state (even before the Governorship of Mr Huey Long), Calkins returned to Alabama slumped with the humiliating defeat yet found comfort in marriage to one Nellie Grooms after a brief courtship, as well as the Party's chances in the '21 Election.
Once again he was to be disappointed.
- His attitude towards Wade Hampton V seems to have epitomised that of his Party; upon learning that their new President was in town, they resolved to oppose him in every possible fashion and offer him every possible act of aggression short of murder.
Upon learning this, Grady Calkins is said to have stood up and asked why they need stop there; upon being told that "The Leader says 'don't let them catch you getting into trouble we can't talk you out of' … for now" he simply sat down again with no particularly memorable expression visible.
At the Whig Rally, later, he hung back as though to play his usual role as Lookout; but while his fellow Stalwarts surged forward to break up the event and break some bones in the process he put his prized 'Sharpshooter' to his shoulder, took aim over open sights, pulled that hair-trigger he'd worked so hard upon … and the first President of the North American Republics to fall victim to a successful assassination attempt was stone dead … along with the Freedom Party's chances in any foreseeable election.
Calkins was himself shot dead by the Alabama State Police less than an hour later. Most of the fame attaching to his name can safely be described as a much diminished reflection of that enjoyed by the man he killed - the rest owes everything to the amateur nature of his own marksmanship; his shooting position was so unpromising that the Presidential Security detail simply couldn't believe any sensible sniper would pick it.
So he shot his bolt, fell victim to the consequences, was buried in an unmarked grave, was disavowed by his own party and never knew his only child. That is all I have to say about that.
I could go either way of Koenig being a cop. Jake first met him when he joined the Freedom Party almost immediately after the armistice, so that was what, August 1917? Koenig was Party Secretary and that sounded like it was a full-time job, so he went straight from the trenches to political work for some no-account party in some random-ass pool hall. Suppose there was a decade-long stretch before the War when Koenig could've done police work, if 1914 puts him in his early-thirties.
On the other hand, no one ever mentioned Koenig being a police in the city even once across seven books, but on the other hand from that Jake and Anne Colleton both thought Koenig struck them as being a bruiser-type.
Oh, and Grady Calkins shot Hampton in June, not August 1922.
On the other hand, no one ever mentioned Koenig being a police in the city even once across seven books, but on the other hand from that Jake and Anne Colleton both thought Koenig struck them as being a bruiser-type.
Oh, and Grady Calkins shot Hampton in June, not August 1922.
It seems that whatever else I may be called in the course of my appearances on this thread 'Master of Detail' will not be one of them.
One compromise that occurs to me is that Koenig may have been a Military Policeman; if any Law Enforcement job is a part of your past you'd want to keep quiet about at a later date, 'MP' would probably be it - especially in a party full of ex-servicemen with an axe to grind against the Establishment!
Having said that what I'd really like to do with Ferdinand Koenig is draw an interesting contrast between his physical brutishness (he looks rather like a Teutonic Gorilla, in my mind's eye) with his aptitude for Bureaucracy - and the fact that his mastery of paperwork (especially the paper-trail) actually make him far more dangerous than mere MUSCLES.
Despite the fact that in some ways he'd much rather be breaking heads (I see him as a man without an inferiority complex, but with lingering sense of inferiority sufficient to lend an extra-sharp edge to his ruthlessness - he's the sort of man who badly needs glasses, but truly hates to wear them for example).
One compromise that occurs to me is that Koenig may have been a Military Policeman; if any Law Enforcement job is a part of your past you'd want to keep quiet about at a later date, 'MP' would probably be it - especially in a party full of ex-servicemen with an axe to grind against the Establishment!
Having said that what I'd really like to do with Ferdinand Koenig is draw an interesting contrast between his physical brutishness (he looks rather like a Teutonic Gorilla, in my mind's eye) with his aptitude for Bureaucracy - and the fact that his mastery of paperwork (especially the paper-trail) actually make him far more dangerous than mere MUSCLES.
Despite the fact that in some ways he'd much rather be breaking heads (I see him as a man without an inferiority complex, but with lingering sense of inferiority sufficient to lend an extra-sharp edge to his ruthlessness - he's the sort of man who badly needs glasses, but truly hates to wear them for example).
Ainsworth Layne
b. August 10th 1881 GA.
d. ????
"Mr Layne would always show the same equal courtesy and human interest to a pauper as he would to a prince - black or white- but then some other man would always come along to make them hate him for it" - A.L. Freeman (b. 1921), speaking long after the Great War.
- The youngest son of a new money family with a controlling interest in a number of significant publications (amongst other investments) and a minor interest in political opposition to the Whig Party (which kept declining to take much of an interest in them but was never to rouse their particular antipathy with one singular exception), Ainsworth Layne was sent North to Harvard University with the intention that he take advantage of such an opportunity to build bridges across the Mason-Dixie Line over which new streams of revenue might flow into the family coffers (and, in all fairness, from which charity would run back out into the Wider World).
Instead he found himself being educated in one of the more touchy provinces of a nation increasingly caught up in the throes of the Remembrance Movement and as a blatant Southerner this increasingly-consuming passion left him a very lonely and little-loved student indeed.
- In fact, as he himself was to remark on later, almost the only lifelong friends he made in the North were Socialists; while never a Socialist himself Lane was nonetheless infinitely more inclined to respect the legitimacy of the political principles held by that Movement than any other Southern Politician of his generation who was held to be respectable in the slightest.
In truth the experience of this friendship and memories of the fanatic intensity, as well as the oppressiveness of spirit bred by the Revanchism of the 'Remembrancers' would influence Ainsworth Layne for the rest of his life.
- Upon returning to the South young Mr Layne would prove himself an awkward piece to fit into the puzzle of his cheerfully-commercialist family's assets; a person of immense empathy and intense conviction (enlivened by a nervous energy some mistook for unqualified timorousness) he was eager to play his part in the family charities but "Just a little bit too much of a saint for the family exchequer to support" as his elder brother Milton would put it.
Assigned a position as an intern with one of the Family Publications as a stop-gap measure, Layne proved himself a people person and acquired a tougher hide with which to armour his youthful sensitivity in the course of his career as a newshound but in the end it was not to last - in one of his last assignments as a reporter he was tasked to cover the creation of the Radical Liberal Party and thereby found his true calling.
Having witnessed some of the darker depths to be found in Dixie (even as a cub reporter) it now seemed to Ainsworth Layne that he had found the platform from which he might speak out and move to have the terrible wrongs he was convinced lurked beneath the worthy trappings of his nation - a voice moved by the compassionate Conservatism and keen desire for Interventionism which he was stone cold certain would be muted by The Whig Party if it were heard at all.
It would be exactly that … but only after a great deal of work and heartache on the part of those that made it so, Mr Lane prominent amongst them.
"Yellow jelly with a steel spine" - A former commanding officer.
- Having spent his first years as a politician helping the Radical Liberals fix the teething troubles faced by every brand new Political Party and get its feet under it, all the better to take its first steps as the Loyal Opposition to the Whigs, Ainsworth Layne would be amongst the voices calling out from within the Radical Liberal Party for better relations between the Confederate and the United States of America, as well as for some part (even the smallest portion) of the immense sums invested in the Armed Forces to be redeployed to improve the lives of the Confederate People, especially the less fortunate.
It was a frequently-frustrating period, capped off with the near-humiliation of seeing The Whigs carry Woodrow Wilson into the Presidential office and thereby accrue political capital for themselves merely by practicing just enough of what the Radical Liberals had preached to steal the impetus slowing building up behind their rivals (not to mention relishing the ensuing setback to the latter's prospects of walking into the Grey House themselves).
Still, while Ainsworth Layne loved The Whigs slightly less than he had loved those Yankee Remembrancers (who were, after all, still safely in The North and not sitting just across the floor from him in Congress plotting mischief!) he had a good deal of time for President Wilson and hoped that gentleman's progressive tendencies would be the thin end of a very broad wedge … with the Radical Liberals comfortably situated on the broad edge of it.
- But then the Great War came and the voices for Peace were silenced, either in the name of solidarity or by the constraints imposed in the name of The Confederacy; amongst the former was Mr Congressman Layne, although he fell silent only after he had secured the right to serve without firing a shot for himself and his fellow conscientious objectors.
Throughout his war service he was noted as a man who would sweat and stammer and at times shake like a leaf when confronted by even the faintest hint of Serious Unpleasantness - quite ubiquitous at the front as might be expected - but also as a man who time and again would throw off tremulous timidity in defence of his principles or in the interests of helping his fellow creatures at the risk of his own life.
- Those requiring proof of this may look to an incident during his service as part of the force suppressing one of the many Red Rebellions - having found himself on the staff of a First Aid Station, Mr Layne was confronted by what he later tactfully described as a 'Delegation' of armed blacks who had somehow found their way through the Confederate stop-line while carrying an injured woman.
The Confederate medics, horrified to see their worst nightmare incarnate spring out of the long grass, found themselves on what promised to be the losing side of a silent standoff - until Corpsman Layne came forward to treat their very badly-wounded companion with matter-of-fact competence and an unforced politeness.
After a brief conversation, memorable only for the fact that it appears to have defused a potentially fatal situation, the black 'Delegation' (almost certainly guerrillas) departed without so much as a word of harsh language - a lack swiftly remedied when the Confederate Militiamen who had been tracking the little group arrived at the station.
Mr Layne proceeded to physically shield his patient - at considerable risk to himself - "Please spare my life long enough to save hers" said he and by dint of prolonged persuasion he was able to persuade them the lady was not a Revolutionary (and by some miracle of circumstances was proven right once the lady, one Virginia, fully recovered - she would, in fact, serve as a volunteer nurse on behalf of the Confederate Army for the rest of the War and in fact seems to have married a Coloured Veteran).
"Man's a martyr to his principles, especially in his own mind" - C. Burton Mitchel on his most persistent rival.
- After the Great War was done, Ainsworth Layne's battles were just beginning; "Let's get back to normal" said the Whigs - "The South shall Rise Again and Conquer the Yankees!" cried the wilder spirits - "Never Again" said Mr Layne and he would struggle for the rest of his life to ensure that never again would the youth of the Confederacy be required to commit themselves to such a catastrophic conflagration, the flower of young manhood burned up en mass fighting a War that need not have been fought if only common sense and common humanity had won out.
It was a message of the most heartfelt pacifism that would ultimately wither under the all-consuming glare of Confederate National Pride, but which (in 1918) fell in fertile ground and began to bloom, if only for a time.
- Setting himself at the head of his generation of Radical Liberals, a rising generation now propelled to new heights by shared experiences of the Great War, Ainsworth Layne began to remake the Rad-Libs; "Never Again" was set at the heart of their own manifesto and from now on wrestling with The Whigs for some small toehold in the Middle Ground of Confederate Politics would not be the limit of their political strategy - reaching down to the Grassroots and also reaching out to the Left, he ensured that the Radical Liberals would cease to be the 'also-ran' of CS Elections and were now No.2 with a bullet.
Looking forward to 1921, the all-new Rad-Libs began to plan their first Administration with better chances than they had ever previously enjoyed; yet in the Election Year itself those hopes began to falter - a common sense of anger against the Whigs who had lost the Great War remained, but divided against the Establishment in great part due to the unrelenting pacifism of the Radical Liberals, as led by Mr Layne.
With his base of support diminished by the Freedom Party (amongst others), Mr Layne failed to summon a majority sufficient to oblige Wade Hampton V to confine himself to writing his memoirs - as a result he set himself to writing POOR MAN'S BATTLE as a party manifesto; a searing indictment of war-mongering, revanchism and the laissez faire governance which allowed so many to suffer in silence, it was only slightly less angry than OVER OPEN SIGHTS but infinitely more compassionate and rather better written.
Amongst other things it mandated Investment in the Confederate Public rather than the Military, Racial Harmony and the mending of fences with the United States as an infinitely preferable alternative to fomenting a National Vendetta which might give rise to a Second Great War.
- Coupled with his indefatigable activism for every Humanitarian Cause under the sun (he had, in fact, long since taken up residence in Richmond and secured a seat as representative from one of the poorer districts there so that he might avoid accusations of being an absentee congressman - and did significant good work on behalf of his neighbours), POOR MAN'S BATTLE cemented his place as the respectable face of the most liberal tendencies in the Confederacy (he had reached out to Whites and Blacks alike for a start) and the Radical Liberals as the principal Agent for Change.
He was therefore seen as one of the dangerously destabilising men in Confederate Politics before The Freedom Party became the party of the Presidential Assassination; even afterwards he and his Party were seen as the greatest single threat to Whig Dominion over the Confederacy, far more than the still-minor Freedom Party.
In consequence, when Jake Featherston went looking for some way in which he could advance the interests of his Party without risking the wrath of the Whigs, he would turn the full fury of his rhetoric on the 'Black Republican Rad-Libs' … and found far too many Whigs willing to listen along with Freedom Party Stalwarts.
- In the end it would be the mutual antipathy for the Radical Liberals nourished by the Whigs which helped thrust Jake Featherston into the Presidential Mansion, an antipathy cultivated by The Snake as he spent much of his energy turning the Rad-Libs into the Whipping Boy of Confederate Politics (lashing out verbally as his Stalwarts lashed out quite literally); it was as much this perception of the Freedom Party as a deniable asset in the struggle against the Rad-Libs which persuaded crucial elements in the Whig Party to hold President Mitchel back from pursuing the Partizans to destruction.
Faced with steadily increasing intolerance towards his Party's lean to the Left, as well as his own ironclad, pro-US pacifism and as bridging the gap between Hard Left and Centre in his own party became increasingly difficult, Ainsworth Layne began to grow sick with weariness as the never-ending struggle against unwearying Southern Conservatism took its toll.
Utterly unwilling to meet the thuggishness of the Freedom Party with equal violence (not least on the pragmatic grounds that doing so would result in an Open Season on Radical Liberals that would be embraced by Whiggish Police Officers with terrifying enthusiasm and ensuing Prosecutions pursued with equal enthusiasm by the Judiciary), in the end Ainsworth Layne yielded the leadership of the Party he had led out of the Wilderness to younger and more fierce-hearted Rad-Libs who it was hoped would be able to bring it at long last into the Promised Land (or at least the Presidential Mansion).
The last straw that broke his patient endurance was an incident where he was confronted with a gun at a political rally, only to be saved not by the intervention of the Police Officers keeping the event under Observation but by the man leading the assault on Layne's own Radical Liberals.
He shook the dust of the Confederacy from his sandals, left some time prior to the Featherston's final triumph; he would dedicate the remainder of his life to the International Red Cross (amongst other charities) and he would never return to the Confederate States.
As he put it "I decline to be Martyred in the cause of a nation that would cease to whip on me as its scapegoat only after my head was blown off."
b. August 10th 1881 GA.
d. ????
"Mr Layne would always show the same equal courtesy and human interest to a pauper as he would to a prince - black or white- but then some other man would always come along to make them hate him for it" - A.L. Freeman (b. 1921), speaking long after the Great War.
- The youngest son of a new money family with a controlling interest in a number of significant publications (amongst other investments) and a minor interest in political opposition to the Whig Party (which kept declining to take much of an interest in them but was never to rouse their particular antipathy with one singular exception), Ainsworth Layne was sent North to Harvard University with the intention that he take advantage of such an opportunity to build bridges across the Mason-Dixie Line over which new streams of revenue might flow into the family coffers (and, in all fairness, from which charity would run back out into the Wider World).
Instead he found himself being educated in one of the more touchy provinces of a nation increasingly caught up in the throes of the Remembrance Movement and as a blatant Southerner this increasingly-consuming passion left him a very lonely and little-loved student indeed.
- In fact, as he himself was to remark on later, almost the only lifelong friends he made in the North were Socialists; while never a Socialist himself Lane was nonetheless infinitely more inclined to respect the legitimacy of the political principles held by that Movement than any other Southern Politician of his generation who was held to be respectable in the slightest.
In truth the experience of this friendship and memories of the fanatic intensity, as well as the oppressiveness of spirit bred by the Revanchism of the 'Remembrancers' would influence Ainsworth Layne for the rest of his life.
- Upon returning to the South young Mr Layne would prove himself an awkward piece to fit into the puzzle of his cheerfully-commercialist family's assets; a person of immense empathy and intense conviction (enlivened by a nervous energy some mistook for unqualified timorousness) he was eager to play his part in the family charities but "Just a little bit too much of a saint for the family exchequer to support" as his elder brother Milton would put it.
Assigned a position as an intern with one of the Family Publications as a stop-gap measure, Layne proved himself a people person and acquired a tougher hide with which to armour his youthful sensitivity in the course of his career as a newshound but in the end it was not to last - in one of his last assignments as a reporter he was tasked to cover the creation of the Radical Liberal Party and thereby found his true calling.
Having witnessed some of the darker depths to be found in Dixie (even as a cub reporter) it now seemed to Ainsworth Layne that he had found the platform from which he might speak out and move to have the terrible wrongs he was convinced lurked beneath the worthy trappings of his nation - a voice moved by the compassionate Conservatism and keen desire for Interventionism which he was stone cold certain would be muted by The Whig Party if it were heard at all.
It would be exactly that … but only after a great deal of work and heartache on the part of those that made it so, Mr Lane prominent amongst them.
"Yellow jelly with a steel spine" - A former commanding officer.
- Having spent his first years as a politician helping the Radical Liberals fix the teething troubles faced by every brand new Political Party and get its feet under it, all the better to take its first steps as the Loyal Opposition to the Whigs, Ainsworth Layne would be amongst the voices calling out from within the Radical Liberal Party for better relations between the Confederate and the United States of America, as well as for some part (even the smallest portion) of the immense sums invested in the Armed Forces to be redeployed to improve the lives of the Confederate People, especially the less fortunate.
It was a frequently-frustrating period, capped off with the near-humiliation of seeing The Whigs carry Woodrow Wilson into the Presidential office and thereby accrue political capital for themselves merely by practicing just enough of what the Radical Liberals had preached to steal the impetus slowing building up behind their rivals (not to mention relishing the ensuing setback to the latter's prospects of walking into the Grey House themselves).
Still, while Ainsworth Layne loved The Whigs slightly less than he had loved those Yankee Remembrancers (who were, after all, still safely in The North and not sitting just across the floor from him in Congress plotting mischief!) he had a good deal of time for President Wilson and hoped that gentleman's progressive tendencies would be the thin end of a very broad wedge … with the Radical Liberals comfortably situated on the broad edge of it.
- But then the Great War came and the voices for Peace were silenced, either in the name of solidarity or by the constraints imposed in the name of The Confederacy; amongst the former was Mr Congressman Layne, although he fell silent only after he had secured the right to serve without firing a shot for himself and his fellow conscientious objectors.
Throughout his war service he was noted as a man who would sweat and stammer and at times shake like a leaf when confronted by even the faintest hint of Serious Unpleasantness - quite ubiquitous at the front as might be expected - but also as a man who time and again would throw off tremulous timidity in defence of his principles or in the interests of helping his fellow creatures at the risk of his own life.
- Those requiring proof of this may look to an incident during his service as part of the force suppressing one of the many Red Rebellions - having found himself on the staff of a First Aid Station, Mr Layne was confronted by what he later tactfully described as a 'Delegation' of armed blacks who had somehow found their way through the Confederate stop-line while carrying an injured woman.
The Confederate medics, horrified to see their worst nightmare incarnate spring out of the long grass, found themselves on what promised to be the losing side of a silent standoff - until Corpsman Layne came forward to treat their very badly-wounded companion with matter-of-fact competence and an unforced politeness.
After a brief conversation, memorable only for the fact that it appears to have defused a potentially fatal situation, the black 'Delegation' (almost certainly guerrillas) departed without so much as a word of harsh language - a lack swiftly remedied when the Confederate Militiamen who had been tracking the little group arrived at the station.
Mr Layne proceeded to physically shield his patient - at considerable risk to himself - "Please spare my life long enough to save hers" said he and by dint of prolonged persuasion he was able to persuade them the lady was not a Revolutionary (and by some miracle of circumstances was proven right once the lady, one Virginia, fully recovered - she would, in fact, serve as a volunteer nurse on behalf of the Confederate Army for the rest of the War and in fact seems to have married a Coloured Veteran).
"Man's a martyr to his principles, especially in his own mind" - C. Burton Mitchel on his most persistent rival.
- After the Great War was done, Ainsworth Layne's battles were just beginning; "Let's get back to normal" said the Whigs - "The South shall Rise Again and Conquer the Yankees!" cried the wilder spirits - "Never Again" said Mr Layne and he would struggle for the rest of his life to ensure that never again would the youth of the Confederacy be required to commit themselves to such a catastrophic conflagration, the flower of young manhood burned up en mass fighting a War that need not have been fought if only common sense and common humanity had won out.
It was a message of the most heartfelt pacifism that would ultimately wither under the all-consuming glare of Confederate National Pride, but which (in 1918) fell in fertile ground and began to bloom, if only for a time.
- Setting himself at the head of his generation of Radical Liberals, a rising generation now propelled to new heights by shared experiences of the Great War, Ainsworth Layne began to remake the Rad-Libs; "Never Again" was set at the heart of their own manifesto and from now on wrestling with The Whigs for some small toehold in the Middle Ground of Confederate Politics would not be the limit of their political strategy - reaching down to the Grassroots and also reaching out to the Left, he ensured that the Radical Liberals would cease to be the 'also-ran' of CS Elections and were now No.2 with a bullet.
Looking forward to 1921, the all-new Rad-Libs began to plan their first Administration with better chances than they had ever previously enjoyed; yet in the Election Year itself those hopes began to falter - a common sense of anger against the Whigs who had lost the Great War remained, but divided against the Establishment in great part due to the unrelenting pacifism of the Radical Liberals, as led by Mr Layne.
With his base of support diminished by the Freedom Party (amongst others), Mr Layne failed to summon a majority sufficient to oblige Wade Hampton V to confine himself to writing his memoirs - as a result he set himself to writing POOR MAN'S BATTLE as a party manifesto; a searing indictment of war-mongering, revanchism and the laissez faire governance which allowed so many to suffer in silence, it was only slightly less angry than OVER OPEN SIGHTS but infinitely more compassionate and rather better written.
Amongst other things it mandated Investment in the Confederate Public rather than the Military, Racial Harmony and the mending of fences with the United States as an infinitely preferable alternative to fomenting a National Vendetta which might give rise to a Second Great War.
- Coupled with his indefatigable activism for every Humanitarian Cause under the sun (he had, in fact, long since taken up residence in Richmond and secured a seat as representative from one of the poorer districts there so that he might avoid accusations of being an absentee congressman - and did significant good work on behalf of his neighbours), POOR MAN'S BATTLE cemented his place as the respectable face of the most liberal tendencies in the Confederacy (he had reached out to Whites and Blacks alike for a start) and the Radical Liberals as the principal Agent for Change.
He was therefore seen as one of the dangerously destabilising men in Confederate Politics before The Freedom Party became the party of the Presidential Assassination; even afterwards he and his Party were seen as the greatest single threat to Whig Dominion over the Confederacy, far more than the still-minor Freedom Party.
In consequence, when Jake Featherston went looking for some way in which he could advance the interests of his Party without risking the wrath of the Whigs, he would turn the full fury of his rhetoric on the 'Black Republican Rad-Libs' … and found far too many Whigs willing to listen along with Freedom Party Stalwarts.
- In the end it would be the mutual antipathy for the Radical Liberals nourished by the Whigs which helped thrust Jake Featherston into the Presidential Mansion, an antipathy cultivated by The Snake as he spent much of his energy turning the Rad-Libs into the Whipping Boy of Confederate Politics (lashing out verbally as his Stalwarts lashed out quite literally); it was as much this perception of the Freedom Party as a deniable asset in the struggle against the Rad-Libs which persuaded crucial elements in the Whig Party to hold President Mitchel back from pursuing the Partizans to destruction.
Faced with steadily increasing intolerance towards his Party's lean to the Left, as well as his own ironclad, pro-US pacifism and as bridging the gap between Hard Left and Centre in his own party became increasingly difficult, Ainsworth Layne began to grow sick with weariness as the never-ending struggle against unwearying Southern Conservatism took its toll.
Utterly unwilling to meet the thuggishness of the Freedom Party with equal violence (not least on the pragmatic grounds that doing so would result in an Open Season on Radical Liberals that would be embraced by Whiggish Police Officers with terrifying enthusiasm and ensuing Prosecutions pursued with equal enthusiasm by the Judiciary), in the end Ainsworth Layne yielded the leadership of the Party he had led out of the Wilderness to younger and more fierce-hearted Rad-Libs who it was hoped would be able to bring it at long last into the Promised Land (or at least the Presidential Mansion).
The last straw that broke his patient endurance was an incident where he was confronted with a gun at a political rally, only to be saved not by the intervention of the Police Officers keeping the event under Observation but by the man leading the assault on Layne's own Radical Liberals.
He shook the dust of the Confederacy from his sandals, left some time prior to the Featherston's final triumph; he would dedicate the remainder of his life to the International Red Cross (amongst other charities) and he would never return to the Confederate States.
As he put it "I decline to be Martyred in the cause of a nation that would cease to whip on me as its scapegoat only after my head was blown off."
Out of curiosity, has there been any discussion about the leadership of the Republic of Quebec? The USA, the CSA and Canada have all been quite well covered, but what about them?