To Live and Die in Dixie - A Communist Confederacy TL

[thekingsguard]

So, I've been a member of this forum for almost a decade now. During that time I've served in the military, graduated college, and worked as a reporter and freelance writer of some middling success.

During that same decade on this forum, I've done a lot of posts and comments, but never an official timeline... until now.

That's right - after years of discussion, I'm actually doing my official Communist Confederacy timeline.

Some disclosures first... part of why I'm doing this is I'm really struggling to kick off my fiction-writing career. Some really nice non-form rejection letters for some of my short fiction from places like Analog, Galaxy's Edge and Clarkesworld, but still nothing sold or published. What began as an attempt to invert some of the biggest tropes in AH Civil War fiction became this rough sketch of a universe where the South won the American Civil War, proceeded to make an absolute cluster**** of the peace, and after losing TTL's answer to World War I, is split between a vengeful militarized USA and a Communist remnant state, now only barely kept from war because international alliances guarantee it would start another global war.

Eventually, this turned into my first attempt at both a novel and some other short stories, the former I'm still working to finish, the latter I'm trying to sell.

The novel, under the working title "To Live and Die in Dixie" is a spy novel set in this universe's vaguely dieselpunk - because gotta invert the steampunk AH cliche - alternate 1940s, where Malcolm Little has been recruited by the OSS on what they've written off as a suicide mission: rescuing the daughter of one of President Roosevelt's biggest backers being held in the CSSA's most secure military base/prison, and getting back to US soil alive. I actually showed the first chapter and a summary to one of the big six spec fiction publishers, and they loved it - no contracts yet, but I promised to submit to them first once it's finished.

The short stories, I have two so far, one written from the POV of a Confederate soldier by the name of Albert Parsons fighting in Cuba during an eventually unsuccessful war with Spain that sets him on the course of being my Lenin analog, and one from the POV of a "conductor" of the Underground Railroad making one last run to get dissidents out of the CSSA before the border is completely closed. Been shopping them around for a fit, when it comes to short fiction, alternate history is a hard sell.

I mention this, first, because who doesn't try to plug their stuff, and second, because I have to be very careful posting anything on this TL, because I do still plan to sell the novels and other stories, and don't want to risk that... it's a bit of a grey area with publishing. So aside from the first chapter of the novel, which I'll post as a framing device, the rest will be textbook style overview and entirely focused on world-building and history. That should be kosher.

So, after ten years, lots of hype and discussion on this board and elsewhere, I am finally doing my first timeline on the website, and actually doing something other than detail work here on the Communist Confederacy. I hope it lives up to the hype and potential I think it holds.

Let's get things started.

PS - if any of our lovely mapmakers on site are willing to take a commission, I may have some work for you. Likewise for any flag designers.

PSS - Again, my first timeline, but how do I make thread marks?

 

[thekingsguard]

“I need every subtle device and every underhanded trick to use against the Confederates, and men comfortable and capable in the usage of both.” - William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Director of the US Office of Strategic Services​

June 19, 1948
Fort Custer, Athabasca Territory, United States of America

Private Malcolm Little had lost count of how many times he'd thumbed through the well-worn issue of Yank magazine since he'd been tossed in the base stockade. He was bored by the articles by the second read through and was absolutely sick of them by now, but right now, as he looked back and forth between a cigarette ad on one page and the pin-up model spread on the opposite page, he was trying to decide which particular vice he missed more. Before he could come to a decision, he heard a jangling of keys outside his cell door, and the voice of one of the guards.

“Private Little! You have a visitor!”

Little quickly tossed the magazine beneath his mattress before the cell door opened and two soldiers entered on either side of the door.

“Sit on the bed and place your arms in front of you private.” said one of the soldiers. Malcolm did so, after which the same soldier stepped forward and placed a set of handcuffs on his wrists, which he then chained to the floor before returning to his post at the door.

“You can enter now, sir.” the soldier said.

The man who then entered his cell was an older white man of Irish appearance in an expensive suit. He was clearly non-military, but still had a clear commanding presence of his own. The old man turned to the two soldiers who had entered the cell alongside him.

“You may go.” the man said.

“Are you sure sir?” asked one of the soldiers.

“Gentlemen, I know I’m not a young man anymore, but if I can’t take care of a single handcuffed prisoner without help, it's time for me to retire,” the man replied with quiet confidence. “I repeat, you may go.”

With that, the two soldiers left the cell and shut the door and locked it behind them. The man walked over to the cell’s desk, pulled out the chair and sat down before turning towards Malcolm. He reached into his jacket and removed a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes.

“Do you smoke, Private Little?” the man asked.

“Would that I could, sir,” Malcolm said. “As you can tell, though, they’ve got me chained up pretty well here.”

“Come now Private Little, no need for lies between friends,” said the man. “If half of what I’ve read about you is true, you had those handcuffs picked by around the time I was asking those guards to leave the room.”

Now that got Malcolm's attention. Hesitantly Malcolm pulled away from his cuffs, revealing that he had indeed picked the lock. The man chuckled, offering a cigarette from the pack to Malcolm. He took it, and put it between his teeth, at which point the man took out a lighter and lit the cigarette. Malcolm took a long drag before he spoke.

“What else you read about me?” Malcolm asked.

“Mostly, that you are a young man of some interesting contradictions,” said the man. “Malcolm Little, born May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, fourth of seven children. Your father took a job working as an administrator in the Canadian territories, and your family moved around a lot. You excelled in school and reported for duty when your conscription orders came after graduation.

“Your military history is where things get interesting,” the man continued. “Excellent scores in marksmanship, but quite the lengthy reputation as a troublemaker. Not just the occasional fistfight or drunken antics of a more typical soldier mind you. The report I was given about you certainly made for an entertaining read. Impersonating an officer in order to sneak into the officer's club on base - you must have done a pretty good job if you only got caught the third time. Possessing contraband, selling contraband, distributing contraband - a lot more of those, you were a busy little soldier. Sneaking on and off post with impressive regularity. And most recently - as well as my own personal favorite - stealing a tank and taking it for a joyride, and only being caught when it ran out of fuel.”

“Okay that last one is nothing but trumped up charges and lies!” Malcolm said with an almost reflexive defensiveness.

“Naturally,” replied the man. “Which is a real shame, because I could have some use for a man with such, shall we say, creative talents for causing trouble.”

“What kind of use would that be?” asked Malcolm.

“Do you know who I am, Private Little?” asked the man.

“Afraid not.” Malcolm replied.

“My name is Bill Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Services,” answered the man. “The reason I’m here is that I have a particular job that you may be well suited for, if you’re willing to hear what I have in mind.”

“If this job of yours gets me out of this cell, I’m all ears.”

“In my experience, I’ve found men who make bad soldiers quite often can make capable field agents. In the Army, impersonating an officer, stealing equipment or sneaking on and off base makes you a troublemaker, in the OSS, it can make you an asset,” said Donovan. “And it just so happens, I find myself in need of an asset with your skillset.”

"What kind of asset would that be?"

Donovan leaned back in the chair, and began to rock steadily. "What do you know about John Jacob Astor V?"

"Just what the papers say, same as anyone else," said Malcolm. "He has more money than God, owns more land than some states, and he's in like Flynn with President Roosevelt."

Reaching again into his coat, Donovan pulled out a picture of a young woman, which he handed to Malcolm.

“That’s his daughter Mary,” said Donovan. “She was believed dead when her yacht went down off the coast of Florida around a month ago. Last week, we got word she’s alive, being held as an ‘enemy of the proletariat’ by the damned CSSA, pending either execution or payment of a very generous ransom."

"Held against her will in a military prison, I can almost sympathize."

"I thought you might. Naturally, official US policy is that we don’t negotiate with those communist bastards, but as you pointed out, being a close friend and a rather significant supporter of the President has its perks. Astor wants his daughter back, it's an election year, and Quinton does want that second term, so an effort does have to be made."

“What’s all this got to do with me?” asked Malcolm.

“Simple,” said Donovan. “You’re the one who is going to break her out and get her back to US soil, ideally to our embassy in Parsonsville.”

“Sir, you seem to have a lot more faith in me than I do,” said Malcolm. “You have guys who do this for a living on your payroll, why send me?”

“To be entirely honest? Plausible deniability,” said Donovan bluntly. “What few assets we have on the ground in the CSSA can’t be risked on a political favor for the President, and should one of them get caught, it would blow up into an international incident. On the other hand, should, say, a rogue soldier with a long history of misbehavior get caught--”

“You get to deny everything when they put me up against the wall, and pretend it never happened. That’s encouraging,” said Malcolm. “Okay, so let’s say I agree to do this - what's in it for me?”

“I don’t suppose doing it out of patriotism and for love of country is enough?”

"To infiltrate a hostile Communist dictatorship, spring someone from a brig located on their most secure military base, and then waltz together into their capital unnoticed, all for what looks and sounds like a suicide mission?" asked Malcolm. "Hell no."

“I figured as much, which is why I came with an offer,” said Donovan. “Upon successful completion of this mission, you’ll be granted a full pardon for all of your misbehavior in the army. In addition, your term of conscription will be considered complete, and you’ll be granted an honorable discharge with all of the rights and privileges that entails. I’ll also mention that it never hurts to have a sitting President and one of the richest men in America owe you a favor."

Donovan then leaned back again, and thumbed to the locked door behind him.

"Plus, as a more immediate incentive, if you say yes, you get to walk out of this cell with me right now.”

“If I say no?”

“Then I'll thank you for hearing me out, leave to offer the job to somebody else, and for all intents and purposes this conversation never happened, no hard feelings. I can't say the same for your commander though, or about your upcoming court-martial,” said Donovan. “You didn’t hear it from me, but based on some of the charges against you, the best case scenario you can hope for is an immediate dishonorable discharge, and worst case, you'll be sentenced to a hard labor battalion up north, and spend the next few years building highways and airstrips in the Alaska and Yukon territories. Then, if you don't freeze to death, then you'll be dishonorably discharged and spend the rest of your life wishing that you had."

"So, I have a choice between misery and death, or just the near certainty of misery and death?"

"That would appear to be the case, so what'll it be?"

Malcolm took another long drag on his cigarette, and then let out a long, smoke-filled sigh.

"Then I'd say you have your agent, lucky for you I hate the cold," said Malcolm. “Sneak into a communist dictatorship, get into one of the most secure places on the continent, break out with a VIP, then get the both of us back alive to American soil by any means necessary... how hard can it be?”

Authors Note: This is the opening the novel in progress, and the only bit from it I'll be posting, but I'm curious what everyone thinks. To no one's surprise, my writing has no harsher critic than myself.

Next up, we kick off the actual timeline, and look back at the very beginning.

Before the Rednecks turned what was left of the old slaver Confederacy into the Confederated Socialist States of America...

Before the Reckoning War spilled the blood of a generation of men from around the world...

Before the nations of the world were divided between the Entente and the Eagles, and which alliance would come to dominate the 20th Century...

Before the United States of America began mandating military service and forged an army that would make even Prussia proud...

Before the Confederate States of America lost King Cotton to the boll weevil and waves of young men on the beaches of Cuba and deserts of Mexico...

Before President Fremont would heal the pride of a wounded USA, and before Robert E. Lee, Dixie's Hannibal, and eventual First Martyr of the Revolution, would like Hannibal before him, die forsaken and hated by the country he's led to victory...

There was a war. The American Civil War, or the War of Confederate Independence, or Palmerston's Folly, depending on who's recounting the history. Whatever you call it, it began with a moment, one of those moments where the fates of entire nations hinge.

Specifically, it hinged upon a battle in Virginia in 1862, that would become known as "the Confederate Cannae".

 

[thekingsguard]

“I've barely said five words to you. What indication could you possibly have that I am a Yankee?"
"Well, we could start with the words 'what indication.' Someone from south of the Mason-Dixon would have said, 'Who the hell are you calling a Yankee?' Then we would have fought.” - old Southern joke​

Excerpt from Normans and Saxons: The North, the South, Slavery, and America's oldest divide by Carter H. Watson​

When searching for answers for where the divide between North and South first began, and the various conflicts it has sparked over the past century, you have historians looking back at American history and offer a range of answers. One of the few points agreed upon is that, by the time South Carolina seceded from the union, the American Civil War, or the War of Southron Independence, depending on whose historians are being asked, was if not a foregone conclusion at least close to it. Some will say that, perhaps one moment or another from the political upheaval of the 1850s, or had there stronger national leadership, that the war may have been avoided, but most historians, including myself, will agree that much of this conflict was already "baked in the clay" by this point.

Others will cite the growing cultural divide between the small farms, immigrant-heavy and rapidly-industrializing Northern states, and the cash crop plantations and Anglo-Saxon elite of the South, and the fear from the latter than the former would soon eclipse them in power. Others will cite slavery, be it the South's outright refusal to see it restricted, the failed efforts to condemn it in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, some even going as far back as pointing out slaves were coming to Jamestown while the Pilgrims were breaking bread over the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, claiming that a nation founded upon the ideals of life and liberty could not long survive such a blatant hypocrisy. Others cite geography - that the North and West, being utterly unsuited to plantation agriculture, was destined to come into conflict with the South where the reign of King Cotton over the South would go unchallenged until the Boll Weevil forced the issue, and the Redneck's would explore alternatives after their revolution.

While each of these schools of thought have their virtues - and I spent enough of my younger years in bondage prior to the Reckoning War to know the many sins and failures of slavery personally - I am among the historians that feel the divide goes back even farther and can trace it's rooted to the sorts of people who first settled these shores. The early settlers of New England and the Mid Atlantic were largely a combination of religious and political refugees, be they Puritans or Quakers, along with a flow of English, Scots-Irish and German farmers and miners seeking better lives across on foreign shores, the first of many who would follow on their footsteps. The early settlers of the South, however, were fortune seekers, and if not the third or fourth sons of minor aristocratic families in England, the kinds of people who seek the same level of noble privilege. One group sought a fresh start and a break with the old world - the other saw themselves as heirs to the Anglo-Norman aristocrats of England, the plantation their noble estates, and the slaves their subjects.

You saw this early on reflected in what would become the Thirteen Colonies with which factions of the English Civil War they supported, with New England supporting Cromwell and the Parliamentarians, and Virginia and the Carolinas supporting the Royalists. In a fashion, one could see the divides between the North and South, as an expansion of that of the Roundheads and Cavaliers... a divide dating back to the English Civil War that would simmer over the centuries until it helped to spawn the American Civil War.

...

When Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely caned Senator Charles Sumner Massachusetts on the floor of the U.S. Senate on May 21, 1856, southerners viewed the attack as a triumphant affirmation of southern chivalry, northerners as a confirmation of southern barbarity. Public opinion was similarly divided nearly three-and-a-half years later after abolitionist John Brown's raid on the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, with northerners crowning John Brown as a martyr to the cause of freedom as southerners excoriated him as a consciousness fanatic. These events opened American minds to the possibility that North and South might be incompatible societies, and that the house divided, could no longer stand... one vision would have to triumph over the other...

Excerpt from Freedom, Rebellion, Redemption, and Revolution: How the American Civil War defined a century and still matters today by James McPherson​

By 1860, the North and South had followed different paths, developing into two distinct and very different regions, with different economies, different populations, different politics and different visions for the future.

In terms of agriculture, the two were divided by geography - northern soil and climate favored smaller farmsteads rather than large plantations, while the fertile soil and warm climate of the South made it ideal for large-scale plantations and cash crops like tobacco and cotton. In fact, with ongoing industrialization, agriculture was playing a smaller and smaller part in the economy of the North, and between 1800 and 1860, the percentage of laborers working in agricultural pursuits in the northern states dropped from 70% to only 40%.

Industry flourished in the North, fueled by more abundant natural resources than in the South, and urbanization accompanied it, with one-quarter of all Northerners lived in cities by 1860, with the largest city, New York with more than 800,000 inhabitants, having more residents than many Southern states. Transportation was easier in the North, which boasted more than two-thirds of the railroad tracks in the country and the economy was on an upswing. With this boom came immigrants from Europe - an overwhelming majority of whom, seven out of every eight, settled in the North rather than the South.

Conversely, because agriculture was so profitable few Southerners saw a need for industrial development, and outside of efforts like Richmond's Tredegar Iron Works, proved openly hostile to such efforts. Eighty percent of the labor force worked on farms, and the economy was entirely dependant on plantation agriculture for cash crops like tobacco and cotton, and with it, chattel slavery was inextricably tied to the region's economy and culture.

While some slave states had begun to phase out the practice - 90% of slaves had been freed in Delaware, and there were less than 1000 slaves in the entire state of Missouri - they were the exception, not the rule, with there being almost as many black slaves as there were whites in the South, 4 million blacks and 5.5 million whites. Nearly all the region's wealth was tied into the plantation economies and went to the owners of these plantations owners - for the nearly two-thirds of Southerners owned no slaves at all, many were impoverished sustenance farmers, and many Southern states had even begun limiting the right to vote to slave owners.

Yet, in 1860, the South's agricultural economy was beginning to stall while the Northern manufacturers were experiencing a boom, something that had not gone unnoticed by the region's planter elite. Decades of effort to prolong their political power and influence at the national level had resulted in countless compromises and concessions, from the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution to Popular Sovereignty - but even the most obtuse among the Southern elite could see the writing was on the wall. The North was growing rapidly on all fronts, in terms of economics, industry, and influence, and with this growth, came the growing support for abolition. The time would come when, just as the South had for decades forced concessions, that the North would be able to force the issue - and that time was coming soon.

If they needed any further sign of the times, it came in the 1860 Presidential Election, with Republican Abraham Lincoln winning the election and carrying every Free state in the Union. Southerners howled that the Presidency would be going to a man "who hadn't won a single Southern vote" but what went unsaid was that aside from Virginia, every state that would eventually secede to form the Confederate States of America had not had Lincoln on the ballot at all, in many instances by design. Lincoln had been elected not to spite the South, but IN SPITE of the South... something that many among the Southern elite were acutely aware of.

Before Lincoln had even been inaugurated, South Carolina announced it was seceding from the Union, with six others having joined it by the day Lincoln was sworn in as President. The American Civil War had begun. Each of them cited the protection of slavery and the plantation economy as the chief causes belli.

 

[thekingsguard]

"Ever since the founding of Jamestown, it doesn't matter if it's Yorktown, Glendale or Ashland, American history has this awful habit of hinging the future of the continent on the outcome of bloody battles fought in Virginia." - Jon Kukla, American historian

"As a General, Lee desperately sought to fight what he called 'his perfect battle, his Cannae,' and he found it on day six of the Six Days Battles, at Glendale." Douglas Southall Freeman, American historian, biographer, and journalist​

Excerpt from On the Sixth Day: The battle that broke America by Stephen W. Sears​

It's hard to imagine a more dramatic turnaround than what was seen on the Peninsula Campaign in June, 1862. Following a steady advance up the Virginia peninsula starting in March, American troops were now just a dozen miles away from Richmond. Then, General Joseph Johnson, the Confederate commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines, and was replaced in command by General Robert E. Lee. At the time derided for his defensive tactics, Lee immediately went on the offensive against the American Army of the Potomac, over a series of battles over six days starting on June 25, the Six Days Battle. The first five days saw a stunning reversal in fortunes for both armies, but the biggest moment would come on June 30, the sixth day of the battle, at Glendale.

Already in retreat, Glendale formed a chokepoint funneling the Army of the Potomac toward the James River - and Lee saw an opportunity to cut the American army in half, in spite of inferior numbers, if the proper Confederate forces could be brought to bear, with three divisions under General James Longstreet assaulting the American flanks and center, and a further four divisions under General Stonewall Jackson approaching the rear.

Jackson, fresh off a three-month campaign in the Shenandoah and a rapid march toward the Pennensula, Jackson and his men were exhausted. This is perhaps why during day five of the Six Days Battle, June 29, his men were held in reserve, with Lee encouraging Jackson and his men to take the Sabbath to get some well-earned respite, with Jackson himself is said to have slept half the day. Thus, in what is a dramatic example of what a difference a good night's sleep can make when Jackson and his men arrived at Glendale the following day, they were alert and prepared to enter the fray. [1]

On the morning of June 30, Jackson's forces encountered the American rear guard under William Franklin near White Oak Swamp, and after scouts located two areas where infantry could ford across, began to send three of his divisions to begin flanking the rear. While Jackson assaulted the rear guard, Lee ordered Longstreet and Hill to move against American troops currently holed up in Greendale, leading a force of nearly 45,000 Confederate soldiers in the attack. American troops in Greendale sent urgent pleas for reinforcements to the rearguard, only for Franklin to say none could be spared, needing everything they had to hold off Jackson.

Perhaps sensing that the American defenders were beginning to waver, Longstreet ordered a full assault, smashing through the center of the overextended American lines. Sweeping through the reserves, he then moved north, toward the Union elements engaged against Jackson at White Oak Swamp. Jackson then committed the remainder of his forces - more than half of the American forces at Glendale were now cut off and almost completely surrounded by two Confederate armies.

Under better leadership, it's possible that a capable general might have been able rallied Union the troops, taken advantage of their superior numbers, or perhaps escaped encirclement entirely. Unfortunately for the Army of the Potomac, they were led by General George McClellan. Or they would have been, had McClellan not already fled the battle, deserting his men in Glendale in favor of finding sanctuary aboard the USS Galena without even leaving anyone in charge of Union forces, in perhaps one of the most brazen examples of dereliction of duty in the history of the American military. While his men were encircled at Glendale, the self-styled Young Napoleon lacked even the courage to face his Waterloo.[2]

It wasn't a total loss for the Army of the Potomac. Joe Hooker's division managed to avoid the encirclement entirely, and two divisions led by Phil Kearny broke through the closing Confederate lines. Those three divisions, along with two that had previously made it to Malvern Hill, were what was left of the army as a fighting force. As the sun fell over Glendale the other seven American divisions were trapped in a shrinking pocket at Glendale, one that Confederate forces continued to shrink smaller every hour - the next morning, Lee accepted the surrender of the remaining US forces. While the estimated numbers vary from source to source, Glendale cost the US Army between 50-60,000 men, including causalities, and resulted in nearly all of thier supplies and equipment. It may not have been as total a victory as that of Carthage, but Lee had delivered the Confederacy their Cannae.[3]

Lee returned to Richmond as the newly-minted hero of the Confederacy. Gone were the snickers over "Granny Lee", now he was hailed as the "Hannibal of the South", and Lee, unlike the Carthaginian, was not going to fail to follow up that victory. Spending some time to recruit and re-equip the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee began marching north, sending one force under Longstreet towards Harpers Ferry to raid the North, and a larger spearhead under Jackson aimed towards Washington, either swatting aside token American opposition, with the remnants of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia mostly being pulled back to defend the American capital.

By September, General Lee had placed Washington under siege and forces raiding western Maryland and central Pennsylvania, an utter reversal of the where the American and Confederate positions had been prior to the Six Days Battles. On September 8, he issued a three-day warning to evacuate civilians before he would begin bombarding the city, as well as a call for the suspension of hostilities and to begin "negotiating the terms of secssion."

Even having suffered such a devastating loss as they had at Glendale, the United States was far from out of the fight. The loss of men cut deep, but the USA had plenty of other soldiers in the field, and hundreds of thousands of draft-eligible men back home to fill the ranks and replace those lost. Even as the Army of the Potomac's defeat put the Virginia theater in dire straights, American armies were advancing steadily in the West, including Grant's victory at the Battle of Shiloh and Farragut's capture of New Orleans. The budding industrial and military might for which the United States would become famous for the world over in a generation's time was beginning to blossom. Even Lee's siege of Washington, while making for shocking headlines, was not as dire as it might appear, with the US capital well on it's way to becoming the most fortified city on Earth even before the loss of the Army of the Potomac.

The loss at Glendale was devastating, but by no means had it defeated the US - they still had the manpower and the materials to keep fighting the war, all they needed was time to bring that into full effect. The Roman Republic had survived their Cannae, so too could America survive their own.

Of course, the Roman Republic didn't have to deal with the British and French. [4]

[1] Our first half of the initial POD ladies and gents. General Jackson, exhausted after a rushed march back to Richmond, was unusually lethargic during the OTL Seven Days Battle. Some rest ITTL, and he's ready to make a difference.

[2] Shockingly, not alternate history, McClellan really did abandon his army at Glendale. If anyone ever tries to say history as been too hard on the coward, don't you believe it.

[3] Our first half of how the Confederacy won their independence - Lee's planned encirclement at Glendale succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, thanks to a one-two punch of Jackson actually attacking the Union rear at White Oak Swamp, and Longstreet attacking the center in masse as opposed to small probing attacks, along with Franklin being unable to send forces to reinforce Union lines.

[4] And we have the SECOND half of how the Confederacy won their independence. More next time!

 

[thekingsguard]

"If you gave most Americans a revolver with three bullets, and put them in a room with Bobby Lee, Jeff Davis, and Lord Palmerston, I guarantee they'd shoot Lee, then shoot Davis twice, and then club Palmerston to death with the pistol." Samuel Clemens, American writer, humorist and journalist

Excerpt from A History of the American People by Paul Johnson​

Despite having suffered a devastating loss at Glendale and the ongoing siege of Washington, the United States was far from out of the fight. Even as McClellan fled Glendale and Lee marched on Washington, Union men under Farragut had captured New Orleans, and soldiers under Grant won an unbroken string of victories marching down the Mississippi. Recruiting offices across the North were flooded with volunteers eager to fill the ranks, and factories cranked out weapons and supplies at speeds that showed the first signs of America's growing industrial might. After the first few probing attacks on Washington were beaten back with gruesome causalities upon the Southerners, morale had begun to improve across the north. A battle had been lost, not the war.

Had cooler minds prevailed, and Europe not intervened in the American Civil War, it's likely that in time, the North would have triumphed over the South. Unfortunately for the United States, and the next half century of Anglo-American relations, they didn't have cooler minds, they had Lord Palmerston. Biographers and historians on both sides of the Atlantic have spent decades trying to explain Palmerston's near fanatic paranoia to the United States, and support for the Confederacy, especially given his own personal disdain for the Slave Trade, but whatever the reasons, those feelings would have dramatic consequences even to this day.

British Prime Minister Henry John Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston, was not alone among British leadership to hold pro-Confederate views, in direct contradiction to the British public which was more pro-Union, but he was perhaps the most vocal. In part resulting from a lifelong dislike of the United States, Palmerston viewed the outbreak of the American Civil War as a chance to at last divide the United States in a fashion more advantageous to Britain. In letters to then Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone, a fellow Confederate sympathizer, Palmerston gleefully wrote of how an independent Confederacy "would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures", and in letters to Queen Victoria, he wrote how "Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the United States which will not soon be forgotten. "

Following the outbreak of hostilities between the North and South, Palmerston was quick to order urgent reinforcements to British North America and the Caribbean, fearful that an American military once mobilized against the South would in time be turned against Canada. While historians debate the effectiveness of Confederate overtures to Britain and France, not helping matters were incidents such as the Trent affair in November 1861, which produced public outrage in Britain and further inflamed relations between the United States and Canada. Yet the most important moves toward European intervention were not being made in London, but in Paris.

Napoleon III, the Emperor of France, was a man who always had schemes within schemes, and he saw one such opportunity with the American Civil War. Similar to the British public, French opinions on the Civil War were divided, with the nobility largely supporting the Confederacy and the public largely supporting the Union. Napoleon III however saw only opportunity - not only to divide the United States, but to advance the early stages of his plans for Latin America. He knew that the US strongly opposed and the Confederacy tolerated his plan to create a new empire in Mexico, where his troops had landed in December 1861, and had similar opinions on French ambitions for Central America. That doing so would also create a sympathetic French ally in Richmond, one that might back his Latin American ambitions with troops and supplies certainly sweetened the deal.

For all the South's hopes of courting Britain with "cotton diplomacy", it was France that would be more effectively wooed by it, with the Union blockade cutting off most cotton supplies to French textile mills, causing the so-called famine du coton (cotton famine). Mills in Alsace, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and Normandy saw prices of cotton double by 1862 and were forced to lay off many workers. As a result, many French industrialists and politicians turned against the US, and wished for a quick Confederate victory. The French pro-American lobby was rocked yet again when it's most vocal voice, French Foreign Minister, Édouard Thouvenel, was asked to resign in 1862 not long after the Confederate victory at Glendale. Napoleon III was eager to recognize and support the Confederacy... but only if the British would do the same, realizing that a war with the U.S. without allies "would spell disaster" for France.

The French were more pragmatic about the war, but more eager to intervene, but would not do so without British support. British leadership, in contrast was more supportive of the Confederacy, but deeply cautious about intervening. That caution began to erode however as Lee racked up victory after victory in the summer of 1862, and as the Army of Northern Virginia opened fire on Washington in September 1862, the British cabinet knew the time to pick a side had finally come. Now would be the time to make a choice to either recognize the Confederacy and back them openly, or to back away entirely.[1]

The discussions that followed between Palmerston, Gladstone and Foreign Secretary John Russell are not known in their entirely, but the end results were: On September 30, 1862, the British recognized the independence of the Confederate States of America, with the French following the next day. To the horror of the North, and delight of the South, there also a came an offer to mediate a peace between the two sides in London... with the unspoken threat of British and French intervention to follow if the offer was declined.

The Confederates were delighted to accept - they realized early on that, much like with the American Revolution, the Dixie Revolution needed foreign support to succeed.

The feelings in the Union however, were ones of shock and betrayal. Despite the losses at Glendale, the United States was beaten, but far from broken, and were ready to fight the Confederacy... they were not however, prepared to also fight the two largest powers on Earth. With British and French bayonets pointed to their backs, American diplomats headed to London.

At the time, the move was seen as a masterstroke of British and French diplomacy, dividing a powerful rising rival in the United States while creating a much more amenable allied regime in the process. As early as the coming Peace Treaty however, the full effects of just what the British had chained themselves to would become apparent, one that would have an effect on millions of lives on both sides of the Atlantic until the conclusion of the Reckoning War a half century later.

American students would come to know this as the British Betrayal. British students would learn of it as Palmerston's Folly.

[1] Oddly, literally everything up until this point is OTL. This is where the key difference between OTL and TTL's situation comes into play. In OTL, the Confederates had just suffered a critical defeat at Antietam, and Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In TTL, Lee is besieging Washington, so the European calculus is much different.

 

[thekingsguard]

"War is a terrible thing - an untenable peace is worse." Thomas Custer, Chief of the American General Staff, MOH/MOV recipient[1]

"Amsterdam was the high-water mark of the Confederacy. Our last moment of glory before decades of shame. We had won the war for our independence... Amsterdam was when we began to lose the peace." James Longstreet, Confederate general, senator.

Excerpt from A History of the American People by Paul Johnson​

After deciding upon Amsterdam as a neutral location for negotiations - Paris, the initial suggested site chosen for symbolic reasons, was rejected by American negotiators for the French role in this - negotiations almost ended before they began. Upon arrival of the American delegation, led by Secretary of State William Seward, some members of a British military band played "The World Turned Upside Down", and immediately stormed out, and only after multiple assurances that this was an action taken by a rogue British soldier, who would be immediately disciplined that peace talks continued.

If Seward and the other American delegates had any remaining fury over the slight, he seemingly put it to use at the negotiating tables. Arguments between them, and Confederate delegates led by Judah P. Benjamin, were common, fierce, and for the French and British mediators, utterly exhausting. A peaceful divorce was never on the table.

Several small points of agreement aside - an end to military actions, POW exchanges, eventual withdrawal from each side's respective territory, and most importantly, free, unhindered and uninterrupted use of the Mississippi River for means of transportation of non-military vessels by both sides - negotiations nearly came to blows over two points - Confederates demanding any escaped slaves that reach American soil be returned, and the status of slaves traveling north with their owners. American negotiators wouldn't budge on either point - as Seward pointed out, laws like the Fugitive Slave Act and cases like Dredd Scott had not been enough to buy the South's loyalty, what reason did the United States have to offer it in reward for their treason? American policy would be firm on this - any slave that reached American soil, be it alongside their owner or fleeing from them, would be considered free.

In a rare point of unity between American, British and French diplomacy - and perhaps an early sign of who would be calling the shots in the Anglo-French relationships with the Confederacy - British and French diplomats backed American negotiators on this point. Despite days of Confederate protest, they eventually caved on both points.

The biggest point of argument following that was deciding what was to be the eventual border between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America.

The one point of contention of a future USA/CSA border where negotiations went comparatively smoothly was Virginia - despite both maintaining legitimate control over the state, the primary concern was enough buffer between their respective national capitals. Despite Confederate attempts to claim everything to the Potomac River, and American attempts to claim everything to the Pamunkey, both sides eventually settled on the Rappahannock-Rapidan River fairly quickly, as the initial border, with counties west of the Shenandoah Mountains, including those part of the so-called Wheeling government, to have county-by-county votes over which Virginia to join.[2]

Similarly, the Indian Territory, which had joined the Confederacy, was recognized as Confederate without much fuss from American negotiators.

The main points of contention would be the fates of non secessionist slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. The Confederates claimed since they were slave states, they should be a part of the Confederacy, US diplomats meanwhile pointed out that any attempts at session had failed, and in the cases of Missouri and Delaware, neither had ever seen a Confederate soldier set foot on them. Eventually, British, French and American diplomats came to agree that the matter should be decided by state residents in a series of referendums, perhaps to be followed by others to determine the Western border.

Confederate delegates, heady on victory, asked why they should gamble all the ballot box what they had won by the bullet - then grew quiet when American delegates countered if the bullet was how this was to be decided, perhaps they might consider that Tennessee and Louisiana were nearly entirely under Union occupation.

It would be here, with negotiations at a standstill, and Christmas approaching, that Seward would play his trump card. Inviting several members of the foreign press, and several notables among European abolitionists, he released a statement authorized by President Lincoln before the first Americans had left for Amsterdam: that on Christmas Day, President Lincoln would be issuing what would become known as the Manumission Proclamation, a proposal for emancipation that by the end of 1863, all slaves within the borders of the United States would be freed, with a paid compensation to their former owners to be decided by Congress. There would be no more slavery within the United States of America - including whichever border states voted to remain in the union. No small thing when a promise of retaining the status quo might have secured a few more "remain" votes in the border states.

It was a masterstroke. The British and French public, which largely supported emancipation, quickly voiced support for the American proposal, further forcing the hands of the British and French negotiators, who in turn forced the Confederates to do the same. The fates of Missouri, Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky would be decided by that most American of traditions, voting.

This first part of the Treaty of Amsterdam was signed off on by all four parties on December 31, with a final treaty to be negotiated following the referendums.

After the results of the referendums, there would be no second round of treaty negotiations. One odd quirk of the decision to put off a "final" treaty until after the referendums was that, technically, the United States of America never extended full recognition of the independence of the Confederate States of America... a legal quirk that would soon become official policy of the United States government, and would continue to be the case even post-Revolution.

Excerpt from Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Kentucky: The Long Civil War on the Border by Jonathan Earle​

Comparisons to Kansas would prove to be apt, as the referendums in the border states would prove every bit as contentious, and in a couple more cases, even bloodier.

The referendums were to be held in stages - Missouri in March, Maryland and Delaware in June, and Kentucky in September, so monitors from all sides could observe and maintain that elections were fair - talk of what had happened to pro-Union votes across the deep South made sure of that.

Despite pretentions of a 12th Confederate state with Missouri, the vote to remain in the Union was almost never in question, given that even talk of session had gotten the last Governor chased all the way to Texas. There were slave owners in Missouri, yes, especially near the Mississippi River and the Southern parts of the state, but never the kind of plantation agriculture common to the South. What's more, with St. Louis already well on its way to becoming one of the United States' largest cities, and home to booming industry, the state was already looking more like the Industrial north than the plantation South... the Transcontinental railroad currently under construction passing through Missouri certainly helped quell any other doubts locals may have had that their fortunes lay with Washington, not Richmond. The final vote was 85-15 in favor of remaining in the Union.

Not even the most die hard members of the Confederate bore much hope for Delaware - less than 1 percent of the state owned any slaves, and talk of getting paid to free the remainder under the manumission plans being discussed in Congress quickly cemented Union support even among the state's few remaining slave owners. The final vote was an overwhelming 98-2 in favor of remaining in the Union.

Maryland was the prize many in the Confederate government had hoped to win - a vote in favor of session might not just deliver Maryland, but might force the US to cede even the bit of Virginia they had claimed. Plus, the state's slave-owning population had been vocally - perhaps even to the point of treason - in favor of the Confederacy. There was even some fear on the American side that some of the early attempts to clamp down on this - notably the suspension of habeus corpus - might backfire.

Yet the Maryland of 1863 was not the Maryland of 1861, much less 1850. Ironically, many of the state's most vocal Confederate supporters had already fled South to help support the Confederacy militarily, or were enjoying Union military hospitality at Fort McHenry. The state government was firmly unionist by this point, and was even in the process of drafting a state constitution which would abolish slavery entirely. When the vote came, it was much closer than the others, but still firmly in favor of remaining in the union, by a 63-37 margin.

So it was that Kentucky, the last state whose fate was to be decided that all the Confederate attention turned... and their attempts to put their thumbs on the scales.

Kentucky had a much more perilous position as a border state than Maryland or Missouri did. It officially declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after a failed attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state of Kentucky for the Confederacy, the legislature petitioned the Union Army for assistance. After early 1862 Kentucky came largely under Union control, and had been the sites of major battles such as Mill Springs. There was a clear divide between the eastern side of the state and the western half, the latter being slave country. And, it held symbolic value - it was the birthplace of both American President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

And, most critically, it was just across the border from Tennessee... something that many Tennessee residents quickly took advantage of, fleeing across the border ahead of the September referendum to stack the votes. While Union attempts to do the same with some Ohio and Indiana and Illinois residents did happen, it was never as readily or as common as Confederate attempts. Fights and feuds were common across the state, and Kansas-style violence grew increasingly common as the deadline approached. In many cases, the fighting in Kentucky made Bleeding Kansas look like a bar fight.

All of this paled to what happened to the town of Bowling Green in August. The town of had earned the ire of the Confederates. Despite being the the provisional capital of the initially short-lived Confederate government of Kentucky, and occupation by Kentucky native General Simon Bolivar Buckner, the town was the hotbed for Union support in the western half of the state, surprising it's occupiers, who would eventually abandon the town as Grant captured forts Henry and Donelson. Perhaps this is why it became the target of a Confederate "militia" consisting of 800 men pulled from the Army of Tennessee. They rode into Bowling Green, and put the town to the torch, killing townspeople known for Unionism, including women and children. What had been a town of nearly 4,000 people was now a smoking ruin, and more than 1,600 people were dead. It would become known as the Bowling Green Massacre, it's architect, Nathan Bedford Forest known throughout the Union as "the Butcher of Bowling Green" to this day.

The vote was close - by a 53-47 margin, Kentucky would be the 12th state to join the Confederate States of America. Moods across the Confederacy were celebratory - between events like what happened to Bowling Green and clear attempts to pad the vote by the Confederacy, the US was out for blood, and only forced down by the threat of British and French intervention. If the American public felt stabbed in the back before, this all but cemented the complete breakdown in relations between the United States and Britain/France.

The fate of Kentucky would nix all talk of similar referendums for the New Mexico territory and western Texas... while on paper, the USA would have New Mexico, and the Confederacy all of Texas, raids and conflict throughout this massive stretch of territory would continue right up through the Reckoning War, and remain a fixture of both the history and fiction of the Old Wild West.

Bleeding Kentucky would become the seeping wound of USA-CSA relations, one which would only grow more and more infected as the years would go on. If there was any chance of normalized relations between the two former countrymen, it died there, and all but set the stage for countless future points of conflict between the two, perhaps the most notable being the Appalachian Pig War.

[1] Brother to the infamous George, and an OTL x2 MOH recipient, here the Medal of Valor is also created by a more militarized United States... as is that snazzy title of his. Pay attention to Custer, we'll be seeing more of him.

[2] The division of Virginia will be in the next post... as will the first map of the timeline! Not an official timeline without maps!

I might break this into two posts, but I wanted to at least get past the War of Confederate Independence, and start the post-war era.