As noted elsewhere, “If Baseball Integrated Early” glosses over some things, including *how* the Union wins over a year early. However, Chancellorsville is the key. It was the first battle after the Emancipation Proclamation that I could find to easily let the Union win pretty fast. It lets the slaves be freed, yet there's less animosity. I'll admit, it's mildly utopic, but as noted in another post, integration still is a very slow process, and the main thing is the worst of the Jim Crow laws and other things aren't passed.
The first part, is the foreward to IBIE, as it tells the POD. The next few parts of this post detail how I envision it going. the goal of this threatd is to see just how fast the CSA could realistically be defeated with this POD.
Oh, and I'm sorry if I get the names wrong, i tried to get them all down right. But, some things, like platoon versus regiment versus whatever, I don't know the difference, as I'm not into military history. So, I just say "men.
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From the end of the next to last part of a famous Civil War documentary:
“To be fair, Hooker starting to lose his nerve wasn’t the only problem for the Union Army. The rebels had the great Stonewall Jackson. However, two great turns of fate came at Chancellorsville. One of them was the death of Jackson. The other was a concussion received by General Hooker. When General Couch went to see him, he was still unconscious. He never would regain all his faculties….
“Had one or both not happened, the rebels still would have lost, but it might have been two more years. Some say General Lee had an ambitious plan to invade the North in Pennsylvania. Instead, the Civil War was over within months. And, as wounds healed, a new era emerged, with some taking more time to grow closer than others. But, with much less animosity on both sides, reconciliation would be much, much easier.”
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From the book, “The Battle of Chancellorsville”:
“Hooker’s defensive posture had caused Lee to gain an adevantage, but he still hadn’t used a large body of men, the 17,000 or so under Reynolds…When he got hit; he was out cold for enough time that General Couch, seeing him unconscious, took charge.
“Ironically, Reynolds’ men being used here, instead of occupied earlier, wound up as a great plus as May 3rd wound down; Couch ordered them to assist Sedgwick, and Early’s forces were surrounded and defeated. Now, the Union again held the high ground, and the Confedereate forces had lost thousands of men.
“On the 4th of May, a general attack was ordered, against Lee’s now even more outnumbered forces. Stoneman's men had rushed toward Richmond and not cut the lines, but then Lee's men wound up retreating right into hisraiders….
“It was considered a major defeat for the Confederacy. As the Union pursued toward Richmond, the war was almost lost. Still, Lee almost won, and would have, had Jackson and a couple lesser commanders under him not fallen. Hooker never regained full use of his faculties. His short term memory was gone. He became a key case for study in the early study of memory and memory loss.”
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General Lee would later admit that his biggest mistake at Chancellorsville was “thinking too much,” making things too complex by sending Longstreet with such a large contingent of men a weeks’ march away. He’d been unaware of Hooker’s injuries, and so expected that the union was planning a defensive battle, after the first couple days. He got caught completely by surprise when the Union suddenly attacked.
Couch would later remark that, “The plans of the afternoon of the 3rd, then the 4th, were pretty much made up on the fly; communication was out, so we didn’t even have an idea Sedgwick was in trouble. We were more organized after that, but still, we were fortunate that they, too, had lost some of their men.”
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My idea is that Lee is pursued by Couch, Reynolds, and Meade - reynolds died at Gettysburg, so it would be siensible if he or someone else died in this or the next battle, too. A few things I'm wondering:
1. I'm expecting Lee retreats all the way to Richmond and orders Longstreet to join him. Would the government flee? Or, would they stay?
2. Also, if Virginia is taken out of the war, would Lee retire? He only wanted to fight for his native state, anyway, after all. Or, would it matter? After such a blunder, might he be replaced - by Bragg, even? (Oh, boy, now *that* might give the Unio a victory fast.) I've read in a few other threads that Davis was really high on Bragg.
3. I do mention that Grant wins at Vicksburg, and there's a general strategy session, with Grant put in charge becuase of his successful overal plan to get Vicksburg. (In TTL, because Meade/Couch/Reynods won with what seemed to be a lot fo chaos, but Grant was the best planner in Lincoln's eyes.)[/FONT] Would Grant win Vicksburg sooner? Would Davis order Pemberton to come help protect Richmond in mid-May, or perhaps to Chattanooga while some others go from there to Richmond? Or, would there still be a siege? And, if Vicksburg is laid siege to, as news breaks of Richmond maybe falling, and the CSA in trouble, does it break morale so the forces usrrender early? Or, do they hold out a little longer?
You can perhaps see why, with baseball my main love and the military far down the list, I glossed over things. (I thank a couple websites, like
www.civilwarhome.com, and a good friend who is a Civi War buff as great helps.) However, I did think it would make for an interesting discussion. I might not add any pages to IBIE recounting this discussion, it's already complete as far as I'm concerned, but I did want to see how the denizens of this forum felt things would play out.
thanks. And, if I dont have time to come back for a good while, thanks for all the interesting discussions.[/FONT]