I do like the human look into an enslaved man and both why he's personally motivated to rebel in the ways he can but also the reasons he has to keep his head down. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who look back on slavery and invent reasons for why they didn't rebel more ("they were cowards", "they were happy", etc etc depending on that person's political motives and the severity of their stupidity), and I do think people miss just how easy of a manipulative leverage the planters had with punishing the family or others for the actions of the more rebellious, both as a way to shame the rebellious and to instill fear in others to make them report dissent earlier. Thomas is a perfect example, if it were up to him, he'd go down fighting, but too many people that he cares for would suffer and they might not win, so he has to keep his temper and be patient.
Overall, a well-done look into the mind of a person who lives in this era on this side of the often abstract side of history.
Beyond that, I like both the acknowledgement of still-existing prejudice and also the burgeoning seeds of the narrative that poor whites ITTL are going to eventually embrace: "we both know what it means to have a planter take your child" is going to be a very common sentiment that the Union will need to really try to build upon in the Reconstruction, blaming as much of the suffering of the common whites on the decadence and hypocrisy of the planter class as possible. Most Southern Whites won't love the Union for a generation or two, but they can be made to hate the planters more than the Union or the freedmen, and that's the best we can hope for.
I do have to ask, since this is Georgia, how extensive is the level of dissidence and Union collaboration in the various states of the Confederacy? Obviously, we know about certain states like Kentucky and Tennessee, but far behind the lines of battle, to waht extent are they growing? I'm also trying to remember if you have talked about the Texas Unionists, especially a lot of German immigrants, who were massacred in OTL and if they have suffered a similar fate or have survived long enough/to a greater extent to be an issue for the CSA?
Overall, a well-done look into the mind of a person who lives in this era on this side of the often abstract side of history.
Beyond that, I like both the acknowledgement of still-existing prejudice and also the burgeoning seeds of the narrative that poor whites ITTL are going to eventually embrace: "we both know what it means to have a planter take your child" is going to be a very common sentiment that the Union will need to really try to build upon in the Reconstruction, blaming as much of the suffering of the common whites on the decadence and hypocrisy of the planter class as possible. Most Southern Whites won't love the Union for a generation or two, but they can be made to hate the planters more than the Union or the freedmen, and that's the best we can hope for.
I do have to ask, since this is Georgia, how extensive is the level of dissidence and Union collaboration in the various states of the Confederacy? Obviously, we know about certain states like Kentucky and Tennessee, but far behind the lines of battle, to waht extent are they growing? I'm also trying to remember if you have talked about the Texas Unionists, especially a lot of German immigrants, who were massacred in OTL and if they have suffered a similar fate or have survived long enough/to a greater extent to be an issue for the CSA?
