WI: East Tennessee secedes/stays in Union

Wallet

Banned
During the Civil War, several counties in the eastern smoky mountain region of Tennessee tried to secede from Tennessee and form a new state that would remain loyal to the Federal Government just like West Virginia with Knoxville as the capital. Senator and future Vice President and President Andrew Johnson spoke at this convention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Tennessee_Convention

East Tennessee had very few slaves and were extremely pro union. They voted 70% not to leave the Union and contributed more troops to the Union then the Confederacy.

This new state attempt failed when Confederate troops quickly occupied the region by request by the very pro slavery Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris.

East-tennessee-secession-vote-tn1.png

Maroon: Rejected secession by 80% or more
Red: Rejected secession by 51-79%
Grey: Voted for secession
White: No data


What would be the effects if East Tennessee was able to form a new state and stayed loyal to the Union? And what would it be called? Possibilities include East Tennessee, Franklin, or Nickajack.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
What would be the effects if East Tennessee was able to form a new state and stayed loyal to the Union? And what would it be called? Possibilities include East Tennessee, Franklin, or Nickajack.
For one, the rest of Tennessee would be solidly Democratic after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

Also, Black people might be treated better in eastern Tennessee than in the rest of Tennessee in this TL; for instance, Black people might keep their right to vote in eastern Tennessee in this TL (like they did in the Upper South during the Jim Crow era).

As for the U.S. Civil War itself, defending eastern Tennessee might be a bit of a hurdle and challenge for the Union Army, no? After all, it would be a Union salient sticking into the Confederacy, and in turn this might make it hard to defend (but also might cause the Union to push faster to conquer the rest of Tennessee).
 

Wallet

Banned
For one, the rest of Tennessee would be solidly Democratic after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

Also, Black people might be treated better in eastern Tennessee than in the rest of Tennessee in this TL; for instance, Black people might keep their right to vote in eastern Tennessee in this TL (like they did in the Upper South during the Jim Crow era).

As for the U.S. Civil War itself, defending eastern Tennessee might be a bit of a hurdle and challenge for the Union Army, no? After all, it would be a Union salient sticking into the Confederacy, and in turn this might make it hard to defend (but also might cause the Union to push faster to conquer the rest of Tennessee).
Any way Lincoln can get Union troops before the Confederacy arrives?
 

samcster94

Banned
For one, the rest of Tennessee would be solidly Democratic after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

Also, Black people might be treated better in eastern Tennessee than in the rest of Tennessee in this TL; for instance, Black people might keep their right to vote in eastern Tennessee in this TL (like they did in the Upper South during the Jim Crow era).

As for the U.S. Civil War itself, defending eastern Tennessee might be a bit of a hurdle and challenge for the Union Army, no? After all, it would be a Union salient sticking into the Confederacy, and in turn this might make it hard to defend (but also might cause the Union to push faster to conquer the rest of Tennessee).
I imagine East Tennessee's fate would be similar to West Virginia if it entered in the war as a free state and survived after the war as conservative, but with a lighter Jim Crow.
 
For one, the rest of Tennessee would be solidly Democratic after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

Also, Black people might be treated better in eastern Tennessee than in the rest of Tennessee in this TL; for instance, Black people might keep their right to vote in eastern Tennessee in this TL (like they did in the Upper South during the Jim Crow era).

As for the U.S. Civil War itself, defending eastern Tennessee might be a bit of a hurdle and challenge for the Union Army, no? After all, it would be a Union salient sticking into the Confederacy, and in turn this might make it hard to defend (but also might cause the Union to push faster to conquer the rest of Tennessee).

Kentucky needs to be more pliant to federal forces for this to become reality (and that's another issue). East Tennessee remained under Confederate occupation longer than the rest of the state, after all. There needs to be an operation to back the East Tennessee Convention ASAP.

No, blacks wouldn't necessarily be treated better. The Clinton High School case in the 1950s was in East Tennessee, after all. Some East Tennesseans supported abolitionism, but it was more unionism rather than abolitionism that kept them loyal.

The poor defense preparations for Middle Tennessee as in OTL, compounded by the fact we're assuming Kentucky is very accepting of Union forces, would assumedly make East Tennessee not too difficult to defend. By the end of 1862 the Union had done quite a measure with the rebels in Tennessee--that's what you get when you have the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers so open to invasion (and one of those forts gets flooded, lol).

One issue is there were no railroads between Nashville and Knoxville, which is going to be an issue, since that leads to a degree of separation between the forces in Middle Tennessee and those in East Tennessee.

For later politics, you have a solidly Republican state which will be electing mainly Republican Congressmen as well as voting Republican in presidential elections--also weakening Tennessee's pull in the process. Unless you have something to change this, of course. There's plenty of other implications of this, both statewide and nationally, on East Tennessee being separate.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Kentucky needs to be more pliant to federal forces for this to become reality (and that's another issue). East Tennessee remained under Confederate occupation longer than the rest of the state, after all. There needs to be an operation to back the East Tennessee Convention ASAP.

OK.

No, blacks wouldn't necessarily be treated better. The Clinton High School case in the 1950s was in East Tennessee, after all. Some East Tennesseans supported abolitionism, but it was more unionism rather than abolitionism that kept them loyal.

One can support Black suffrage without supporting an end to segregation, though. Indeed, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware all allowed Black suffrage but still had segregation during the Jim Crow era.

The poor defense preparations for Middle Tennessee as in OTL, compounded by the fact we're assuming Kentucky is very accepting of Union forces, would assumedly make East Tennessee not too difficult to defend. By the end of 1862 the Union had done quite a measure with the rebels in Tennessee--that's what you get when you have the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers so open to invasion (and one of those forts gets flooded, lol).

OK.

One issue is there were no railroads between Nashville and Knoxville, which is going to be an issue, since that leads to a degree of separation between the forces in Middle Tennessee and those in East Tennessee.

Can't the Union quickly build a (primitive) railroad connection between these areas, though?

For later politics, you have a solidly Republican state which will be electing mainly Republican Congressmen as well as voting Republican in presidential elections--also weakening Tennessee's pull in the process. Unless you have something to change this, of course. There's plenty of other implications of this, both statewide and nationally, on East Tennessee being separate.

By Tennessee's pull, you mean Tennessee's overall influence, correct?

Also, Yes, I completely agree with everything that you wrote here.

I imagine East Tennessee's fate would be similar to West Virginia if it entered in the war as a free state and survived after the war as conservative, but with a lighter Jim Crow.

Agreed; indeed, as far as I know, West Virginia allowed Blacks to vote but also had segregation during the Jim Crow era.
 
OK.



One can support Black suffrage without supporting an end to segregation, though. Indeed, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware all allowed Black suffrage but still had segregation during the Jim Crow era.



OK.



Can't the Union quickly build a (primitive) railroad connection between these areas, though?



By Tennessee's pull, you mean Tennessee's overall influence, correct?

Also, Yes, I completely agree with everything that you wrote here.



Agreed; indeed, as far as I know, West Virginia allowed Blacks to vote but also had segregation during the Jim Crow era.

I think for most politicians, they'd rather you vote for them regardless of race, including waving issues regarding races voting, as noted with several of Tennessee's political machines (Boss Crump and his offshoots, though they weren't strong in East Tennessee). Blacks were a highly useful votebank for the political machines of Tennessee.

I'm not too sure about railroad logistics. But such a railroad would have to roughly parallel Interstate 40 between Nashville and Knoxville, which cuts through the Cumberland Plateau and has quite dramatic terrain. It would be difficult going.

And I mean Tennessee's overall influence. See examples like the 1920 Presidential election, where Tennessee voted Republican. If East Tennessee split, you'd divide the electoral vote between Democrats and Republicans (not that it would make a difference in that case). There's also two new senate seats which will be filled by Republicans most of the time. That balances out Tennessee's own delegation. But this is based on OTL trends. That will probably hold true in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, but given time, things could turn out very differently and the East Tennessee Democrats could be more competitive.
 
OK, I just have to recycle this old DBWI of mine...

***
Look, I don't want to get into any debate about whether the separation of East Tennessee from Tennessee was constitutional or not. For present purposes I will accept Lincoln's position that the "restored government of Tennessee" had sufficient authority to accept the separation. My real point is this: I have just done some arithmetic and have discovered that had Tennessee remained undivided, George W. Bush rather than Al Gore would have won the presidential race in 2000--even though Gore would still have won a popular plurality nationwide! Gore, who carried Tennessee far from overwhelmingly in OTL, would have lost in the "old" Tennessee--i.e., one including East Tennessee. The figures are as follows:

In OTL, as we all know, Gore won Tennessee but by an unimpressive margin, given that it was his home state. He got 694,525 (52.1 percent of the two-party vote) to Bush's 637,683 (47.9 percent). Bush easily won nearby East Tennessee, of course, by 424,266 to 287,195--which amounts to a 59.6-40.4 percent victory in the two-party popular vote of that state. In fact, Bush carried 27 of the state's 28 counties--Anderson, Blount, Bradley, Carter, Claiborne, Cocke, Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hamilton, Hancock, Hawkins, Jefferson, Johnson, Knox, Loudon, McMinn, Meigs, Monroe, Polk, Rhea, Roane, Sevier, Sullivan, Unicoi, Union, and Washington. Only Campbell County, on the northwestern edge of the state, went for Gore.

Now let's add the 28 East Tennessee counties to Tennessee. Result: Bush defeats Gore in this larger Tennessee by 1,061,949 to 981,720. In other words, Gore would get only 48 percent of the two-party vote in his own state! (Of course, it's possible that East Tennessee wouldn't have voted quite so heavily for Bush if Gore had had a "same-state" advantage there, but I doubt it. Even if the state stayed together, there would still be no love lost between East Tennesseans and a "Central"--as he would then be--Tennessean like Gore.)

In OTL, Gore won with 274 electoral votes for 265 for Bush, with one Gore elector from DC abstaining. (For those who have forgotten, the Electoral College consists of 540 members--there are 537 electors from the 51 states, corresponding to the 102 Senators and 435 Representatives; and to these you add the three electors from the District of Columbia. The "magic number" for a majority is of course 271.)

Had Tennessee remained undivided, there would be only 538 electors (with only 270 votes needed to win) and with Bush carrying all of Tennessee (with eleven electoral votes--right now, of course, Tennessee has eight electoral votes, and East Tennessee five; the loss of two electors is due to the fact that the combined states would obviously have two fewer Senators), the result would be 271-267 for Bush (actually 271-266 with one abstention--but I wonder if the woman from the District of Columbia would have abstained under those circumstances, since Bush's winning without a popular plurality would probably generate so much outrage among Democrats that all Democratic electors would be determined to stand together.)

Of course, this is ignoring butterfly effects. I suppose you will say that if Tennessee had remained united, US history would be so different that nobody would even have heard of Bush or Gore. And in any event, with the counties that now make up East Tennessee making it likely that Tennessee would go Republican, Gore might have written off his home state and spent more time campaigning in Florida, where Bush's victory in OTL was surprisingly close...
 
Is East Tennessee big enough to be viable as a separate state? What was its population and acreage compared to West Virgina in 61?

Any chance post war that the western tip of Virginia could be cut off and have it added to Eastern Tennessee and West Virginia to make a single super Apalachian state? Or I am I just barking out of my geographically challenged ass?
 
Is East Tennessee big enough to be viable as a separate state? What was its population and acreage compared to West Virgina in 61?

Any chance post war that the western tip of Virginia could be cut off and have it added to Eastern Tennessee and West Virginia to make a single super Apalachian state? Or I am I just barking out of my geographically challenged ass?

I don't see how it could be worse than the case of Nevada. It had a sufficient amount of people.


Clearly, the failure of East Tennessee to secede was a massive conspiracy to elect George W. Bush almost 140 years later. I bet the Illuminati did this, to further their nefarious schemes.
 
What if Eastern Tennessee becomes the new state or Franklin and actively resists?

This leads to the siege of Knoxville

The Union Government is put under pressure to save Franklin

This makes the USA more belligerent towards Kentucky and they invade

Unoccupied Kentucky breaks off from whatever is now in Union hands and joins the CSA

Meanwhile in Franklin the Union now has a dagger pointing at the heart of the Confederacy . . .

. . . or a lot of Yankee troops about to be cut off and destroyed
 
What if Eastern Tennessee becomes the new state or Franklin and actively resists?

This leads to the siege of Knoxville

The Union Government is put under pressure to save Franklin

This makes the USA more belligerent towards Kentucky and they invade

Unoccupied Kentucky breaks off from whatever is now in Union hands and joins the CSA

Meanwhile in Franklin the Union now has a dagger pointing at the heart of the Confederacy . . .

. . . or a lot of Yankee troops about to be cut off and destroyed

East Tennessee was one of the more Pro-Union areas of the CSA, any revolt would be quickly put down.
 

Wallet

Banned
What if Eastern Tennessee becomes the new state or Franklin and actively resists?

This leads to the siege of Knoxville

The Union Government is put under pressure to save Franklin

This makes the USA more belligerent towards Kentucky and they invade

Unoccupied Kentucky breaks off from whatever is now in Union hands and joins the CSA

Meanwhile in Franklin the Union now has a dagger pointing at the heart of the Confederacy . . .

. . . or a lot of Yankee troops about to be cut off and destroyed
Lincoln made it very clear if the US lost Kentucky the war is lost
 
Lincoln made it very clear if the US lost Kentucky the war is lost

Says Lincoln, not necessarily says the federal forces. First, can the Confederacy even hope to control the Ohio River? Especially since we're assuming that this Kentucky is weak enough to let the Union enforce the East Tennessee Convention (and presumably not lose it to the CSA within a few months). Without control of the rivers, it's going to be quite hard to support CSA Kentucky. Actually, I don't think there's anything left for CSA Kentucky if the Union is able to hold East Tennessee. The supply lines to East Tennessee are assumedly all under Union control, and the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers will fall into Union hands sooner or later. Anything lost from Kentucky is mostly made up with from East Tennessee, since the Unionists can now directly join the federal forces instead of resorting to guerilla warfare (or nothing at all).
 
Is East Tennessee big enough to be viable as a separate state? What was its population and acreage compared to West Virgina in 61?

Any chance post war that the western tip of Virginia could be cut off and have it added to Eastern Tennessee and West Virginia to make a single super Apalachian state? Or I am I just barking out of my geographically challenged ass?

Maybe even add the western parts of North Carolina
 
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