redlightning
Banned
What if all the targets selected by John Wilkes Booth for assassination April 14, 1865 were taken out not simply President Lincoln? Secretary Seward and Vice-President Johnson are both also successfully assassinated.
If John Wilkes Booth's plan had succeeded in full, there would have been no restraints on the revenge-minded North.
There might have been be a virtual sacking of the South's major cities and a much more draconian reconstruction, with the seceded states placed under indefinite martial law. We might even see the Vietnamization of the United States - a guerrilla insurgency by the Confederates, with most of the country controlled by the Union with small pockets of resistance scattered throughout the land.
Remember, Lincoln wanted the rebel states brought back into the Union as quickly as possible, and he had told his cabinet and generals he wanted no reprisals or vengeful actions taken against the rebels, and it's possible had he not been assassinated things might have worked out for the better.
No less than the ex-Confederate President Jefferson Davis said in an interview many years later:
"Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the murder of Abraham Lincoln was the worst disaster ever to befall the South." In this, he was undoubtably correct.
If John Wilkes Booth's plan had succeeded in full, there would have been no restraints on the revenge-minded North.
There might have been be a virtual sacking of the South's major cities and a much more draconian reconstruction, with the seceded states placed under indefinite martial law. We might even see the Vietnamization of the United States - a guerrilla insurgency by the Confederates, with most of the country controlled by the Union with small pockets of resistance scattered throughout the land.
Remember, Lincoln wanted the rebel states brought back into the Union as quickly as possible, and he had told his cabinet and generals he wanted no reprisals or vengeful actions taken against the rebels, and it's possible had he not been assassinated things might have worked out for the better.
No less than the ex-Confederate President Jefferson Davis said in an interview many years later:
"Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the murder of Abraham Lincoln was the worst disaster ever to befall the South." In this, he was undoubtably correct.
The North wasn't depicted as "cartoonishly evil" in that film, surprisingly enough -- no, that was left to the film's Thaddeus Stevens expy and every single black character during the film's second half. Unbelievably, rancidly racist and cartoonish.I don't see a guerilla war popping up unless the North acts as cartoonishly evil as in Birth of a Nation.
One really delicious thought.
OTL, some of the Radicals viewed Lincoln's death as a blessing in disguise. Andrew Johnson had been fulminating against "treason" and declaring that "traitors must be impoverished", leading them to believe that he would be with them in supporting stern measures against the South.
OTL, of course, they were soon undeceived, but TTL this never happens. So could we get Thaddeus Stevens grieving over what a tragedy Johnson's death was, and armies of WIers writing threads about how much more successful Reconstruction would have been "if only" Johnson had survived? <g>
Yeah, but once evidence emerges that a Confederate Agent, who was "Acting on his own behalf" just killed the POTUS, VPOTUS, and SecWar....Not even remotely likely.
The assassination of Lincoln, OTL, raised an outburst of horror which could not have been noticeably increased by the death of a not very popular Vice-President[1]. As I've said before on this point, you can't wet a river.
Also, Senator Foster was quite conservative in his views (he later became a Democrat) and most unlikely to go in for such extreme measures. Nor is there any reason to expect Grant to do so when he takes over.
[1] There is also Seward's death, of course, but iirc, at first he was not expected to live. It was quite a while before it became clear that he would survive. So at first the assassination was even OTL seen as a double murder.
Yeah, but once evidence emerges that a Confederate Agent, who was "Acting on his own behalf" just killed the POTUS, VPOTUS, and SecWar....
No dice. The North is not going to buy "Oh, we didn't tell him to do that! We just funded him and were planning on kidnapping the POTUS" as a reasonable excuse.
Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three times is enemy action.Why should the deaths of Johnson and Seward (in addition to Lincoln) make such a "discovery" any more probable than the OTL death of Lincoln and near-death of Seward?
Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three times is enemy action.
3 VIPs being hit on the same night by "former" Confed agents? The public won't buy it.
The top three tiers of the US Goverment all getting hit on the same night, roughly the same time, all by former Confed agents after their surrender?Why would three have more impact than two? Everybody knew they'd gone after Seward a well as Lincoln. And it was soon learned that another man had gonne after Johnson, albeit unsuccessfully. So what's different from OTL? Lincoln's death will totally eclipse any others.
The top three tiers of the US Goverment all getting hit on the same night, roughly the same time, all by former Confed agents after their surrender?
Why wouldn't it? And the idiot who went after Johnson doesn't even count, he was barely in the hotel at most.