usertron2020
Donor
I'll add my voice to the crowd calling for a TL based on this, it sounds amazing. Much much better than the "Southern Canada" CSA-wins meme (1) that seems endemic to the Pre-1900 board.
Not familiar with that term?
First of all, this is quite the chorus of support for my ideas. I might very well try to pluck at this, although I have other projects that take up a lot of my time. (2)
As for this particular idea, of Forrest taking over:
Scenarios of the Confederacy getting so busted domestically that poor whites beg for peace with emancipation instead of war and slavery are plausible. Scenarios in which Confederate Leaders realize that the game is over and that they can't win are plausible too.
- The previous suggestion, Breckinridge, ignores the man's origins as a Kentuckian. He's got no local machinery to win the Confederate Office.
- Breckenridge is essentially a moderate who probably sees the Confederate situation as hopeless in ATL 1868.
- Forrest is a good choice to "carry on the fight". He'd have a shot of turning the Confederate Army into a means to keep the nation together.
- Meme-worthy, sure. But I think the second president of the CSA has to be a soldier or the whole thing goes down.
- The ATL situation in 1868 will be bad to bleak. If an "Old Planter Aristocrat" takes office next, how does it gain the buy-in of poor whites? Their sacrifice has left them in a nation with at best a guerrilla insurgency, if not its own internal civil war. They don't own slaves, they've actually been badly harmed by the lack of Southron industrialization and urbanization. What's in this for them?
- And if there's nothing in it for them, what stops the CSA from simply collapsing on its own or even inviting the USA to "Restore Order?" after a coup or other ousting?
Forrest mostly ensures that there will be another few years left in the Confederacy. If President Alexander Stephens probably accepts Chase's demands, leading to the wholesale collapse of the CSA behind the shield of unionists, abolitionists, and contrabands themselves launching countersecessions.
President Robert Toombs goes blind from alcoholism.
President Judah Benjamin is extremely unlikely, as his religion (Jewish) will get raised.
President Zebulon Vance probably accepts Chase's Demands.
I could go on with this. The simple answer is that the CSA is likely to self-destruct after Davis leaves office; it can be badly, it can be a peaceful surrender, but it's going down.
2) Then divorce your wife, desert your family, and quit your job. This is much more important.
You have an outstanding understanding of all this. I don't EVER remember a CSA wins and loses later TL. Unless you count the ridiculously overextended TL-191