What happens if the United States decides the best way to retake the South is a slave revolt and starts smuggling guns to slaves starting in 1885?
This sounds ASB. But before this question can be properly answered, how about a little background, about how the war ended, and what states are still slave owning?
I am assuming with the Confederate States gone the abolition of slavery still happens some around 1868.the slave states loyal to the union will be pissed for one.
A long shot I know. The war peters out when Sherman fails to take Atlanta and Little Mac is elected. Basically all the Confederate States except Tennesee (Which fell into Union hands in 1863) are still slave owning.
The big problem I see with that PoD is that by late 1864 the Confederacy's slave system was already so broken it would be almost impossible to fix. 3+ years of war had done so much damage that putting everything back to the way it had been in 1860 would have been a long, difficult, and bloody process.
Of course, having more-or-less the entire slave population of the CSA either in open revolt or one push away from it is exactly the sort of situation that would encourage revanchist and abolitionist elements in the North to start running guns to the slaves, so that could work. They wouldn't wait until 1885 to do it, though.