Worst Civil War Alternate History

Inspired by the recent thread on best Civil War Alt-TL's. What are the worst Civil War TL's you've read? Mine would be By Force of Arms, written by Billy Bennet. It plays out ike the poor man's How Few Remain: The Confederates win at Gettysburg and force the Union to negotiate, Sherman gets elected in 1869 (despite making it abundantly clear he hated politics) and attempts to reconquer the south, only to lose decisively in a series of lopsided battles, ending with President Sherman and Secretary of War Benjamin Butler getting kidnapped by John Wilkes Booth. The Confederates are almost uniformly good, while Sherman and co. are cartoonishly evil.
 
Last edited:
Inspired by the recent thread on best Civil War Alt-TL's. What are the worst Civil War TL's you've read? Mine would by By Force of Arms, written by Billy Bennet. It plays out ike the poor man's How Few Remain: The Confederates win at Gettysburg and force the Union to negotiate, Sherman gets elected in 1869 (despite making it abundantly clear he hated politics) and attempts to reconquer the south, only to lose decisively in a series of lopsided battles, ending with President Sherman and Secretary of War Benjamin Butler getting kidnapped by John Wilkes Booth. The Confederates are almost uniformly good, while Sherman and co. are cartoonishly evil.
Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes trilogy. 19th century Britain was evil, but not that Stupid Evil.

Pretty much any Trent War TL that doesn't end with the Union getting our collective asses beat is a lesser version of the same.
 
Yeah, Stars and Stripes is a trainwreck. I haven't actually read the books, but SpaceBattles.com has an excellent review of the first one. Not only is it hilariously implausible, but there are several moments that are physically impossible, like ships sailing into places they're too big to reach, for example.
 
Yeah, Stars and Stripes is a trainwreck. I haven't actually read the books, but SpaceBattles.com has an excellent review of the first one. Not only is it hilariously implausible, but there are several moments that are physically impossible, like ships sailing into places they're too big to reach, for example.

Do you have a link to the review?
 
Harry Turtledove's TL-191 series, while not perfect (and being way too convergent at times), is still way better than the Stars and Stripes trilogy, IMO...
 
Anyone want to tell me how Jefferson Davis dies in Stars and Stripes Forever?
Ins't be shot by a former USCT trooper while in a KKK hood? Something along those lines. And I'm not re-reading to check, I need all my remaining brain cells.
 
CSA: Confederate States of America. Granted it’s a satire documentary but there’s way too many headscratchers.

The real problem is that it's not funny.

Anyway, I'd have to go with Stars and Stripes Forever as the worst I know about. Though given just how popular the topic is, there's bound to be a lot of stinkers in there.
 
By Force of Arms has a few sequels, for which I've only read the Amazon descriptions. Apparently, the South ends up fighting a war with Spain over Cuba, which escalates into TTL's World War 1. Stonewall Jackson (who survived Chancellorsville) becomes an abolitionist trying desperately to prevent a slave rebellion. At least the author acknowledges that slavery would cause a lot of long term problems.
 
Another example I actually have read is A Southern Yarn by R.W. Richards. This is a case where the Confederates pull off a victory in 1864, but they do this in Virginia instead of the usual Battle of Atlanta scenario. Lee decides to set a trap for the Army of the Potomac at Ox Ford, and when he attacks, Grant is so shocked that he becomes catatonic for several minutes, which, needless to say, is extremely out of character for a man who didn't panic at Shiloh and now has two more years worth of command experience. He then tries to salvage the situation with a mass cavalry charge, for some reason. This one also has the president being kidnapped by Confederate guerrillas, except in this case it's Lincoln being captured by John Mosby and his rangers. The book also keeps referring to James Longstreet as Peter, even though Pete was just a nickname.
 
Peter Tsouras's Britannia's Fist is easily the worst. It has a kind of unique POD with the war staring in 1864, but the story is just an absurd US wank where their weapons improve impossibly fast, and they have a supernatural ability to predict everything the British will do.
Both of the late Robert Conroy's Civil War novels are pretty bad too. 1862 is like a lesser "Britannia's Fist", only during the Trent and less infuriating (and with a baffling lesbian sex scene), and "The Day After Gettysburg", which kinda meanders around until Grant shows up and flawlessly wins the war in one single battle.

@Jedi Dragon "A Southern Yarn" isn't that bad. It's basically the OTL trap at North Anna with a Lee that wasn't feeling sick and could pull it off. I give it a pass because of that, and because the story, as a "yarn" doesn't expect you to really take it seriously. It could also be because the ones I mentioned above are horrendous so anything looks better by comparison, so who knows
 
Captain Confederacy (Steel Dragon Press/ Epic Comics/ Marvel)
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Confederacy

In the alternative history, the Confederacy won the Civil War, which resulted in a fracturing of the North American continent, mostly affecting what was the United States of America into eight nations. These nations are the Confederate States of America (also containing several Caribbean possessions), the Free State of Louisiana (smaller than the real state of Louisiana, but containing the city of New Orleans), the remaining Northern states as the United States of America, the Republic of Texas (also includes portions of what was Mexico), the Great Spirit Alliance (called "Tecumseh" in the original series's map — also includes portions of Canada), the Mormon nation of Deseret, The People's Republic of California (including Baja California) and Pacifica (called "Sequoyah" in the original series's map — also includes portions of Canada). Canada and Mexico exist, but have lost territory to the various other nations.

If anything, it is pretty terrible.
 
Top