Would a "No Automatic Amnesty" Confederate Surrender Have Been Feasible?

However, IOTL the north could retire having achieved most of its objectives: union preserved, southern primacy on national political power broken, chattel slavery abolished. Here they would be walking away with none of those, and considering that guerrilla movements rarely succeed except with powerful foreign backing, I don't think the odds are in the south's favor militarily either.

Depends what you mean by "succeed".

When the Boers resorted to guerilla warfare, it did not succeed in preserving their independence, and indeed exposed them to extremely harsh British counter-measures. However, it did make Britain eager to get the war finished, and secured the Boers very moderate terms of surrender, crucially including a promise that any decision on giving black Africans the vote would not be raised until Transvaal and OFS had been granted self-government and could decide this for themselves. I could imagine a guerilla war in the South ending the same way.
 
Which is exactly why nobody sane wanted to carry out this kind of policy. The whole reason for fighting the war was to bring the Union back together. That goal, in itself, meant that the strategy had to be "defeat them on the field, and then embrace them as brothers who have erred but are now forgiven".

I think you could also do what the Allies did after WW2, and embrace the common people and the rank-and-file as "brothers who have erred but are now forgiven" whilst still coming down hard on the leadership.
 
I think you could also do what the Allies did after WW2, and embrace the common people and the rank-and-file as "brothers who have erred but are now forgiven" whilst still coming down hard on the leadership.
The difference was that the Germans were foreigners, while the Southerners were countrymen. Quite literally on opposing sides, many soldiers were brothers, cousins, neighbors, etc. The officers served together before the war in Mexico and in the prewar army. They were classmates at West Point. The politicians were colleagues in the government before. Northern Republicans were former Whigs and Democrats who worked with Southern Whigs and Southern Democrats before the war. They spoke the same language, often were of the same religion, had the same faith in the American political system (that was why the CSA had a nearly identical constitution to the US), etc.


The Germans and the British, Americans, and the Russians don't have that fellowship before the war.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I think you could also do what the Allies did after WW2, and embrace the common people and the rank-and-file as "brothers who have erred but are now forgiven" whilst still coming down hard on the leadership.

Besides what @Tonifranz wrote, I also think that the attitude regarding the war was different. The Southerners, by and large, did not believe they had fought for a wrong course. We can very comfortably say that slavery was THE big factor for the elite, but poor whites had no slaves and (as we can see from their war-time correspondence) overwhelmingly believed they were fighting a war about sovereignty and the right to "go their own way" and "just be left alone". One may call them deceived by the Southern elites, of course, but this is what they believed. To ensure a future where they could once again be proud Americans, the whole conflict had to be cast into the mould of the "brothers' struggle", where men like Lee were honourable heroes who bore defeat with grace and were in return treated with honour.

Nowadays, lots of people are constipated about the fact that such "evil men" are so respected, but such latter-day know-it-alls rarely comprehend that this whole approach was absolutely required to allow the union to become whole again. Without this approach, support for the KKK and other such things would've been infinitely greater, and the divide between North and South could have been permanent (to the point that I think secessionist sentiments would be a real political force up to the present, to about the same extent that they are in Flanders-- not enough for it to happen as of yet, but enough to be a serious matter).


...that said, I think that a viable alt-Reconstruction strategy could have been to forcibly partition all the big plantations, and create smaller farms/plots for both freed blacks and poor whites. This could be part of a greater strategy to deliberately create a new postbellum economy for the South, thatleaves the old plantation economy behind. I think that's better discussed in the "reconstruction succeeds" thread, however.
 
Executing all the senior Confederates for treason would almost certainly have been worse for the Southern slaveocracy. It's just that it would have been worse for pretty much everybody else, as well.

Harry turtledove wrote a short story in 1995/96 called must and shall with the same premise.
Lee, Davis, Johnson, etc are hanged, the south is occupied well into the 20th century, and blacks are on the higher end of the social structure as opposed to OTL than most southern whites. Strangely though, in the story It seemed there were a couple of blacks who showed a sort of animosity to the Yankees for some reason. Which was odd because the northerners basicly prevented him crow.
 
Harry turtledove wrote a short story in 1995/96 called must and shall with the same premise.
Lee, Davis, Johnson, etc are hanged, the south is occupied well into the 20th century, and blacks are on the higher end of the social structure as opposed to OTL than most southern whites. Strangely though, in the story It seemed there were a couple of blacks who showed a sort of animosity to the Yankees for some reason. Which was odd because the northerners basicly prevented him crow.

One thing blacks were to whites that seems to get lost is that they were neighbors, and some were friends, or respected each other across the lines of culture and class. There is a reason that Cleburne can think that under the right circumstances blacks could fight for the south. There is a reason Bedford Forrest could start the kkk and then a few years later be speaking for black civil rights.
I think this nuance in relations gets lost, and part of that is imagining a black man who doesn't like how his white friends and acquaintances are treated, and is hostile to a government offical even if the government favors "his" people.
 
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One thing blacks were to whites that seems to get lost is that they were neighbors, and some were friends, or respected each other across the lines of culture and class. There is a reason that Cleburne can think that under the right circumstances could fight for the south. There is a reason Bedford Forrest could start the kkk and then a few years later be speaking for black civil rights.
I think this nuance in relations gets lost, and part of that is imagining a black man who doesn't like how his white friends and acquaintances are treated, and is hostile to a government offical even if the government favors "his" people.

True
 
Strangely though, in the story It seemed there were a couple of blacks who showed a sort of animosity to the Yankees for some reason. Which was odd because the northerners basicly prevented him crow.

I haven't read the story, but from your summary I don't think it's necessarily that odd: people often don't show much gratitude for things that happened decades or centuries in the past, and if Jim Crow never actually happened ITTL, it would be even easier to overlook how good stopping it was.
 
Besides what @Tonifranz wrote, I also think that the attitude regarding the war was different. The Southerners, by and large, did not believe they had fought for a wrong course. We can very comfortably say that slavery was THE big factor for the elite, but poor whites had no slaves and (as we can see from their war-time correspondence) overwhelmingly believed they were fighting a war about sovereignty and the right to "go their own way" and "just be left alone". One may call them deceived by the Southern elites, of course, but this is what they believed. To ensure a future where they could once again be proud Americans, the whole conflict had to be cast into the mould of the "brothers' struggle", where men like Lee were honourable heroes who bore defeat with grace and were in return treated with honour.

Nowadays, lots of people are constipated about the fact that such "evil men" are so respected, but such latter-day know-it-alls rarely comprehend that this whole approach was absolutely required to allow the union to become whole again. Without this approach, support for the KKK and other such things would've been infinitely greater, and the divide between North and South could have been permanent (to the point that I think secessionist sentiments would be a real political force up to the present, to about the same extent that they are in Flanders-- not enough for it to happen as of yet, but enough to be a serious matter).


...that said, I think that a viable alt-Reconstruction strategy could have been to forcibly partition all the big plantations, and create smaller farms/plots for both freed blacks and poor whites. This could be part of a greater strategy to deliberately create a new postbellum economy for the South, thatleaves the old plantation economy behind. I think that's better discussed in the "reconstruction succeeds" thread, however.
The hundred thousand Confederate deserters show that there was widespread disillusionment with the cause, especially as the Union started bearing down on the troops' actual homes which they left the army to defend. If the leadership stubbornly fights on, I can only guess that desertion rates will only continue to go up as troops want to secure their own hearth and home instead of that of their commanders.
 
The hundred thousand Confederate deserters show that there was widespread disillusionment with the cause, especially as the Union started bearing down on the troops' actual homes which they left the army to defend. If the leadership stubbornly fights on, I can only guess that desertion rates will only continue to go up as troops want to secure their own hearth and home instead of that of their commanders.

But now we're in a situation where many of those deserters are being proven wrong because they're having their property confiscated and they're being hanged.
 
The only real example of this was Italy of the big three in the Axis.

I know this is off topic, but wouldn’t this be because the Italians actually revolted against Mussolini and the Fascists when the invasion of Italy began? The Germans and Japanese didn’t have rebellions on that scale against their leadership.
 
But now we're in a situation where many of those deserters are being proven wrong because they're having their property confiscated and they're being hanged.
Depends on what "no amnesty" entails. If the Union still accepts oaths of loyalty, it'd be a lot different than if they simply summarily executed anyone who had been associated with the Confederacy.
 
I know this is off topic, but wouldn’t this be because the Italians actually revolted against Mussolini and the Fascists when the invasion of Italy began? The Germans and Japanese didn’t have rebellions on that scale against their leadership.

Kinda dovetails with the point.
 
By April of 1865 all of those conditions have been met and leaving the war goals at that was sufficient to prevent the outbreak of insurgency; the leniency of Grant and Sherman also greatly expedited the process of restoring the Union. Herein, you've proposed the Union adopts a much more aggressive policy of attempting to remake the South when the North IOTL didn't have the stomach to deal with minor fighting within a few years of the conclusion of the conflict. IOTL they were content to let Reconstruction be a failure and I see no reason they wouldn't do the same here, especially given IOTL efforts to hang Jeff Davis were enough to get Abolitionists and even Radical Republicans rising in his defense.
Yeah but the south in things circumstance, they wouldn't be asking for political domination of the south, the radicalization that would go with such a move as mass treason trials would mean that they'd only accept independence. At least in m mind.
 
The reality was that when lee surrendered at Appamatox it was not with the expectation there would be general amnesty, and he was pleasantly surprised at the lenient terms allowed: officers to retain side arms (so Lee would not have to surrender his sword), and privately owned horses/mules to be allowed to be retained among other things, and everyone was released on parole to go home - nobody was detained. Lee surrendered because he was basically surrounded, his army had no food and ammunition, and had he attempted to fight another battle his men would have been slaughtered. After the surrender it was Union rations that fed his men, and they were given food for their trips home. The other Confederate armies that surrendered were in the same position. If there were bushwhackers/partisans rather rapidly they would have been reduced to depredations on the civilians, as there would be no supplies reaching them, and even replacing ammunition would be difficult, let alone weapons. You can start something with weapons you take off dead enemies, but that is a limited supply.

In any case, even the most fire eating Northern radicals were only talking about "treason" for CSA officials (like Davis & others) and CS senior officers, the vast bulk of Confederates would have ended up as they did OTL. The Turtledove story has a PoD of Lincoln being killed by a Confederate bullet as forces attack Washington towards the end of the war like they did OTL. That is what led to the harsh postwar regime.
 
What if the US Government had, in early 1865, had intimated to the confederacy and the world at large that there would not be a blanket pardon with exceptions for a few especially heinous or high-ranking offenders, but rather a more standard policy where at least all former US officers and officials would be punishable to the full extent of the law. Never mind the lack of political will for something like this, the fact that it might adversely affect Union morale, or the potentially deleterious long-term consequences Would such a policy, given almost certain increased Confederate resistance, have been militarily feasible to implement?
I could see your at least scenario being the most you could do because the leadership is one thing but if you were to punish all soldiers expect a guerrilla war large enough that it may even reignite the flame of civil war it ending so soon and it is followed up around the time lincon gets assassinated in April of the same year (unless by early you mean this is more a punishment for the assassination) in which case sympathy may be large enough that you just see a nasty guerrilla war that lasts at least a generation. but to double back and answer your question I think you could get away with punishing officers and politicians with not the worst of issues obviously there will more issues but I don't see the united states getting a bloody nose out of it like punishing normal soldiers would.
 
Yeah but the south in things circumstance, they wouldn't be asking for political domination of the south, the radicalization that would go with such a move as mass treason trials would mean that they'd only accept independence. At least in m mind.

Removing all politicians and former Confederate military leaders very much is establishing political dominance.
 
Removing all politicians and former Confederate military leaders very much is establishing political dominance.

The 14th Amendment disqualified them from office. Yet this didn't prevent VA, NC, TN and GA from being "redeemed" even before these disabilities were lifted in 1872. Evidently the Democrats were still able to find plenty of other candidates who did qualify.
 
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