Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

[EnglishCanuck]

Curious to see how you'll twist his story given his OTL service in the Union Army!

Ah, but what better place for a spy to be

IIRC, its peacetime organization was intended to be established on the lines of the antebellum U.S. Army, primarily manning the forts and heavy artillery along the coast and internal waterways. Technologically, it was quite Anglophilic, as the history of the Ordnance Department illustrates. Its greatest expansion, considering the Texas-Arizona question in Indians, bandits, railroads, and settlement, will likely be in cavalry, where there are many worthy officers to promote.

That was what the view was, and indeed what the Fire Eaters are interested in. But with its vast territory and security problems, that will certainly need to be revisited. The cavalry and artillery though will certainly be the purview of the Federal Government in Richmond.

If the democrats' involvement in the Fenian movement becomes common knowledge while the Fenians succeed in nothing more than scuppering any potential thaw in relations between Britain and the US right when the one thing the States' need is reliable trade partners, I can see the democratic party not surviving McClellan's presidency. Yet, if he tries to restore order while the fighting is already ongoing and the Fenians have the sympathy of a majority of the US population, it might actually go even worse for the democats.

The Fenians are going to play no small role in making life difficult for the Democrats come 1868. Truth be told, both parties are in a world of hurt when it comes to unity. The Republicans split in 1864 and both sections of the party currently blame the other for the loss - which isn't entirely fair truth be told as Lincoln made two unforced errors going into 1864 (namely declaring Kentucky in insurrection and insufficiently catering to the Radicals for fear of alienating moderate Republicans after the Treaty of Rotterdam) but McClellan's path to power was very much a marriage of convenience between two factions in the Democratic Party which are very incompatible. As I hope I've been showing, McClellan really isn't fit for the position of welding those two extremes together (as he was not OTL) and being in the highest office of the land - alongside having a not insubstantial ego - isn't helping create unity.

Let's just say that "interesting times" lay ahead for the US political system.

 

[Gentleman Johnny]

Hey, quick question. Are you still planning on doing those alternate alternate history scenarios about how the war could have gone differently in your TL?

I don't mean to be that guy, I was just curious if it's still in the cards. ​

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Hey, quick question. Are you still planning on doing those alternate alternate history scenarios about how the war could have gone differently in your TL?

I don't mean to be that guy, I was just curious if it's still in the cards.

Yes! I'm typing away at them, but research and work has kept me from just throwing them out there. I will have them out before I finish 1866!

Two more chapters for specific 1866 events, then a broad 1866 look at North America, and then the alternate histories (which with the titles I have I hope it will make sense why I'm waiting).

 

[Nenshou Yuuki]

Let's just say that "interesting times" lay ahead for the US political system.

If there's anything I've learned about politics, you never want "interesting"

 

[SWS]

That was what the view was, and indeed what the Fire Eaters are interested in. But with its vast territory and security problems, that will certainly need to be revisited. The cavalry and artillery though will certainly be the purview of the Federal Government in Richmond.

Terrorist and irregular activity might give rise to a strong militia culture in "Fortress Slavedom", particularly in the Black Belt and areas adjacent.

I could see an earlier "Coast Artillery Corps" be implemented in the C.S.A.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

If there's anything I've learned about politics, you never want "interesting"

There's a reason the post-war political environment in the US is called "The Era of Hard Feelings"

But boy oh boy wait until we get to the 1868 election!

Terrorist and irregular activity might give rise to a strong militia culture in "Fortress Slavedom", particularly in the Black Belt and areas adjacent.

I could see an earlier "Coast Artillery Corps" be implemented in the C.S.A.

That is exactly something that will happen. Early state militias are going to be seen as the backbone of the Southern military tradition to some, and there's going to be a lively debate about the army in the immediate post-war environment. That's going to be one of Breckinridge's biggest uphill battles.

Anything to do with the navy of coastal fortifications is going to breeze right through the Confederate Congress and Senate I can tell you. They're far less afraid of guns meant to defend from a second blockade or ships used to defend the coast/project power than they are of the institution of a standing army.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Chapter 123: The Great Disturbance and the Grey Terror​

“While often painted as a Confederacy-wide uprising, the Great Disturbance was primarily limited to Kentucky, Tennessee, and the banks of the Mississippi. This can largely be attributed to that it was where the US Army had been that gave the Colored Troops the resources and ability to filter out into the countryside with arms and supplies. From there, raids were set up, plantations burned and families freed. The running guerilla war was one which was, for most, predicated firmly on escape. Most of the Freedmen wished to get to the United States with their families, not engage in a protracted war with the Confederacy itself.

This fact was lost on most in the Confederacy. While the fighting was largely confined to where the former frontlines had been, the appearance of slave groups in the swamps and hills of South Carolina led to the assessment that at last what all the Confederacy had feared was coming true, a slave revolution was at hand.

“The barbarity of the Negro and the perfidy of the United States is at last revealed!” The Charleston Mercury would thunder. “Having lost through honorable combat, the United States resorts to sending barbaric ******* to murder women and children in their beds!” Robert Toombs of Georgia, never one to waste a crisis would decry the Davis Administration for the problem. “It is by now clear that the leadership of men who do not fully support white supremacy have clearly failed in taking charge of that race which is to be nothing less than the subject of the white man. It is now only a question of how much blood must be spilled to firmly establish the question.”

Much blood would be spilled indeed…

General Bragg, still in charge of the soldiers in Kentucky and Tennessee, would use his authority to simply scoop up Tennessee militiamen, much to the outrage of Governor Caruthers. Bragg only had 4,200 men available to suppress the outbreaks of violence. Soon however, Bragg discovered he was not putting down slave revolts (or rarely) but instead riding through the countryside ending incidents of mob justice. Bragg was often forced to ride into a town or village and simply send his men to disperse mobs, and then, paradoxically, protect slaves who were occasionally moments away from being lynched[1]. That slaves were now looking to Confederate soldiers for salvation can be considered the height of irony. However, the local populations, even far from the sites of the actual fighting, took no chances. Any slave seen to be acting “suspicious” was, at the very least, imprisoned, then potentially tortured into giving up “rebels” hiding amongst them. Far too many were lynched out of hand.

In the areas where the running battles were taking place along the Mississippi, often even soldiers could not contain the violence. In areas where rebels passed near plantations, spontaneous militias would begin roaming the countryside, and any slave found abroad was executed. Even women were not spared, with one woman talking back to her mistress in Covington being stabbed to death in response. Militia in Wheatley County burned slave cabins suspected of harboring “runaways” which quickly became a watchword for insurgents.

At one plantation in DeSoto County, Richard Burford, who at the start of the war had 101 slaves, but only 39 at war’s end after his home had been burned by American forces, summarily executed two of his most troublesome slaves and mounted their severed heads outside the slave cabins as a warning to others for “the sinful consequences of rebellion against the white man” at only the rumour of rebel slaves nearby.

The violence meted out by the oppressed was no less brutal. The Valley Grove Plantation owned by Finley Holmes, who had supported the Confederacy, with three sons serving in the war and one lost, had 118 slaves by the 1861 census. Some had escaped during the war, but the property itself had been spared. When a band of about 60 escaped slaves arrived on September 18th 1866, they immediately began killing any white man they saw. Finley, 64 at the time, fired on them in defense of his property, only for insurgents to storm the home and beat him and his wife to death. All 180 runaways would flee, with 109 making it across the border, the remainder dying in various last stands to allow the others to get to safety in a remarkable overland trek.

Overseers were killed out of hand, with some being whipped to death if they were not simply killed. Any Confederate soldier unlucky enough to be captured was often lynched, occasionally after being tortured. The oppressed saw that their lives were at stake, and so offered no quarter, especially after witnessing atrocities perpetrated against their own. It was clear to both sides that this was a conflict which demanded an attitude of kill or be killed.

In South Carolina, where the enslaved often had no hope of escape, it became a running guerilla war. There may have been as many as 3,000 insurgents, most slaves choosing their brutal lives over what many intuitively understood was otherwise a last stand. But where they fought, they fought and died hard. In any battle there was no quarter asked or given, and as such the battles would often involve 100% casualties for the losing side. One group of about 20 former Colored soldiers and a dozen women and children was only induced to surrender by being told they would be put on a United States ship and sent north, allowed to keep their arms. Amazingly, a ship flying the US colors was anchored off the coast, and the insurgents were put aboard, only to discover the ship was otherwise empty. It was then promptly sunk by gunfire from the shore. There were no recorded survivors to wash up to be killed by waiting militia.

General Joseph Johnston had to muster 4,000 men to contain the excessive violence of the South Carolina militia. The Battle of Newbury was the largest single engagement with 200 slave rebels fighting to the death, but with 27 captured and brought back to Columbia in chains. They were promptly hung in a “carnival atmosphere” with signs around their necks decrying “Yankee Freedom” to drive the point home. “It is sickening, but necessary,” Benjamin Perry would write. White supremacy must be enforced with blood…

The largest action of the whole Great Disturbance, and one which most historians consider to have bookended it despite violence taking place after that date, was the Memphis Rising of November 22nd. That it took place at all was a matter of pure circumstance. Memphis, as a major port on the Mississippi, was a natural slave market, and the base of the Confederate River Flotilla, much reduced as it was. It was also where many Colored Troops sold into slavery had been gathered.

Though the true history of the figure known only to us as “Sergeant Saul” may never be known, his role in prompting the rising is unquestioned. He, and about 80 other former colored troops deemed “docile” enough by the slave traders had been sent south in order to be put to work on the docks. It speaks to the height of the racial ignorance that the overseers could believe that the esprit de corps fostered in the ranks could be broken by simple hard labor. When the men found one another they formed a secret fraternity, meeting in the cabins and spreading a message of hope to others. As the ranking soldier, Saul became the natural leader of this motley group and kept men energized.

For over a year they worked in brutal conditions on the docks, just enough for the overseers to let their guard down. Amazingly, they were trusted with the handling of crates of rifles and ammunition being sent to armories along the Mississippi. As the telling goes, Saul managed to get ahold of a rifle and, in the dark, train men by touch to assemble, disassemble, clean and load it. It took six months, but eventually Saul believed he had enough men that he could make his plan work. The plan as it is related, was for the slaves to seize a supply of rifles and ammunition and then seize ships at the docks and sail north into the United States and freedom.

In the early morning of the 22nd the overseers, by now believing these former soldiers were docile, began work as usual. Men were led from the barracks and work parties were gathered to load and unload at the wharves. The overseers, with a company of infantry, an artillery battery and men of the flotilla in garrison nearby, were not unduly concerned with the rumors of slave revolts. The runaways would have to be mad to attack Memphis. As such, when men suddenly brandished tools as weapons, they were taken completely unawares.

In a few short, sharp and vicious minutes Saul and his men had seized rifles and ammunition and were taking up positions along the docks to clear out the slave houses and seize ships. However, at the first sign of trouble the crews of the ships, most of whom had been carousing in the brothels and taverns of Memphis, fled from near the docks. Any on board leapt into the dubious safety of the Mississippi, and Saul quickly found his plan foiled as he could not seize a single river pilot. Undaunted, he attempted to move on with the plan to get the roughly 600 men under his command to safety.

Word quickly spread to Memphis that there was a “slave uprising” along the docks. Men quickly armed themselves and more rapidly than the garrison could muster an armed mob made up of a combination of veterans, militia and private citizens had formed along the wharves. Saul had made rudimentary breastworks, and his men were fighting for their very lives and freedom, which led to a protracted struggle. A vicious firefight raged for most of the day as the mob, and then soldiers, systematically shredded every firing position the insurgents put up. One ship cast off in desperation, only to run aground briefly thereafter. However, it was thanks to those few who managed to escape north that the tale can even be told.

Saul was, officially, never found or identified. Every single insurgent was killed in the fighting, shot or clubbed to death by the mob. It is estimated that a further three hundred slaves were killed out of hand by the panicked populace before order was restored in the city. In total, over 1,100 slaves were killed in exchange for 129 white soldiers and civilians. The Memphis Rising was the bloodiest single incident of the whole Great Disturbance…

Establishing a firm number of deaths across those chaotic years of what became known as the Great Disturbance is difficult. Some of the skirmishes took place while the war was still officially declared. However, in the bloody months between August and December 1866 it can be said with some certainty that roughly 8,000 African Americans, free or slave, were killed by white civilians or officials either in battle or simply out of fear. Roughly 2,000 white civilians and soldiers were killed in return, mostly soldiers and militia in engagements with armed bands, but many civilians massacred by fleeing slaves.

It was the bloodiest uprising the Confederacy would see for half a century…” - The Great Disturbance of 1866, Daniel Oldman, University of Lexington, 2006

An 1867 artists impression of Sergeant Saul's last stand.​

“The Treaty of Havana had stipulated that those who had wished to leave either United States or Confederate States territory after the treaty had been ratified would have six months to settle their affairs and leave unmolested. In theory, each government affirmed that article, but in practice the implementation was wildly different.

In the United States, there were few who truly wished to leave their homeland to venture south, but just enough that a major exodus would take place. These would come primarily from Missouri where civilians who had either silently or actively supported the bushwhackers, the pro-Confederate guerillas who had so bedeviled the state through to the end of the war, genuinely feared persecution. A bitter little civil war all its own had raged all throughout the borderlands along Missouri and Arkansas, one which the peace at Havana had not totally quelled.

As one commentator writes “Armed bands of banditti, thieves, cut-throats, and assassins infest the country, they prowl around houses, they call men out and shoot them or hang them, they attack travelers upon the road, they seem almost everywhere present, and are ever intent upon mischief. You cannot pick up a newspaper without reading of murders, assassinations and robbery. And yet not the fourth part of the truth has been told; not one act in ten is reported. Go where you will, and you will hear of fresh murders and violence.” Modern estimates place the number of people killed by this retaliatory violence at as little as 300 to a high of 1,000. The settling of scores would still continue for years along this frontier, influenced by old hatreds and changing political factions in the overall Era of Hard Feelings that engulfed the post-war United States. All told, it was enough to prompt an exodus of anyone even suspected of supporting the Confederacy.

These “Gray Tories” as they became known, would move south in their tens of thousands between March and August of 1866, with a trickle moving south again in 1867. They primarily came from Missouri where 40,000 would pack up their lives and leave to settle in the Confederacy in places as diverse as Arkansas, Kentucky, and Arizona. They would comprise the largest percentage of Gray Tories, with another 20,000 from Maryland joining them across the South. A further 5,000 from places like West Virginia or the states along the Ohio River would also come, largely fearing prosecution for their deeds in the war or pre-existing Southern sympathies. In total it is estimated over 65,000 Gray Tories would move south to escape any retribution from their neighbors.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of “Unreconciled Yankees” would flee north. They came from primarily Unionist areas within the Confederacy. Chiefly refugees from East Tennessee, loyalist Kentucky counties, and Appalachians who viewed staying in the Confederacy as detrimental to their long term health. Most, correctly, feared retaliatory violence for opposing secession, or worse, supporting the Union during the war.

By August 1866 almost 150,000 would flee the Confederacy, leaving empty lands and abandoned properties[2]. Those would usually be confiscated by state governments or greedily bought up by large plantation owners seeking to expand their properties.

Those who fled turned out to have been right to do so. The early signs of violence were there. East Tennessee in particular had seen a surge of repression during the war, and the amnesty period had merely offered time for those who knew they would face persecution to flee. When the unofficial amnesty period ended, September of 1866 saw a flurry of arrests and prosecutions. Those suspected of taking up arms against the Confederacy were arrested, many sentenced to lengthy prison terms, but others executed as traitors.

Scenes of judicial persecution weren’t just limited to where the front lines had crossed, in North Carolina there were thousands who had opposed secession and engaged in passive resistance against the Confederacy. With the Confederacy now the law of the land, local retribution was not long in coming. Men with known Unionist sympathies were brought up on charges, while some simply disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. Hundreds were rounded up and dozens were either executed as suspected spies or disappeared by vigilantes. Worse, many who had been Unionists were now eager to inform on their neighbors lest they be punished as well.

In a grim series of events which would be repeated across the Confederacy between 1866 and 1867, former Unionists would turn on their allies and inform on others, eager to ingratiate themselves with the winning side. Thousands were oftentimes wrongly convicted of spying for the United States. Those accused of having joined the United States Army were often sentenced to hard labor, but in many communities those who came home accused of taking “Lincoln’s coin” would be ostracized or killed by vengeful neighbors.

That much of this Gray Terror was taking place against the backdrop of the Great Disturbance was something which merely increased paranoia. Unionist cabals were suspected of meeting in the darkness of night, disseminating abolitionist propaganda and weaponry to slaves. They were often painted as the ones who were planning the whole Disorder, as many refused to believe that the slaves themselves could be so canny as to do so on such a large scale[3]. That merely inflamed the sense of paranoia and desire for revenge felt in many communities.

Fears of “new John Brown’s” as the Daily Richmond Examiner would record rocked the Confederacy. The ghost of Harper’s Ferry loomed large in the shadow of the war, and states would take even harsher measures to crack down on any hint of abolitionist thought in the South in the late 1860s, with even mention of it being enough to get a newspaper shuttered until they could prove their innocence…

The Gray Terror alongside the Great Disturbance would leave a long memory in the Confederacy. For some it was the ultimate justification of everything the antebellum South had stood for. To others, it showed that no one, not even potentially upstanding white men, were safe from the paranoia that their slave society could create. The majority of course saw this as the justification of the cornerstone of their society, but to a minority, it made them question everything they thought they knew about their society, and convinced some that even the muddy windows of the mudsill theory must be cleaned to look plainly at their society.” - The Gray Terror: Political Persecution in the Post-War Confederacy, James MacFarson, Columbia University, 1999

----

1] Darkly enough this is something that happened in historic US slave revolts. Often soldiers and militia would turn up to stop crowds from killing any black people they came across or who just seemed “suspicious” to locals.

2] For anyone keeping score at home, that means that alongside roughly 200,000 dead from the war and any dislocation, there are another 200,000 escaped slaves and 150,000 political refugees from the South for over 550,000 people having fled or died in the South.

3] We must never underestimate the ability of those believing in white supremacy to attribute a very regular human desire for freedom to shady cabals of abolitionists.

 

[SWS]

Battle of Newberry? Wonder how John Bachman would feel about that, not that anyone IOTL remembers his name.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Battle of Newberry? Wonder how John Bachman would feel about that, not that anyone IOTL remembers his name.

A very limited perusal says he might see them as wrong in killing people, but find the backlash barbaric for its draconian nature.

Then again, it's hard for me to be sympathetic overall to the man as he wasn't an out and out abolitionist. And the Great Disturbance is unlikely to make him one.

For almost 90% of Confederate society they will see the Great Disturbance as a validation of their beliefs. The remainder though are going to have a dark night of the soul.

 

[basileus]

A tragically plausible scenario.

 

[Dude-a-Buck]

Saw this in the Finished Timelines section. Did I miss something because that last chapter didn't feel like an ending.

 

[mickeymouse]

Saw this in the Finished Timelines section. Did I miss something because that last chapter didn't feel like an ending.

IIRC, the war parts are being put there because that part of the story is complete, but the timeline is still going!

 

[Icedaemon]

At this rate, most South American nations which ended up as dismal dictatorships are on a better trajectory than the confederacy.

Since people in both the USA and the confederacy used to see themselves as 'American' and they now have very good reasons not to be mistaken for one another, will the eventual national endonyms become 'yank'ee and 'dixie'?

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Saw this in the Finished Timelines section. Did I miss something because that last chapter didn't feel like an ending.

IIRC, the war parts are being put there because that part of the story is complete, but the timeline is still going!

Correct! The finished aspects of the TL (The Great American War) are going there to be collected and lightly edited for mistakes, continuity issues, and other aspects of the war that I felt crunched for time over the years to write. For instance, a major battle on Lake Ontario and a oft mentioned but not depicted battle at the Portsmouth Naval Yard that was a severe blow to the USN, alongside two or three smaller fronts that ought to get a bit more love. So the finished TL and some expanded work being put in while I type away at the future! That "finished TL" will essentially run from 1861-66 when the treaties are all signed and ratified.

In a few weeks 1866 will be over, and I'm already working away at 1867 which will be another big year.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

A tragically plausible scenario.

There's going to be both a lot of what you'd expect from an independent Confederacy and a little of what I hope will surprise people.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

At this rate, most South American nations which ended up as dismal dictatorships are on a better trajectory than the confederacy.

For the African American population, absolutely! For most of the white population, not so much. Though there's some surprises in store for everyone there. Few of them pleasant.

Since people in both the USA and the confederacy used to see themselves as 'American' and they now have very good reasons not to be mistaken for one another, will the eventual national endonyms become 'yank'ee and 'dixie'?

Well the US will fight to keep the endonym "American" for themselves, while the Confederacy will call themselves the true inheritors of America, they will either call themselves "Confederates" or "Dixies" depending. Yankee will be more of a slur from the rest of the Anglosphere towards Americans in general, but still retain its overall New England vibe in the US.

 

[Urubis]

Well the US will fight to keep the endonym "American" for themselves, while the Confederacy will call themselves the true inheritors of America, they will either call themselves "Confederates" or "Dixies" depending. Yankee will be more of a slur from the rest of the Anglosphere towards Americans in general, but still retain its overall New England vibe in the US.

This might be strange but I was thinking over time that the name American would become broader, as much a Yankee term, Dixie term and Canadian term. But this makes more sense.

Also definitely curious to see how well the CSA does post war. Also how long the slave trade in the America's lasts with a wealthy market staying open.

Sidenote: Why isn't the CSA applying tariffs to the usage of the Mississippi, that without a doubt seems to be the greatest long term revenue generator.

 

[Sceonn]

White slavery is going to be more of an open thing ttl, nothing stops confederates from disappearing 'unionists' and turn them up somewhere else as 'black' in a boosted fancy trade.

Britain's reputation in the post-colonial world will likely be more stained.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

This might be strange but I was thinking over time that the name American would become broader, as much a Yankee term, Dixie term and Canadian term. But this makes more sense.

Also definitely curious to see how well the CSA does post war. Also how long the slave trade in the America's lasts with a wealthy market staying open.

Sidenote: Why isn't the CSA applying tariffs to the usage of the Mississippi, that without a doubt seems to be the greatest long term revenue generator.

Suppose that they do this, how is the money managed? Evenly split between every state? States bordering the Mississippi?

 

[EnglishCanuck]

White slavery is going to be more of an open thing ttl, nothing stops confederates from disappearing 'unionists' and turn them up somewhere else as 'black' in a boosted fancy trade.

Most certainly not. While there were (if we can forgive the historic term) some "white" slaves who were born to black mothers in the Confederacy which is how we get the term "octaroon," the concept of owning white people as chattel slaves was pretty anathema to everything the Confederacy stood for. You just couldn't enslave someone who was considered "white" by their society. You could imprison them, kill them, or ostracise them, but white slavery wasn't a thing.

EDIT: Not that there weren't Fire Eaters who thought about it mind you.