Your Confederate States

I have been contemplating how to improve the Confederacy and its chances of survival and victory for a while now and the main point that would have to be improved is transport. Whether it was transportation of goods to foreign countries or transportation of supplies, men and ammunition to armies in different states. The main problems of Confederate Transportation as I see it are as follows:

Railroads – The main problem with inter-state transportation within in the CSA is the railroads. The first problem with the Confederate Railroad is that there wasn’t enough of it and where it was it was hard to maintain or repair. The other problem with it was that there was not a standard gauge so that when one gauge railroad met another all the goods, supplies or men that one train was carrying had to get out and change to a different train on the different gauge rail before they could continue. All in all this was not very efficient and, as the war went on, it proved to be a major headache for the Confederate commanders and politicians.

Transportation to Foreign Countries - Obviously the main problem of transportation to foriegn counties for the CSA is the Union Blockade, indeed this is the biggest problem off all for the CSA. The problem the CSA also had was that it lacked Naval strength and could not produce ships with the same efficiency as the Union could, partly in the Union forces destroyed much of the Southern ship yards before they left and partly because they lacked the industrial capability to create a large enough fleet to contend the Naval threatre with the Union. The CSA did try to remedy this but when they had built up a formidible navy the blockade was firmly in place and couldn't be broken.

These two issue are some of the major problems the CSA faced in its existance in OTL and would have to be addressed with the utmost urgancy if the CSA is to have a chance of survival. How could these two problems be solved by the CSA?

Nytram01

One big point you may be overlooking on transportation is coastal shipping. It has been argued that even more important than the cutting of trade links with Europe was that the union blockage blocked much coastal shipping. This was a lot more efficient than the railways of the time, where it applied and to replace the lost capacity put another big extra burden on the CSA railway system.

Steve
 
Nytram01

One big point you may be overlooking on transportation is coastal shipping. It has been argued that even more important than the cutting of trade links with Europe was that the union blockage blocked much coastal shipping. This was a lot more efficient than the railways of the time, where it applied and to replace the lost capacity put another big extra burden on the CSA railway system.

Steve

The coastal shipping thing is directly linked to the Union Blockade and I was considering that to be part of the "transport to foriegn countries" bit. The CSA have to break the Union Blockade and prevent it from being enforced as it was in the OTL if the are to be able to use naval transport of any kind (the only exception might be for travel on the rivers).
 
The other problem with it was that there was not a standard gauge so that when one gauge railroad met another all the goods, supplies or men that one train was carrying had to get out and change to a different train on the different gauge rail before they could continue. All in all this was not very efficient and, as the war went on, it proved to be a major headache for the Confederate commanders and politicians.
This was a problem also in the North, Remenbre the attempt to kill Lincoln in Baltimore was to be made while Lincoln was traveling 2.5 miles from the Philly train depot to the Washington train depot,

It wasn't till 1871 that the first Central RR Station opened in NY, and It only served the three biggest lines, it would take till 1902 to get then all.
 
Pre-war:

1. Start planning for the break from the USA sooner. In OTL, the Confederacy rushed into a war that it was thoroughly unprepared to fight for any length of time. This would mean strengthening the navy much earlier than they did, and more importantly, investment in industry.

2. This, in turn, would require a move away from the slave-driven agrarian economy on which the South was reliant. Economically, the South had too many eggs in one basket (the cotton crop). They gambled that the disturbance of the cotton crop would force intervention by England and France. Investing some of those gains in industrial development might have helped the South to become more economically independent of the North (and in turn, possibly have removed one of the major reasons they went to war).

3. With industrial development had to come increased railroad capacity. The South could never have achieved anything close to the North's railroad and industrial capacity, but they didn't need to, either.

Wartime:

1. Put Lee in command in the East, send Longstreet West. Let Braxton Bragg lead Confederate troops on a parade ground in some desolate corner of Arkansas or something. And for God's sake, don't lose Lee's Special Orders #161! Longstreet's steadfast belief in the tactical defensive might have caused the Union to lose patience with the war in the west, and more importantly for the long term, prevent the stars of Grant and Sherman from rising.

2. Hint that gradual emancipation may become a reality after the war; justify continued enslavement as a necessary wartime measure, but with a long-term plan to phase out the "peculiar institution". This bit of diplomacy might have been enough to get England and France to recognize the Confederacy and support it with equipment, hard currency and naval assistance.

3. Break the blockade, with a combination of the homegrown Southern navy and English assistance. Or at least limit the crushing effectiveness it had in OTL.
 
To what extent, I wonder, would war planning have been aided by the CSA refraining from firing the first shots at Fort Sumter?

Calling Lincoln's bluff would force Lincoln into making the first aggressive move. He can claim that the South is raising an army whose purpose must be martial, but the South still comes off better. At the very least, the North is a bit more uncertain how to react. However, this means that Virgina and Tennessee may wait-and-see themselves into staying with the Union.
 
To what extent, I wonder, would war planning have been aided by the CSA refraining from firing the first shots at Fort Sumter?

Calling Lincoln's bluff would force Lincoln into making the first aggressive move. He can claim that the South is raising an army whose purpose must be martial, but the South still comes off better. At the very least, the North is a bit more uncertain how to react. However, this means that Virgina and Tennessee may wait-and-see themselves into staying with the Union.

I have been thinking the exact same thing recently. Another thing would just be to let the Federal Government hold onto Sumter and other locations for the time being. The firing on Sumter greatly galvinized the North into supporting Lincoln. Play a waiting game long enough there is the great possibility that other states will break off, not to just join the CSA but form their own confederations. The Old Northwest and the Mid-Atlantic states pretty much have no problem of letting the South go - since it takes alot of blacks with it. Virginia and Kentucky just may be able to be used as a shielding neutral zone.
 
?What kind of Budget do I have here?
I go back to the 1820's and buy the various southern Canal companies, just as they are about to go bankrucpt.
This prevents the southern states from going broke, and puts lots more money in the hands of Southern investors.
In Return Southererns have the funds to invest in RRs and Shipping during the 1830's~40's
 
To what extent, I wonder, would war planning have been aided by the CSA refraining from firing the first shots at Fort Sumter?

Calling Lincoln's bluff would force Lincoln into making the first aggressive move. He can claim that the South is raising an army whose purpose must be martial, but the South still comes off better. At the very least, the North is a bit more uncertain how to react. However, this means that Virgina and Tennessee may wait-and-see themselves into staying with the Union.

Well, Lincoln's decision to resupply Sumter (and the much-lesser known Fort Pickens in Florida) was taken as an aggressive move in the first place by the South, and arguably drove some of the states further toward secession. So to that end, there's an argument that Lincoln did make the first aggressive move. The South, apparently, felt he should simply abandon the two forts. I'm not sure how logical that is, but that was the thinking at the time, and there was sentiment within Lincoln's administration for abandoning the two forts, just as the South wanted.

In the end, I think it was inevitable that the South would fire the first shots, and I'm not sure delay would have helped much by 1861. The few months, or a year (at most) they would have bought by delaying military action wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to accomplish what they needed to gain the kind of war footing necessary (as I discussed above). They would have had to begin a program of aggressive industrialization and rail building in the 1850s, at latest, to prepare for secession.
 
Does anybody have S.M. Sterling's detailed outline of how to save the Confederacy? It was posted here or soc.history.what-if. I'll repost it later today if it isn't posted before.
 
S.M. Sterling's post:

3: The Transformation Approach.

Go back to, say, 1827, with a load of diamonds (much more valuable then, relatively speaking) and technical/historical information on microfiche. And
some medical stuff -- make sure all your shots are up to date, and your
appendix is out! You might consider getting your teeth replaced with implants,
too.)

The microfiche can be made readable with a good microscope and a lantern.

Get immensely rich (not hard, with your information). Move to Richmond, Va.,
and start investing; that was the major Southern industrial city, and it had
excellent communications for the era.

Found an investment bank -- it's a new concept, but the time was ripe. Also
buy a large plantation, which is necessary for social status, and introduce
agricultural innovations.

Buy newspapers, and set up a publishing company -- you can push the works of
pro-slavery theorists, and promote "southern" culture, authors like William
Gilmore Sims, George Fitzhugh, etc. (and see if you can dry Edgar Allen Poe
out -- he was a brilliant editor and literary theorist as well as a writer of
genius... when sober). Promote the career of de Bow, of de Bow's Review, and
a number of other men you know to be very able.

You should join, and come to dominate, the Southern Commercial Conventions held
from the 1840's on -- they'll be invaluable for networking.

Finance Edmund Ruffin, the agricultural reformer, so that his discoveries and
magazine have even more impact than they did in OTL, and sooner.

Introduce tea to the Sea Islands of Georgia and S. Carolina (it grows well
there -- there's a plantation of it near Charleston).

Back the Tredegar Works in its early days, feeding in capital and
"discoveries", but not too fast at first.

This turns it from the second-largest iron/engineering works in the US to the
largest, with branches in other states and a massive locomotive construction
plant. You also prompt Anderson, the firm's manager, to go into the
riverboat/sawmill/cotton gin steam engine business, supplying the Southern
market.

"Invent" things a couple of years before they're due -- the telegraph, for
instance -- and set up plants in the South to make them. Endow chairs of
science and technology at William and Mary and U. Virg., and become one of the
founding patrons of the Virginia Military Institute. (At VMI you can gradually
influence the tactics taught, as well.)

Start a steam packet line in the coastal trade; this will give you a cadre of
experienced men later. You could also get the big truck-farming trade to the
North from areas like tidewater Virginia going a little earlier than in OTL.

"Discover" the phosphate deposits of South Carolina in the 1830's, and those of
Florida in the 1840's.

After the Panic of 1837, buy up defunct railroad charters across the South --
there were plenty, and they were going cheap. Then start building railroads,
using corporate forms from the 1870's, and a few "discoveries" of methods that
make construction and operation cheaper and more efficient (you know what
worked for each problem, after all.) Don't go overboard, but by the late
1850's you should have a Vicksburg-Savannah line, a Florida-Richmond, one from
Richmond to the Ohio, and one from Mobile (and New Orleans) to Lexington,
Kentucky.

Bribe and propagandize the Southern state legislatures to adopt the 5-ft
railway gauge -- that was the predominant one in the South in OTL, and your
influence could make it universal.

Some time in the depression of the 1840's, buy up the area around Birmingham,
Alabama, and then around 1850 start a big ironworks to catch the rail and iron
booms of the 1850's.

(This nearly happened -- a group of rich cotton-belt planters tried to get a
company going, and failed to get a charter by a very narrow margin. You can
afford to buy the Alabama state government by now. Get the planters involved
by allowing them to buy shares with slaves -- a common arrangement on Southern
railroads -- which you can use for the mining and other labor-intensive parts
of the enterprise.)

Around the same time, endow a medical school in Richmond, and "discover"
(through your professors) the germ theory of disease, antiseptic surgery, and
the mosquito vector of malaria.

This will face considerable resistance (see what happened to Simmelweis in
Austria), so you'll need time -- but it can be done; Pasteur would be working
soon anyway. By the later 1850's you'll have doctors who can keep an army from
wasting away with "camp fever".

If you manage it right, you can get the Northern medical schools to reject this
southern heresy so they won't have the methods.

In the mid to late 1850's (after making new fortunes off your 'inventions',
your railways, and your uncannily accurate financial manipulations) start
building some stuff specifically aimed at war potential.

Until now, you've let weapons _sensu strictu_ advance at their own pace, while
concentrating on building up machine-tool and engineering capacity. That means
you can now introduce greatly superior weapons _en masse_, skipping the R&D
process altogether, and achieve technological surprise.

A large powder works in Georgia, and small arms works there and in Virginia.
(Back in 1842, you bought up the patents of the bankrupt Colt Revolver company
and transferred its plant to Petersburg, Va.) Develop the coastal sulfur
deposits around Galveston, Texas, and see if you can get a railroad to El Paso.
Develop the lead and zinc deposits of southwestern Virginia.

Also a shipyard in Norfolk, another in Mobile, and a riverboat works in
Memphis, capable of turning out good seagoing steam engines and ironclads. In
1859-60, lay the keels of what are supposed to be oceangoing merchant steamers,
but are actually designed to be a small fleet of seagoing wood-framed steam
rams/ ironclads in the 3000-ton range, with 4-inch armor and 6-inch rifled
guns. Set the completion date for late 1861. And some fast commerce raiders,
too.

Ditto 'brown water' ironclads at your Memphis works. For those, the initial
design could be for tugboats intended to tow barges -- the engines would be
similar, anyway. Set up for mass production.

You might be able to get a crude but workable compressed-air powered torpedo in
production; Whitehead did in 1866, in Austria. Keep that as a 'secret weapon'.

Beef up the Tredegar's already formidable heavy artillery works. Add a
tinplate mill to the Birmingham works, and go into food canning. Develop the
copper mines of east Tennessee.

Make a final killing by having your agents 'discover' the Comstock Lode a
couple of years early -- stockpile a proportion of the specie produced in your
First Bank of Richmond, where it'll be useful to back the Confederate currency.

Back the Graniteville textile works in South Carolina, and other similar
entrepreneurs (the South had a surprisingly strong textile industry prior to
the war -- didn't recover that ground until the 1880's in OTL). And invent the
sewing machine, a simple but workable model.

In 1859, your RSA (Richmond Small Arms works) will "invent" and start to
produce (but secretly, warehousing the products):

i) A good brass-cartridge bolt-action repeating rifle -- a black-powder
version of the short Lee-Enfield, say. Like the Lee-Metford, but with some
later features like sripper-clip loading, 12 aimed rounds a minute, 2000 fps
muzzle velocity, and accurate to over 100 yards.

ii) The Gatling gun -- 1890's version, quite reliable and capable of 500 rounds
per minute.

iii) mortars.

iv) 1880's-style breechloading rifled artillery.

Meanwhile, of course, you've become a major political mover and shaker, with
your newspapers, campaign contributions, etc. Don't run for office, but build
up a stable of men who do and who are indebted to you in one way or another.

I suggest that you remain a Whig in the 1840's, and then go over (with suitable
inducements) to the Democrats during the first crisis over slavery in the
territories acquired from Mexico.

Once in the party, cultivate the moderate Southern Rights faction -- men like
Davis -- but don't cut off ties to the Fire-Eaters, either.

Don't try to be President; operate behind the scenes, and get "your" men into
strategic positions. (You're in a wonderful position to act as patron to a
generation of rising political and military talent.)

When the crisis comes, you can suggest the appropriate policies -- for example,
all enlistments to be for "3 years or the duration", rush troops into West
Virginia (and arrest Unionist leaders there), and no embargo on cotton. Send
better diplomats to Europe. Stage a coup in St. Louis, and prepare for a
secessionist insurrection in tidewater and Eastern Shore Maryland.

Get the new Confederate government to set up an efficient intelligence and
cover-operations _apparat_, using some suggestions from you -- in fact, if you
hold any official office, I'd recommend this one.

As soon as you can be sure that the war's going to start on schedule -- by this
time, the 'butterfly effect' is going to have modifed the political scene
somewhat -- import massive stockpiles of essentials from Europe in areas where
the South is likely to have shortages.

When the war starts, you'll have enough on hand to equip 200,000 men with
repeating rifles, Gatlings (4 per regiment) and 1880's-style artillery. Plus
you'll have flotillas of 4 ironclads each in Norfolk and Mobile ready to sink
the USN before the Monitor is more than a gleam in Erickson's eye, and a
brown-water fleet capable of dominating the Mississipi and its tributaries and
Farragut be damned.

Given that this comes off (and you don't trip and kill yourself getting out of
the bath or something of that nature) I'd say the war will last about 6 months,
with the South winning so big that it can impose whatever terms it likes and
then go on to carved out the Latin American empire the "Knights of the Golden
Horseshoe" dreamed of.

The long-term results will probably be pretty ghastly, but we're assuming that
the operative is a bit of a nut.
-- S.M. Stirling
 
Heaven or Hell, you still have to change dirigibles in Atlanta

1. Sneak lots of boll weevils, pink budworms, etc, into the South circa 1800, to destroy King Cotton.
2. Write articles on how the planters won't be able to pay their mortgages, so bank stop lending to Southern planters.
3. Make discoveries of mines, oil fields, etc, in America, that banks can invest in to replace previous plantation lending.
4. Release simple inventions like electrochemicals, etc, that banks can invest in, etc.
5. Hire underemployed former slaves to work in factories in the South.
6. Rinse, lather, repeat.
 
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