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====== Chapters (The Story of A Party) ======

This lists all the chapters posted so far in the Story of a Party. Be warned, though; this page contains **heavy spoilers**, so read at your own risk.

==== Act 1 ====

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5335262|Chapter I: The Fall of the Old Order]]**

"//I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs//"
- Abraham Lincoln

Chaos reigns in the United States. The nation is sharply divided over slavery, and in the frontier territory of Kansas, open civil war is breaking out between the settlers. At this point, an election is held, and its winner will change the course of history.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5347948|Chapter II: The Seeds of Discord]]**

"//Henceforth, the watchword of every uncompromising abolitionist, of every friend of God and liberty, must be, in a religious as well as political sense - 'NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS'//"
- William Lloyd Garrison

President Fremont has barely settled into his new office before the chaos begins. The new bill proposed by the Republicans in Congress threatens to start a war between the states, and a mysterious man arrives with a dangerous proposition...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5388154|Chapter III: The House Divides]]**

"//A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.//"
- Lord Byron

The South seethes with discontent over the reorganisation of the West into all free territories. The idea of secession gains more and more adherents by the day. New alliances are made, deals struck, speeches held, and ultimatums drawn up. In December of 1860, finally, a meeting is held in Montgomery, Alabama, and at this meeting, a momentous decision is made.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5421227|Chapter IV: The Dogs Let to Slip]]**

"//...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.//"
- Abraham Lincoln

The Union has fallen. The war has begun, and as the two great armies meet in battle, no one knows how the day will end. Meanwhile, in Hannibal, Missouri, an adventurous young man signs up for naval service.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5464770|Chapter V: Old Armies, New Battles]]**

"//Generals may win campaigns, but people win wars.//"
- Donald Porter

General Lee finally routs Beauregard's forces at Nashville, but as he does so, his home state splits as the Union has done.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5514091|Chapter VI: Down the Old Miss]]**

"//If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, be able to divide them; if equal,engage them; if fewer, be able to evade them; if weaker, be able to avoid them.//"
- The Art of War, chapter III

Lee marches through Georgia, McClellan heads for Montgomery, and Grant moves down the Mississippi to put an end to Confederate supply along the great river.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5559921|Chapter VII: Nullified Property]]**

"//I breathe, and lo! the chattel is a man.//"
- Frederick Douglass

You can't shoot an idea with a gun, as someone once quipped. However, you can shoot a gun with an idea, and this is what the new Union commander realises. He recruits a ragtag group of free blacks, equipped only with guns and ideas, to spread those guns and those ideas among the slaves of Alabama.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5604574|Chapter VIII: Our Flag is Still There]]**

"//Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.//"
- William Tecumseh Sherman

The Navy, which has been sidelined for much of the war, now gets its fifteen minutes of fame, as Pensacola is retaken by the Union, and the Confederate-friendly president of Nicaragua is toppled by a squadron of Union gunboats.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5695823|Chapter IX: L'Italia s'è Desta]]**

"//I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me.//"
- Giuseppe Garibaldi

In Italy, the situation is at least as problematic as it is across the Atlantic. A war is breaking out between Sardinia, seeking to take Lombardy and Venetia for the purpose of uniting all Italians under a single nation, and Austria, who seek to keep the same lands for themselves. The French Emperor has sided with Sardinia, and any side looks poised to strike. Who will win? Let us find out...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5849080|Chapter X: Virginia Delenda Est]]**

"//Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!//"
- Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great)

Sherman finally breaks through in Virginia, and his army is able to capture most of the Atlantic seaboard within short time. The Confederacy will soon fall, but one thing is preventing that...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5907850|Chapter XI: The Reunited States]]**

"//What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.//"
- The Art of War, chapter II

The Confederate President, after a long struggle with his own mind, dies, and the new President surrenders to the Union. However, the Secretary of State refuses to comply, and flees to Florida with most of the treasury before the Union troops around the capital can stop him.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5922016|Chapter XII: Amending Past Wrongs]]**

"//I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom.//"
- Thaddeus Stevens

The Union is saved. The war is over. Now, the business of rebuilding the broken South can begin. This is done in many ways, the most prominent of which is amending the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, according to the wishes of the new governing powers.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-5927677|Chapter XIII: The New Order]]**

"//Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.//"
- William Henry Seward

The South, after two and a half years of total war, is not a nice place. Armed bands of freedmen battle with armed bands of whites, radicalised by the fight against the "Black Republicans". The Union army of occupation that is still in place can hardly maintain order, and further squabbling over the land of the expropriated ex-Confederates threatens to create infighting between the freedmen as well. Against this chaotic backdrop, a presidential election is held, the first since the war. The winner is a man who promises only to bring more destruction to the South.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6036168|Chapter XIV: Borderline Insanity]]**

"//What we wanted to do, the reason why we fought, was always to free the Negro. Fremont saw that already then, and I see that now. His freedom, not the mending of the Union, was always our ultimate goal, but then I did not see that. Sometimes I wonder how things would have gone if I had been President in Fremont's stead.//"
- Abraham Lincoln, in an interview for the Illinois State Journal, 1878

The "border states" in the upper South, which didn't secede with the rest of the South, are now at least as chaotic, only that there is no occupying army to maintain order. They each react differently to the freeing of their slaves, and none accept it readily...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6402270|Chapter XV: Expanding Concerns]]**

"//Give me only this assurance, that there never be an unlawful resistance by an armed force to the United States, and give me fifty, forty, thirty more years of life, and I will engage to give you the possession of the American continent and the control of the world.//"
- William Henry Seward

The new President sets out to provide a distraction from the inflamed situation in the South, as well as to promote his own goals of expansion, and an opportunity quickly comes along. Its name is the CSS //Alabama//...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6450776|Chapter XVI: Dov'è la Vittoria?]]**

"//I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats; I tell them the truth, and they never believe me.//"
- Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour

Though the Sardinians won their bout with the Austrian behemoth, the struggle to unify Italy is far from complete. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the charismatic wartime leader of the Sardinian mountain troops, sets out of Genoa one spring day in 1860, along with a thousand volunteers, aiming to overthrow the Bourbon kings of the Two Sicilies.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6504658|Chapter XVII: Now is the Summer of our Discontent]]**

"//The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.//"
- William Henry Seward

Seward's expansionist adventures did nothing to unify the nation, and the situation in the South continues to deteriorate. Far from helping to mend the rift, Seward's radical policies only exacerbate the violence.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6539055|Chapter XVIII: The Bismarck Gambit]]**

"//All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.//"
- Otto von Bismarck

Bismarck comes to power in Prussia, and uses the Danish crisis to recover Schleswig and Holstein, as well as to create feelings of unity among the German states. However, when a Spanish succession crisis comes along, he may be in over his head...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6542084|Chapter XIX: Krieg in Europa]]**

"//A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.//"
- Otto von Bismarck

A great war breaks out. Battles are fought, treaties are made, backs stabbed, men killed. Now is the time to make history.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6550177|Chapter XX: The Trial of Trier]]**

"//It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.//"
- Robert E. Lee

The French attack across the Hunsrück, aiming for Trier and the Mosel Valley. The Prussians are getting badly overextended, causing problems on all sides...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6563938|Chapter XXI: Drang nach Osten]]**

"//The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.//"
- Otto von Bismarck

The Prussians face a dire situation in Austria, and find a sorely-needed ally to their east.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6702625|Chapter XXII: Contingency Plans]]**

"//Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.//"
- Jefferson Davis

The election of 1868 was one of the most contested and controversial in U.S. history. This important watershed in the Reconstruction era ended up as no one had expected.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6745784|Chapter XXIII: From Valley to Valley]]**

"//True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what's right.//"
- Brigham Young

This chapter is all about them. In one valley lives a rancher and patriot with dreams of statehood for his homeland, in another live an industrious people who, tired of bullying by the federal government, decide to look for greener pastures in a third...

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6908471|Chapter XXIV: L'étendard sanglant est levé]]**

"//Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.//"
- Napoleon Bonaparte

What goes up must inevitably come down. So too with the French war effort, which isn't exactly riding high anymore.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6941779|Chapter XXV: Contre nous de la tyrannie]]**

"//We are in the chamberpot, about to he shat upon.//"
- Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot

It's taps for the French Empire, as Napoleon III is dethroned and the Prussians lay siege to Paris. For once, the chapter's conclusion isn't up in the air.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6978758|Chapter XXVI: Unity]]**

"//Let us lift Germany, so to speak, into the saddle. It will certainly be able to ride.//"
- Otto von Bismarck

Bismarck's unified Germany, as established by international treaty, sees great political conflict as discriminatory legislation against Catholics is passed. However, it all comes to rather an abrupt end.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-6990441|Chapter XXVII: On the Edge of the Atlantic]]**

"//The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.//"
- Simon Bolivar

The nation of Argentina, if it can be said to be one at this point, is facing some difficulty, as the city and province of Buenos Aires get fed up with the federal nature of the government and promptly leave. Also, Paraguay gets in well over its head.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-7057941|Chapter XXVIII: The Slightly Improved Years]]**

"//Let us not be deceived. Those who talk about peace in sixty days are shallow statesmen. The war will not end until the government shall more fully recognize the magnitude of the crisis; until they have discovered that this is an internecine war in which one party or the other must be reduced to hopeless feebleness and the power of further effort shall be utterly annihilated.//"
- Thaddeus Stevens

In the States, President Curtin leads the nation out of Reconstruction, only to be voted out of office by the narrowest of margins. But the South has changed little in its character, and although no longer as violent as before, racial discrimination was by no means eliminated.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-7077912|Chapter XXIX: That '70s Show]]**

"//As is evidenced a great many times across history, man's indomitable will for freedom is an unstoppable force.//"
- Samuel Porter

The new president, James Birdseye McPherson, is a modest man for a modest age, and though the economy has some rough times, the country fares fairly well through his term overall.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-7181669|Chapter XXX: Assorted American Affairs]]**

"//What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.//"
- Attributed to Sitting Bull

An Indian nation fares surprisingly well in war against the United States, striking railroad workers less so, and the Unionist party coalesces into something fairly coherent. Oh, and the Republicans win another election.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-7245232|Chapter XXXI: Gathering Storms]]**

"//Si vis pacem, para bellum.//" ("//If you seek peace, prepare for war.//")
- Vegetius, De Re Militari

The Balkans erupt in rebellion against the authority of the Ottoman Empire. After a while, Russia intervenes, and the revolts turn into the final (or perhaps not?) showdown between the rulers of the Third Rome and the Second Rome.

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-7329541|Chapter XXXII: The Sick Men of Europe]]**

"//I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.//"
- Benjamin Disraeli

As the Balkan war rages on, it appears to be turning into an uphill battle. The question everyone is asking is: for whom?

**[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/1/post-7498386|Chapter XXXIII: The Devil and Señor Prim]]**

"//Traditional monarchy died with Ferdinand VII; parliamentary monarchy with the flight of Isabella II; democratic monarchy with the abdication of don Alfonso of Montpensier; nobody has finished it, it has died on its own; nobody brings the Republic, save all circumstances, a cabal of society, nature and history. Let us greet it like the sun rising with its own strength on the sky of our nation.//"
- Emilio Castelar

Spain is in chaos as 1873 dawns; the new king has fled the country two years after his election, no one can agree on how the new republican government is to be structured, and discontent simmers in the countryside as the anarchist movement grows in strength. To top it all off, the Carlist standard has been raised in Navarre, and there may be more crises coming down the road. President Prim certainly seems to have his work cut out for him.