Desert Kid
2nd Lieutenant
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2011
- Location
- Arizona
This thread was an idea taken from @OldReliable1862 and at the behest of another Shattered Nation fan @CanadianCanuck I have decided to create an ideas and a Filling the Gaps thread ala the Filling the Gaps thread for Timeline 191 on Alternatehistory.com to show appreciation and kick around ideas that hopefully Mr. @JeffBrooks will consider helpful.
Before I start, many of the ideas I've kicked around for a Confederate victory scenario, primarily for my "Shiloh Victory" series that never got off the ground due to unfortunate circumstances when I was in college; took a lot of inspiration from several different novels and timelines.
Dixie Victorious by Lt. Colonel Peter G. Tsouras
This book had close to a dozen scenarios depicting how the CSA could have gained it's independence, everything from a Trent War, a successful Maryland secession, A.S. Johnston surviving Shiloh, The 191 Orders not being lost, a successful Gettysburg campaign and an 1864 peace through exhaustion. It even had a successful Cleburne's Proposal. In 2009, the chapter "We Will Water Our Horses In the Mississippi" became the Point of Divergence of my timeline, A.S. Johnston surviving Shiloh. Every possible independent Confederacy shortly after 1865 I feel is shown as accurate in some way, trying to create it's own national identity.
Timeline 191/Southern Victory by Harry Turtledove
I guess no Confederate Victory thread would be complete without mentioning this one. Despite everything happening after 1910 in this series being completely implausible and murdered numerous butterflies, I recently bought the entire 12 book series (a very pricey buy for 12 brand new hardcovers) for a re-read and found Turtledove got a handful of things right. Things like the United States moving it's capitol to Philadelphia, the ending of slavery in the Confederate States through a manumission amendment (although a bit early, 1880, compared to Shattered Nation in 1900), the more-or-less enfranchisement of Hispanics in the Confederacy, a second secessionist revolt breaking out in Utah, and the lionization of not only Lee and Jackson in the CSA, but of the felled A.S. Johnston. But what I found the most accurate and likely was the 20th Century Confederate Army uniforms and weapons. The Confederate Army starts using Butternut/Khaki colors after the 1880s and starts to heavily resemble British and OTL American uniforms. By the 1940s, they look like this:
View attachment 306742
https://www.deviantart.com/goeliath/art/Commission-Confederate-Soldier-787091067
I also found Turtledove's choice of what weapons the CSA uses in the 20th Century to be very accurate, while the United States would be using Springfields and eventually the Thompson. The Confederacy sticks to Colt firearms, and later designs by John Moses Browning and the Browning Arms Company. Everything else in Timeline 191 raised huge issues with me because Turtledove went too far into parallelism, and largely because I don't think there would even be a Second War Between the States after the Confederacy gains independence.
The Black and the Gray by Robert P. Perkins (robertp6165)
Back before I ever posted on Alternatehistory.com, and long after being banned from there, I still to this day miss Robert. He was a dear friend and was the man I turned to while trying to write my timeline. The Black and the Gray, I feel, had a very implausible Point of Divergence over Cleburne's Proposal. But offered many good ideas about subsequent secession and counter-secession happening in Utah and Texas, as well as the eventual collapse of the Second Mexican Empire in much of the same way that Benito Juarez' Federalist legacy eventually imploded 50 years after defeating the French in real life.
Pax Napoleonica by Zach
This was a very creative timeline written in 2008, although the Point of Divergence occurs in 1807, the American Civil War still occurs right about the same time, with most of the same players in 1862 and ends in 1864. Europe is still ruled by monarchies as late as the 1970's, and headed up by a prosperous, Napoleonic France. The Confederacy we see here is still the same old familiar place, but Zach had an idea that heavily resembled one of my own. That by the middle of the 20th Century, many of the economic disparities in the Confederate States will give to the rise of right-wing, middle class, blue-collar populism. Where in which a very hard-fisted Huey Long or George Wallace analogue rises to power. Due to the right-to-work and evangelical culture of the South, the Labor Movement is smothered in it's crib before it ever gets any traction in the Confederate States. The 1950's Sanford Tarbell in this timeline is clearly Huey Long. My timeline had an amalgamation of both Long and Wallace, although I never had a name for him yet. Effectively he was going to physically resemble George Wallace, hail from South Alabama, stoke racial fears and fears of Marxism in the midst of a violent Civil Rights Movement analogue as a global Cold War was happening, and be a fierce Confederate Nationalist. But this guy would also be instrumental in introducing widespread college education and creating a populist "Share Our Wealth"-style social safety net for the Confederacy's post-Second Great War middle class in the 1960's-70's. So two parts George Wallace, one part Huey Long.
Before I start, many of the ideas I've kicked around for a Confederate victory scenario, primarily for my "Shiloh Victory" series that never got off the ground due to unfortunate circumstances when I was in college; took a lot of inspiration from several different novels and timelines.
Dixie Victorious by Lt. Colonel Peter G. Tsouras
This book had close to a dozen scenarios depicting how the CSA could have gained it's independence, everything from a Trent War, a successful Maryland secession, A.S. Johnston surviving Shiloh, The 191 Orders not being lost, a successful Gettysburg campaign and an 1864 peace through exhaustion. It even had a successful Cleburne's Proposal. In 2009, the chapter "We Will Water Our Horses In the Mississippi" became the Point of Divergence of my timeline, A.S. Johnston surviving Shiloh. Every possible independent Confederacy shortly after 1865 I feel is shown as accurate in some way, trying to create it's own national identity.
Timeline 191/Southern Victory by Harry Turtledove
I guess no Confederate Victory thread would be complete without mentioning this one. Despite everything happening after 1910 in this series being completely implausible and murdered numerous butterflies, I recently bought the entire 12 book series (a very pricey buy for 12 brand new hardcovers) for a re-read and found Turtledove got a handful of things right. Things like the United States moving it's capitol to Philadelphia, the ending of slavery in the Confederate States through a manumission amendment (although a bit early, 1880, compared to Shattered Nation in 1900), the more-or-less enfranchisement of Hispanics in the Confederacy, a second secessionist revolt breaking out in Utah, and the lionization of not only Lee and Jackson in the CSA, but of the felled A.S. Johnston. But what I found the most accurate and likely was the 20th Century Confederate Army uniforms and weapons. The Confederate Army starts using Butternut/Khaki colors after the 1880s and starts to heavily resemble British and OTL American uniforms. By the 1940s, they look like this:
View attachment 306742
https://www.deviantart.com/goeliath/art/Commission-Confederate-Soldier-787091067
I also found Turtledove's choice of what weapons the CSA uses in the 20th Century to be very accurate, while the United States would be using Springfields and eventually the Thompson. The Confederacy sticks to Colt firearms, and later designs by John Moses Browning and the Browning Arms Company. Everything else in Timeline 191 raised huge issues with me because Turtledove went too far into parallelism, and largely because I don't think there would even be a Second War Between the States after the Confederacy gains independence.
The Black and the Gray by Robert P. Perkins (robertp6165)
Back before I ever posted on Alternatehistory.com, and long after being banned from there, I still to this day miss Robert. He was a dear friend and was the man I turned to while trying to write my timeline. The Black and the Gray, I feel, had a very implausible Point of Divergence over Cleburne's Proposal. But offered many good ideas about subsequent secession and counter-secession happening in Utah and Texas, as well as the eventual collapse of the Second Mexican Empire in much of the same way that Benito Juarez' Federalist legacy eventually imploded 50 years after defeating the French in real life.
Pax Napoleonica by Zach
This was a very creative timeline written in 2008, although the Point of Divergence occurs in 1807, the American Civil War still occurs right about the same time, with most of the same players in 1862 and ends in 1864. Europe is still ruled by monarchies as late as the 1970's, and headed up by a prosperous, Napoleonic France. The Confederacy we see here is still the same old familiar place, but Zach had an idea that heavily resembled one of my own. That by the middle of the 20th Century, many of the economic disparities in the Confederate States will give to the rise of right-wing, middle class, blue-collar populism. Where in which a very hard-fisted Huey Long or George Wallace analogue rises to power. Due to the right-to-work and evangelical culture of the South, the Labor Movement is smothered in it's crib before it ever gets any traction in the Confederate States. The 1950's Sanford Tarbell in this timeline is clearly Huey Long. My timeline had an amalgamation of both Long and Wallace, although I never had a name for him yet. Effectively he was going to physically resemble George Wallace, hail from South Alabama, stoke racial fears and fears of Marxism in the midst of a violent Civil Rights Movement analogue as a global Cold War was happening, and be a fierce Confederate Nationalist. But this guy would also be instrumental in introducing widespread college education and creating a populist "Share Our Wealth"-style social safety net for the Confederacy's post-Second Great War middle class in the 1960's-70's. So two parts George Wallace, one part Huey Long.
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