A House Divided-An American Timeline

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”-Abraham Lincoln, 1858




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A montage of the First Confederate-American War


War and Slavery

Following the election of abolitionist Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, seven southern states seceded from the United States prior to his inauguration and declared themselves independent as the Confederate States of America (later the Confederation of Dixie). The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina is commonly accepted by historians as the beginning of the First Confederate-American War (alternatively known as the War of Southern Independence, the North American War and the American Civil War). After the attack, President Lincoln called for a volunteer force from each state, and within two months, most of the remaining slaveholding states, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, seceded and joined the Confederacy.



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Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy from 1861-1867

When volunteer forces were not enough, both sides began conscripting men into their armies. The Union armed forces were supplemented by ex-slaves, who hoped that a Union victory in the war would result in the end of slavery and the emancipation of themselves and their families.
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was “elected” the first President of the Confederate States in 1861, and as the former Secretary of War of the United States, took personal charge of the Confederate Army. Naming General Robert E. Lee of Virginia as one of his senior military advisors, Davis planned to wear down the Union until the people became tired of war, a goal that historians agree successful for this war, but ultimately caused more harm to the American South than good.



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The Battle of Antietam

Though initially the Union seemed to have the advantage in everything, from manpower to industry to food, the turning point in the war came when Lee invaded Maryland in 1862. By surrounding the city of Antietam, Lee’s army was able to force Union General McClellan's forces north, into Pennsylvania, thus taking the fight into Northern territory.


Foreign Intervention in the First Confederate-American War


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Emperor Napoleon III of France

Though the Confederates had initially rallied around the flag hoping that “King Cotton” would force the British Empire to give them its support, help would come from a different location. For decades, Mexico had borrowed money from European powers, namely the United Kingdom, Spain and France. In 1861, President Benito Juarez suspended interest payments to foreign countries, prompting the three European powers to invade and reclaim their money. However, while the British and Spanish quickly withdrew, the French remained, hoping to seize all of Mexico and install a puppet government. The Second Mexican Empire, under Maximillian I, was established in Mexico, and was supported by many conservative elements in the country, including rich landowners and the Catholic Church. However, the United States claimed that the Monroe Doctrine, which forbid European powers from intervening in Latin America, was still in effect, and that it would defend Mexico from France. Hoping to prevent American intervention, Napoleon III, emperor of France, decided to provide aid, including weapons, to the Confederacy, hoping to prolong the war and leave the Union too weak to intervene. With advisers and weapons from France, the Confederacy had finally gotten the chance it needed to win the war.




And there you have it! The first update of my first "real" timeline! I'll be continuing this whether you guys like it or not, but I'd rather you enjoy it. Comments and (constructive) criticism will be appreciated.
 
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A French supported Confederacy, I'm interested.
Well, if by "supported", you mean having a chance to become independent, then sure, but the French don't really like the Confederates too much. It's more as a buffer between the USA and French-occupied Mexico. Think modern day China and North Korea.

But thanks.
 
Invasion of the North and End of the War

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The French ironclad Gloire

Rapidly losing ground in the West, especially after the secession of both West Texas and East Tennessee, and losing the rest of Tennessee to Union forces, President Davis ordered the majority of remaining Confederate troops to head East, and support Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the largest assault on a Northern city ever. Exhausted from the Battle of Antietam, it is entirely possible that, had McClellan been replaced by the much more aggressive Ulysses S. Grant, as President Lincoln had considered doing, the loss of life to the Confederate forces would have been too great, and the Battle of Philadelphia would have been lost. However, with recognition from France and the arrival of French weapons and military advisers, foreign banks were much more likely to invest in the Confederate economy. France did not directly intervene on the side of the Confederacy until 1863, when a French ship carrying a shipment of weapons and three Confederate diplomats was captured by the United States. Though the French government demanded that the ship be released and the US government apologize for their actions, President Lincoln’s refusal to accept these demands led to a French declaration of war on the United States. The arrival of the French into the war and their assault of Northern port cities, including Boston, forced the Union to lift its naval blockade of the South. With New Orleans and the southern Mississippi back in Confederate hands, Lee was free to concentrate his forces in the north. By convincing McClellan that the ANV was much larger than it actually was, Lee and his forces were able to capture Philadelphia and hold it, earning diplomatic recognition from the Mexican Empire, Austria, Spain and Belgium. The Empire of Brazil, the only other slaveholding power left in the Americas, also extended its recognition.


Though fighting would continue for another year, and Lincoln would replace McClellan with Grant and recover more ground lost to the Confederates in the West, the Union suffered heavy casualties, and in the 1864 election, the American people, weary of war, were ready for a change. McClellan himself had run in the Democratic primaries, but his failures on the battlefield and desire to continue the war, while not supporting abolition, had decreased his popularity significantly, and Peace Democrat Thomas H Seymour of Connecticut was nominated in his place. On Election Day, Seymour and George Pendleton defeated Lincoln and Hamlin, and after his inauguration, President Seymour met with President Davis of the Confederacy to negotiate an end to the war and the independence of the Confederacy. The War was over. The South had won.
 
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Now that I think about it, the South isn't really all that important to the United States now the US has the West. The South may think their agriculture is important to the world but really it isn't. The rest of the world can grow their own cotton and tobacco.
 
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Now that I think about it, the South isn't really all that important to the United States now the US has the West. The South may think their agriculture is important to the but really it isn't. The rest of the world can grow their own cotton and tobacco.

Believe me, that'll come up soon.
 
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[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Peace and Reconstruction[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

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Federal Troops breaking up a fight between angry white veterans and free blacks, Boston, 1868

[/FONT]Following the war, both the United States and its southern neighbor faced economic hardship, with both having acquired an enormous debt and inflation being extremely high. During the war, the Union had managed to liberate some Confederate-controlled areas, such as the breakaway states of West Virginia, East Tennessee and West Texas, and had reannexed the remainder of Tennessee, which had been placed under military rule. However, despite the Confederacy now becoming independent, or perhaps because of it, there continued to be friction between the abolitionists and Congress, now dominated entirely by Republicans and northern Democrats, on one side, and the remaining slave states on the other. President Seymour, himself an abolitionist from the free state of Connecticut, negotiated a compromise by issuing the General Statement for the Abolition of Slavery and the Emancipation of the Negro, which would later come to be known as the Seymour Compromise. It stated that slavery was to be abolished in all US territories, including occupied Tennessee, and all slaves in those areas be freed, but permitted the existence of slavery in the states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, East Tennessee, Missouri and West Texas for another 15 years. The General Statement was extremely unpopular among both abolitionists, who felt that it did not go far enough in ending slavery, and proponents of slavery, who felt that this was exactly the sort of tyranny that had brought the Confederacy to secede in the first place. Ironically, former President Lincoln was among its few supporters, saying, “While the institution of slavery is an evil that must be eradicated in order to create a more perfect union, we have already lost too many Americans, too many fathers, brothers and sons, to continue the fight. For the sake of peace, this is a necessary evil.” Wanting to avoid another war and further divisions of the Union at all costs, Congress reluctantly passed the Emancipation Act in 1865, which included all the provisions of the General Statement and required all slaves to be freed by 1880. The states of Delaware, West Virginia, East Tennessee and West Texas adopted new constitutions abolishing slavery soon after the war, as it was not an important institution in any of those states, and the former three were dependent on trade with the free Northern states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Though abolitionism was still a strong and popular ideology, the Radical Republican policy of advocating citizenship and equal rights for blacks was not. Many Americans blamed blacks and Radicals for their loss, and continued to believe that the white man was superior to the Negro. In the North, many Radical Republicans, including Senator James H. Lane of Kansas and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, lost their seats in Congress. However, some of the Radical platform, such as harshly punishing captured ex-Confederates, appealed to many Unionists and people who had lost family members during the war. Among those executed for being Confederate sympathizers and collaborators were Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee and cavalryman Nathaniel B. Forrest. This anti-Confederate feeling would dominate American politics for decades, lasting until the end of the Confederacy itself.
 
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Great update sir! Though things may look grim for the United States, this might actually be good for them. Without the need to put a lot of resources into the reconstruction of the South and the non of the South's conservatism to slow down progressivism, the United States might be able to now start consentrating on developing its infrastructure, start fixing some social problems, and start some business reforms.
 
Great update sir! Though things may look grim for the United States, this might actually be good for them. Without the need to put a lot of resources into the reconstruction of the South and the non of the South's conservatism to slow down progressivism, the United States might be able to now start consentrating on developing its infrastructure, start fixing some social problems, and start some business reforms.
You'll just have to wait and see, won't you? ;)

And thank you.
 
I love this. I say this will hurt France greatly in the long run. (UK allied with Germany?)

Why would it?

Why do people always think that the American civil war will have ANY effect on post 1900 alliances. If the UK could put past the differences with France in otl, they can do it in ttl.
 
I love this. I say this will hurt France greatly in the long run. (UK allied with Germany?)
I have some plans for something related to that, but since I haven't written them down myself yet, I can't reveal any details.
Why would it?

Why do people always think that the American civil war will have ANY effect on post 1900 alliances. If the UK could put past the differences with France in otl, they can do it in ttl.
Because a major POD 40 years earlier is bound to have some sort of effect? Also, the UK was also a supporter of the Monroe Doctrine, and won't take kindly to France just playing around in the Americas. That, and the fact that, ITTL, Napoleon III just jeopardized the proto-Entente that was developing between the UK and France by helping the slavocratic CSA win its independence, while the UK was staunchly abolitionist.
 
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