Worst possible American Civil War

ThePest179

Banned
As horrible as it already was, your goal, if you can accept it, is to make the American Civil War as bloody and awful as possible. Good luck.
 

Ryan

Donor
you need the south to be more industrialized to it can support itself better. it would also help if the navy either split in half or defected mostly to the CSA so that there is no blockade of the south.
 
Different treatment

If the north declares that rebel officers are traitors--and will be tried and hanged as such--it gets uglier. And under the laws and traditions of the times, that is within the law...
 
Or if one of Booth's plots prior to the assassination had been carried thru. IIRC Pres Lincoln used to travel to a house outside of Washington DC during the summer practically unguarded. One of Booth's plots was to kidnap him but a kidnapping could always end badly with an assassination.
 
The South does significantly better in the West (maybe have Grant killed and his army routed at Shiloh?), slowing the Union advance by essentially 6 months to a year.

With the war effort in much worse shape, McClellan wins in 1864, and signs a peace of exhaustion, recognizing the Confederacy (with KY, MO, WV, and TN all remaining in the Union). The North is exhausted after the war, and the South has seen much of the OTL devastation (although spared from e.g. Sherman's March). However, there remain large numbers of freed slaves and Unionists at arms in the South, who refuse to accept the Confederate victory. Unable to return to their homes (and frequently in fear of their lives), these elements take matters into their own hands.

The result is a nasty, prolonged guerrilla conflict, with frequent war crimes. African Americans especially are victimized, with unaccompanied blacks often hanged out of hand by Confederates who assume them to be guerrillas. The insurgency is supplied with weapons and equipment from sympathetic abolitionists and escaped slaves, taking advantage of the porous borders along the Appalachians to smuggle in arms and equipment. The Confederate government imposes increasingly draconian measures to deal with the rebellion, prompting the remaining rebels to more extreme acts, which in turn inspire even harsher crackdowns.

By the time the insurgency is finally crushed, much of the Southern economy is ruined. North-South relations are utterly poisonous, and the CSA has become essentially a police state. Any hint of anything that could remotely be considered as abolitionist tendencies is likely to lead to a lynching; many individuals will use this opportunity to settle old feuds. Many of the survivors of the Unionist bands (as well as some of the soldiers who spent years hunting them) have turned to organized crime.
 
What about British and French involvement in the Civil War, especially with a POD in which the United States is more "wanked" in both the Free and Slaver sections?

This might trigger the Russians to have a go at Constantinople?
 

ThePest179

Banned
Burn all the cities, liberate all the slaves, get all the Europeans involved.

I don't think the former is likely.

The South does significantly better in the West (maybe have Grant killed and his army routed at Shiloh?), slowing the Union advance by essentially 6 months to a year.

With the war effort in much worse shape, McClellan wins in 1864, and signs a peace of exhaustion, recognizing the Confederacy (with KY, MO, WV, and TN all remaining in the Union). The North is exhausted after the war, and the South has seen much of the OTL devastation (although spared from e.g. Sherman's March). However, there remain large numbers of freed slaves and Unionists at arms in the South, who refuse to accept the Confederate victory. Unable to return to their homes (and frequently in fear of their lives), these elements take matters into their own hands.

The result is a nasty, prolonged guerrilla conflict, with frequent war crimes. African Americans especially are victimized, with unaccompanied blacks often hanged out of hand by Confederates who assume them to be guerrillas. The insurgency is supplied with weapons and equipment from sympathetic abolitionists and escaped slaves, taking advantage of the porous borders along the Appalachians to smuggle in arms and equipment. The Confederate government imposes increasingly draconian measures to deal with the rebellion, prompting the remaining rebels to more extreme acts, which in turn inspire even harsher crackdowns.

By the time the insurgency is finally crushed, much of the Southern economy is ruined. North-South relations are utterly poisonous, and the CSA has become essentially a police state. Any hint of anything that could remotely be considered as abolitionist tendencies is likely to lead to a lynching; many individuals will use this opportunity to settle old feuds. Many of the survivors of the Unionist bands (as well as some of the soldiers who spent years hunting them) have turned to organized crime.

Pretty good.

What about British and French involvement in the Civil War, especially with a POD in which the United States is more "wanked" in both the Free and Slaver sections?

This might trigger the Russians to have a go at Constantinople?

I'm not too sure that would work.

Any other suggestions?
 

jahenders

Banned
As the posts have concluded, making the CSA stronger or more durable is the general tact.

However, two other things could make the whole thing bloodier:
1) More animosity on both sides. Perhaps (as noted above) the Union says any captured rebels will be immediately shot as traitors without trial. Likewise, the South could say they'll immediately shoot any union troops captured, perhaps on a "stand your ground" theory

2) Technology: Slow reaction to advances in weaponry caused huge losses in ACW IOTL, but this could be worse with slightly better weaponry. For instance, faster repeating rifles earlier on and more ubiquitous --attacks on defensive positions get REAL bloody. Alternately, either/both sides could use chemical weapons, which were seriously considered in both the ACW and Crimea. Imagine if the Union at Fredricksburg bombards CSA positions with Chlorine gas shells, or the CSA does the same to US at Gettysburg, or US uses them on Richmond in general.
 
Fort Pillow

After Fort Pillow, the Union decides that there will be retribution, one for one. But, to be sure that the message gets through, the rebels are told that the deaths will start with the most senior in captivity, and work their way down.

THAT will escalate things, when the south gets told, "The Yankees are treating a n***** as being equal to a southern gentleman..."
 
Along with the escalations above make it a free way so that not only a more abolitionist North and pro slavery South you have a states rights West?
 
The South does significantly better in the West (maybe have Grant killed and his army routed at Shiloh?), slowing the Union advance by essentially 6 months to a year.

In essence, this happened OTL. But Buell's army arrived on Day 2 to rout the Confederates in turn. Also, the Union gunboats prevented the totally disorganized (and critically low on ammunition) Confederates to force Grant's army to completely break.

Have the CSA adopt a defensive strategy. Pump out that fortification bonus.

In Virginia yes. In the West this was not practical. Too many places where the terrain was too vast to allow fortifications to block Union troops movements.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The trouble with this POD is that the best way to make the war even worse is to make the Confederacy stronger and allowing it to do better than it did IOTL, but this, in turn, means that the war probably ends with a negotiated peace of exhaustion following the 1864 election.

The oft-stated idea that Lee and Johnston don't surrender but order their troops to disperse and fight on as partisans is borderline ASB, because it would have been totally out of character for either of those men to do so. They were Virginia gentlemen of the old school, despised the idea of guerrilla warfare, held no hatred for the Yankees, and cared mostly about the well-being of the men under their command.
 
One side or the other enlists "savage" Native American auxilliaries and sends them out to raid the other side's lines of communication?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Have the South lay siege on a Northern city.

I don't really see any scenario in which that is realistic. A Confederate army could only move in Northern territory by living off the land, as Lee did in Pennsylvania for a few weeks. But a siege would take time, and a stationary army would quickly exhaust the supplies in the vicinity. Moreover, Union forces would quickly be assembled to form a relief force to lift the siege.
 
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