Help me get a more realistic timeline for the premise of How Few Remain.
Start with the assumption the Trent Affair results in British military intervention. With the help of a British Expeditionary Force to pin the Federal Army of the Potomac, Lee defeats McClellan in detail during the Peninsula Campaign. The war is effectively over by August 1862.
The Confederacy gains Kentucky, the Indian Territory, occupied Arizona Territory, southern Missouri, and western Virginia. The Union pays £20 million for a defensive perimeter in Northern Virginia. Minor territorial adjustments are made in favor of the British in Maine, Minnesota, and the Pacific Northwest. (The goal here is to artificially inflate the South so that it can stand to take a beating later on, because I suspect it never really recovers from the future collapse of the cotton market and dependence upon an agricultural plantation economy.)
Presumably, one of the significant outcomes of a Union defeat would have been the closure of the West Point Military Academy, which as I understand it was suspected by many to have somehow cultivated a lot of the secessionist sentiment given the number of officers who resigned their commissions to join the Confederate Army. The backlash cripples the American military for two generations.
In 1879, a desperate Emperor Maximilian agrees to sell the Confederacy the Mexican territories of Chihuahua and Sonora. The United States seizes upon this transfer as a basis for war. Ultimately, the British will pile on to prop up their Confederate client. To do this, they will use use the device of the Federal blockade of Southern ports.
How does the war proceed? Who commands for the North and the South?
I would like for the combatants to reach a stalemate in Virginia after swift initial gains for the U.S., while West Virginia and Missouri are quickly liberated. Confederate Arizona is not far behind. The U.S. has trouble holding in Kansas and can't take Louisville or Covington.
Start with the assumption the Trent Affair results in British military intervention. With the help of a British Expeditionary Force to pin the Federal Army of the Potomac, Lee defeats McClellan in detail during the Peninsula Campaign. The war is effectively over by August 1862.
The Confederacy gains Kentucky, the Indian Territory, occupied Arizona Territory, southern Missouri, and western Virginia. The Union pays £20 million for a defensive perimeter in Northern Virginia. Minor territorial adjustments are made in favor of the British in Maine, Minnesota, and the Pacific Northwest. (The goal here is to artificially inflate the South so that it can stand to take a beating later on, because I suspect it never really recovers from the future collapse of the cotton market and dependence upon an agricultural plantation economy.)
Presumably, one of the significant outcomes of a Union defeat would have been the closure of the West Point Military Academy, which as I understand it was suspected by many to have somehow cultivated a lot of the secessionist sentiment given the number of officers who resigned their commissions to join the Confederate Army. The backlash cripples the American military for two generations.
In 1879, a desperate Emperor Maximilian agrees to sell the Confederacy the Mexican territories of Chihuahua and Sonora. The United States seizes upon this transfer as a basis for war. Ultimately, the British will pile on to prop up their Confederate client. To do this, they will use use the device of the Federal blockade of Southern ports.
How does the war proceed? Who commands for the North and the South?
I would like for the combatants to reach a stalemate in Virginia after swift initial gains for the U.S., while West Virginia and Missouri are quickly liberated. Confederate Arizona is not far behind. The U.S. has trouble holding in Kansas and can't take Louisville or Covington.