Part #183: Drive to the West
“I have written much on the deleterious effects of war which cause mankind to be divided. It seems that the world is intent on spelling this out for even the most stubbornly ignorant watcher of the tides of history…”
– Pablo Sanchez on the Whitefort Campaign, 1849
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From – “Sharper Sticks: A History of Advancement in Warfare” by William Peter Courtenay, 5th Baron Congleton, 1952 –
The Great American War was of course a time of great innovation in warfare, not only in the development of new weapons and tactics but also a testing ground for those that had been proposed during the Democratic Experiment era. Indeed, many of the lessons learned from the Popular Wars in Europe proved to be of only limited applicability in the very different terrain and situation of the ENA (particularly given the unique circumstances of the early part of the conflict—‘flailing at arm’s length’ as many have put it). As the capture of Charleston by Admiral Barker was almost flawless (save, of course, for the fact that the General Assembly escaped) and the Carolinians had little opportunity to fight back before the action was complete, it was the Whitefort Campaign that saw the first real tests of military doctrine and assumptions on both sides…
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From “The Great American War” by Alexander Jenkins (1972)—
Both the ENA government and the Carolinian rebels struggled to adapt to the conquest of Charleston. For the Carolinians of course it was a disaster and one which prompted soul-searching and a recognition that they had been too complacent. Many even in the government and military establishment had believed their own propaganda about ‘Yankee Doodle Yellow’,[1] all talk and no stomach. Perhaps it had not been assumed, as some made the accusation in the wake of Charleston, that the Yankees would just meekly allow Carolina to leave while making vague token protests, possibly followed by the collapse of the Empire altogether as the Carolinian proclamation of independence had claimed was already taking place. But the guiding assumptions of the government had nonetheless clearly been influenced by the attitude that the government in Fredericksburg would certainly not be the one to cast the first stone in such a decisive manner.
Naturally, this was because the government had in fact done no such thing. Clarke and Barker were heavily criticised in Parliament and there were calls from opposition leader Simon Studholme for Clarke to resign. Martin guardedly supported his predecessor as Supremacist leader however and attempted to smooth things over with the Liberals. While Webster and Whipple were furious that the attack had gone ahead without authorisation, the ease with which Barker had taken Charleston was also reassuring for those who had assumed that any naval-based descent to get around Virginian neutrality would be a risky proposition and likely end in disaster. There were nonetheless disagrements in the government about the next step to take, which almost certainly saved the Carolinians: many speculative romantics claim that if Barker had been given reinforcements immediately and allowed to march on Congaryton, Carolinian public confidence would have crumbled and things might have gone very differently. However, instead there were three weeks of squabbling over who was to blame for what and whether the government should even acknowledge Barker’s action or treat it as a rogue act and disown it. This seems idiotic to modern eyes (and indeed many contemporary eyes) but at the time there was still widespread thinking that the conflict could be minimised and escalation should be avoided to preserve the integrity of the Empire. Many Liberals accepted Quedling’s argument that a bloody conflict would only create hatred from the Carolinian populace which would lead to them never identifying as a member of the Empire again, even if forced to remain by arms. These Liberals argued that American should not take up arms against brother unless it was the last option, and some believed that Barker had done more harm than good. Others regarded Barker’s plan as a good one in principle to shock the enemy, but thought the Carolinians would now spontaneously come to the negotiating table at the loss of their capital and thought a
de facto ceasefire should be observed until then. There was a general lack of appreciation of just how much the average Carolinian had
already ceased to identify with the Empire before the conflict had even broken out, and this led MCPs to make bad decisions. Emperor Frederick, who had travelled through Carolina only recently, tended to have a better understanding of this than most MCPs, and risked accusation of undue meddling in parliamentary politics with his vocal support for reinforcement.
Thus while Lord President Martin struggled to get a majority to approve an increased military deployment to occupied Charleston, the Carolinian government was withdrawing from Congaryton to the more central and defensible city of Ultima, which would become the eventual permanent capital of the postwar Kingdom of Carolina. Ultima was the hub of Optel and railway lines in Carolina which allowed the government to stay in closer contact with frontline forces than the ENA imperial government could with its own. Although there was some infighting in the Carolinian government as MGAs tried to blame the loss of Charleston on each other, things were generally more united than in Fredericksburg. Speaker Adams’ first act was to order the garrisons stationed in South Province to encircle and attempt to retake Charleston. This would have been a dicey proposition at the best of times for reasons that soon became clear, but the fact that the government went off half-cocked did not help. Though the Carolinians had a good number of troops stationed in South Province, these soldiers were more used to acting as glorified police to put down slave uprisings and general urban riots. The rotation of regiments had been allowed to lag and as a result there were relatively few stationed in the heartland that had recent experience of frontline combat in the West Indies or Mexico and Guatemala (where Carolinian troops had helped the New Spanish put down rebellions of their own in the 1840s). These regiments had also been near the back of the queue when it came to updating their equipment and tactics. Many still had smoothbore muskets, or at best muzzle-loading rifles, and wore the old red British uniform that was becoming increasingly outdated for modern warfare, where camouflage was more important. (Incidentally, the green uniform used by most British and American troops at the time proved to stand out only slightly less than red when those soldiers found themselves fighting in places like Santa Fe and Tucsón).
As a result, despite Admiral Barker’s small number of troops (supplemented by elite Marines), the South Province regiments failed to retake Charleston. Charleston lacked much in the way of land-facing defences, but Barker’s more modern artillery outranged the Carolinians’ and was able to tear up the columns as they approached. The number of deaths from these actions (mostly on the Carolinian side) filled the headlines of papers across the Empire, particularly in Virginia where they gave Governor Owens-Allen and Mo Quedling much fodder for their speeches. Though Barker had the upper hand, he was also running very low on powder and shot and appealed desperately for reinforcements. The Continental Parliament finally acquiesced when the Pennsylvanian General Trevor William Jones baldly told Whipple and Webster that if they did not approve him bringing his regiments in, they would hire their own ships and go without authorisation.
Jones’ regiments arrived in Charleston just in time, for the Carolinians were starting to organise their troops better and bring up some more suitable soldiers and equipment. In Ultima the General Assembly was reacting to the defeats, busily setting up new forts to try to quickly modernise and re-equip their outdated regiments, while bringing in the experienced veterans from the West Indies. Governor Wragg appealed to the New Spanish for assistance as well, pointing to the Carolinians fighting in the Californias, and although Ferdinand refused to send Mexican troops, he did allow a small number of Guatemalan and New Granadine soldiers to be sent to Carolina. There were also a non-negligible number of volunteers fighting in self-organised battalions, young men who had grown up in villages made peaceful and prosperous thanks to Carolinian adventurers working for the New Spanish authorities to put down bandits and rebels. It took time for any of this to have an effect, though, time which General Jones was eager not to go to waste. After throwing back the Carolinian forces on either side of Charleston, he immediately drove north-west to take Congaryton. By this point it had become clear that the General Assembly was long gone, prompting several tart letters from Jones to the Continental Parliament—liberally interspersed with the Welsh profanity he had learned from his grandfather—in which he pointed out that a more rapid action could have taken the Assembly after all.
After taking Congaryton on January 20th 1849, Jones reached the limits of his supply lines and dug in. This time the politicians did not stand in the way of reinforcements, but argued about exactly what line of attack should be made. Many wanted to drive south and west for Ultima in the hope that, even if they did not capture the General Assembly, the fact that they would be running from town to town would damage their credibility among the Carolinian people and destroy Carolinian morale. However, others—usually those with more military experience—pointed out that this would represent a long, overextended salient from Charleston and Congaryton which the Carolinians could potentially retake by bringing power to a point, even though their current field forces were outdated. There was another option: Whitefort and indeed the whole eastern half of the Province of Franklin had risen up in counter-revolution against the Carolinian government and in support of the Empire, but the militias were now on the back foot as the Carolinians organised two of their less capable regiments to put down the uprising. Liberal MCPs talked loftily of the Malraux Doctrine and General Jones, who himself argued unsuccessfully that Savannah should be occupied first, was ordered to drive further to the north and west to relieve these fine patriots…
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From: “The Rainbow Tapestry: Cultural and Socio-economic Identities in the North American Continent” by J. A. Grieves and T. Bowers (1948)—
Almost from the beginning of the Empire of North America, the Appalachian region of Nickajack[2] stood out by possessing its own identity. Not only was the identity of the people of, say, the mountainous parts of Vandalia in Virginia distinct from the rest of Virginia, but in many ways they also had more in common with their neighbours in Franklin or Pittsylvania than they did with those other Virginians. Nickajack crossed the Confederate boundaries, with a noted accent (preserving many archaisms due to the isolation of mountain life) and values and attitudes that set them apart from the lowlands. Nowhere was this more obvious than in eastern Franklin. Since at least the Popular Wars (and arguably before), Carolina had striven to define itself with exceptionalism, speaking of a Carolinian identity—and a
single Carolinian identity, attempting to be inclusive of the Catholic Hispanics that had been integrated from the West Indies—which stood apart from that of the rest of the Empire of North America. Eastern Franklin was very much a fly in the ointment for those who proclaimed this position. Franklin folk would routinely cross the rather porous border with Vandalia to sup and sing with their friends from towns a few miles away on the other side of a mountain. Sometimes they would share the usual gripes of folk anywhere about taxes and inspections, and be surprised when their friends had slightly different experiences—only then remembering that in fact they were living in two different Confederations separated by a border.
Slavery had never really reached eastern Franklin, whose terrain made it unsuitable for plantations. Perhaps this might have changed to some extent given Carolina’s shift towards small-scale ownership of slaves by middle-class individuals, but in 1849 there were simply almost no black residents of the region at all. It was not that the men of eastern Franklin were pro-abolition; rather, they had no opinion on an issue that did not concern them or apply to them. Yet as the Democratic Experiment era had worn on, it had become increasingly clear that this was no longer strictly the case. With Virginia now free and closed to slavery, the border became more stringently policed and there were rumours of runaway slaves escaping into Virginia via the mountain passes, pursued by Carolinian government agents. East Franklin folk became increasingly irritated by these impositions on their way of life, and in particular how their Confederate government seemed to regard the defence and even proliferation of the institution of slavery as almost the intrinsic identity of the Confederation. It was not a government that served the interests of Whitefort and the surrounding region very well. Indeed, it continued to elect Neutrals to both the Continental Parliament and the General Assembly at a time when the Whigs had an almost total dominance over the Confederation. This was definitely one area where the northern notion that the provincial general ticket system for Assembly elections had been a Whig power grab was actually accurate—by basing the elections across the whole province of Franklin, the Whigs (in their various factions) had succeeded in diluting out the eastern vote by overwhelming it with the more numerous Whig-aligned vote of Nashborough and western Franklin.
The people of the region were thus increasingly angry at their Confederate government even before the secession and certainly rejected anything that would make their Vandalian neighbours into ‘foreigners’. The Whitefort Uprising began in September 1848 and the General Assembly first deployed troops to put it down in November, shortly before the attack on Charleston. Whitefort itself was besieged in January 1849 and the counter-revolution might have ended there, but the politicians of the ENA had other ideas…
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From “The Great American War” by Alexander Jenkins (1972)—
As it happened, Whitefort fell to the Carolinian forces on February 12th, but control was short-lived. General Jones, supplemented with more reinforcements, drove a salient across the Midlands and Upcountry of South Province to take Moyton[3] and threaten Franklin. The mountainous terrain slowed the American advance and helped equalise the technological disparity between them and the Carolinians. Nonetheless Jones was able to reach Whitefort before the end of the month and it did not take him much longer to throw out the occupiers, who had damaged the town’s makeshift defences too much to use them in turn. Jones’ men were welcomed as liberators by the locals, some of whom had already fled into the mountains or tried to cross the border with Virginia (only to be turned back by Owens-Allen’s watchful border guard).
Unintentionally—at first—Jones had therefore cut Carolina in half. The American salient stretching from Charleston to Whitefort separated most of North Province and a chunk of South Province, which between them still had a fair number of Carolinian troops in place, from the rest of the Confederation. The next move for the American army was obvious, and for once the politicians agreed—they should push north and eastward to trap the northern Carolinian armies against the Virginia border, either forcing a surrender or for Virginia to finally be driven from neutrality one way or the other. Charlotte became the chosen target for axes of advance from Whitefort, Congaryton and Charleston, and more newly-raised regiments continued to be channelled into Jones’ army via Charleston. The Carolinians meanwhile had reorganised their navy by this point—while the Americans’ still lagged behind—but despite overwhelming force, the Carolinians proved unable to retake control of Charleston’s waters while the invincible
Lord Washington could tear through any of their ships. Nonetheless several Imperial ships were sunk while caught in isolation and each of these victories was somewhat desperately trumpeted by the Carolinian papers.
The one bright spot for the Carolinians was that Jones’ strategy necessarily took the pressure off the rest of the Confederation, buying them time to continue to reorganise their army and bring in reinforcements. The existential threat to Carolina was made clear by the fact that the government withdrew all its garrisons from the West Indies, careless of the slave rebellions that promptly broke out, particularly in Hispaniola where memories of the Haitian African Republic were still preserved. Some elements of the American government, particularly among the Supremacists, paid particular attention to these events and regarded them as both a potential problem and opportunity. There were those who believed that anything that could hurt the Carolinians’ cause was worthy of co-option and wanted to send military support to the black rebels, while others found the idea of another Haitian African Republic to be at least as abominable as anything the Carolinians could come up with. Both factions agreed however that this was a good opportunity to ensure that any postwar Carolina was stripped of the West Indian islands that had given the Confederation wealth and power, and therefore the government created a task force dedicated to seizing control of these now unprotected islands for the Empire. The fleet was put together in a hurry and suffered from more problems with Virginian mutineers than other parts of the Navy, but Admiral James Paul Warner was a good commander and particularly suited to this problem. He proceeded to pioneer many of the ‘island hopping’ tactics that would be used by many nations in later wars, and much like his contemporary Lawrence Washington III he was skilled in organising the logistics apparatus needed to resupply his forces, distant and isolated from their home ports.
Nonetheless the West Indian intervention is now usually regarded as a mistake on the Americans’ part. It took troops and ships away from the main front in Carolina and in Hispaniola (and to a lesser extent Cuba, where Warner landed in August 1849) it embroiled the ENA in a quagmire where there were often no right decisions. Cases of white families being brutally killed by vengeful former slaves (not to mention pre-emptive killings of innocent slaves by white families afraid this would happen to them) made the American military a target for ‘why didn’t you stop this’ editorials in papers, as though Warner’s small force could somehow keep the two intermixed groups apart. The very tactics that Warner invented worked well militarily but were a political problem—when nobody could keep track of which islands Warner had landed Marines on yet, inevitably any massacre in the West Indies became Warner’s fault, even if his forces had never gone near the island in question. Of course, the Carolinian papers were careful to paint Warner as a gleeful monster who loved to watch black rebels committing
crimes de guerre, while the northern papers tended to present him more as an incompetent fool who had bitten off more than he could chew. Neither portrayal was fair, but Warner remains one of the most controversial figures of the war, particularly given the eventual fate of ‘his’ front.
The situation for Carolina in June 1849 seemed bleak. The Americans had taken Charlotte, were closing on Raleigh where the remaining Carolinian northern armies would make their stand, and Barker and Jones had set up a ‘Provisional Continuity Government of the Redeemed Confederation of Carolina’ in Charleston, mostly stocked with yes-men and Nickajackites to rubber-stamp decisions taken by the military authorities. The Carolinians’ best troops were massing at Ultima ready for General Rutledge’s counterattack aimed at the Americans’ flank, but morale was low. Few really thought that they could win, and sadly feared what they saw as the bootheel of the ENA slamming Carolina down into the earth for all eternity.
And then everything changed…
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From: “Golden Sun and Silver Torch: A History of the United Provinces of South America” by Benito Carlucci (1976)—
Prior to the Nottingham Affair, it had seemed clear what the UPSA’s position on the Great American War had been. Though the Meridians had substantial military might—stemming from President-General Portillo’s military reforms and only expanded since the successes of the Brazilian War—there was little public appetite for a direct intervention, certainly in the Carolinian front which was regarded as an internal American matter. California was a different matter, with the declaration of the Republic being seen as a positive step by many (particularly those on the Adamantine side, of course) and only a few Unionists feared that Meridian support for the Republic would damage her trade relations with New Spain. The government of newly-elected President-General Luppi supported the Republic and leaned on the New Spanish to come to the negotiating table, but took no direct action (unlike the Americans and Russians). Public opinion remained only vaguely enthusiastic for the Californians’ struggle; Luppi allowed the formation of volunteer brigades to go to California to fight and let that be an end to it. He was more interested in domestic reforms, in particular in trying to undo a lot of the climate of division and suspicion that Manuel Vinay’s presidency had engendered. But like so many leaders throughout history, what he wanted to spend his term on and what he was forced to spend his term on were two different things.
Carolina was desperate to gain international recognition for its declaration of independence. As of June 1849, the only states to recognise the independent Kingdom of Carolina were the Empire of New Spain (and its four component Kingdoms) and the Kingdom of Louisiana (q.v.), itself a revolutionary breakaway only recognised in turn by New Spain and Carolina. To try to seek further recognition beyond the Concordat, Carolina sent ships with diplomatic missions to the capitals of Europe. They were mostly turned away, of course, or only entertained as part of a ploy by nations which had no intention of actually going through with a recognition from which they had nothing to gain. One Carolinian ship, the
Nottingham, was assigned to go to the UPSA instead. In order to reach Buenos Aires the
Nottingham’s captain, James Trimble (known as “Trim Jim”), had to evade pursuit by Imperial ships operating out of Bermuda. He rounded Cabo de São Roque in the Pernabucano Republic without incident but then faced an ambush from HIMS
Harrisville[4] under Captain Alfred Benton. The
Harrisville was operating out of the small naval station maintained (at a considerable loss) by the Imperial Navy on Falkland’s Islands. With some brilliant seamanship, Trimble dodged his militarily superior opponent in an epic chase and made it into Buenos Aires territorial waters even as the
Harrisville’s bow chaser finally holed her below the waterline. The
Nottingham limped into dock, trailing smoke and her slave-worked pumps at full power keeping her afloat. In his attempt to prevent the
Nottingham reaching port, Benton had only succeeded in ensuring that all Buenos Aires knew about her. This was a
story, and all the papers wanted to interview Captain Trimble.
The Intendant of Buenos Aires Province, Rafael Padilla—who was also effectively mayor of the city under the then-current arrangement, though he delegated that responsibility—had mixed feelings when he met with Trimble. Under other circumstances he would have turned the man away, but was aware that this meeting carried responsibilities above his pay grade. However he was reluctant to allow Trimble to go to Cordoba himself, and instead hemmed and hawed while sending Optel messages to President-General Luppi for clarification. Given that local public opinion in Buenos Aires was fascinated by Trimble’s adventure, however, he did offer to have the
Nottingham repaired in one of Buenos Aires’ many dockyards. Trimble was disappointed to be brushed off but grateful for the repairs.
All of this was observed at third-hand via agents and Optel intercepts by Captain Benton, who was fuming. He believed he had good reasons to dread the approach of a Carolinian envoy to the Meridian government. Relations between the UPSA and ENA, though generally good since President Mateovarón had worked to repair the damage done by the Third Platinean War, had become strained in recent years over the matter of Falkland’s Islands. In theory the legal status of the islands was absolute: Meridian recognition of their ownership had been a key plank of the treaty that had ended the Third Platinean War, unsurprising given the role of the Cherry Massacre in the
casus belli. However, some Meridian revanchists pointed out that the treaty had stated that the islands were
British, and since the Inglorious Revolution they had been taken over by the Americans and were now run as an American outpost. These Meridians therefore argued that the treaty was invalid and the issue was on the table again. The islands were not so much desired for their own sake (though the nearby waters were another matter) as the fact that foreign ownership of them was regarded as a dagger aimed at the heart of the United Provinces—and given that the UPSA had already suffered bombardment of its coastal cities more than once, the Meridians were particularly paranoid about this happening again in the future. Their actions in the Brazilian War had partly been motivated by a desire to ensure that no other power in the Americas could pose such a military threat to them again, yet the ENA unquestionably still did.
Therefore almost as soon as the American takeover of the islands was complete, the Meridians had begun pressing the ENA diplomatically about the islands’ status. Lord President Mullenbergh’s Radical-Neutral coalition had been thought to be more pliable than the alternatives and more open to proposals for the islands either to be sold or at least for their sovereignty to be shared. However, though Mullenbergh had allowed discussions to take place, they had gotten nowhere. After Mullenbergh’s death and Vanburen’s takeover, leaks concerning the discussions had been a powerful political weapon for the Patriots (or rather for their effective election director Edmund Grey) and had contributed to the Patriots’ crushing victory in 1840. This had dampened Meridian expectations considerably, and the Patriots certainly steadfastly refused to even consider the issue. Things might have become more favourable after 1844 and the formation of a Liberal-led government, save that part of the coalition agreement between the Liberals and Patriots saw the Patriot Simon Studholme retain the Foreign Ministry, continuing the same policies as before. Thus, for want of a reshuffle, relations between the ENA and UPSA declined when they might have turned a corner.[5]
Benton was well aware of how the issue of the islands had continued to be a sticking point between the two great American nations (as Mateovarón had called them). Things had only worsened due to an incident in 1846: President Vinay had sent a military mission to Tierra del Fuego to better enforce the national will on the rather wayward Moronite colony, only for its leader to be killed by a Moronite sniper. That led to a crackdown against the Moronites and the Meridian papers to fill with lurid stories about their ‘bizarre’ sexual practices, but more importantly for international relations, the Moronite had used an American-made rifle of a new model only recently issued to Marines. It was clear that it had somehow made its way from one of the Marines stationed on Falkland’s Islands via a network of deals, drunken bets and three-day passes, but many Meridians claimed it was a deliberate act of American interference in the internal affairs of the UPSA. Over the next three years the papers often carried exposés of more American weapons being found in use by anti-government rebel groups in Cisplatina and Rio Grande—which were older, obsolete muskets and rifles that (ironically, as it turned out) had originally likely been sold by Carolinian companies and then propagated by New Spanish smugglers. But it was a better story to suggest that the American government was trying to undermine the Meridian state and to paint Vanburen and especially Martin as evil imperialists plotting to once again send a fleet to bombard Buenos Aires.
This was by no means a majority opinion in June 1849 but it did unquestionably influence broader public attitudes towards the ENA. Benton was afraid that, despite having no particular attachment to the Carolinian cause beyond some of their economic ties, the Meridian government might consider selling arms to the Carolinians ‘as payback’ for the Americans’ alleged involvement in the previous cases. Benton’s own opinion was distorted by the fact that, as usually the most senior officer in Falkland’s Islands, his view of the UPSA emphasised the negative—his spies constantly feeding him stories about Meridians talking about the coming conquest of the islands and war with the ENA. Of course the vast majority of Meridians never mentioned either subject, but Benton only heard about those that did.
Benton therefore decided that he had to act, but was also acutely aware that American involvement must not become apparent. To that end he used his contacts to hire mercenaries to kill Trimble and sink the
Nottingham in dock. The operation was rushed—and botched. Trimble was not stabbed in his bed at midnight but shot at in public while speaking to the Intendant, who suffered a severe but non-fatal wound while Trimble himself escaped with only a crease across his ribs and was able to help apprehend the gunman. The
Nottingham’s crew were roused and got into a running firefight with the mercenaries that resulted in a nearby dockyard burning down and the almost-completed frigate within being damaged beyond repair. The people were outraged, but there was no direct evidence tying either incident to ENA forces, with the
Harrisville innocently patrolling back and forth outside Meridian territorial waters. Trimble insisted to the Intendant’s deputy that he could prove that Benton was responsible, and did so by signalling to the
Harrisville at night with a lamp, pretending to be the mercenaries in question. The
Harrisville had not yet become aware of what had happened in the city (though Benton had seen the smoke from the dockyard) so Trimble sent a message describing a successful destruction of the
Nottingham and its own dock burning down, as well as Trimble’s own death ‘but the intendant was injured’.
If Benton had had time to set up a code, or had even thought to use a more complex exchange of passwords than a question and answer that any American (even a Carolinian) would know, things could well have gone very differently: the twentieth century would be unrecognisable, history as we know it an alien field. But Benton replied, giving the mercenaries grudging approval and assuring them that they would be paid, and that Padilla’s injury was ‘regrettable but acceptable collateral damage’.
Trimble’s ploy worked. The intendant’s deputy was enraged, and when the story leaked out the people of Buenos Aires began protesting in the street and, in a darker moment, attacking American-owned businesses. As Pablo Sanchez sadly noted, they did not distinguish between different kinds of Americans and the mob was quite as happy to beat up and rob Carolinians like the James Trimble they so admired. Even as President-General Luppi finished composing a memorandum to send to Intendant Padilla to tell him to brush off Trimble and turn him away, the Optel shutterboxes began clattering again and he learned that events had overtaken him…
[1] A reference to a century-old Williamite marching song dismissing Frederick I’s American supporters as cowardly fair-weather friends (see part #5). As the term Yankee is regarded as only applying to northern Americans in Carolina, it is easily repurposed for their own use, even though the British originators would have meant it to apply to the Carolinians as well.
[2] This term is also used for Appalachia in OTL, being a corruption of the Cherokee name Anikusatiye.
[3] OTL Greenville. Moyton is a worn-down form of Moytoy’s Town, reflecting the fact that this area used to be part of the Cherokee’s lands before the late eighteenth-century land exchanges that saw them move westward to take over the area of OTL Alabama and Mississippi.
[4] Named for the town of Harrisville in Pennsylvania, which is OTL’s Harrisburg – the land was already owned by the Harris family before the POD, but the actual town’s founding happened after it, and happens to have taken a different suffix.
[5] Previously mentioned in Part #173.
). Also I am curious about Sanchez's enthusiastic support for Californian independence, at least compared to his curmudgeony cynicism about seemingly everything else. I kinda hope that due to it incredibly diverse social makeup it ends up the most anti-Societist country, simply because it would be pretty ironic.
