Realistic Confederate Victory map?
- Thread starter Jabe Shepherd
- Start date
Nephi
Banned
Most likely no, if they get out with all eleven states intact the US may throw in Oklahoma because to them it's a thorn it can be someone else thorn.
But the US will want the rights to navigate the Mississippi and use the port of New Orleans. They might also want a navy base in the Florida Keys.
But the US will want the rights to navigate the Mississippi and use the port of New Orleans. They might also want a navy base in the Florida Keys.
It depends on how they win, when they win, and if there's foreign intervention. A win in 1864 will look differently than one in 1862, and both will look different than if Britain invades.
And how badly the US loses to Britain if it does intervene successfully, which depends on how far things escalate, how long the war lasts, and what kind of shape the combatants are in by the time a ceasefire is agreed.
If the British intervene only at sea to break the blockade, and cooler heads keep things from touching off at the northern front, then the peace will have to be fairly generous to the US.
If the US is entirely spent after a three year long war, with financial collapse, food riots, parts of the north occupied, and the British able to shell Washington or other major cities with impunity, then the Confederates could almost have their pick of spoils - they could end up with 13, possibly 14 states, plus territories.
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As noted it would probably depend a lot on the nature of the Confederate victory. If it was a result of mutual exhaustion, then the South would probably only get the eleven states which seceded. The border states would probably choose their own paths. The western territories are trickier. The question of their fate was what sparked the Republican victory in 1860 and brought on secession and the war in the first place, so neither side would willingly give them up. Legally, they all belong to the United States since the treaties gave them to the US and the US still exists even with a Confederate victory. It's doubtful the Confederacy would acknowledge that and I would expect to see a whole series of new (but perhaps limited) conflicts out on the frontier between North and South.
It would depend on how strong the Confederate position is during the peace talks. If they won in 1862, they would be able to demand more than in 1865. It also depends on Britain and France and if they aid the Confederacy. If the South won in 1862 by itself, then I see them taking Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky. They may also take New Mexico territory and Indian Territory. If France and Britain sent aid and the war ends in 1865 then I think Missouri would be split North and South, South going to CSA and they might get Kentucky, and Indian Territory. I don't see them getting much else other than that.
In the event of a decisive Confederate victory, maybe Kentucky, the Indian Territory and the Texas-New Mexico border could go a little further west. In a more realistic scenario or something that requires foreign intervention, just the original 11 states, not counting West Virginia, and maybe the Indian Territory.
In OTL, the Confederacy made several attempts to seize and gain control of Union territory - West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, and Colorado. These attempts all failed, and usually failed miserably, even when the Confederates sent their best generals and were able to concentrate forces. The Confederacy would have to produce at least one general who equals or exceeds Lee in skill just to gain independence. Keeping all of the 11 states that seceded is even more unlikely. Not even Lee could capture West Virginia and he was up against Rosecrans, a Union second stringer, and odds are good the Confederacy also loses some or all of Arkansas and Tennessee. For the Confederates to seize Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, or New Mexico would require the Confederacy to produce a general that makes Robert E Lee look like Joseph Johnston and can get along with Jefferson Davis. For the Confederate to seize most of them, would require the Confederacy producing at least one general who makes Robert E Lee look like Leonidas Polk and can get along with Jefferson Davis. Any Confederate general suddenly performing at the level of Khalid ibn al-Walid or Subutai is wildly unlikely - for them to also be able to get along with Jefferson Davis is nigh-ASB.
Let's say that the Confederacy successfully secceeded from USA. Is it likely that the CSA and USA would reunite at later date?
Again it would depend on how the Confederacy won its independence. If it was just let go in 1861 without bloodshed then a reunification might be possible down the road. If it was after several years of war with half a million dead, it becomes a whole lot harder. Plus, if there are additional conflicts over the western territories it becomes more difficult still. If the separation lasts into the 20th century i could see north and south being on opposite sides in WWI and at that point it's never going to happen save by outright conquest.
That would depend on how the two nations developed culturally and socially and politically after secession. BTW I think the CSA's main realistic shot at surviving at all is if the Union government decides to let them go without a war in the first place--and in that case, the border states will join the CSA too--if the Union is not willing to fight for the many reasons it was OTL, why struggle to retain Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky with all of them so committed to slavery? Missouri is another matter--less overall per capita commitment to slavery for one thing, but mainly that letting MO go from the remnant Union would leave a nasty logistical hole in the map impeding access to the West. The flip side of the CSA being allowed to go in peace is that the Union will assert its control over the western territories. No, I don't think they'd concede "Oklahoma" either; not that it was called that then, it was Indian Territory. I think the Native peoples would use the split to bargain for a better deal and ultimately get one from the Union; real autonomy, their interests and rights under treaty much better respected, a seat at the table of Federal government, and more extensive reservation territory more suited to their initial locations and under better control by them. In return for this, I think if not right away then over time, the Native tribes will be quite loyal US citizens and effective and renowned as soldiers for the Army. Their more extensive reservation holdings will impede and limit western settlement somewhat, but they will permit some Anglo settlers--under their political supervision, with the tribe having the last word in these matters--in their own territories, develop cities including industrial ones, with a mix of Native and Anglo workers and owners of firms, and overall the development of the West will in aggregate be comparable to OTL, with a lot of it in Native hands. Some tribes will remain very poor, others will be richer. The Indian Territory that became Oklahoma OTL will remain first of the reservation regions, and partitioned up tribe by tribe remain Indian Territory, along with other zones.
I don't forget that some tribes had slaveholding. I suspect they will be able to retain the right to hold slaves, but it would be discouraged and it would be practical not long after the dust settles to offer compensation for emancipation--doing that on the scale of the whole South would be economically impossible, but not just for the small number the tribe members might be holding.
This fact, of Native slaveholding, is the main leverage the CSA would have in scheming to bring in Indian Territory to their side...that, and the fact that a lot of the tribes had native lands east of the Mississippi in the South that conceivably the CSA might offer restoration of as an incentive. But the secessionists were arch racists--I realize there is a distinction between different forms of racism. I notice it is a trope that in a CSA survives scenario, the Indians like the CSA better, but I don't think that has been thought out very carefully, just one of a number of shoot from the hip assumptions from glib and shallow readings of history.
So--the purpose of secession was mainly to protect the institution of slavery, and fire eater secessionists went beyond mere preservation, they were quite keen on the peculiar institution. That being the case, I anticipate some pretty hellish aspects of CSA society and for its leaders to double down, not moderate, over time. Meanwhile a cynical view would have the Union also quite bigoted, northern style--a matter of apartheid there, with "white" populations seeking to avoid any "contamination" by African American presence on any terms. But on the other hand, a certain number of freedmen of various categories (including people who remained legally fugitive slaves) were more or less tolerated, even accepted and sometimes respected, as citizens in quite a few northern communities too. Continuing to accept escaped slaves as refugees and not agreeing to remand them back to CSA custody would be a political flashpoint and some in the North would favor complying with Confederate wishes, and even deporting currently settled African Americans, if not straight into the custody of Confederate slavers than perhaps giving them a deadline before being rounded up for that purpose to make their own exits, to Canada or Liberia or wherever they could get to. Gaming out just how this dynamic develops will have great bearing on the question of whether some future reunification is possible or not, and on what terms. Certainly the Union leaders deciding to let the secessionists take their marbles (along with a certain amount looted from Federal assets) and go home would tend to defuse the saliency of slavery as an issue in the minds of many people who didn't want to be bothered; they'd figure it was no longer their problem. But it would not really go away, fugitive slaves will continue to make their way north unless the Union takes a very hard line against them. And whatever her leadership decides is expedient, the Union owes the Confederacy nothing in the way of obligations to return such fugitives to their purported owners, even if Union law continues to sanction some slave ownership by some people, such as perhaps the Native tribes (on the grounds that they are not really citizens but a subjugated foreign people with enumerated treaty relations, so able to have their own sovereignty in these questions, probably). Note I think the dynamic of the diplomatic incentive to improve relations with the Native peoples will lead to a movement toward their gaining citizenship under the USA with special rights, perhaps I can even stick in my oar for a pet idea of mine, the notion of a virtual Indian "state" which is a confederation of all tribes collectively gaining a right to House members on the basis of net population equal to states, and two Senators for the Senate, and Presidential electoral votes on this basis; the Indian Confederation not being a contiguous reservation but rather a legal grant of all Native reservations throughout the country coming under its authority, and being delegated to itself its own form of internal government which I suppose would be quilt of various tribes of very disparate sizes and backgrounds, each holding its own claims to specific reservations which collectively make up the territory of the IC.
If the Union takes a path of progressive liberalism, with robust Federal as well as encouragement of strong state democratically regulated capitalism and a pervasively liberal ideology of individual rights, of moving away from racism, eventually embracing female suffrage, and vigorous populist politics in a setting with strong professional classes and a reasonable ad hoc centralization of Federal power while retaining the states as important semiautonomous units, then culturally it will be incompatible with the most likely trajectory of the South. Attempting to incorporate CSA territory will involve a severe cultural clash and might be deemed a poison pill by Unionists. Assuming the two nations do not enter into frequent or severe military clashes, over time the idea that the two nations are properly separated will solidify into two national identities and the notion of annexing CSA territory will range from problematic to downright bizarre and even obscene. Nor will secessionist culture give much grounds for them to try to annex territory from the north...the west is another matter but I think the Union can and will stand firm there; New Mexico and on west remain Union soil. (Some Southerners might emigrate to the Union and be naturalized, and some Northerners might filter down south to take up slaveholding there, rather more of the former than the latter I would imagine, especially if the Union develops a liberal culture that frowns on slaveholding; a northerner moving to the CSA at all, especially one who proposes to buy slaves, would become persona non grata in many if not all Northern families; some states, and eventually perhaps the federal Union, would perhaps take measures to penalize such behavior by asset seizures and so forth).
However if such a liberal/reactionary divide developed, but the South later proved a major existential threat by for instance joining a military alliance against the Union and honoring their role in it by attacking, depending on the scale of the threat, if it is severe enough that the Union is fighting for its life, then the option of using the southern slaves (even if their status has evolved somewhat; it is unlikely they would be accepted as full social equals no matter what!) as subversives and insurgents to multiply Northern military strength will become attractive and once committed to African American liberation, the Union is likely to have to honor the commitment by guaranteeing the freedmen their rights and interests. This means a massive and sweeping overturn of Southern "white" society of course. Depending on how the CSA has evolved, the entire "white" majority might prove sullenly difficult to integrate, or dangerously strengthen reactionary elements in the North; it might, as southern "whites" of the OTL 1860s were, prove heterogenous, with some populations interested in autonomy on terms not too incompatibile with Union norms, others might prove actively progressive, leaving only a remnant--maybe large, maybe small--bitterly opposed to Union norms. It might work to seize only some territories and let the rest maintain CSA independence, but the slaves would have the right to walk away to Union protection and form their own autonomous states, various "white" groups might also break loose and resettle on Union provided territories, leaving a rump CSA.
If the Union has to conquer all of the South this will mean the war would be quite disruptive especially to Southern society across the whole former territory of CSA. I think Union leaders will strive to all they honorably can to avoid this. But if it happens Northern authorities will then have no qualms about imposing sweeping Reconstruction, definitely regarding seized territory as fresh conquests.
Even if the North does not develop as I hope, and racism takes some of these options off the table, on the whole I think the two societies will diverge, and fast. For one to seize territory to the other is either to swallow people on other sides of the ideological divide into each society's systems. Thus sensible politicians will give up notions of an amicable remarriage, and would be conquerors would have to face the idea, with whatever degree of disgust or enthusiasm it brings them, of massive reconstruction of conquered territory.
Skallagrim
Banned
Some claim a realistic map cannot exist, since CSA victory isn't realistic. I would dispute this, on the grounds that I define "unrealistic" the same way as I do "ASB" (meaning: against the laws of nature). Confederate victory is is not unrealistic, merely unlikely. If we assume infinite worlds, where the dice of fate are rolled again and again at every turn, there will be worlds where the dice favour the CSA repeatedly.
I can see scenarios where the CSA gets lucky several times, when it counts most. Say they don't lose Albert Sidney Johnston to the lethal vagaries of fate, and his presence as commander allows the CSA to do better in the West. Say that furthermore, Special Order 191 isn't lost, and the south wins Antietam (inconclusively on a tactical level, but enough of a stratigic win to prevent the Emacipation Proclamation). Say that further down the road, Stonewall Jackson doesn't get killed. All this allows the CSA to press its compounded advantage, culminating in an earlier gerrysburg equivalent that the South wins. That's still not enough to knock the USA out of the field, but it's enough to seriously bolster the South and critically demoralise the North. I still doubt that outright British and/or French recognition of the CSA is coming even after all the above, but either or both may well be moved to offer mediation at this point. This offer, with elections looming ahead and the war becoming very impopular in the North, can then force Lincoln to the negotiating table.
(Sure, it's far from the most likely timeline, but as I said: infinite worlds, that's the very premise of allohistorical speculation.)
So in a world where the above happens, what could the CSA realistically get? It's more like what they have to give up, really. The CSA will have to give up all claims to the border states, to West Virginia, to a reasonable strip of land around Washington DC, to Arizona/New Mexico, and probably to part of Tennessee (the Eastern part; this may possibly be swapped for the Indian Territory). That gives you the map. The CSA would furthermore have to grant the USA freedom of navigation for the entire Mississippi, and freedom of (untaxed) movement of goods through New Orleans (presumably in return for freedom of navigation on the Ohio for CSA ships). Furthermore, the CSA would have to pay in full for all federal property it has seized in the South, and would have to adopt its proportional share of the (antebellum) US public debt. None of that is relevant to the map, but it's worth noting.
If, for some reason, the USA is foolish enough to allow a conflict with Britain to arise during this period, there will naturally be a vastly different outcome. Even if the USA, upon starting to feel the pain, sues for peace in such a case, the CSA will still get all the seceded states plus Indian Territory and Confederate Arizona. If the USA tries to carry on a fight like this, the CSA will ultimately be able to claim more. (Such as all antebellum slave states, plus Washington DC, plus all of New Mexico Territory, plus the Southernmost bit of California for the sake of having a Pacific coast.) The chances of the USA letting it come to that are so extremely small that we may safely ignore them. The only half-way realistic premise for a "Trent War" I've been able to think up is an ATL where Lincoln literally suffers brain damage shortly after his inauguration (and gets bizarre mood swings and violently impulsive tendencies as a result).
I can see scenarios where the CSA gets lucky several times, when it counts most. Say they don't lose Albert Sidney Johnston to the lethal vagaries of fate, and his presence as commander allows the CSA to do better in the West. Say that furthermore, Special Order 191 isn't lost, and the south wins Antietam (inconclusively on a tactical level, but enough of a stratigic win to prevent the Emacipation Proclamation). Say that further down the road, Stonewall Jackson doesn't get killed. All this allows the CSA to press its compounded advantage, culminating in an earlier gerrysburg equivalent that the South wins. That's still not enough to knock the USA out of the field, but it's enough to seriously bolster the South and critically demoralise the North. I still doubt that outright British and/or French recognition of the CSA is coming even after all the above, but either or both may well be moved to offer mediation at this point. This offer, with elections looming ahead and the war becoming very impopular in the North, can then force Lincoln to the negotiating table.
(Sure, it's far from the most likely timeline, but as I said: infinite worlds, that's the very premise of allohistorical speculation.)
So in a world where the above happens, what could the CSA realistically get? It's more like what they have to give up, really. The CSA will have to give up all claims to the border states, to West Virginia, to a reasonable strip of land around Washington DC, to Arizona/New Mexico, and probably to part of Tennessee (the Eastern part; this may possibly be swapped for the Indian Territory). That gives you the map. The CSA would furthermore have to grant the USA freedom of navigation for the entire Mississippi, and freedom of (untaxed) movement of goods through New Orleans (presumably in return for freedom of navigation on the Ohio for CSA ships). Furthermore, the CSA would have to pay in full for all federal property it has seized in the South, and would have to adopt its proportional share of the (antebellum) US public debt. None of that is relevant to the map, but it's worth noting.
If, for some reason, the USA is foolish enough to allow a conflict with Britain to arise during this period, there will naturally be a vastly different outcome. Even if the USA, upon starting to feel the pain, sues for peace in such a case, the CSA will still get all the seceded states plus Indian Territory and Confederate Arizona. If the USA tries to carry on a fight like this, the CSA will ultimately be able to claim more. (Such as all antebellum slave states, plus Washington DC, plus all of New Mexico Territory, plus the Southernmost bit of California for the sake of having a Pacific coast.) The chances of the USA letting it come to that are so extremely small that we may safely ignore them. The only half-way realistic premise for a "Trent War" I've been able to think up is an ATL where Lincoln literally suffers brain damage shortly after his inauguration (and gets bizarre mood swings and violently impulsive tendencies as a result).
They're going to have to march to New York or something in 1861 because otherwise, there's never going to be any kind of territorially viable country that emerges from a peace deal.
Realistic? Not "Dixie Stronk"?
The better question, by far, is how much of it's claimed territory (as in the states that declared succession) the Confederacy can hope to keep. After Vicksburg falls, for example, the Trans-Mississippi is an exclave Dixie retains on sufferance; and the south shore of the Potomac is a write-off.
If it is a very big victory, then Maybe Arizona (CSA borders) and Indian Territory (Oklahoma) possibly without the panhandle. That seems like the absolute best case scenario, and its already pretty unlikely. They might lose more of Virginia though. The US might demand free use of ports or basing rights in coastal regions, and probably free passage through the Mississippi. The CSA would not like this, but It's the best deal they can get.
A worse but likely possibility for the confederates is having just the dep south without Louisiana but with Florida
A worse but likely possibility for the confederates is having just the dep south without Louisiana but with Florida
The only realistic way for the Confederacy to win is to not fire a shot. Hire an army of lawyers, send them to Washington, and fight it out in Court. Use motions and procedural issues to drag it out. Keep it in the law courts for five years, get the Taney Supreme Court to give it, and there you go. Victory.
Fire a shot, and it ends in ruin.
Fire a shot, and it ends in ruin.
Now kids open your textbooks to page 50 so we can learn about the lawsuits that lead to the complete independence of our grand nation.
I mean there are ways for them to win a war but lets all agreed that would require a lot of blood shed for both sides. If the csa gets to that point forget the goverment collapsing do to structural weakness their econmy might collapse do to the amount of population lose.
The greatest general in the War for Southern Independence was the Attorney-General.
History Learner
Banned
As others have said, it depends on the exact situation; I'm a big proponent of Fall 1862 victory. In such a scenario, the 11 Confederate states, Oklahoma, and Kentucky could be taken as the baseline.