Please like the update and leave any comments or observations you might have!
Ah, I love the smell of burning South. Let their fire cook the Reconstruction and finally pave a better path for the black population of USA.
From the ashes of civil war a better future will be built.
Great update, the collapse of the Western Theater is nearly complete (still got Columbia to burn and North Carolina to march through). I completely forgot Phil Kearny and it's good to see him back in style. All that's left of the Confederacy is broken up into 3 sections: Texas with some pieces of Louisiana and Arkansas, Florida (assuming that it hasn't been occupied) and the Eastern Confederacy (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina). The absolute worst case scenario for the Confederacy is if North Carolina Unionists do an uprising, allowing the Union army in the coast and East Tennessee to advance into the state, trapping Johnston's Army of Georgia in SC. Can't wait to see Lincoln's triumph and for Grant to face off against Jackson and grind the premier rebel army to dust.
The mention of the refuge status is interesting - was this something that happened IOTL? I'm not particularly familiar with laws of this time period. In any case, it does make for a good fearmongering in the U.S. of a gathering Confederate government in exile - an easy way to wave the bloody shirt post-war.
Now that I think about it, with Alabama having been thoroughly conquered in mid-1864 vs 1865, there aren't that many safe havens for Toombs and other Confederate politicians to flee the United States. It'd be a flight more difficult than Breckinridge's or Davis' OTL escape (failed for the latter). Alternatively, Toombs might be shot down during his escape by a fellow Southerner furious for his policies.
Thank you Arnold. As always, I recognize my debt of gratitude to you regarding the military stuff.
Holden actually was forced to flee to Federal lines so this is just a golden opportunity for him now that North Carolina is almost at the frontlines.
I actually added that because there were some interesting posts discussing the possibility. I can already imagine the British minister asking Seward whether the US would be willing to surrender Irish rebels or German revolutionaries to Europe.
Excellent update as usual.
Thank you very much
Well this update had me going "Burn baby burn, it's a traitor inferno!"
Everything will burn, baby burn.
Well, as the one who suggested this, I would say I am quite glad to see this be a thing.
Yes, I did this based especifically on your recommendation!
Fantastic update as usual
Ole Phil Kearney , if he had two arms he woulda conquered the world
Thank you! I had Kearney in the back of my mind for a long time but never knew what to with him till now.
Oh man
They actually threw cadets and children at a union army to stop it and still lost the valley to an incompetent general and a guy with one arm.
Nice to see Forrest no longer has a large command and leading the last remnants of his men. And become a joke now to union forces. As for Price.... Dear Zeus how can you be a fatass when your troops are literally starving and 20-40% are potentially unarmed. He should had been caught by union cavalry or torn apart by his own men.
The rest of the South is burning and the slaves are rising up against the masters. Its over slavery bros .... Sherman is marching and there nothing you can do to stop this lord of war.
Oh shit Sherman is not letting up, kicking so much ass and burning everything that the Confederacy trying to pass off their defeats as a good thing... Now they don't need to defend fixed points 😂
So the great Southern famine has began and they burning their own crops as well..... I Pity the poor but not the rich people.
The worst part is that it's all OTL! The levels of delusion of these people, man...
Except for the most stupid they ought to recognize that slavery is now over. But as you can see there are a lot of idiots still saying stuff like how no matter how many cities fall they can still win.
The confederacy is on fire!
Very nice to see Uncle Billy still gets his March in this TL too. Just don't put him in charge of reconstruction or anything to do with Native Americans later.
This is actually the latest "Sherman march," since he already marched to Shreveport, then through Mississippi under Grant, through Alabama, and now Georgia. Every part of the South has felt his wrath... except Texas or Florida I guess.
South Carolina delenda est. Jackson and Johnstone's armies are between a rock and a hard place as its either going to be a slow death by desertions or a fast death by battle now.
Great to see Kearny.
What I'm looking forward to with Reconstruction is how different states develop a new political culture especially if a few states end up with a black supermajority and how they compare to more mixed states.
I will say longterm if this sets up the South and the country to be dominated by TTL Populists for a time, I bet the country gets a lot of good agricultural policy out of it but the bimetalism train eventually derails and get the Republicans back into power.
Yes, we'll see different chapters focusing on different States, because while they will be region-wide patterns, Reconstruction in North Carolina will be different from Reconstruction in South Carolina, or Mississippi, or Texas. The region will, of course, be fertile ground for populism later.
"There were Union men who wept with joyful tears, When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years; Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers, While We were marching through Georgia."
Seriously, Marching Through Georgia and Union Dixie was rocking in my head throughout the entire update on a loop.
Very cathartic.
Love that song.
Here's my favorite version!
@Red_Galiray the confederacy is on fire and i absolutely love it!
Cant wait to see the triumph of father abraham!
Thank you! It's coming very soon
This TL really has me disliking Sherman for the right reasons.
I've always been more of a Grant man, myself. Frankly, the trend to portray Sherman as the ultimate Union "chad" since he was a callous racist. A good man only because he was on the right side, the one that wanted to destroy treason and slavery, even though as far as Sherman was concerned slavery was good. I'm sure if he could have chosen he would have preferred Union and Slavery, and only settled for Union and Liberty. In any case, as part of my attempt to portray the Union warts and all I portrayed Sherman's warts - and you all can see he had lots.
But you can’t fault that he’s getting it done and his methods are working
Certainly. Handling the South with kids gloves never worked.
Turns out sending the Confederacy straight to hell has its own price that...is not too worthy to stomach. (pun intended)
Sherman's active involvement in Indian removal IOTL is already enough for me to dislike him.
Planters be like: "Doesn't matter if I killed thousands, at least I never voluntarily gave up my honor!"
Sherman is fascinating to me, albeit repulsively so. Setting aside all the bigotry, his view of war, how wars are most effectively won, and the consequences thereof are profoundly disquieting and frankly horrifying - but that's very different from saying he was incorrect.
War, truly, is hell.
And so the insanity begins of of sending Cadets so green they're just seedlings. It's like they say they are excited to fight and someone says "great, here's a gun."
Or, in Price's case, "great, you got two feet, come on." I wonder what exactly he expects them to do.
I'm reminded of lines in a Hogan's Heroes episode, I think it's the one where the British prisoner/ saboteur Newkirk has accidentally been sworn into the German army and he tries to make excuses. "Don't you want to look at my blood?" "Why are you bleeding?" "I could have some serious illness." "But, you meet the One requirement for a German soldier. You are breathing."
Ty Cobb was not as racist as some people portray him - not much more than southerners of his era anyway - from what research has shown, as pointed out at baseball-fever.com. "He didn't just hate black people, he hated people," as one Negro League star said later. (He did praise Jackie Robinson for instance.) But he is a good comparison with Sherman, the kind of guy who teammates found somewhat odious 1 with a nasty disposition but who was such a superstar that it was overlooked. And like Cobb, Sherman was willing to help, or at least not hinder, the cause of black people when it suited him. And you can imagine sharpening his spikes compared with Sherman's war tactics.
Exactly, at this point anyone will a pulse is enough for the Confederate Army. Unless they are, you know, Black. Then rather death than accepting that!
Unfortunately Cobb probably is going to get the noose, or at least very stern punishment, just as most officers and officials of the US who then joined the rebellion.
old one arm and smalls meeting would be great.
Yeah!
The Confederate Junta is so crazy that even the Kentuckians so 'No Thank You, We're out'
Also, love Kearny's ride. I always felt he got cheated in OTL by fate.
It's certainly a shame such a colorful character was lost so early.
I'm always here for Robert Smalls content, but if he led the Black troops into Charleston, wouldn't he have already been a company-grade commissioned officer? At least a battlefield commission? That would still leave room for a well-deserved promotion to colonel.
Alright, so, I kinda messed up? There's a mention of Smalls being with the flotilla way back in chapter 41, and I thought I had explained the peculiar arrangement but... I didn't, apparently. So, what's going on is that Smalls was allowed to accompany the flotilla together with a small company of South Carolina Sea Islands USCT. The idea would be for Smalls to be the "showcase Black officer", similarly to how the 54th Massachusetts was the showcase Black regiment. But the Navy failed, so Smalls just.. stayed there, continuing to drill and train more soldiers without any formal commission. The Administration allowed this, just like how they had allowed the quiet organization of Black regiments before it was officially permitted. For all intents and purposes, Smalls was already an officer. Now he just had his de facto grade confirmed at last with a legal commission as an officer, giving the Administration a good propaganda coup and allowing it to deflect any criticism.
in super curious as to what Kentucky is going to be like post war, who aren’t they feuding with at this point
Uh, Canada? They're cool with Canada.
Kinda surprised Sherman didn't utter the words of a certain Austrian corporal regarding the CSA.
...which ones?
Toombs dying ingloriously is probably the most fitting end to the Civil War here. No trial, no hanging or firing squad - either having him killed by fleeing/angry soldiers when they refuse to follow some suicidal order or if anyone getting whacked by Black Union troops specifically deserves it... well, a lot of them do, but he's towards the top of the pile at the moment.
Sherman's march was devastating, as expected, but feels like it naturally fits within the narrative given everything that's happened so far ITTL. In many respects, this world's events have been a vindication of his approach towards dealing with the rebellious areas. I do wonder what his post-war career will be like (obviously not willingly political, but one wonders if he'll be forced to play military governor or at least be threatened to be posted in places in the ex-CSA, or if he'll be assigned to deal with tribes out west like OTL).
Also: guest appearance by Kearny! I wondered when he'd show up again. Hard to do worse than getting shot after examining a battlefield so early on in the war. I too wonder what'll be up to if he manages to see the end of the conflict.
Regardless, the end is in sight, and hopefully that means the Union will be able to at least mitigate some of the worst effects of the coming winter and famine. A distant hope, especially given all the devastation we've had described, but hopefully the relief effort won't be too delayed...
Sherman apparently never completely appreciated the inherently political role of generals in his level. He scorned politics for the rest of his life, in fact even distancing himself from Grant because he thought that politics were corrupting him, and thought he could stand completely apart from them. He'll probably try to go west - I just can't see him willingly getting involved with Reconstruction, especially because he opposes the Administration's policies.
The Bureaus are working hard to stave off hunger, but it's a hard task indeed.
I say that Toombs would be found by a mob and in their anger let a Black man whip him as punishment since Red did say he would allow something like it
We'll see
I really hope someone is smart enough to use the memory of Breckenridge to push reconstruction forward in the state. I doubt you get it fully reconstructed but you could likely get a status-quo where whites are willing to begrudgingly accept black rights.
Something better than OTL is at least possible. At the very least the whole mess with Breckinridge ensures they will not adopt the ultra-confederate interpretations of the war.
I mean it is pretty grim. The Armies of Georgia and North Virginia are going to be ground to dust, leaving a lot of banditti around in the countryside. There are probably enough angry starving civilians, willing to take a crack at Toombs for his hand at the famine. And that's assuming that the Union patrols don't catch him and shoot him.
Given that Grant is still the commanding general, he'll most likely agree to Sherman's request to be posted away from Reconstruction to Missouri and out west. Sherman was out of touch with the administration's policies and he and Grant both knew it. He never quite changed his views on black suffrage until close to the end of his life. That said, his views on Southerners could shift to how he viewed Native Americans: individually, he felt sorry for them and collectively, he found their stubborn resistance infuriating. If they spit on his offer of an easy peace (like IOTL Bennett Place) and try to die hard over the next few years, it might changed his views on the matter - like a stubborn child in need of discipline.
Sherman at the very least isn't likely to see continued resistance with kind eyes. Then again, he apparently thought that Grant should stop the Army from executing "the revolutionary measures of Congress," believed using troops to enforce Reconstruction was "pregnant with danger," and that the Ku Klux Klan was a result of undue interference, declaring “If Ku-klux bills were kept out of Congress, and the army kept at their legitimate duties there are enough good and true men in all Southern States to put down all Ku-klux or other bands of marauders.”
Thus always to traitors and reprobates. The Southron Planter class shall face both the Peoples' wrath and the fury of the Lord most high.
The Judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
The scale and scope of the destruction across much of the South is going to necessitate such an up till now unknown presence of the federal government.
I think the new dividing line between the Republicans and whatever emerges from the Democrats will be how relief is implemented. Democrats or their successors will probably want to rely on private relief agencies, while Republicans — at least the Radicals — will see Bureau and Army administration as the way.
Yes, the Liberals are likely to want most of this State apparatus to be dismantled as soon as the war is over, and retreat from the war-time expanded National State.
No doubt, pretty off the wall. It was pretty strange in OTL, many historians made the statement that Kentucky waited until after the war to join the Confederacy. I've seen some court cases from the Kentucky Courts of the time that came pretty close to arguing that the 13th Amendment was unconstitutional.
I can only imagine what things will be like in this timeline.
Well, given how there was that little insurrection and the State is basically under military occupation... things will be messy, to say the least.
"dixiebros..."
View attachment 869564
"its so over."
If only they could have recognized it when Breckinridge said so... then again, it's better that they are engaging on this suicidal last stand for our purposes.
Good. Now finish the slaving lot of. They deserve it. One and all.
Slavery is an abomination against humanity itself. Stamp it out, no matter the cost.
Spoken like John Brown himself!
northerners ITTL 1950s after Marxist-Lincolnist Nixon institutes the corn subsidies:
Nixon the used cars salesman?
The long-term implications of this destruction are actually rather fascinating, as morbid as that is.
The various Bureaus and expansion of Federal power to correct issues have already happened. Couple that with a more Radical Reconstruction in general, and the solution to the breakdown in the South starts to look like unprecedented government intervention and effort.
This won't make the GOP turn against capitalism or the free market, so how those two things reconcile is unknown to me. Does Reconstruction and the Bureaus become a flash in the pan, or does it make the GOP comfortable aligning federal intervention with Big Business?
Yes, in many ways this forces the US Federal government to take a leap into the future, to a modern welfare State, instead of the weak government that only touched the average citizen through the mailbox. We'll see a split sooner or later over the issue.
My bet is that there’s gonna be some kind of short-lived US-specific class-collaborationist utopian socialism coming to political prominence during the Reconstruction, with a 50/50 chance of it being called Fascism (without the OTL connotations), basically being a mirror-image of the Sicilian Fascii ideological progenitor that none remember either way.
The devastation will force the Government to Centralize in many aspects, but the next few decades will see absolute GOP dominance until the ITTL Agrarian Populist-Labour Republicans split off to restart the two-party system between the Centralizing-Corporatist GOP and their Progressive-Populist opposition composed of smaller Famers, Southerners, Laborists, and Immigrants that are angered by the Business Nationalist/Semi-Nativist “Elites” in charge of the GOP.
Either way, Reconstruction will be the period that defines the term “Revolutionary Reform,” for better or for worse, either way marked by Federal-Force (either by indefinite military occupation or the ITTL National Gendarmerie) omnipresence throughout the ex-CSA just to prevent immediate insurrection/famine (not in that order but one would come with another), and depending on how much willpower the Southrons still have, will last much longer than OTL simply for the physical rebuilding process.
The “Laboratory of Democracy” that was the South, in the now-dissolved system of Decentralized Federalism, was burnt down in the lab-catastrophe of ITTL’s Civil War; what remains is the governance equivalent of an EPA Superfund site, and from here on out, the federal “United States of America” is headed for unitary governance as the “Union-State of America.”
We'll have to see future developments, but, yes, the divisory line will probably be over labor.
My apologies if I've forgotten, but has TTL covered the Union's complete liberation/occupation of the Kingdom of Jones?🤔
There's a "missing passage" in a previous update where it was described that the Union retook the area, rewarded Jones with a commission as a colonel, and then put him in charge of giving out food. I cut it because of space, but that's still canon.
Gwa ha haha get Sherman'd you slaver scum. By focusing so much on beating down wealthy confederates along with land distribution, the Union is bringing something that looks a lot like socialist revolution south and I am QUITE curious what impact it has on the labor movements in the future. Perhaps the rural areas of the south will be unusually progressive compared to the rest of the nation's countryside.
Robert Smalls is reaching impressive heights here. I would like to know more about his story, how he rose up from being a mere captain of his ship to being a commander of an entire invasion flotilla including ground troops.
Holy heck that's hardcore. Are there historical records of armies marching though cold water so deep? That sounds like a risk for severe hypothermia and getting carried away by the current.
As for Sherman's great construction of corduroy roads, I see we're getting a preview of America's famous 20th century logistical power. Goes to show how much having friendly civilians helps too.
Many will probably see this and conclude that similar measures ought to be taken against the capitalists and their "wage slavery".
He's not the commander of the entire flotilla, only a small company that took part in the assault and was allowed to enter first for the propaganda value. I'm sorry if that was not clear.
To be honest, the actual quote comes from a much earlier campaign, through water just as deep but warmer. I added it because I liked the image. Let's just not think about it too hard, okay?
Breaking news :Kentucky declares allegiance to… Holy Roman Empire ?
Can't believe they resurrected it only to not side with those Black-loving Yankees or Breckinridge-murdering Rebs.
You can argue it so many ways.
Breckenridge being couped and murdered has thrown the Northern Democrats and copperheads into almost as much disarray as their southern counterparts, which in the immediate future is absolutely to Lincoln's benefit. But you could argue that in the long run it's a boon for the pro-war Democrats, thanks to it totally discrediting everyone else even sort of argued against the war. Which could make it easier for them to unite the anti-Republican opposition in the future.
Not impossible to see that eventually settling on line like "the war was just and the planters had it coming, but reconstruction and all these new fangled rights are extreme and gosh golly ain't the government a little too big these days."
Which sounds disappointing but is still a noticeable departure from OTL. The south will have the contrasting and inward attacking lost cause narratives to deal with, but for Northern Democrats the idea of this being some sort of war between "brothers" is truly well and dead.
At the very least having the baseline being "the planters were horrible and had it coming" is still much better than IOTL.
So we sang the chorus, marching to Montgomery
All, all away to the dang sea!
Maybe an alternate version...
given the sheer volume of this story, i've decided to archive the Reader Mode view in case anything happens to this original thread so that future generations will be able to read this epic in it's entirety instead of sifting through assorted archived out-of-order passages like a 12th century monk, or someone who wants to read the rest of For All Time after 1978.
Chapter 1: Lincoln and Liberty to Chapter 18: From the Mississippi's winding Stream
Chapter 19: And roll on the Liberty Ball! to Chapter 36: Fire in the Rear
Side-story: "Three Farmers" to Chapter 47: Not A Man Shall Be A Slave
Chapter 48: Yes We'll Rally Round the Flag to
Chapter 56: Hurrah! We Bring the Flag that Makes You Free!
I don’t know if this kind of archiving has been done yet with this thread, but as the story progresses, feel free to preserve it through that same
archive.ph site yourself to ensure it’s still around for future generations.
Why, thank you! I, of course, have all original Word drafts plus planned to release a PDF - A PDF up to chapter 37 already exists, though it doesn't have the mini-updates or side-stories. I sure hope this never becomes lost!
Or pretty easy to settle on an anti-corruption platform for the opposition as you can hit people all over the political spectrum with that.
With the weakened Democrats you could eventually see a party system of Liberals vs. Republicans with the liberals starting with these guys:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Republican_Party_(United_States)
That's almost inevitable.
Something I figured ought to be shared
Thanks!
*leans back, sips wine and snacks Popcorn while watching the Confederacy go down in Flames* Aaaahhh...sweet, SWEET catharsis...
It was certainly cathartic to write as well!
