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What if The Union had lost The US Civil War?


Beren Erchamion

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Fate is a very delicate matter but whatever happens happens for a reason ((not thinking in religous terms))

Which may well be true, yet one cannot but wonder...

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The Confedarcy had no chance to win the war

Actually they had a VERY good chance. If they had not the creation 54th Massachussetes never would have been approved.

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Actually they had a VERY good chance. If they had not the creation 54th Massachussetes never would have been approved.

Maybe, I don't know. Most African American regiments were used to free up men from garrison and for labor duties so the North could better maximize their advantage in numbers, but I personally believe all this did was to better ensure Northern victory. I'm not sure it was absolutely necessary or anything. Also, keep in mind a lot of people were unhappy about the use of African Americans in the army, and unhappy citizens usually hurt war efforts.

I think that even though the North was winning in '64 and '65 due to seemingly unlimited numbers, the numbers weren't necessary for them to win. If the North hadn't used African Americans to free up more men for the line, I think Lincoln simply wouldn't have stuck with Grant or Grant would've changed his strategy, probably the latter. Basically, if Grant hadn't had the numbers then he wouldn't have used that strategy. The approval of regiments like the 54th Mass. (which was in '62-63, but most Afr. Am. units came later in the war) was because overwhelming the South was the quickest (if not the prettiest) way of ending the war.

Edited by Teej
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The South could not have won the war. It was technologically and economically bankrupt.

It was so hard-pressed to produce gunpowder that residents of major southern towns contributed their urine from chamber pots for the production of saltpetre, a key ingredient in gunpowder.

Lead was also in short supply, from which bullets were made. Southern residents contributed toy soldiers, ornaments, pipes and whatever else they could afford to supply lead.

Even with the raw materials, the South lacked the vast technology of the North. It had relied on slave labor for so long, the South thought it was foolish to upgrade to the newfangled steam machines when a bunch of slaves could do the same work less expensively.

In short, the South failed to upgrade its technology.

But let's say that the South won a political victory and the North sued for peace.

Then what?

The southern states were (and remain) very geocentric. According to Texans, Texas is the finest garden spot in the entire Cosmos. The Missippians feel the same way about Mississippi. Ditto the Carolinians (North and South), Georgians, Arkansans and so on.

So, with no common enemy to confront (the North) the South would have turned on its neighbors, demanding certain concessions or advantages from them. Southerners at the time, and somewhat today, consider themselves answerable to no one but God, family, state and government. In that order.

The Southern states would have inevitably conflicted with each other, perhaps resulting in war. Certainly, there would have been armed rebellion throughout the South, as there was before the war in the South and the border states.

Some southern states would have, no doubt, demanded secession from the Confederacy to become their own countries.

America today might look very different if the South had won. We would still have a United States, but some of the southern states might very well be soverign countries.

Would that have been better? It's doubtful. One need only look to eastern Europe to see what happens when a formerly united country suddenly becomes a variety of little countries.

Had the South won, it would have been a mess.

The preservation of the Union kept things intact and settled down.

The greatest tragedy was the assassination of Lincoln. With him out of the way, the greedy carpetbaggers and rapacious northern politicians and industrialists were free to rampage over the newly conquered south.

Had Lincoln lived, he would have been much kinder to the South. He would have held the corruption in check, or at least tried to. After the Civil War, corruption in the North and South was rampant.

No, the South could never have won. It was too fragmented in its allegiances and too backward in its industry.

The victory of the North actually saved the South from decades of continued bloodshed and contention.

Thank God the North won. It's just too bad the aftermath wasn't handled a whole lot better.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Turtledove presented a pretty well thought out scenario to the South winning the Civil War. As the years went by the rest of the world held little use for slavery and were unwilling to trade with a country that still had slaves. This presented a major economic problem for the South as they could not produce a lot of factory manufactured goods. So what Turtledove was implying that no matter who won the Civil War, slavery had seen it's last days and it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the world put pressure on those countries still using slaves.

Had Turtledove's ideas been reality, (the South given AK-47's) I believe that it would not have mattered who won the Civil War, the introduction of such an advanced weapon to the 1860/1870 world would have changed worldwide history drastically, much more than the North or South being victorious.

This is a good thread. Keep posting!

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That was the basis for The Guns of the South What I was refering to was How Few Remain And while I can still say something without it being considered "Bumping" let me say this "If General Lee had gone STRAIGHT to Washington DC instead of stopping and fighting at Gettysburg, There was a STRONG chance the south would have won."

Edited by Romeo_Montague
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That was the basis for The Guns of the South What I was refering to was How Few Remain And while I can still say something without it being considered "Bumping" let me say this "If General Lee had gone STRAIGHT to Washington DC instead of stopping and fighting at Gettysburg, There was a STRONG chance the south would have won."

I'm not so sure about that. Washington DC was pretty heavily guarded from when McClellan took over to the end of the war. It seems like Lee would have faced the same challenges of invading (vulnerable supply lines, a more or less hostile/apathetic Maryland population, and the handicap of being on the offensive instead of the defensive) with the added problem of the extra infantry and artillery he would face from Washington's defenses. Washington had more than 50 defensive forts (at least) and a large supply of cannons and mortars. I mean, maybe the Confederacy could have taken Washington if they had a massive stroke of luck, but it seems to me like the South was screwed no matter what they did offensively.

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I'm not so sure about that. Washington DC was pretty heavily guarded from when McClellan took over to the end of the war. It seems like Lee would have faced the same challenges of invading (vulnerable supply lines, a more or less hostile/apathetic Maryland population, and the handicap of being on the offensive instead of the defensive) with the added problem of the extra infantry and artillery he would face from Washington's defenses. Washington had more than 50 defensive forts (at least) and a large supply of cannons and mortars. I mean, maybe the Confederacy could have taken Washington if they had a massive stroke of luck, but it seems to me like the South was screwed no matter what they did offensively.

Ok maybe not a great chance but a better chance. It all really boils down to the leader. I mean Zap Brannigan is a complete and total idiot so he would lose all his battles if they were against more intelligent foes. James T Kirk has less men yet could win ANY of the battles Brannigan fought in. My point is "Sheer strength in numbers doesn't really mean anything"

Edited by Romeo_Montague
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That's true, and maybe the terrain would have been in Lee's favor instead of against him, or maybe Meade would have screwed up. I just think the odds were in the North's favor no matter what Lee did, but not that it was impossible for Lee to win.

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the odds were in the North's favor no matter what Lee did, but not that it was impossible for Lee to win.

Now THAT I agree with

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What if The Union had never found Robert E Lee's Special Order 191? It was that order that had all the information on the CSAs troop deployments and alot of other strategic information among other things. If we (The North) had NOT found that in all likelyhood the Confederate States would have won and stayed an independent nation. And then If the Union had lost who would they have allied with during WWI & II? Just think about it. (If you like this kind of thing there is a book by a guy called Harry Turtledove called How Few Remain) While slavery most likely still would have been abolished in the CSA it would have taken ATLEAST another generation if not two.And we would have probably fought the south again within a generation anyway.....

Well if the union lost, slavery would still be here.

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As questionmark - and other posters - have pointed out, we are dealing with a HUGE range of possible branching-points here.

The Cat will throw his hat into the ring with one possibility - somewhat modelled on Turtledove.

The CSA win, and impose a temporary trune on the North. Britain, still smarting from the Decleration of Independence, starts making misheif by assisting the CSA with technical and industrial development. It's still not enough, and eventually the North forces the CSA back into the Union, either through military , economic , or diplomatic pressures. The USA get's back on track, but with a 50-60 year "delay" in the development of it's industrial strength.

This would not effect WW1, as the US had minimal effect in that conflict. However, what about WW2 ? Without the huge flood of ships, goods, raw materials, aircraft, tanks, naval vessels etc from the USA, Britain would have succumbed in 1942. (if only because we would lack the destroyers to keep our supplies lifelines open against the KriegsMarine U-Boats. ). Absent Britain as a staging point, the liberation of Europe would have been impossible.

The end result would either have been a Europe controlled by Nazism or - more likely - a Europe controlled by Moscow.

The results of that would be hard to imagine.

Meow Purr.

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Well if the union lost, slavery would still be here.

I do not think that slavery could possibly have survived the end of the 1800s because of the simple fact that Britain and France would not have wanted to trade with the CSA while they still had slaves. And anyway The US was

one of the final countries to abolish slavery.

The CSA win, and impose a temporary trune on the North. Britain, still smarting from the Decleration of Independence, starts making misheif by assisting the CSA with technical and industrial development. It's still not enough, and eventually the North forces the CSA back into the Union, either through military , economic , or diplomatic pressures. The USA get's back on track, but with a 50-60 year "delay" in the development of it's industrial strength.

This while possible, is unlikely. Britain would have broken even more international laws than they already had during the Civil War by supplying "Belligerents"

Edited by Romeo_Montague
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The CSA win, and impose a temporary trune on the North. Britain, still smarting from the Decleration of Independence, starts making misheif by assisting the CSA with technical and industrial development. It's still not enough, and eventually the North forces the CSA back into the Union, either through military , economic , or diplomatic pressures. The USA get's back on track, but with a 50-60 year "delay" in the development of it's industrial strength.

This could be, but the North may have actually developed their industrial strength faster if they didn't have to pay for and watch over Reconstruction.

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This could be, but the North may have actually developed their industrial strength faster if they didn't have to pay for and watch over Reconstruction.

You are forgetting the Monroe Doctrine, which precedes the Civil War. That in itself would have precluded a faster build up of the US because of the lack of Americas most sought after export. Cotton.

The start of the industrial revolution in the US was based on the gains of cotton exports.

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You are forgetting the Monroe Doctrine, which precedes the Civil War. That in itself would have precluded a faster build up of the US because of the lack of Americas most sought after export. Cotton.

The start of the industrial revolution in the US was based on the gains of cotton exports.

That's true, although I thought cotton was mostly in demand in Europe and the US before the Civil War, while lumber and iron were in demand after. Don't hold me to that, that's just what I remember without looking much into it. I do know that one of the south's major problems was that England was developing ways to produce their own cotton and thus didn't feel too rushed to break the Union blockade, but I'm not sure how much cotton was exported after the war. Anyways, even without cotton the North would have looked for other materials to produce. If the Civil War taught the North anything, it was that industry and mass production were the waves of the future. So I don't think the absence of cotton would have changed the North's mind very much, it just would have found something else.

I'm not sure what the Monroe Doctrine has to do with the Industrial Revolution, though. The Monroe Doctrine only dealt with foreign nations trying to establish control in the Americas.

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From what I know the Civil War was not the end of slavery, was suppose to be but in the years after the war, in the reformation, slavery once again was introduced after the North forgot all about them. Slavery never ended in civil war times but was more dominant than ever at the beginning of the 20th century leading to the awful black racism seen down South even recently.

The civil war did nothing but kill a generation of young men and starve the Southern people into weakness. The worst war I've ever read about.

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I'm not sure what the Monroe Doctrine has to do with the Industrial Revolution, though. The Monroe Doctrine only dealt with foreign nations trying to establish control in the Americas.

That is my point, would it have been compatible with England or Germany industrializing the south?

ED: I don't doubt that the North would have wanted to industrialize anyway, but could they have done that as quickly with a lost war? And part of the industrialization, the railroads, would have been less predominant and in need of steel/manufactured products in only the North VS the whole of the USA.

Edited by questionmark
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As questionmark - and other posters - have pointed out, we are dealing with a HUGE range of possible branching-points here.

The Cat will throw his hat into the ring with one possibility - somewhat modelled on Turtledove.

The CSA win, and impose a temporary trune on the North. Britain, still smarting from the Decleration of Independence, starts making misheif by assisting the CSA with technical and industrial development. It's still not enough, and eventually the North forces the CSA back into the Union, either through military , economic , or diplomatic pressures. The USA get's back on track, but with a 50-60 year "delay" in the development of it's industrial strength.

This would not effect WW1, as the US had minimal effect in that conflict. However, what about WW2 ? Without the huge flood of ships, goods, raw materials, aircraft, tanks, naval vessels etc from the USA, Britain would have succumbed in 1942. (if only because we would lack the destroyers to keep our supplies lifelines open against the KriegsMarine U-Boats. ). Absent Britain as a staging point, the liberation of Europe would have been impossible.

The end result would either have been a Europe controlled by Nazism or - more likely - a Europe controlled by Moscow.

The results of that would be hard to imagine.

Meow Purr.

Without Britain Russia would have been beaten, daily convoys of food and raw material was shipped out, they never paid us back, but we had to pay America every penny.

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That is my point, would it have been compatible with England or Germany industrializing the south?

ED: I don't doubt that the North would have wanted to industrialize anyway, but could they have done that as quickly with a lost war? And part of the industrialization, the railroads, would have been less predominant and in need of steel/manufactured products in only the North VS the whole of the USA.

I see what you're saying now. That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how serious the North would have been about enforcing that, especially after losing a Civil War. Furthermore, I'm not sure England and Germany wanted to really help out the south that much. The only reason they dabbled with allying with them was for cotton, and they would be getting all they needed from the South already, and from their own production as well. I don't think they would have really cared all that much to spend resources and time industrializing the south after the Civil War unless the south struck a deal asking them to in exchange for cotton, and as we all know the south cared very little for industry.

You're correct about the North's ability to industrialize, it would have been a lot slower without Reconstruction. But I still think they would have found something to produce, their economy had been (and would be, without tariffs on exported cotton from the south) so reliant on industry. I agree with both your assessments, but I think there's a lot of gray area that could change things. That's "what if" history, for you I guess. :hmm:

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I see what you're saying now. That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how serious the North would have been about enforcing that, especially after losing a Civil War. Furthermore, I'm not sure England and Germany wanted to really help out the south that much. The only reason they dabbled with allying with them was for cotton, and they would be getting all they needed from the South already, and from their own production as well. I don't think they would have really cared all that much to spend resources and time industrializing the south after the Civil War unless the south struck a deal asking them to in exchange for cotton, and as we all know the south cared very little for industry.

You're correct about the North's ability to industrialize, it would have been a lot slower without Reconstruction. But I still think they would have found something to produce, their economy had been (and would be, without tariffs on exported cotton from the south) so reliant on industry. I agree with both your assessments, but I think there's a lot of gray area that could change things. That's "what if" history, for you I guess. :hmm:

I said before, we are playing equation with a few million variables here... I would not call this scientific.

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It's still interesting, though. You can't appreciate a historical event if you don't consider some of the ways it could have gone wrong, and what those consequences would be.

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This is an immensely interesting thread, and the reason I decided to join this forum. Anyway, here's another idea for your perusal:

First off, the Emancipation Proclamation was a turning point on the diplomatic side of the war. Before the E.P., Britain and France supported the South because they were dependent on "king cotton." Once the North made slavery an issue, it became difficult for the British and French governments to justify support of the pro slavery side to their electorates on purely economic grounds. Up until the proclamation was issued, many of the blockade runners were French and British vessels trying to feed their burgeoning textile industries with a necessary raw material.

Had Lincoln not issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Britain (and probably France) might have stepped up their support for the South a notch by sending in military "advisers" to break the Union blockade and to secure Confederate cotton-growing regions. At this point the Union might have been forced into a ceasefire then a peace supporting status quo antebellum.

At this point, the agricultural CSA would have become an economic colony to the Great Powers, selling cotton for manufactured goods. Eventually slavery would have diminished in importance and faded away (if not actually abolished) because of the new agricultural machinery that would be invented in the latter half of the 19th century (a McCormick Reaper could harvest a field more quickly and efficiently than a bunch of slaves and it required much less food and shelter). The former slaves would have formed a fledgling industrial underclass (being freed without land and as CSA citizens, cut off from the USA's homesteading program).

Earlier speculation in this thread about WWI also interests me. I think that the Zimmerman Telegram (where Germany offers Mexico the return of Texas and the Southwest to join the Central Powers) might have led to a rapprochement between North and South as they both would have been with the Allies (CSA because of neocolonial dependence on the UK and possibly France, USA because of unrestricted U-Boat warfare, both provoked by Germany's offer of US/CS territory to Mexico).

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If the South had won, I wonder what direction the western states and territories would have taken in regards to statehood and allegiance? The western expansion was critical for this country in terms of natural resources, etc. Anytime there is money to be had, people will fight over it. It could be there would have been a second war for control of the west. And with two weakened nations as a result of the civil war, perhaps Mexico would have made a more concentrated second effort to take over the southwest. Also, a divided nation, each trying to rebuild after a terrible war would be quite attractive for an attack by another country or alliance of countries.

Would Alaska have been purchased from Russia in the late 1860's? I think the progress of this country would have been slowed considerably.

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Earlier speculation in this thread about WWI also interests me. I think that the Zimmerman Telegram (where Germany offers Mexico the return of Texas and the Southwest to join the Central Powers) might have led to a rapprochement between North and South as they both would have been with the Allies (CSA because of neocolonial dependence on the UK and possibly France, USA because of unrestricted U-Boat warfare, both provoked by Germany's offer of US/CS territory to Mexico).

I doubt that the UK would have given up their own cotton programs in their colonies, for example India, therefore not needing the South's cotton as urgently anymore (just as happened in the real version of history). There are several others that could have jumped into the gap, i.e. Germany and Italy. I think that the trade would have been quite a wild card and a very interesting computer simulation.

In any case, the mechanization of the agriculture would have gone ahead at giant paces, to see an equivalent all we have to do is to take a look at Aveling, Burrel and Lincoln steam tractors in Great Britain, making slavery obsolete just as the use of traction animals went obsolete.

With the rest of the possibilities, we always have to see it under the precept "cum bonum?" or: who benefits?

Wars are about philosophies and patriotism only for the average Joe, for all others it is about money and about the possibility to earn something. That would also give an interesting computer simulation...

The problem is that we still have too many variables.

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