American Civil War alternate histories

American Civil War alternate histories are alternate history fiction that focuses on the Civil War ending differently or not occurring. The American Civil War is a popular point of divergence in English-language alternate history fiction. The most common variants detail the victory and survival of the Confederate States. Less common variants include a Union victory under different circumstances from in actual history, resulting in a different postwar situation; black American slaves freeing themselves by revolt without waiting for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; a direct British and/or French intervention in the war; the survival of Lincoln during John Wilkes Booth's assassination attempt; a retelling of historical events with fantasy elements inserted; the Civil War never breaking out and a peaceful compromise being reached; and secret history tales. The point of divergence in such a story can be a "natural, realistic" event, such as one general making a different decision, or one sentry detecting an enemy invasion unlike in reality. It can also be an "unnatural" fantasy/science fiction plot device such as time travel, which usually takes the form of someone bringing modern weapons or hindsight knowledge into the past. Still another related variant is a scenarios of a Civil War that breaks out at a different time than 1861 and under different circumstances (such as the North, rather than the South, seceding from the Union).

American Civil War alternate histories are one of the two most popular points of divergence to create an alternate history in the English language, the other being an Axis victory in World War II.[1][2][3]

Depictions of the later development of a victorious Confederacy vary considerably from one another, especially on two major interrelated issues: the independent Confederacy's treatment of its black population and its relations with the rump United States in the North.

Scenarios
  • The South wins the Civil War, and slavery still exists as of the present time of the story. Examples include the 2004 mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, the United States is annexed by the Confederate States and slavery continues until the present, including a depiction of "an electronic slave auction" carried on via the internet.
  • The victorious South ends slavery, such as in Hallie Marshall: A True Daughter of the South (1900) by Frank Williams, the earliest known Civil War alternate history, in which the Confederacy won by mobilizing black slaves to its army, their participation turning the tide at Gettysburg. Thirty years later, the independent Confederacy is full of happy, well-treated black slaves feeling perfectly content under the benevolent, paternalistic planters, comparing favorably with the rump United States, which is torn by a brutal class struggle, with nominally-free factory workers protesting inhumane working conditions or starving in unemployment. In Gray Victory, set in the immediate aftermath of the war, the Confederacy is faced with both subversion by Northern Abolitionists and the increasing organization and assertiveness of Black Southerners, and the story gives the clear impression that no matter who wins, the end of slavery is inevitable.
  • Slavery ends in the South in name only, or minorities are oppressed into low socio-economic parts of society, such as in The Guns of the South, freeing the slaves is attributed to Robert E. Lee, who becomes the second Confederate President. It is logical to assume that his prestige would have run high and made him a plausible candidate to succeed Jefferson Davis, but the position he would have taken regarding slavery is the subject of some debate. However, ending slavery would not necessarily provide equality for Black Southerners, and Bring the Jubilee has blacks, despite Lee's grand gesture, remain disenfranchised into the 20th century, as are people from Latin America, who are annexed by the Confederacy and its immigrant population. The rump United States is completely broken down by its defeat and becomes an impoverished and backward country while the Confederacy goes on to annex everything to its south as far as Tierra del Fuego (except the Republic of Haiti) and become a major world power. In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series, it is President James Longstreet who frees the slaves from being property, as a prerequisite for retaining British and French support for the Confederacy in the Second Mexican War, but blacks remain an underclass that is very oppressed and discriminated, denied basic civil rights, and is not even allowed to have surnames. In later volumes of the series, the blacks burst out in a brutal armed revolt, called the Red Rebellion during the Great War, which are met with equal brutality from white authorities, which make them the target of a terrible Holocaust-like genocide.
  • A more optimistic result in The Guns of the South and several other works have both nations settle down and have reasonably-good neighborly relations within a few years of the war's end and, in some cases, agree to reunite as one nation after 50 or 100 years of being apart. If the South Had Won the Civil War by MacKinlay Kantor has reunification come later: in the 20th century, the United States, the Confederate States and Texas, which seceded from the CS, become economically integrated and in both World Wars and all fight against Germany as close allies. After World War II, all three all feel threatened by Soviet missile bases and armored brigades in Alaska, which was never purchased from Russia. Therefore, they announce a formal reunification in 1961, on the precise centennial of Fort Sumter. Conversely, a GURPS game setting book presents a 1993 in which the US and the CS still watch each other warily across an armed border that stretches to the Pacific.
  • In Southern Victory, the US and the CS develop into hereditary enemies that go to war again every decade or two, spend the rest of the time preparing for new war, and become entangled in webs of worldwide military alliances. Southern Victory has both drawn into the worldwide war that immediately follows the Archduke's murder. They open an American front of trench warfare that is every bit as terrible as the one in Europe. Conversely, the 1914 of "A Hard Day for Mother", in Alternate Generals 1 by William R. Forstchen, sees an amicable treaty of reconciliation and voluntary reunification between the two nations.

Fiction

Novels

Short stories
  • Alternate Generals, volume 1, contains three US Civil War-related stories:
  • Alternate Presidents contains four stories with wildly-different hypothetical Civil War scenarios:
    • "Chickasaw Slave" by Judith Moffett in which Davy Crockett is elected President of the United States in 1828 after Andrew Jackson's reputation is tarnished by a land-dealing scandal. The Compromise of 1850 leads to an early Civil War and a Confederate victory three years later.
    • "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts. It focuses on the Northeast seceding from the Union as the "New England Confederacy" after David Rice Atchison accedes to the presidency following President Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore's deaths in a carriage accident shortly into their terms. A Southern-dominated United States fights the New Englanders for two years resulting in a Union victory, with the New England states readmitted and President Stephen A. Douglas passing the Civil Rights Act of 1861, which abolishes slavery and grants freedmen the right to vote.
    • "Now Falls the Cold, Cold Night" by Jack L. Chalker focuses on a scenario in which former President Millard Fillmore on the Know Nothing Party is elected the 15th President in 1856 after James Buchanan suffers a stroke in October. Fillmore upholds the fugitive slave laws in 1858, which results in ethnic tensions and riots in New England and causes it to secede from the Union. John C. Frémont becomes President of the New England Confederacy with William Tecumseh Sherman as his commanding general, opposed by the Army of the United States under Robert E. Lee.
    • "Lincoln's Charge" by Bill Fawcett focuses on Douglas becoming President of the United States. In both Roberts' and Chalker's entries, the North seek to secede from the Southern-dominated Union.
  • Dixie Victorious: An Alternate History of the Civil War by Peter Tsouras. The anthology of various Civil War/Confederate victory has ten alternate history scenarios, written by various authors.
    • "Hell on Earth" by Andrew Uffindell focuses on an Anglo-French intervention on the side of the Confederates against the Union because Albert of Saxe-Coburg dies in a carriage incident before he could handle the Trent Affair between American and Britain. It worsens with the wounding of Thomas Fairfax and the death of two British citizens as well as a successful St. Albans Raid in 1861 and a harsh ultimatum to the Lincoln administration.
    • "Ships of Iron and Wills of Steel" by Wade G. Dudley focuses on a Union victory at the Battle of Hampton Roads and a Confederate counterblockade with resources properly-allocated to the Confederate Navy.
    • "What Will Our Country Say?" by David Keithly focuses on Lee not losing the famous Lost Orders during the Maryland Campaign.
    • "When the Bottom Fell Out" by Michael Hathaway focuses on a financial crisis and collapse of the Union economy in 1862, coupled with a Southern victory in Maryland.
    • "We Will Water Our Horses in the Mississippi" by James R. Arnold focuses on Albert Sidney Johnston surviving his wound at the Battle of Shiloh thanks to a torniquet applied to him and going on to face Ulysses S. Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign.
    • "Absolutely Essential to Victory" by Edward G. Longcare focuses on JEB Stuart's cavalry not riding around the Army of the Potomac and staying with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
    • "Moves to Great Advantage" by John D. Burrett focuses on Braxton Bragg fired from the Army of Tennessee and replaced by James Longstreet after the Battle of Chickamauga.
    • "Confederate Black and Grey" by Tsouras focuses on the Confederacy accepting Patrick Cleburne's proposal to use black slaves and to free blacks in the Confederate Army as soldiers.
    • "Decision in the West" by Cyril M. Lagvanec focuses on the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the Civil War for the Confederacy in which there is a different depth of a sandbar, coupled with the disastrous Red River Campaign.
    • "Terrible as an Army with Banners" by Kevin F. Kelley focuses on Jubal Early succeeding in his raid on Washington, DC, as a result of the United States Marine Corps loosening on him, which allows him to break the Siege of Petersburg.
  • "East of Appomattox" (in Alternate Generals III) by Lee Allred. In the late 1860s, the CS sends Ambassador Lee to London to assure continued British recognition, and he finds unexpected challenges and even more unlikely allies.
  • If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931) anthology contains two relevant entries: "If Lee Had NOT Won the Battle of Gettysburg" by Winston Churchill, and "If Booth had Missed Lincoln" by Milton Waldman.
  • "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox" by James Thurber. Inspired by the above book, the wrong man surrenders.
  • In "If President James Buchanan Had Enforced the Law," by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, President Buchanan fully enforced federal law upon South Carolina's succession stopping the civil war.
  • If the South Had Been Allowed to Go by Ernest Crosby. Another early Civil War alternate history written in 1903.
  • "If the Lost Order Hadn't Been Lost: Robert E. Lee Humbles the Union, 1862" by James M. McPherson, first printed in What If? and reprinted in What Ifs? of American History, a scenario posited by McPherson that focuses on the Lost Order staying in Confederate hands, allowing the South to advance to Pennsylvania and to win an alternate version of the Battle of Gettysburg, resulting in the death of George B. McClellan and Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith winning and taking over Kentucky during the Heartland Campaign. The decisive victory allows the Copperheads to win the 1862 legislative elections, coupled with Britain and France recognizing the new nation. Lincoln and his cabinet are thus forced to issue a proclamation to recognize the Confederacy as a sovereign, separate nation by New Year's Eve 1863.
  • If the South Had Won the Civil War by MacKinlay Kantor, originally published in Look Magazine in 1960 and published as a book in 1961
  • A Rebel in Time by Harry Harrison
  • "Must and Shall" (collected in the anthology Counting Up, Counting Down, also in Volume 32 of the Nebula Awards series) by Harry Turtledove
  • "The Lincoln Train" by Maureen F. McHugh in Nebula Awards anthologies Volume 31, Alternate Tyrants, and Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction
  • "Custer's Last Jump" by Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop (1976), reprinted in numerous anthologies.
  • "Hush My Mouth" by Suzette Haden Elgin, first printed in Alternative Histories: 11 Stories of the World as It Might Have Been (1986).
  • "All the Myriad Ways" by Larry Niven, with worlds of a CS victory being mentioned only briefly by the narrator in a list of alternate realities known in the story.
  • In David Mason's The Shores of Tomorrow, the slaveholding South dominates a technologically-backward US from its foundation until the 1940s, when a series of Northern rebellions leads to the creation of three Free Republics taking up the interior and leaving the Southrons with "a slave-holding, vice-ridden burned out piece of the coast."
  • The Wild Blue and the Gray by William Sanders. The Civil War alternate history is set during World War I in which the Confederate States joins the Allies.
  • In "For the Strength of the Hills" by Lee Allred a Mormon gunsmith develops an early Gatling Gun. With most of the US Army dealing with the resulting revolt, the South uses the opportunity to secede.
  • Clopton's Short History of the Confederate States of America by Carole Scott.

Film and television

Games

Comics

See also

References
  1. Silver, Steven. "Alternate History Month Contest". Steven Silver's SF Web Site. Retrieved November 30, 2008.
  2. Schmunk, Robert B. (2008). "Uchronia: The Alternate History List". Online database. Archived from the original on December 17, 2008. Retrieved November 30, 2008.
  3. Fred Bush (July 15, 2002). "The Time of the Other: Alternate History and the Conquest of Britain". Strange Horizons. Archived from the original on January 3, 2010. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
  4. Dyer, Gwynne. "The American Civil War: What if?". thespec.com. Retrieved April 12, 2001.
  5. Halter, Ed (February 7, 2006). "The Second Civil War". Village Voice. Retrieved October 16, 2016.
  6. Blackburn, Jolly R.; Jelke, Brian; Johansson, Steve; Kenzer, Dave; Kenzer, Jennifer; Plemmons, Mark (2007). Blackburn, Barbara (ed.). Aces & Eights. Kenzer, Jennifer; Shideler, Bev. Waukegan: Kenzer & Company. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-59459-086-3.
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