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 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 scenario of a Civil War that breaks out at a different time from 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

  • In Hallie Marshall: A True Daughter of the South (1900) by Frank Williams, the earliest known Civil War alternate history, 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, remaining disenfranchised into the 20th century, as are people from Latin America, who are annexed by the Confederacy. 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 abolished slavery 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 against, denied basic civil rights, and is not even allowed to have surnames. In later volumes of the series, the blacks rise in a brutal armed revolt, called the Red Rebellion, during the Great War, which leads to a Holocaust-like genocide.
  • A more optimistic result in The Guns of the South and several other works has 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 all fight against Germany as close allies. After the Second World War, all three feel threatened by Soviet missile bases and armored brigades in Alaska, which was never purchased from Russia. They announce 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 Great War. They open an American front of trench warfare that is every bit as terrible as the one in Europe, and a generation later go to war yet again with the Confederacy developing a murderous tyranny similar to Nazi Germany. 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

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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