"Alternative Post-ACW Gaming" Topic

If the South had won a negotiated peace, what do you think a modern Confederate States of America would look like today? What wars might have been fought involving a CSA over the past 100 years? Does anyone game anything alternative like this?

I think that Harry Turtledove has some ideas…

McKinley Kantor outlines some interesting possibilities in his "If the South had Won the Civil War."

I have been toying with the idea for several years of a second civil war set in the 1920s or 30s that would settle the issue once and for all. My main battle ground would be the forces in Southern Ohio vs forces in the Northern half of The Free State of Kentucky.

Ive not read the speculative histories of a victorious Confederacy, but I suspect the south would have become a debt burdened "banana republic."

Britain no longer needed southern cotton, having successfully cultivated the Nile delta to produce a superior cotton, so that golden goose got cooked.

The south would have had to heavily tax Texas and Florida to subsidize reconstruction of the war ravaged upper CSA.

Texas and Florida might try to secede to avoid the taxes. Its not like anyone could say they couldn't.

An independent Texas might seem an attractive reconquest opportunity for a resurgent Mexico. Does Texas now apply to rejoin the northern Union?

CSA goes to Europe for rebuilding loans. They default. The French are now shelling Charleston. Does Washington decide to invoke the Monroe Doctrine???

My guess (just a guess), is industrialization gradually renders slavery irrelevant, and the south rejoins the Union, maybe 1-2 at a time. The US enters WWI at about 1895 level of development.

The Confederacy wouldn't have lasted five years. Texas would have gone as soon as it was obvious the the Confederate Government was pro-Maximilian. Louisiana and Mississippi would have been at war over freedom of navigation on the Mississippi River. South Carolina would have seceded over tariffs, which would have been the only taxes the other states would allow the central government.

and the price of cotton crashed, due to Egypt production, Then you had the Soil depletion and the cotton weevil.

Interesting to consider- Robert Ransom from UC Riverside wrote a book on this, The Confederate States of America – I am not so sure that the Confederacy would have broken up given the centralized control that the Confederate government developed during the war, but they would have had a lot of challenges, economic foremost

I suspect that the French would have wanted their assistance – or at least neutrality – with respect to Mad Max's adventure in Mexico and given lack of support one must wonder just how likely Juarez would have been in toppling Maximillian; the US sent tons of equipment to Juarez – I think at one point almost of the Army of the North was using ACW surplus Springfield and wearing ACW surplus uniforms! The war might have smoldered on for a long time, but 19th century rebellions without major outside support typically lost over time – plus it would be a way for the Confederate government to recoup some cash by providing, say, a "Confederate Foreign Legion" which the Mexican Imperial Army – with Austrians, Egyptians and Belgians – might have welcomed

Another question was Cuba which the Southerners coveted – I wonder if during the collapse of Spain's empire they might have wanted to pick it up

As to the Monroe doctrine, I think it would be dead a doorknob. I also suspect that Alaska would wind up a British possession. The US though might think more about the Pacific and work hard to get Guam and the Philippines

As to reunion, tough to say – depends on how far the two counties drift apart culturally and economically. Not impossible but also not inevitable

There would have been a constant series of small and large wars between the Confederacy and the US over the fate of the Western territories. Technically when the South left the Union they gave up any and all claims to those territories, but somehow I don't think they would have seen it that way.

Slavery would evolve into a system like apartheid. The CSA would face the fate that South Africa did. Not able to participate in the global community.

Perhaps there would have been a conflict with the US and Mexico over control of the western half of North America.

"Dixie" is an SPI game that covered a hypothetical war between the CSA and USA in the 1930s. I have the game and played it a couple of times.

link

These are great ideas and give me a lot to think about! I think I might actually remember "Dixie", although I never played it, and it may have caused this idea to float around in my head for years. Foreign alliances, saving the Southern economy, and the fate of the West create lots of interesting possibilities. Much thanks to all!

In some ways the CSA is a return the ideas of the Articles of Confederation and the notion a very limited federal government (or the kinds of reforms the anti-federalists in the 1780s would have been prepared to accept.) I don't think that was sustainable over time. I imagine most states returning to the Union over time and others being absorbed by force. I agree with OC that slavery evolves into an apartheid system for those states who manage to stay independent from the USA.