"Alternate Harper's Ferry?" Topic

Query: many of you are more into alternate histories than I am from a wargaming standpoint. Has anyone ever done anything with a successful Harper's Ferry Raid, Or just gone direct to a guerilla movement in the south prior to or in lieu of the historical ACW? Has anyone read fiction on such a basis?

Lots of writers try to reverse the ACW--mostly with Gettysburg or the Antietam Campaign--but this too would send American history off in a very different direction.

What would the consequences be musically?

The HF raid was doomed, and I don't see how one could fiddle with it to make it less so. JB's original plan (as described by Douglass) had a lot more going for it.

Do folks know about the cryptic papers JB left behind -- on purpose -- in the Md farmhouse? They seemed to show a plan for widespread abolitionist uprisings. Of course the paranoid south went nuts, which was JB's intention. This is described in the essay on HF in Woodward's BURDEN OF SOUTHERRN HISTORY, iirc.

Good question, 42nd, but I can't sing.

Assuming such a campaign was ultimately successful--well, it's hard to imagine it leading to the segregated south still around in my youth. I could see it leading to a partitioned south--a separate black republic, probably the most likely outcome, positing the success--or a somewhat more racially equal south, probably without much of the legal segregation and with a larger black middle and upper class. Depending on the casualty level, possibly less immigration to the US in the latter 19th Century, or more of it directed southward. Beyond 1900--just too many variables. Really, even by the ACW Centennial, the possibilities were endless, and most authors just punted and reversed some aspect of our 1960 instead of going for anything really different.

At a guess, a smaller "great migration" possibly less black influence on (white) popular music, but greater black participation in classical music. But on TMP I was expecting more interest in the conduct of the war.

doc, I agree. But that doesn't always stop alternate historians. And as you say, the guerilla campaign might have had possibilities. (Problem there is that most of the black population was in the flatlands. There may be a fundamental incompatibility between slavery and rough terrain.)

The slave uprising would have been crushed mercilessly. There would have been atrocities committed by both side that would not play well for the insurgents in both southern and, more importantly, northern newspapers. I would expect the Civil War would have occurred later in history.

JBs plan was to send daring agents down into the flatland and then guide slaves up into the mountains. An armed underground railroad (more armed than Tubman's pistol).

One problem would be that the Appalachian white hillbillies, though they despised the lowland planters, were not exactly hospitable to blacks either. Nor would they have been to two group of outsiders going to their neck of the woods to fight. So a scenario of planters chasing runaways with Abol guardians could have a wild card third force of local hillbillies. Tat DOES have possibilities as a scenario.

So how would you handle the range of possible reactions by the slaves? Someone should start a thread about that.

robert, a similar scenario with reversed roles would be if Lee had yielded to his officers who wanted the army to break up and fight on from the mountains. Attitudes of freedmen, and hillbillies, etc would be crucial, and unpredictable.

True, doc. I would expect it to be something of a bust, myself--lots of young unmarried officers, and a distinct shortage of enlisted men, who had families and farms. But I could be wrong, and then the north would have all the usual unpleasant choices--abbreviated civil liberties, hostages, property confiscations. I'd expect a subtly different United States, but a drastically different one would be possible.

I've actually seen a "slave reaction table" if you will, for AWI stuff applicable for a John Brown guerilla campaign. I thought it didn't pay enough attention to the community. The slave quarters were no doubt a lousy place to live, but they were home and family. Most would try to stay together, and "off board" events might often be more important than player decisions.

Which would, of course, be a problem in a miniatures scenario.

What Brown said he was planning to do was take the weapons from the arsenal and then go up into the mountains to start a guerrilla style war. Highly doubtful that this would have worked. His chances of recruiting large numbers of slavery was limited and he would have raised the entire south plus the US government against him. Really no wargame for Brown winning at Harper's Ferry as he would have "won" by getting out of the city and into the mountains.

robert, yes, and when I played the AWI game I used your suggestion and rolled for each family and not each individual.