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Hattiesburg is a city-state located in the southern portion of the former U.S. state of Mississippi.
Hattiesburg was one of the few towns in its region that survived Doomsday. It was the capital of a provisional Mississippi state government that lasted from October 1983 through April 1986, then became an independent citystate that has lasted to the present.
An estimated 133,000 live in Hattiesburg proper and the surrounding region. Its territory extends roughly 30 miles in all directions from central Hattiesburg, but also extends south to former Bay St. Louis on the Gulf of Mexico. Hattiesburg's constitution is based on both the United States constitution and the Mississippi state constitution, with a governor as head of state and a bicameral legislature.
Hattiesburg's economy is agrarian, and like many survivor communities in the former U.S., reflective most of a hybrid 19th- and 20th-century society. Conservatism and Protestant Christianity are heavily influential in Hattiesburg, despite the presence of a small, secular community centered at the University of Southern Mississippi campus.
History
Hattiesburg, as the largest surviving city in southern Mississippi, became the destination for Mississippians and Alabamans looking for refuge from the multiple blasts that hit the region, particularly along the Gulf of Mexico. The civic leaders of Hattiesburg, along with millitary officials from nearby Camp Shelby, officials at the University of Southern Mississippi, local church leaders and the National Guard, worked together to call for calm and help distribute needed food and supplies; this cooperation helped Hattiesburg avoid the fate that destroyed other college towns in the southern and midwestern U.S.
Hattiesburg was named the provisional capital of Mississippi by locals in 1984; the designation was dropped formally in 1989.
Despite potential and significant differences between the Protestants and the secular university leaders, both sides have worked well together over the years. That cooperation was considered key in defusing tensions in the city from Doomsday through 1984, as well as forging an alliance with Natchez that helped bolster the region and eventually foil an attempted invasion of Hattiesburg by New Montgomery in 1992.
Camp Shelby officially became the primary base of the Mississippi State Army in 1984 (as recognized by the Hattiesburg government), and formally passed into control of the city government in 1989.
New Montgomery "invasion" of 1992
The invasion was a total failure with many comical moments that masked the seriousness of the threat the New Montgomery militia posed to the rest of the region.
Spies from Hattiesburg and Natchez in the CSA confirmed what officials and military from Hattiesburg and Natchez suspected for some time: the New Confederacy was gearing up for war. The Confederates were outnumbered - especially when factoring in reinforcements from Louisiana - but officials were aware of the atrocities the Confederate leaders oversaw in Auburn. It was known that most of the belligerents had died during the Selma War, but the Confederate Army still garnered a great deal of respect and wariness.
The General of the CSA Army, Jefferson Davis Lee, claimed to be a direct descendant of Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was said of the general that his loud personality and penchant for exaggeration was in direct contrast to his incmpetence in regards to military strategy.
More to come....
The turning point of the battle was when, on the morning of April 4, Lee sent his men - who hadn't slept in 20 hours and not ate in two days, armed only with shotguns and pistols - in a straight line headed for Hattiesburg. The spies who managed to escape New Montgomery got to Hattiesburg 72 hours before Lee's men arrived, allowing the Hattiesburg and Natchez military to trap the Confederates in a pincer.
Outgunned and outmanned 4 to 1, trapped in a pincer 10 miles east of Hattiesburg, Lee told his men to" CHAAARRRGGEE". Seeing opponents with superior weapons, nearly 200 soldiers surrendered on the spot; the brief "war" ended in 45 minutes, with only four men dying on both sides in the initial shooting, and hundreds of Confederate men surrendering on the spot (sometimes waving their underwear).
Lee found his way into town, tracked every step of the way by Hattiesburg military. He made his way downtown, stopped and stood on his horse and declared Hattiesburg to be Confederate territory. He then looked backwards and saw only bemused and shocked citizens, and a couple of teenagers in a Dodge Charger painted red, white and blue.
The teens - and police deputies on horseback - chased Lee out of town and straight into the waiting Hattiesburg military, already overseeing hundreds of surrendered Confederate soldiers.
1992-2009
The Natchez-Hattiesburg alliance also grew to include several towns in Louisiana near the Mississippi borders and eventually the town of Lake Arthur, in south Louisiana.
In recent years scouting expeditions were authorized to points east, southwest and north. Much of what the scouts found corresponded to what was already known, other than the existence of some type of survivor community in Jackson, Tennessee. The scouts were ominously told by survivalists along the northern Mississippi/western Tennessee border to "stay out of that area, it's not somewhere you want to live". Information from those survivalists, along with the distance to Tennessee, led Hattiesburg officials to decline to pursue further contact with the region.
Scouts also returned with information about survivor communities in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma; distance was also a factor in prompting Hattiesburg leaders to decline long-distance exploration. Instead, the city worked on strengthening ties with Natchez and Louisiana.
In 2009, League of Nations scouts made "first contact" with Hattiesburg residents who were having a church picnic southeast of the city. The scouts met with Hattiesburg mayor and other city officials; in turn, this led to an official visit from LoN official Brant McAllister in October 2009.
The League of Nations was impressed enough with the organization and influence of Hattiesburg in the region that the LoN opted to make it a regional headquarters. Over the next five years Hattiesburg is targeted to become a military and economic base for the former mid-South, as well as a base for further exploration of the region.
International relations
It is not a member of the League of Nations, although it is considering membership. One complication is that most people, including many in government, consider themselves to be citizens of the United States. There is a small, and growing, movement to connect with the provisional U.S. government in the west, as well as to link up with other survivor states in the south for a similar union; both have been endorsed by the Committee to Reestablish the United States of America.
The CRUSA has been criticized by officials from the LoN and West Texas for attempting to force itself "too soon" on the affairs of a small nation-state just learning of the existence of similar states in the former U.S.
Economy
More to come
Demographics
More to come
Government
Hattiesburg is currently governed via a mayor-council system. The mayor is elected for a term of four years, and can serve unlimited terms. The city council consists of nine members who are elected from one of nine wards, five in Hattiesburg proper and four outside the city. The four non-Hattiesburg wards represent smaller towns and villages that, though independent, for political purposes, are considered part of Hattiesburg. This is leftover from Hattiesburg's status as the capital of the provisional government of Mississippi; then, the mayor acted as the governor, and the council expanded to act as the state legislature.
Culture
More to come
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