Alternative History
Register
Advertisement
Confederate States of America
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

OTL equivalent: SW Alabama
Flag Coat of Arms
Flag Coat of Arms
Motto
Deo Vindice (Latin)
("God Is Our Vindicator")
Anthem "Dixie"
Capital
(and largest city)
New Montgomery
Language English
Religion Christianity
Ethnic Group Caucasian
President unknown
Vice-President unknown
Population 24,000 (est.) 
Established 1985
Currency Confederate dollar

New Montgomery is a city of approximately 24,000 people, all Caucasian, located along the Tombigbee River in former southeast Alabama, outside the former Bladon Springs State Park and Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge.

It considers itself to be the successor to the 19th-century Confederate States of America and claims the entire southern United States as its territory. In reality, it controls only its city, and the adjacent state park and wildlife refuge. It has in the past referred to itself as the Confederate States of America, but in recent years has taken to referring to itself as New Montgomery or the New Confederacy (as to distinguish itself from other survivor nations).

History[]

The city was established in 1985 by Caucasians - mainly white supremacists - looking initially just to survive the holocaust thrust upon them by the events of Doomsday.

New Montgomery was named after Montgomery, the former capital of Alabama and the 19th-century Confederacy that had been destroyed by a single Soviet warhead on Doomsday. It began as a tent city, but within a few years was a bustling town, the buildings built with materials believed to have been harvested from the state park and salvaged from nearby towns.

1980s[]

The founders of New Montgomery - including its leader Clyde Harness, a former Alabama state policeman and General of the Alabama State Army who was involved covertly with white supremacist groups pre-Doomsday - are believed to have played a key role in the 1984 collapse of the provisional Alabama state government based in Auburn.

Harness and his lieutenants led a group from Auburn that passed through various towns around the region - sacking many of them - before settling at Bladon Springs in 1985. They were joined by similar groups from Mississippi and southern Alabama, and declared themselves as the reformation of the CSA that April.

Their scouts discovered a survivor community based in nearby Selma, consisting of both whites and blacks, trying to get through the crisis; historians among the New Montgomery survivors told the leaders of the importance of Selma to the Confederacy during the 19th-century Civil War. New Montgomery leaders and strategists then began forming a plan to attack and conquer Selma by a divide-and-conquer strategy: after peacefully entering the city and gaining people's trust, spark racial tension in the city, then kill those they planned to be the fall guys: African-Americans. This would eliminate competitors for food, medicine and other supplies and help "purify" the region in the process.

Within weeks, the men who posed as representatives of the provisional state government and as U.S. government agents had the city on the verge of rioting, provoking fear within white residents of the black community, and sparking incidents of fire bombings, arson and 'random' shootings within the black community. Resources were being routed to the white community, leading first to protests, then rioting, by the desperate black community.

On June 14, 1986, the black protesters attempted a takeover of the Selma courthouse, only to be met with gunfire, thus beginning the Selma War.

Over the next three months, thousands died in never-ending fighting, including virtually anyone who would have been a voice of reason in halting the conflict. The New Montgomery leaders - having killed off Selma's mayor and other civic leaders - ran the 'white district', consisting of the city's southwest region. Blacks controlled the rest of the city.

The vast belief by both sides was that - especially with the Alabama state government having fallen at Auburn, and no contact from the United States federal government nor military having come since Doomsday - they were the last humans on earth, or at least in the former United States.

It was 'disinformation', repeated over and over by Harness and his lieutenants who knew that survivors likely lived in south Georgia, and probably other parts of the nation. It was a policy that Harness felt would best maintain his power over "his people". The mindset was brought into pretty much by everyone, and even Harness's own lieutenants began believing it to be true.

That mindset likely was what ended the war.

On September 16, both sides agreed to end the war with a ceasefire, with neither side admitting defeat nor fault. The alternative was seen as finishing the war out to the last man, woman or child...and while pride helped fuel the fighting, the prospect of extinction was a much more powerful motivator to end the war.

As part of the ceasefire, Selma was handed over to the black majority; some whites agreed to stay as "servants", officially to atone for alleged crimes against humanity committed before and during the Selma War. Unofficially, blacks who preferred for the two races to work together and live in peace agreed to take in whites who were disgusted by the racist beliefs held by most of their contemporaries.

The whites agreed to leave with those who actually started the war, back to Bladon Springs.

Approximately 20,000 men, women and children wandered down Highways 22 and 5, overwhelming the tiny survivor villages they encountered and taking any usable food and resources they could. Leaders made camp in Coffeville. With winter not far off, plans needed to be made to house and feed and clothe 20,000 people; leaders decided to begin building a city near Bladon Springs as soon as possible.

The city was christened New Montgomery on October 29. Over time, tents and simple buildings built to house families and businesses led to the building of a town with a 19th-century, Wild West feel. Leaders made speeches about re-establishing the Confederate States of America, and even nominated and elected a President in a rigged election (only the leaders and those picked by them were allowed to vote in the hastily-called November elections).

Many of the people participated one way or another in helping build the new city, with materials from Bladon Springs, and from Coffeville and other abandoned towns in the region. A few hundred of those were African-Americans who were not allowed to become citizens, but were afforded "courtesies" that amounted to legalized slavery (they were released to Selma in 1988 after New Montgomery leaders decided they wanted to eliminate any possibility of re-sparking the Selma War).

In late 1989, New Montgomery scouts discovered the existence of survivor states in Hattiesburg and Natchez, Mississippi after encountering sentries from Hattiesburg while exploring southern Mississippi. New Montgomery's people were overjoyed that others had survived Doomsday; their leaders, knowing the Hattiesburg and Natchez people and leaders did not share their views, chose isolationism while they figured out how to best deal with the Mississippi survivor states.

1990s[]

New Montgomery has had skirmishes over the years with Hattiesburg and Natchez, Mississippi.

Over the years, leaders also went on several expeditions throughout the area to see what was there and if alliances could be made.

The expeditions, lasting from September 1993 through April 1998, were limited by the scouts' ability to travel by foot or horseback. Expeditions are known by Hattiesburg officials to have gone as far north as former Huntsville; as far east as Phenix City, Alabama; as far west as Natchez; and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico.

Scouts who returned from the expeditions north, east and south of New Montgomery came back with side effects believed to have come from direct exposure to radiation, as the men often went directly near or into the blast sites, most notably various forms of cancer. Physicians in New Montgomery debated whether the side effects were from preexisting physical conditions or from direct exposure to radiation, but in 1998 the CSA's ruling council used that as the primary reason to halt exploration of the region, and expansion of the CSA, and concentrate on fortifying New Montgomery and growing its population.

Another reason was the discovery of other survivor communities in northern and southern Alabama and southwestern Georgia.

For years, a cover story given to anyone "who needed to know" outside of the city-state's inner circle was, aside from individual survivalists living in abandoned towns, no survivor communities in the region other than Selma, Hattiesburg, Natchez and Portland, Tennessee were ever discovered. Therefore, the CSA leaders thought it sufficient to declare sovereignty over the entire southern United States, believing that if there were others in the south, they would have made their presence known by 1998.

In reality, leaders were suspicious of "rumors" of another Confederacy in the north, one that would likely be hostile to their aims and goals. They were also suspicious of a "neo-South" state to the east, and rumors not just of its anti-racist, multicultural stance, but also that it was ruled by former President Jimmy Carter. Some of the leaders had come into conflict with Carter and his lieutenants in the long-destroyed town of Auburn, and felt Neonotia probably had either built up a formidable military or (because of Carter's presence) would be backed by whatever government was the successor to the United States.

The great distance from both regions, along with the fact that scouts from neither had seemingly made their way to New Montgomery, helped cement New Montgomery leaders' stance to keep the city-state to itself. (It was learned in 2010 that the state of Alabama based in north Alabama and the "neo-South" state from the west had indeed sent scouts into New Montgomery, posing as wandering bandits)

In any case, New Montgomery leaders saying it ruled the entire south was good for propaganda and public relations purposes.

The 21st century[]

Since 1998, New Montgomery has avoided direct conflicts with its neighboring city-states, only making occasional forays to Selma and Hattiesburg for spying purposes.

Civil War Picture CSA Soldiers

Secretive Picture taken by LoN Scouts of Montgomerian Soldiers

In 2009, League of Nations scouts encountered the city and tried to quietly observe; they left after judging the area too dangerous to stay or to make contact with officials.

Changes?[]

The social situation in the city state was judged in the early 1990s by Hattiesburg leaders as static and unchanging for the next several generations.

Said a University of Southern Mississippi political theory professor in 1992: "the status quo (in New Montgomery) would remain the same well into the future; perhaps one day, the great-great grandchildren of the survivors of Doomsday might see a New Montgomery that embraces people of all races and creeds. Perhaps."

That professor - 83-year-old Dr. Erwin Koenig, a supporter of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s - was part of a expedition of private citizens that dared to approach New Montgomery in 2009 for dialogue and to re-establish relations between it and the rest of the world. A similar delegation visited Selma at the same time; the New Montgomery delegation, consisting of 19 whites and two Hispanics, spent eight weeks in the town.

Hattiesburg and LoN officials were startled that all 21 people of the group came back to Hattiesburg unharmed, and even more startled to learn that not only were the leaders willing to re-establish relations with the rest of the world, but that "many" people there did not share the hard-line racist attitudes attributed to the city-state's residents. The LoN announced that it would send in diplomats and troops to visit the city state in July 2010.

Demographics[]

The country is 100 percent Caucasian. All minorities, including people of mixed race, are legally barred from entry into the CSA.

Christianity is believed to be the de facto national religion, though it is not named as such in the CSA Constitution.

Most residents are 30 or older; an estimated one out of seven residents are 55 or older. One in five residents are teenagers.

Economy[]

New Montgomery is entirely self-reliant. Farms on the outskirts of the city provide the city's food; a primitive meat-processing plant on the east side is believed to provide beef, pork and chicken.

The Confederate dollar is the official currency, though old U.S. coins remain in use. Barter is more commonly used as citizens consider it to be a more reliable form of payment than the CSA Dollar backed by the ruling council.

Culture[]

What little is known about the city - gathered by LoN scouts and from CSA P.O.W.s - is that it resembles a 19th-century frontier town, dominated by "rebel" flags (the Dixie flag of the old CSA, which is the new CSA's official flag). Various forms of country and bluegrass music are popular, with newer songs taking on a simplistic, nationalistic tone or a racist tone. American football is apparently the primary sport, played on an informal basis.

Government[]

Intelligence from military and police agents from Hattiesburg and Natchez indicate that the "New Confederacy"/"CSA" nominally holds to the constitution of the original Confederate States of America as established in 1861. In reality, the city-state is ruled by a council that has varied in number over the years, from five to 20, and often dominated by three to five members. One oversees the military arm of the government, another the economy, another day-to-day governance of New Montgomery and another the police arm, which enforces the peace in the city and also monitors for dissent.

Over the years, citizens who advocated for better relations with Selma and Hattiesburg were tried and exiled; most have found refuge in Hattiesburg. Some were executed, some simply disappeared.

Advertisement