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The Southern War of Independence, also known as the First American Civil War or the Southern Rebellion in the North, was a civil conflict that occurred from April 12, 1861 to April 28, 1865. The election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, among numerous other factors, led to the secession of 11 Southern states and a four year long war which resulted in the formation of the independent Confederate States of America. It is considered a major turning point in American and Confederate history.
Background[]
The War[]
The war started with a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. With that, President Lincoln ordered 75,000 volunteers to be raised, and the war was on.
The first two years of the war were largely identical to OTL. The countries exchanged blows, with the Confederacy proving to be a much tougher opponent than the Union had anticipated. A decisive Confederate victory at Antietam/Sharpsburg is considered to be the point when the war turned to the Confederacy's favor. A continuing string of victories after that left the Union armies temporarily on the run.
Emperor Napoleon III
The U.S. regrouped and fought back in 1863, but the damage was already done. Another string of Confederate victories in the summer of 1863 led the French Empire to enter the war on the South's side. Emperor Napoleon III saw the potential for a strong French ally in America, especially appealing considering the ongoing French war in Mexico. The French navy was soon able to intervene, breaking up the Union blockade around the South. This action meant that vital supplies could finally start flowing in and out of the Confederacy by sea. The French proceeded to blockade New Orleans, blocking all Union trade along the Mississippi and only allowing Confederate ships to pass. France did not send many men to fight on the ground, but by that point it didn't matter. The U.S. was clearly beginning to falter.
Ulysses S. Grant
A major blow came to the U.S. army when promising officer Ulysses S. Grant was killed in action at Vicksburg. President Lincoln continued to shuffle through generals in the Eastern Theater, never finding a leader that he saw as competent. Critics saw this instability as one of the reasons that Lincoln's war effort failed.
By 1864, the Union still had a legitimate chance to win. This chance, however, would get smaller and smaller with each Confederate victory on Northern soil. A major victory at Gettysburg (a different battle than in OTL, but similar in scale) by the Confederacy sent the Union forces on the run for the remainder of the war. Their forces were scattered and the Confederacy was able to cause chaos occupying parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio, bringing the war effort to Northerner's doorsteps. Abraham Lincoln won a slim reelection in 1864 as the public realized that the North's chance at a victory was becoming slim.
Battle of Gettysburg
By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March, the war was all but determined. Though Lincoln promised to fight until the end, a major loss at Alexandria less than one month later crippled the remaining Union army in the East. The Confederates now had a clear, unopposed path to take Washington. Lincoln's generals pressured him to concede the war, seeing no other path to victory besides a brutal, years-long war of attrition the likes of which the world had never seen. Lincoln considered his options in solitude and determined that there had been enough bloodshed. He notified the Confederate government that he was willing to come to the negotiating table. A ceasefire was quickly signed.
Both countries were struggling from the hardships of war and were willing to give up some concessions in exchange for peace. The Confederacy came into negotiations wishing only for their independence to be recognized. Lincoln was willing to allow their independence as long as they did not demand states and territories they didn't control.
Treaty of Alexandria[]
The Treaty of Alexandria ended the war. In it, the U.S. agreed to recognize the Confederacy as an independent, sovereign nation. The border states of Missouri and Kentucky, which the Confederacy had never controlled completely, remained in the Union while the other 11 Southern states joined the Confederate States. The C.S.A. agreed to let West Virginia join the United States in return for the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma), and the southern half of the Arizona Territory. The treaty had a unique clause that guaranteed free trade between the nations until 1880, and free movement of citizens between the two countries until 1900. Both nations saw this as beneficiary to help reduce the strain of the unprecedented separation. The Southern negotiators also tried to include a clause that would force the U.S. to return all fugitive slaves that ever escaped across the border, but that was not accepted. The South also tried to include a clause that would allow any state over the next 5 years to secede from the U.S. and join the Confederacy, but that was even more objectionable to the U.S. In the end, the Confederacy was just happy to win its independence.
Aftermath[]
This war has had massive effects on the rest of American history up to the modern day, and historians still debate what could have been if the North had won and kept the Union united. Both nations went their separate ways after the war, but they were very different places than before the conflict had begun. The United States became a shell of its former self, with its citizenry depressed and uninspired. Their economy crashed following the war, and people found themselves unable to support their families. The Republican Party became known as a party of idealistic fools that plunged the nation into war for no reason. Besides the more radical part of the populace, most in the U.S. considered the war as a useless and bloody venture, and thought that they would have been better off simply letting the south secede peacefully.
Territorial aftermath of the war
The Democratic Party attempted to slowly rebuild the economy and the American way of life. A brief attempt at reconciliation was made by U.S. President Pendleton in 1876, when he hosted C.S. President Jackson at the White House for the American bicentennial. That meeting resulted in widespread outrage in both nations. By 1880, the people had a renewed desire to get revenge on the South and elected the newly formed National American Party to do just that. The two nations would then fight each other in every way but an actual war, and even then there were a few instances where a second war almost broke out. Eventually the two would fight again during World War I. As time went on and the war was further in the past, the public opinion of the war in the U.S. switched back around. It was viewed as a bitter lost cause, with the secession of the Confederacy causing far more problems, bloodshed, and oppression than was necessary if they had simply been reigned in during this first war. That view became the official view of the socialist USCA government that replaced the traditional US government in 1928, pushed in propaganda in hopes of making the populace willing to fight the South yet again and right the historical wrong.
The Confederacy, on the other hand, saw a period of great prosperity and inspiration after the war. Their economy had a boom period, and jubilant citizens aspired to build great buildings and create magnificent works of art. The French-Confederate relationship was strong in the five years following the war. The Confederacy credited France for helping secure independence and France had special access to Confederate cotton in return. Some began to resent the French control over Confederate trade- some Southerners even began to charge that France had merely joined a side already destined for victory in hopes of twisting the new nation to be in their debt.
The Mexican-Confederate War would break out in 1870, with the Confederacy taking several Northern Mexican states. The citizens felt unified and unstoppable. The French Empire, who had requested the Confederate intervention, fell during the war. From this point on, French-Confederate relations and trade grew much more distant.
Political parties eventually did arise in the Confederacy in the form of the Southern and Confederate Parties, which divided the Southerners in a way they had hoped to avoid. Whatever internal strife separated them, however, they always remained united against outside aggressors and resolved to never again become the subject of a "foreign occupier" like the United States.
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