For the purpose of filling out the background of a game I plan to run

Gettysburg was arguably the moment Lee lost the initive and was forced to fight on the defensive. Sherman's March to the sea was the death knell, though it took a while.

Would Deseret be able to offer anything besides goodwill in exchange for CSA interference against the Union?

The fuck is Texas, Mexico, California, etc. doing at this point

Didn't Aces and Eights already do this as a setting? Although I believe they had a strong indigenous nation come out of it as well.

For the CSA to win, well first and foremost you need to prevent a lot of deaths, mainly ASJ and Jackson, they are about the only confederate officers that could have pulled a win on the battlefield against the Union.
You need to rewrite the state leadership as well to send actual aid to the Confederate army, as many kept their own armies at home rather then sending them to the war as the confederacy could not legaly force them to fight. Alternatively a rewrite of the confederate constitution to allow this.
The Union needs to not find the confederate battle plans before the battle of Antetium.
You need England and France to recognize the Confederates, also having the US have gone through with attempting to Annex Cuba into the Union and having it join the confederacy would make the blockades that much more difficult.
The confederates really need outside help though they do not have the manpower or the resources and manufacturing to win a protracted war, they need to knock the Union out early with stunning victories and make them loose the will to fight, mind you this is very unlikely, baring this they need to hold their front until intervention or the Union can not send more troops.
A Mormon uprising could help relive pressure from the Confederates, or force the Union to aknowledge them and make an independent desert, it is unlikely the union would let them go without a fight however. (Utah became a territory of the US after the Mexican american war, in 1950)
A lot needs to change the CSA was fighting way out of its league with the civil war in terms of almost everything.

The CSA were already looked at favorably by European states - the British actually tried to back the confederacy but was unable to deliver due to the union blockade

HOWEVER the English did rescue one of the best naval officers of all time "Raphael Semmes" and had quite the high regard for the more "cavalier" nobility the southern antebellum had to offer.
It goes deeper than just "Gettysburg" and dont be so sure about the "as soon as they seceded" pointlessness of the struggle - there were many parts of the war where the south could have outright won - they were outnumbered 2:1 and were unable to keep up with the artillery of the union due to material shortages. Food and clothing were the biggest issues along with the failing overused rail system.

But honestly the biggest hit to the south was probably the death of Stonewall Jackson. The death of a literally living legend wounded the moral of so many southerners it is still talked about today - Lee was a great general and interesting man but didnt quite have the "Alexander the great" qualities of Jackson. Really what killed the south was the "moral" or "defensive" nature of their tactics - if they would have just lead an infantry heavy blitz north before the Union knew what was going on they could have created a buffer zone and protected their supply lines better (but the whole point for the south was to remain defensive - keep ONLY the land they had, and to keep invaders out).

>(Utah became a territory of the US after the Mexican american war, in 1950)
Wrong timeline, traveler.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Deseret

Read it again.

The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah.

>Mexican american war, in 1950

Duuuude, the Mexican-American War was over in '48, after LeMay got to walk that line of nukes from Guadalajara to Mexico City.

So 1950 is after the Mexican american war, the Mexican american war directly lead to the creation of the Territory of Utah what is hard to follow here?

I'd see support for Deseret being given on the basis that it's another semi friendly nation on the border with a common enemy. Plus Utah sat on the transontenintal rail road. The fact that Deseret is now independent weakens the Union. Texas is either a Southern state or possibly becomes a nation in its own right. The west coast/great basin area continue to be territories, after the war I'd see a three way tug of war between the CSA, the USA and political factions favoring continued independence within those territories.

>The CSA were already looked at favorably by European states - the British actually tried to back the confederacy but was unable to deliver due to the union blockade
They didn't though. They had just outlawed slavery and considered the south useful at best, but overall not very politically desirable. The cotton was valuable for industrializing England, but they managed to start importing from Cairo at that point, which being internal, was more desirable anyway.

Yes but you typed 1950 not 1850 .

Oh shit my bad, I should not post well tired.

>and is not likely to give up whatever territory they've occupied at date of the peace treaty.
Their aims were pretty much purely defensive.

They had zero hope of success anywhere along the war, but they weren't into conquest at all.

IMHO, the only thing needed for a CSA victory was Albert Sidney Johnston not to die at Shiloh.

With a good (or, hell, even half-way decent) CSA general in overall command of the western 'front' there would be no major CSA defeats which handed Lincoln victory in the 1864 elections.

Then peace breaks out, and the job's done.
And then we REALLY get to see how industry vs. slavery race goes.

>And then we REALLY get to see how industry vs. slavery race goes.
Poorly, look at Russia under Serfdom vrs Russia industrialized. It would be a very similar situation.

>And then we REALLY get to see how industry vs. slavery race goes.
Yes, this.

Special Order 191 is not discovered by the North, allowing the South to win at Antietam. Lee's Northern campaign is therefore successful, gaining recognition of the CSA by foreign powers. CSA gets foreign assistance through arms, ships, and money, and wins enough victories in the North to force the Union to allow secession.

Sumter surrendering rather then fighting would also make a huge difference in the perception of the war, by forcing the South to fire the first shot it made them look like aggressors in the war which was bad for them politically.

>The CSA were already looked at favorably by European states - the British actually tried to back the confederacy but was unable to deliver due to the union blockade

The British did not try to back the Confederacy, it merely tried to maintain trade with it. While the upper class may have been somewhat sympathetic to the Southern cause, most favored neutrality and the vast majority of the British public supported the Union.

>Really what killed the south was the "moral" or "defensive" nature of their tactics

If anything, the south was far too aggressive. It would have been a far better strategy to play defensive and not make any moves into Union territory. The main reason why the south did not engage in this strategy was due to this "cavalier" attitude, with most southern officers wanting to go out and engage the northern armies.

>Russia 'industrialized'

Unlike USA, Russia's 'industrialization' mostly involved current serfs being exploited in a new way - much like the rest of Europe.

You must have missed american industrialization.

>2) the creation and maintenance of the independent Mormon nation of Deseret?
That is basically impossible. Utah had a population of 40,273 in 1860.

>If anything, the south was far too aggressive. It would have been a far better strategy to play defensive and not make any moves into Union territory. The main reason why the south did not engage in this strategy was due to this "cavalier" attitude, with most southern officers wanting to go out and engage the northern armies.

That's horseshit. The North was willing to spend far too much in resources and men for the south to win that way. The south could not hold an entire front forever, and could not kill enough men to stop them from coming.

The only reason why attacking the North didn't work was because they lost in a tactical sense.

Considering it was 150 yrs ago ... thank god.

>The North was willing to spend far too much in resources and men for the south to win that way.
Well, yes.

But that doesn't make him wrong. The South was fucked no matter what it did. They pinned all their hopes on King Cotton and British help, and had no actual chance to win when they didn't pay off.

>This
There are so many quotes from both Lee and Jackson that go along the lines of "Punish the invaders and keep dixie safe".
Southern officers were cavalier but if you look up a campaign map you will see that there are VERY few attacks outside of southern territory.

Pretty sure that was funded by the government.

Ongoing cold war with the CSA? Not happening, except as a moonshot-alike.

>independent mormon nation of a few thousand starving refugees
wtf am i reading

Unfortunately the south threw the first blow with the attack on Sumter, that sealed them as being the primary offensive nation, they did very few pushes you are correct most of them aimed at ceasing Washington.

How far into the modern era will your campaign play?

If you think the South's industry is shit right now... imagine how much shit it'd be if they had kept their slaves even longer...

Fucking South America would start in Virginia.

This. The series crawls up its own ass with the historical allegories in the later books though.

The basic premise is that the Union loses decisively at the Battle of Antietam, which causes the UK and France to decide to recognize the CSA as its own country.

Adding to this, the series is called Timeline-191, named after Special Order 191 which was essentially Lee's plans for the Maryland Campaign in 1862. They were intercepted by Union troops, who found them hidden in a box of cigars of all things.

It's worth noting that there's a lot of speculative fiction around them. Not just if the Union hadn't intercepted them, but also if McClellan had actually been a decent general and had taken full advantage of knowing his enemy's movements and composition. The Union could have wiped Lee out and won the war a full three years sooner if McClellan had been willing to take any risks.

Formal recognition from Britain probably would have required some kind of agreement to phase out slavery since abolition was still a hot button topic at the time with a lot of popular support.

I'd recommend Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore for a version of how that might go

Britain opposed the slave trade itself, but actually phasing out slavery (especially in countries that weren't the Empire) wasn't as big of a concern as you'd think - not something to start a war over.

That said, you'd have to have the south build up some more industry to give them more of a chance - it's not totally incompatible with slavery, nothing about that era's industry requires the shit-level workers to be free

There was an opportunity a couple of decades before the civil war started for "the South" to expand into the carribean and mexico by annexing territory and creating colonies - (later) General Lee was even asked to lead one of these planned filibuster expeditions one point. The Golden Circle would be the fullest extent of these sort of ambitions, but it's extremely ambitious.
An incomplete circle also gives opportunity for Mexico to be an interesting factor in the area as well

This sounds fun, user.
I can't help but laugh at a few concepts though...
>modern era
>>There was an opportunity a couple of decades before the civil war started for "the South" to expand into the carribean and mexico

Imagine the alternate timeline here guys.
CSA wins war. Sometime later conquers north. Laters moves on to Mexico and Canada. All of North America is now the CSA.
Slavery is still legal. Year is 2020.

What kind of fucked up world would this be?
Would the CSA also join the Axis during world war 2?

It almost sounds like a /pol/ futue

>What kind of fucked up world would this be?
>Would the CSA also join the Axis during world war 2?
Everything else would probably happen differently.

But honestly, CSA winning is so radical a departure that you can't expect anything else to behave sanely.

>implying WW2 will not be butterflyed away, even if this TL was not totally ASB

I think the South would've lasted longer if they took on a more defensive approach, maybe even guerrilla warfare like the Swamp Fox did in the Revolution. This would've been helped if they had support from a European nation (which one exactly, idk). It's been a while since I've read up on civil war history, but I'm pretty sure Robert E Lee pushed for the Battle of Gettysburg so they can invade the Union and eventually force them to acknowledge the Confederacy as legitimate.

I've taken these thoughts from my high school military history teacher, himself a retired colonel.

Like this user said, Sumter would've been a first impression of the war to come. Twisting it around to making the Union the antagonist would've helped on the public relations front.

>They had zero hope of success anywhere along the war, but they weren't into conquest at all.

I meant CSA territory that the Union had taken. And they would have gained ground, even with British support.

>I think the South would've lasted longer if they took on a more defensive approach, maybe even guerrilla warfare like the Swamp Fox did in the Revolution.

Guerilla warfare is unfeasible for the South. Guerillas can't hold territory, they just make it difficult and expensive to move through. When the Union armies march through, getting sniped at occasionally, they'll free all the slaves, and cripple the economic base of the south.

They don't really have the right setup to do a Fabian strategy.

Simple mutual recognition as a nation would mean a lot politically for the CSA

They didn't? Most confederate privateers and blockade runners were outfitted in the UK. The CSS Alabama had British guns and crew. The Confederate army had british-made Enfield rifles in the thousands.

What if the All of Mexico movement had succeeded? Would that have given the South the economic base to at least win a secession?

adding to this, the states where such a guerilla, scorched-earth strategy would be fought would be those that were the most hesitant on joining the Confederacy in the first place. Tennessee contributed more southern soldiers to the Union Army than the next two largest sources of Southern Unionists, Virginia (the state that immediately saw a secession the moment it seceded) and North Carolina, all of which comprise the Confederacy's Northern Border.

A guerrilla campaign or one that and give ground to the Union would be weakened by Southern Unionists and would only serve to weaken sympathy for the Confederacy.

Actually, Lincoln sent troops in to garrison the fort. The fort was 'garrisoned' by what were effectively security guards due to costs. The seizure and refusal to surrender (at L's order) put them as aggressors in international law. Only L's propaganda shifted the narrative.

No, Mexico had already emancipated the serf/slave class so that their lands could be stolen. They would not have had a vote and the upper classes were closer to New England in philosophy an politics of the Elite. There would have been no popular sympathy among the peons for either, but the Union was willing to enslave freemen with the draft to pump into the meatgrinder of war, so why not kill another hundred thousand or so.

A union held Mexico would have denied VA the Texan and LA troops who helped carry the dat in the first battle!

Ah, I'd neglected to think that, while any Mexican states would have been to the south, they wouldn't have been 'Southern' and seceded with their neighbors.

What if the confederates promised to recognise Mexican independence in return for support?
Would lead to an interesting question over the former Mexican territories like California et al, which would affect Deseret too

You're going to need the CSA to voluntarily abandon cotton, since foreign competition was poised to crash their market and their farming practices were getting ready to fuck their soil. Then you're going to need a new economic staple and a shitload of money for reconstruction. And for said economic viability to somehow not tempt the CSA into retaliation or invasion.

OP here.

Let's simplify the question.

How does Deseret survive?

I thought that by splitting up the United States, they might prevent an invasion -- but it looks as though it probably wouldn't, as a CSA victory or even a stalemate appears increasingly unlikely.

That Robert E. Lee
>didn't have crippling depression
>had an army that didn't believe "building fortificstions" was nigger work.
>the south had military infrastructure and didn't have to rely on getting all their guns from captured union factories.

It was a federal fort, you revisionist numty.

Of course the couldn't surrender it if attacked. Maybe if they hadn't started shooting they could have bargained for peaceful purchase, but that Gung-ho "pssh, what are northerners going to do about it? " attitude is why they found our exactly what northerners would do about it; win.

Eventually you're going to have to just invent/change some major shit. Little in history hinges on one or two decisions. Most of it hinges on the aggregate of many decisions plus broad economic, ecological, and social forces that leadership doesn't have as much say in as they (and for that matter, whoever's opposing them) like to pretend.

Of course. Britain was happy to profit off the war. But that isn't the as support, even if it benefits one side more.

As a fun fact, a member of the Union office of the quartermaster (or whatever logistics was called) spotted those modern Enfields and tried to convince his boss the union should buy them to arm the very-outdated union forces; his boss was a veteran of 1812 and refused to buy from they british. He then suggested they buy them and dump them then, just to keep the confederacy from getting them; his boss threatened to fire him. That was why the Confederate infantryman spent the first half of the war better armed than the union counterpart.

Set your Wild West game in the future instead of the past, OP.

Maybe war destroyed the world, or the Yellowstone Caldera went off, and mankind has only recently returned to early 19th-century levels of development?

1-At what point do you deviate from history?

The Trent affair could have ended with blood spilt in a number of ways, but didn't. British blood spilt would have had Fleet street in arms before the ship carrying the news was docked. A brief sea campaign by the far bigger and better Royal Navy would have ended the illegal blockade (read up on Law of the Sea) within months. No declaration of war, simply checkmate. Royal ships were bigger, faster, in better condition, had longer ranged guns (Armstrongs), were faster, better seaworthiness, better captained, crewed with actual seamen, etc.

Humiliated, the Union morale, faulty at best would have sent dissatisfaction with an invasion of fellow Americans higher. British 'blockade runners would have supplied the Confederacy with all they needed, including powder, guns, artillery and even rails. The Union, having to garrison even more parts of the hinterland from those upset with the illegal draft, taxes, etc., would have fielded fewer troops in VA and Lee, field or supreme command, would have cut closer to DC. Losing the key battle due to a stronger Rebel army and dispirited troops, DC would have been cut off as Confederate troops occupied Baltimore in the spring of 1862. Enslaved union troops from MD would flock to the Bonnie Blue and The north would only be able to field a defensive force, as they dare not let up on the throat of the western states.

This confounds the North long enough for the 1860s Indian attacks to disrupt MN and IO, then NB and KN sucking up even more badly needed troops.

Now your Mormon 'state' declares independence and claims from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada theirs. They recognize several local tribes and use them as buffers.

CA is already a state and good Unionists a plenty, so they're safe, but England takes Oregon and WA to go away. CO is a Union island beyond a hostile sea of red.

To expand on this, you could get away with not directly explaining why shit's different. Figure out the big pile of shit that made things go down the way they did and change a lot of it sure. But rather than treating that as an explanation, just treat it as part of the setting. People in the world don't know where it's going, don't know where it would go if shit was different, and don't sit there wondering why it didn't go like it was "supposed" to (at least not unless something went unexpectedly wrong recently). If your players are getting a worm's eye view of the setting you don't owe them an explanation for which factors were decisive in making which changes. Shit's just different here.

Well California was Union and Texas was Confederate, but both only barely, and both were fairly sore points for Mexico - add that it was people from what would become the Confederate states making up the majority that fought in that war (and had eyes to expand further into Mexico), I don't think the South would find friends in the Mexicans

This, at the very least

The war in the East becomes a stalemate as Confederate leaders rail against expansion into free states (a motion passes to forbid entering foreign territory, but fails a passionate veto by Davis, but a later bill nearly passes again) and the Confederacy offers terms. The Capitol in New York, again, drags things on till the West is in near revolt. An armistice slips into a contentious peace by the mid-60s, and a few hostilities occur 'locally', most violently the New Orleans Revival that saw the city burned to the ground by escaping Union Soldiers. WV remains Union, the TN/KY migration is less bloody by far, but more contentious by far. Lawyers get rich of claims and counter claims.

British investors, rather than Yankee speculators build the first transcontinental rail using a proprietary rail gauge to vex all others. the line crosses an easier path and is completed at a Flathead camp in Manitoba, August 15, 1868. An all weather (ha) line is finished two years later.

The 'victorious Confederacy lasts all of 9 years after the 'peace', Texas seceding on Jan 1, 1871 with the 'civilized tribes' forming the People's Consolidated Nations, a crude implementation of a book, Das Kapital. It lasts from Early 1872 till current, but is falling apart fast. Despite close in thought to actual practices among the tribes, few can stomach the more radical ideas.

With the freeing of New Orleans, the numerous peoples of the Mississippi River begin to form an economic community. In 1874, the biggest shipper on the whole river system in Bonaduce and Associates of Cairo, IL. Despite rails, the barges are the main thoroughfare of mid-western commerce. With illegal ties in the North and weak objections from the Confederacy in the East, a new nation seems to be forming.

The agricultural impedance for slavery in the East has begun to fail as land becomes exhausted by too many years of King Cotton. Parts of Georgia are nearly desert. The boom years are over and Egypt is nearly as prolific as the Old South.

Economic destitution haunts every years harvest and slaves are sold into Texas by rail car lots. Anti-manumission laws are ignored and skilled blacks are freed in order to make money on their own, though often with white backing. Despite being a small share of the population, blacks represent almost a third of blacksmiths, drovers and similar professions by 1870 in VA. The need for these men to be able to read makes mockery of the education ordinances. The last case charged was literally 'whipped' out of court by a judge who was raised with the black teacher. In 1874, a Va law was passed that a slave could not be freed unless he could read, fine of 10 years wages!

The Union saw as radical of changes. Contraband slaves were allowed to stay in the USA for two years or be deported (Both the 1864 and 1868 Congresses were vicious.). Relief agencies became notorious fronts for Emigration Clubs, shipping at least a million back to Africa, supposedly Liberia, but not always. Free white labor often rioted if a black acted uppity, famously burning Robert Washington (lawyer) for winning an acquittal of a black on murdering a white from an all white jury. Two jurors died with him.

Many Blacks in the North fled to the West, settling in the Nations. These became the settled folk long before the tribes dared.

Abolitionists tried to integrate Freedmen into New England and New York, but the blood lost in the War worked against them. Ghettos arose in New England and spread west. Peyonsville in PA, Tulsa in the Nations and South Chicago all became 'negrotowns' and thrived. Less productive white resented this and take it out on the straying Black. By 1875, there were over a hundred of these 'towns, some independent, but most attached to a larger city. Atlanta had Dunwoody and Richmond is developing the Road as one. The only true 'cosmopolitan city is New Orleans.

The US never recognized the Nations, but an alliance of sorts with the crumbling Confederacy and Texas has warded of any excursions. With a recovering economy, few see anything other than the 'weak' plains savages as a possible foe.

Now, what is going to be the focus of your campaign.

For fuck's sake OP just play Dogs in the Vineyard.

There is no need to overanalyze it. Lee gets a (larger)string of early victories by sheer dumb luck or unexpectedly brilliant moves, the Trent Affair goes hot and facing a two front war and possible annexation the Union decides to sign a lenien and amicable peace treaty under british aegis.

Its also good worldbuilding practice to draw out differences instead of a single huge point of change. Maybe an independent Deseret was the result of a treaty between clashing confederate and unionist colonial push in that area, creating a neutral buffer stare. Maybe there are more balkanized states around, like an independent Columbia formed by the unionist refugees from the CSA sparking USA-england conflict. Maybe the CSA invaded california together with Mexico to weaken the union further and helped to establish an independent California Republic. Maybe the CSA went full Golden Circle and keeps invading middle and south american countries for a continental manifest destiny, allied with Brazil.

You should focus the general "feel" and tone of the setting much more than historic errata, because the players will likely care more about it than historic errata. Have the game start in the state of Lee in an independent CSA and everything is told right away. Maybe call a pub somewhere "Lee in 'shington" or have some drunkards sing "Stonewalls march to Maine" as a funny background event. These will tell far more to the players and organically build up versimilitude.

>federal fort on land ceded to the federal government by the state
fuck off secessionist revisionist scum

Fort Sumter was land of the US government not the state.

Pretty much this.
If you study the history of the period, there's tons of potential points of divergence.

I think you're underestimating the war weariness in the north.

Army units were recalled to put down rioting int NY.

The south was at a major disadvantage, but they didn't have to win, so much as not lose.

Historically the Union has some pretty shit generals and it went about as well for the south as they could hope.

>ctrl+f Deadlands
0 replies

Is the reason none of you mention it because you don't know there already exist such a setting, or is it because Deadlands is Alt-history+Supernatural Horror and OP wants a pure Alt-History setting with no Supernatural Horror?

>pure Alt-History setting with no Supernatural Horror?

Yes.

Ok, carry on without me then. When it comes to historically accurate Wild West, I got nothing to contribute.

France had a far higher stake in the Confederacy's independence because of both their imperial ambitions that were on-going in Mexico with the Mexican Empire as well as their reliance on Southern cotton.

The UK had Egypt and to a lesser extent India to fall back on for cotton imports, while France had no colonial body (at the time) or close ally at the time to draw on for cotton, so having a weak United States and an independent CSA was very much in France's interests at the time.

In regards to other European powers, both Prussia and Russia looked at the Union favorably. The former for various internal reasons relating to the idea of uniting Germany and the latter had been a long-standing friend and supporter since the Revolutionary War. Russia had actually declared that recognition of the CSA would have meant war with the Russian Empire, so it's something to keep in mind if you plan to go through the 'recognition equals the end of the Civil War' route.

Also keep in mind there were forces in the Confederate government who had their own imperial ambitions in the Caribbean and Central America, part of which involved the Knights of the Golden Circle. The organization probably would have been reformed under a different banner but the concept may potentially become an enduring trait and secret society among the Southern hierarchy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle

the confederates having a unified rail guage.
the confederates having popular support for the civil war
the confederates not having an economy built on slavery
the confederates not invading fort sumter
the confederates having dragons.
the mormons having divine magic spells and all the mormons having class levels in cleric.

Literally Spike Lee's CSA. Worth a watch but not exceptional.

What about California? Would they take that opportunity to break away and also become thier own country?

I didn't mean my post positive.

Slavery existing even longer in the CSA would have further slowed technological advancement in the South to the point where a modern CSA would be some 'south-american' banana republic shithole.

Bushwhackers.
Mormons beyound the borders were already dressing inbred face to waylay Americans travelling west.
Instead of false flagging, they could be actual stand up combatants. The Danites would be their elite scout groups. They cut the Union off from the gold in California and funnel it to the CSA.

There is pretty much no way for the South to have won, without just changing society so that the North didn't care about unification.

Europe had no reason at all to interfere and waste their own lives to protect a slave nation when it was already illegal in their own.

The South would have lost eventually, no matter what simply due to manpower and resources.

Now, changing culture to not care about the unification is pretty easy. Look at the modern world. Most Northern states practically want to kick the South out, and the South would be happy to go.

Just change a few key events leading up to the war that reduce America's love for union, and no one will mind the South leaving. You'll still get your rivalry when the South starts invading Mexico and Cuba.

Sherman gets properly shot at Shiloh. Not wounded, shot dead. That would be a pretty damn big loss for the Union, even if they wouldn't understand just how big at that point.