|
|
Post by raharris1973 on Jul 14, 2023 2:45:20 GMT
About 11 days before the first Battle of Bull Run, on July 10th, 1861, the world, including all the loyal states of the Union and Federal territories, wake up to find the territory of the 11 (temporarily) successful 11 seceded Confederate States of America, and the United States capital District of Columbia, and all surrounding waters going out for 100 miles, replaced with the equivalent territory of DC and those 11 states from April 10th, 1865, one day after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and three days before OTL's date of Lincoln's assassination.
To keep things clear, contested states, that had Confederate governments in exile like Missouri and Kentucky, or strong secessionist movements, like Maryland, remain as the 1861 incarnation. Along with DC, the President, Congress and Supreme Court comprising the federal government, are the 1865 version.
The butterfly affect will cause Lincoln's security to be bumped up or his entertainment schedule to be changed so he is not assassinated.
What is the net effect of merging the uptime ravaged and occupied and emancipated southern states, collapsing CSA military, and victorious Union military and government, a combination of a strong willful government, a mighty military and coastal brown-water navy on the US side, and supporting depots and camps, in the midst of an occupied, ruined land of collapsing resistance, refugees, and inflation, on the one hand, and on the other hand, a downtime 1861 Union barely touched or exhausted by war to date, but also not geared up to continuously support the forces of 1865 in continuous high-intensity operations?
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,832 
Likes: 13,222
|
Post by stevep on Jul 14, 2023 12:30:13 GMT
About 11 days before the first Battle of Bull Run, on July 10th, 1861, the world, including all the loyal states of the Union and Federal territories, wake up to find the territory of the 11 (temporarily) successful 11 seceded Confederate States of America, and the United States capital District of Columbia, and all surrounding waters going out for 100 miles, replaced with the equivalent territory of DC and those 11 states from April 10th, 1865, one day after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and three days before OTL's date of Lincoln's assassination. To keep things clear, contested states, that had Confederate governments in exile like Missouri and Kentucky, or strong secessionist movements, like Maryland, remain as the 1861 incarnation. Along with DC, the President, Congress and Supreme Court comprising the federal government, are the 1865 version. The butterfly affect will cause Lincoln's security to be bumped up or his entertainment schedule to be changed so he is not assassinated. What is the net effect of merging the uptime ravaged and occupied and emancipated southern states, collapsing CSA military, and victorious Union military and government, a combination of a strong willful government, a mighty military and coastal brown-water navy on the US side, and supporting depots and camps, in the midst of an occupied, ruined land of collapsing resistance, refugees, and inflation, on the one hand, and on the other hand, a downtime 1861 Union barely touched or exhausted by war to date, but also not geared up to continuously support the forces of 1865 in continuous high-intensity operations?
Possibly the biggest single issue, at least in the short term for most people will be the large number of those duplicated as all those northern soldiers occupying the affected region will have duplicated in the 1861 world - mostly in the union states although a lot of migrants still in Europe and some volunteers from other countries would be affected. Those 4 year older versions that have gone through the war and have to adjust to a world that had not and younger versions of not only themselves but family and friends.
|
|
|
|
Post by raharris1973 on Jul 16, 2023 16:59:12 GMT
About 11 days before the first Battle of Bull Run, on July 10th, 1861, the world, including all the loyal states of the Union and Federal territories, wake up to find the territory of the 11 (temporarily) successful 11 seceded Confederate States of America, and the United States capital District of Columbia, and all surrounding waters going out for 100 miles, replaced with the equivalent territory of DC and those 11 states from April 10th, 1865, one day after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and three days before OTL's date of Lincoln's assassination. To keep things clear, contested states, that had Confederate governments in exile like Missouri and Kentucky, or strong secessionist movements, like Maryland, remain as the 1861 incarnation. Along with DC, the President, Congress and Supreme Court comprising the federal government, are the 1865 version. The butterfly affect will cause Lincoln's security to be bumped up or his entertainment schedule to be changed so he is not assassinated. What is the net effect of merging the uptime ravaged and occupied and emancipated southern states, collapsing CSA military, and victorious Union military and government, a combination of a strong willful government, a mighty military and coastal brown-water navy on the US side, and supporting depots and camps, in the midst of an occupied, ruined land of collapsing resistance, refugees, and inflation, on the one hand, and on the other hand, a downtime 1861 Union barely touched or exhausted by war to date, but also not geared up to continuously support the forces of 1865 in continuous high-intensity operations?
Possibly the biggest single issue, at least in the short term for most people will be the large number of those duplicated as all those northern soldiers occupying the affected region will have duplicated in the 1861 world - mostly in the union states although a lot of migrants still in Europe and some volunteers from other countries would be affected. Those 4 year older versions that have gone through the war and have to adjust to a world that had not and younger versions of not only themselves but family and friends.
You bet, a lot of personal dramas here. |
|
|
|
Post by raharris1973 on Jul 16, 2023 17:02:00 GMT
Economic impact:
The south is devastated as it was in 1865, but the by now large occupied areas still put out some cotton crops and other crops that are no longer under blockade and available for the Union market and international market. In any case, the degree of *absence* of a highly productive southern export economy from 1865, is likely pretty parallel to what the situation was in summer 1861, with the USA's nascent embargo of the south, and the south's cotton embargo policy - so the ISOT of the south, in isolation, has little immediate effect on the 1861 global economy.
The Union merchant fleet of sail clippers and steamers in international trade worldwide still exists in summer 1861 and carries a decent chunk of world trade. It has not suffered direct losses to extensive Confederate privateer activity, consequent losses of insurance coverage, customers and market, and forced idleness yet. With the war and CSA privateering ending soon, it will never suffer its OTL wartime losses, and British shippers will not win the offsetting cargo and market share gains that occurred in OTL. At least not from war related reasons, only possibly for different reasons, internal to the shipping industry.
Union forces in the occupied south cannot be support at full combat intensity by the existing industry in the north. Nor can all the Navy's riverine ships and monitors, if a fully contested naval war scenario. Fortunately, certain supplies for the force can be augmented with foreign imports, mainly British, Belgian, French, Prussian Zollverein zone, while some capacity is expanded in the downtime Union. But more importantly than that, military and naval operations are simply no longer at their highest intensity with Lee's Army surrendered and the Union chasing down the scattered Confederate forces of Joe Johnston, Kirby Smith, the Texas Department, and Stand Watie, and significant supplies are already stockpiled at Union depots and magazines on occupied CSA territory.
Property relations are *complicated* because of duplicated people, and salaries owed, but certain problems and obligations go away.
Duplicated people have challenges in terms of two of the same man existing, but no extra farm property, no extra bank accounts, and only one wife or family for this man. Got to make sure to send people's military pay and pension to the right version, the guy who is actually serving.
On the other hand, so many of the costs of winning the war are now 'free' for the US Federal Treasury, and US (northern) society. The lion's share of bonds taken out to finance the war *after* July in 1861 from citizens, US banks and foreign sources, do not have to be taken out, leaving the ATL US with a reduced debt burden for decades. Taxes never need to be raised as high. Northern communities do not suffer the death, nor the prolonged absence, of so many of their men, from 1861-65.
The "unburdening" of these costs should be immensely helpful to the US economy and society and its human potential for growth, even if some of the grassroots organizational, financial, and industrial 'learning' and firm-building from the Civil War within the northern states and territories that propelled the Gilded Age forward is "lost".
A very significant, even if very incomplete, amount of organizational knowledge and technical knowledge 'learned' from 1861-1865 will be preserved among federal government personnel of all kinds in DC and administrative centers in occupied areas. The federal patent office was probably still located in the District of Columbia instead of Alexandria, VA in 1865. This being 1865, there having been no shortage of wartime profiteering, and being on the edge of the Gilded Age, I expect that Federal office holders and elected officials will doubtless be involved in numerous scandals involving trading on insider industrial knowledge and, theft or sale of patents, and leverage of all this for private investment and business opportunities and other types of corruption. But at the same time, it will build up the country.
Weapons technology know-how will generally be preserved, even if production lines are lost. Most items can still be reverse engineered by people with intimate mechanical knowledge working with 1865 weapons in the field. Of course, like in OTL, the USA post-ACW will greatly downsize its military. But it will want to retain a force to occupy the south during reconstruction, guard the frontier, and deter the French imperial adventure in Mexico that Lincoln and everyone else in Washington now knows to expect, and probably the Spanish interventions of the day in the Dominican Republic, and later against the states of western South America.
|
|
