Review of "If the South Had Won the Civil War," by Mackinlay Kantor

 Review of

If the South Had Won the Civil War, by Mackinlay Kantor

Five out of five stars

A very plausible outcome

 The first thing that must be said here is that the word “won” in the title means that there was a Confederate victory which led to a negotiated end with the United States being split into the Union and Confederacy. The states added to the Confederacy were Kentucky and Maryland and Washington D. C. was no longer the capital of the truncated United States.

 The initial premise leading to the change in outcome is that General Grant was killed in a horse riding accident. Without his strong direction at the critical time of the battles along the Mississippi river, the Union forces there were routed. A similar event took place in the battlefields of the area of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Confederate forces under Lee defeated the Union forces, leading to their marching on Washington D. C. Under Confederate protection, President Lincoln was moved out of the capital into Virginia where he resigned the presidency. Once the fighting ended, there was a peace treaty where the capital of the Union was moved to Columbus, Ohio, which was renamed Columbia.

 This is a plausible outcome, for it was never possible for the Confederacy to win a complete victory with occupation of the Union. Once the disunion was complete, the worldwide forces against slavery, the geopolitical realities of the North American continent and the relative industrialization of the Union states led to dramatic changes.

 The Union continued to expand westward with the expanding railroad network and the widespread movement of people from the Union into the western section what would become the United States. Those people kept their associations to the Union and had no use for slavery. The cattle industry in Texas had no rail connections to their main market in the Union so they drove their cattle to the rail connections in Kansas where they could be marketed to companies in the Union. This led to political conflict between Texas and the Confederacy.

 The best alternative history is based on events where a different outcome had significant events and those consequences are plausible. That is the case here, it is conceded that 1863 was the last year where the Confederacy had a chance to win their separation from the Union. Once Grant dies, the driving force for a Union victory along the Mississippi is gone. Kantor then devises a thread of historical consequences that have a high probability of taking place once you accept a negotiated end to the Civil War.

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