Instead of Robert E. Lee, he retires and you now have to figure out a way to achieve a decisive victory against the Union in 1863 as grand army commander of the Confederacy. How do you do it, /k/?
>>64524627Build a time machine back to 1860 to tell Davis that he is an awful judge of talent, implement an actual coherent strategy, send orders not to violate Kentucky neutrality, don't fire in Ft. Sumter, at least not until you have a navy, find real diplomats, not pro-slavery fire-eaters who will torpedo any chance of foreign intervention trying to convince sympathetic British officials that slavery is a moral good, and come up with a plan for compensated manumission, possibly with British cash.
>>64524627Is this before or after Chancellorsville/Gettysburg?Also first thing’s first, >scream at Jefferson Davis to give command of the Army of Tennessee over to Longstreet>no more fighting pitched battles except where absolutely necessary or on our own terms, force conservation will be the name of the game going forward>rip a couple pages from the Soviet and Japanese playbooks, seize a whole bunch of slaves through eminent domain, and start building some railroads Nothing will stop the pregnant Anne Frank timeline this time around
>>64524696It's before
>>64524684I forgot to say to never implement the cotton embargo. Christ, the Confederate leadership was atrocious.
>>64524627Make sure Stonewall Jackson never dies
>>64524755Well in that case…>have II Corps depart for Chancellorsville earlier in the day (or even have them conduct a night march and attack the following morning), also politely remind Jackson to avoid going too far ahead of his men>detach Lower South units and send them to assist Vicksburg, if that’s not practicable, release a bunch of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the swamps East and South of the city and let them do the rest
>>64524684Don't forget to tell him that although McClellan can't really be beaten he also isn't going to actually do anything besides turtle up.
>>64524771They were wannabe aristocrats who couldn't see that the handwriting for slavery was on the wall, globally. The Confeds were screwed either way:>lose war, lose plantations, lose slaves, etc.>win war, now you're committed to slavery full-time because all your leadership are fire-eaters, but Europoors are anti-slave and boycotting slave-made products. Besides, they've started cottoning the hell out of Egypt and India. Plus, cheap labor is the foe of innovation, so Confed agriculture is gonna get out-competed by increasingly efficient competitors, and slavery is a bit pyramidish, requiring constant expansion to keep going.That second scenario is the worst for the CSA to get into.
>>64524627Easy, I develop nuclear weapons and destroy the east coast /thread
>>64524627Win in the west, fuck Virginia.
>>64528303Most acknowledged that slavery was going to end at some point in the future. Some, such as Lee, proposed plans for manumission in exchange for military service from slaves and/or government compensation to owners, as had been done throughout the British Empire. However, Southern leadership was absolutely determined to kick the can as long as possible, all the way to the very end. They were never serious about figuring out what would come next after slavery and how to implement said next steps.
>>64528303This.
>>64528330Unfortunately that had been happening since 1808, when the Transatlantic Buck Break was ended. Nobody wanted to rip off the bandage and figure out a real plan for ending slavery, but radical slavery fetishists took control of the South and it all went downhill from there.
>>64528303>win war, now you're committed to slavery full-time because all your leadership are fire-eaters,In March, 1865, the Confederate Congress authorized the recruitment of slaves as soldiers in exchange for their freedom, knowing full well that if it somehow turned the tide, that it would likely open the door to eventual total abolition (just on Southern terms rather than Northern). Attitudes change and the Civil War would have irreparably damaged the institution of slavery regardless of which side won. Just because the Confederate Congress of 1861 was full of proslavery zealots doesn't mean it would be in 1870.
>>64524627Explain to everyone what happens to America after blacks are allowed freedom, that'll end the war very quickly
>>64528543>March, 1865Irrelevant. The war ended a month later. They were desperate for something, anything to work.
>>64528576That was my point. When their backs were to the wall, they were willing to essentially sacrifice slavery to save the Confederacy. I don't see that sentiment diminishing if they had actually won. If anything, it would have gotten more pronounced as the Confederate national and state governments came to be dominated by the "war" generation (those who had actually fought in the Civil War).
>>64528664why wouldn't it diminish, a mere 3 years after the war ended the kkk emerged as a response to black people having citizenship
>>64524627>How do you do it, /k/?Focus on naval buildup and blockading northern ports. Develop effective countermeasures to railroads and sabotage lines.
>>64528664And it was too little too late. Had they been more pragmatic and realistic in 1860 they might've actually succeeded, but they refused to compromise on slavery until they were already long past done for.
>>64524627March into Richmond, kill every single member of the CS government, and then offer to surrender to the Union with my only stipulation being that all slaves or former slaves must be shipped back to Africa and given rifles and ammunition after they disembark.
>>64528685I say they were willing to sacrifice slavery to save the Confederacy, not accept blacks as equals with citizens' rights. Bit of a jump between those two.
>>64528763>given rifles and ammunition after they disembark.t.
>>64528816That was after half a century of american blacks oppressing the local blacks. Plantation houses and all.Funny how that goes.
>>64528819>we were deprived of the timeline where Liberia has closer relations with the Confederate States of America than the United States of America
>>64524627Gather as much intelligence as possible, and ride across West Virginia to Columbus, turning myself over to the Union forces. The war was lost by then. I will surely be blamed for it as the man who replaced Our Martyr Lee and as someone unprepared for commanding an army. Hopefully some decent investment will save my post-war finances and I can shoot guns on a massive ranch out west somewhere. Better to end the war earlier, save some lives and maybe smooth over the antebellum problems a bit.
>>64528543>Just because the Confederate Congress of 1861 was full of proslavery zealots doesn't mean it would be in 1870.Fine, but how long until the fire-eaters are weeded out, and what's the Confed economy gonna look like? The cotton markets in Europe will have been monopolized by Egypt and India, and the South has basically no real industrial base to fall back on. There's no winning this.When Bongland paid the slave owners to free them, they had a massive varied economy, and slavery had been always restricted to a few tiny Caribbean islands, a bit of Central and S. America, and a few tiny African outposts. And their slave population was much smaller than the CSA's. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of Britain's economy wasn't slave based. And they still only finished paying off all the emancipation debts a few years ago (two massive wars probably caused a lot of delayed payments). How's it gonna work for the CSA, who's whole damn economy is slave based, when they've lost control of the cotton markets?
>Blocks your path to victory
>>64529410What heck did you just say about me, you misguided fellow American? I'll have you know I graduated middle of my class at West Point, and I've been involved in numerous logistical planning sessions, and I have over 3000 confirmed miles of railroads i've built. I am trained in logistics and I'm the top organizer of artillery in the entire Union Army. You are nothing to me but another wayward fellow American. I will slowly fortify my position while reinforcing my reserves the likes of which you have never seen. You think you can get away with retreating from me? Yes you can, i don't want anyone to get hurt. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of railroad executives across the Union and telegraph lines are being hung right now. I am the immovable wall that will just stand there and thwart you. You're in need of uniforms, rifles and shoes kid. I can be in one place, all the time, and I can out supply you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my pen. Not only am I extensively trained in logistics, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Army of the Potomac and I will use it to its full extent to educate you as to why you are wrong to fight me, you misguided fellow citizen. If only you could have known what unholy logistical build up your little "clever" rebellion was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have have looked to your own supply lines. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you fools. I will build fortifications and field hospitals and you will envy them. I hope you guys come out ok from this war and as many of you get home as possible.
>>64529391The fire-eaters would be blamed for the war and the state of the postwar economy and would be gone by the next election cycle. You'd then see a slow and scattered industrialization in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia who had already been working in that direction before and during the war while Texas would use their millions of feral cattle to rebuild their own economy just like the did irl. The other states would be fucked.
>>64529410>>64529424Fun fact about McClellan that I think explains much of his behavior:He was a part of a party of American observers and attaches sent to Crimea to learn about how Europe was fighting it's biggest, most recent war. The whole thing really didn't go as planned, so the party spent most of its time with British officers, without getting to hear much from French or Russian and actually missed the war itself. They did however tour the battlefields and trenches with British guides immediately after the fact.I conjecture that much of McClellan's caution and obsession with organization and supply was due to hearing horror stories from his British guides about command and control failures, cold, starving troops, and terrifyingly resilient Russian trenches.
>>64529503McClellan was a supremely good organizer and logistics man who should have been 'promoted' out of Command and made Secretary of War but we already had a very good man in that job. His problem is ultimately he was a good man who didn't want to hurt anyone. He would never chase down a retreating foe to destroy their forces, that would be a evil thing to do. He always went out of his way to avoid hurting people because he was a good person. He was too good of a person to ever win a war, especially not the one he was in charge of. >I conjecture that much of McClellan's caution and obsession with organization and supply was due to hearing horror stories from his British guides about command and control failures, cold, starving troops, and terrifyingly resilient Russian trenches.I agree completely. His troops never had to worry about that and i'd argue that once he set the standard for how Union Troops should be supported the USA has never changed it. He was the man who created the logistics heavy method of war the USA uses and he was a genius for doing so, he is the reason that 72 hours after the US President commands it we can roll a Burger king out of a C-130 anywhere on Earth. He needs more recognition, not for his failings but because he laid the logistical groundwork for US Global dominance.
>>64529545>>64529503New AAFES PX fast food chain: McClellans: The mascot is McClellan with a Burger King Crown holding a $1 cheeseburger and a $5 blanket.
>>64529545>72 hours after the US President commands it we can roll a Burger king out of a C-130 anywhere on Earth.Surely we could do it faster than that if needed, r-right?
>>64529562In theory yes but we would need a executive order so we could suspend OSHA regulations allowing the cooks to airdrop alongside the restaurant in NBC suits.
>>64529627>needOh yea of little faith...
>>64524627I would stay within my borders and create static trench defences in depth at strategic crossings and valleys. I will petition the CSA to divert 2/3 of the military budget to drastically expand the Navy and deny the Union the Gulf of Mexico. This is to allow international trading to continue. The Union will very likely dither during the first few months of the "Phony War" since we are not aggressively attacking them. I will fund provocateurs to infiltrate the Union and spread anti-war sentiment; see, these Southerners are a peaceable folk, they just want to be left alone. Eventually, the Union will try to invade, but my deep land defences will wear them down while the Union Navy can't effect a blockade. I will whittle away the Union forces. As months turn into years, war weariness grows in the north. Clearly the Union is the aggressor against the purely defensive CSA. International sympathy also grows for the CSA. No one likes a bully. Eventually, Lincoln loses the elections and a peacenik president negotiates a peace treaty.
>>64524627Offer the biggest black booty to whoever kills the Union leadership (Lincoln, Steward, Grant, Sherman, Scott, etc.)
>>64528303Europe was already buying cotton before the war despite being anti-slavery (realistically it was only the UK that really gave a shit) and Egyptian cotton and Indian cotton only became cost-efficient due to the war. A victorious CSA would have seen a loss of market share, but not a catastrophic one. Ultimately the problem is that you're making a judgment with 160 years of hindsight not available to them. You might as well argue that the Union shouldn't have done a thing as the boll weevil would have collapsed the CSA by the 1920s anyway.
>>64532891>the boll weevil would have collapsed the CSA by the 1920s anyway.Ehhhhh... The Confederate economy would have 60 years to diversify (unlike demographics, diversity absolutely is a strength when it comes to economics) by then. It would have hit a theoretical Confederate States hard for sure, even generated serious unrest, but not destroyed it.
>>64528685>why wouldn't it diminish, a mere 3 years after the war ended the kkk emerged as a response to black people having citizenshipThat was a direct consequence of the South losing the war and having the Reconstruction Amendments essentially forced upon it (nevermind that the kind of social reforms Reconstruction called for wouldn't even be fully implemented in the North for another century). The average Southerner would have been at least somewhat more receptive (or at least less violently reactive) to those ideas if the Confederacy had won the war and they had emerged as part of a homegrown movement. I say this because some ex-Confederates (James Longstreet, John Mosby, John Wise, even Nathan Bedford Forrest towards the end of his life) WERE receptive to them, and they would've had a lot more clout to advocate them if they could stand up presenting themselves as Southern patriots who had fought and bled to secure Southern independence, and say that the time had come to move past slavery, than in reality where their words fell on deaf ears and they were just seen as suckups to the Yankees.
>>64533354>Nathan Bedford ForrestHim being a not only a pro black but a pro women's rights activist near the end will never stop being funny. If he was alive he would have marched with King without hesitation.
>>64524627Turn half of the Confederate Army into guerillas. Draw the Union Army in, cut them to pieces and wear them down.. Only muster large forces and allow larger battles when they are too weak.. Sabotage Union industry and infrastructure. Get support from England via offering to cut them in on better deals with the cotton trade. Get French support by offering logistics for lucrative trade deals with France and Mexico. Britain could actively strangle the union by attacking ships engaged in Union trade worldwide. France could have offered significant munitions and weapons. Lee threw away his best assets by mostly fighting the Union in big battles instead of grinding the Union down in an insurgency first.
>>64529410based
>>64529410>refuses to attack
>>64524627>Instead of Robert E. Lee, he retires and you now have to figure out a way to achieve a decisive victory against the Union in 1863 as grand army commander of the Confederacy.I surrender immediately, bargaining favorable terms of surrender, giving up any concessions necessary.
>>64524627Have all my daughters suck off and offer their barely used assholes to the French, British and Spanish Ambassador. Go all in on rifles and guerilla warfare. Go into further debt to buy repeating rifles. Promise slaves their freedom to fight for us and then renig, and also castrate all the males.
>>64541426>Who is Fabius?
>>64524627Well drones... but actually IED devices and mine contraptions on supply lines rather than blowing them up. A shit line with dicey odds is worse for an army that a decisively unusable one. Also the psychological effect; trains with time bombs blowing up seemingly at random and explosive roads would all be too much.That and as a foreign policy engage latin america and the carribean.
>>64524684Intense pre war sea mine developemnt as well, frogmen to place them.
>>64535906We have democrats, thanks.
>>64541669>Go all in on riflesThey already had rifles. Everyone had rifles, just not the resources or time to train tens of thousands of conscripts to use them effectively.
>>64524627Well the whole war was over slavery right? I’d just shoot all the blacks. Problem solved. No war.
>>64532928Martin Luther King's dream come true at last
>>64524627Double down on espionage and internal sabotage efforts in the North
>>64528558>And that is why blacks should remain oppressed.>"Wait hold the fuck up, what do you MEAN we went to the moon?!">That's not important-->"The moon? In the sky?!">But the urban centers-->"The United States becomes the most powerful nation in the world's history..."
>>64546947Wrong flag got planted on the moon
>>64528303This, and in addition because they were wannabe aristocrats, they seriously neglected infrastructure that would have served them well. The Union was one of the most logistically well constructed and well fed armies in history up to that point. Their crops were diversified and not so overwhelmingly committed to inedible cash crops, and they had a dramatically more robust infrastructure system than the south. All of that because the planter class wanted their dragon hordes, but ultimately they detrimented themselves for quick cash.I’m in Arkansas, and that’s the history of my state broadly.
>>64541914>Everyone had riflesthere were multiple regiments using flintlocks up to the battle of shiloh
>>64524627>Instead of Robert E. Lee, he retires and you now have to figure out a way to achieve a decisive victory against the Union in 1863 as grand army commander of the Confederacy. How do you do it, /k/?Its amazingly simple: Unified command of confederate forces. They lost because at no point during the entire war was there one command sturcture to handle all the things an army needs to be handled. Each state did its own thing for the whole war. After that, make the planters plant food. At gunpoint if need be. The war was very winnable for the South. They were just retarded.
>>64550012Why is your horse in your study?
>>64553361>not wanting an erudite and well-informed horse to have scintillating conversations with over scotch and fine cigarsFuck is wrong with you?
>>64528303The idiots couldn't even figure out that they could have improved their political position at the outset by re-using the Declaration with Find/Replace King George -> President Lincoln. Instead, each state's declaration of secession is just "Blah blah muh slavery blah blah we hate dem Yankees". The sheer IQ difference between the Founders and the leading secessionists was massive.>>64524627Send me back to 1860 and give me political clout rather than military. I insist upon the "gentlemen" planters that proper forms must be maintained, and that seceding at the outset is foolish nonsense. Instead, wait for Lincoln to perform an impeachable act, then present articles of impeachment, and only then, when that fails because he has a majority in Congress, do you call a convention of the southern states and begin debating secession, using every opportunity to trick the general public into believing that you're doing exactly what the Founders would have done (and to some extent, did do).
