Deo Vindice: The Agrarian Empire and the Shadow of Slavery

Darks63: 1862.

yourworstnightm: While that's true, when has the South been reasonable? Even in our timeline their pride for keeping the blacks in slavery overcame their want for indepedance.
It looks like my counter-part wanted a say on this matter:
"The other author would only like to note that he disagrees with this author, and thinks the south is teh w1n!!!11."

stnylan: I'll be writing about the naval side of the war in the next update. I'm sure you'll find your answer there.

Chapter IX Brother Against Brother
Author's Note: Because the author of this chapter is an attention seeking whore, he has demanded that I post this:
"Sorry for the lapse in updates. A woman wants to send me to the penitentary for triestes with her daughter, and a massive onset of stress lead to vomiting, nosebleeds, and involuntary bowel movements. The AAR is not dead."

Though the war tried to emanate an air of gallant pomp to the east, the war showed no such pretenses in the west. The west was a land devoid of pretense; life was hard, unless you were rich, and there weren't quite so many landed rich in the west, natural born plebians to place a romantic glow on the field of gore. If there were few of them in the western theatre, there were none at all in Missouri- the less that is said of Missouri, the better. Even absent any official confederate orders, civilians were being slaughtered, too often by each other. Sterling Price, of the Missouri State Guard, had much less to do with this then yellow journalism would have the public believe- a kindly old politician-warrior, he had taken up arms when his state was artificially denied secession.

Coinciding with the Kentucky invasion, Price had returned from exile in Arkansas to liberate Springfield, Missouri, free of any opposition, and then marched through Jefferson City. These bastions of southern sentiment were free of any northern troops, (In truth, the north could not commit many men to the area at this desperate time, and fewer then two divisions of men's safety was feared for in these boiling areas).
Price's 3 divisions had freed a swathe of Missouri, but the politician misjudged his people- Marching into St. Louis, he found considerable resistance. German immigrant laborers and factory workers struggled fiercely in the streets, and Price himself was shot by a disgruntled foreman from the St. Louis iron works.
The confederacy immediately went into uproar- a general slain? By a FOREIGNER?

Cleburne's newly organized 6 cavalry divisions set off into Missouri at once, a massive force to squash all hint of rebellion. The Union, it must be noted, sent a mere one division at this juncture, a commitment that may in fact have sent three overextended and beleaguered confederate divisions from St. Louis, but never the cream of the confederacy's cavalry.

The vengeance for price's blood was swift and terrible- The great forges of St. Louis were brought to climax, destroying themselves and the priceless machinery needed to make them, and men, women, and children were killed, but worse still, and unprecedented, men were enslaved. In a shocking turn of events that would turn policy, industrial workers, the "chattel of the north", were quite literally sold south, down the wide Mississippi to the land of cotton. White slaves upset what had been a stable slave market and opened a Pandora's box of slippery slope morality, but the official stance was that only immigrants were enslaved. Morality aside, a healthy price was fetched for them- north German protestants proved to be the most popular, as Irish Catholics were lauded against for their laziness and ungodliness, although it must be said that perhaps the popularity of Irish slaves waned due to the overwhelming Celtic makeup of the southern white population. These white slaves would find a niche in the slave society in later years, forming something of a middle class- blacksmiths, house servants, and skilled laborer's upon the gentleman's plantation.


The Irish immigrant, Patrick Cleburne, became a shining light in the eyes of many Irishmen in the South.

The quaint peace of the gentleman's plantation is an image far removed from the crimson streets of St. Louis however, and the atrocities committed by Cleburne's men must with difficulty not be held to him- Cleburne was a man of principle, and the great irony, a catholic immigrant from Ireland himself. Such ironies rarely occurred to the riders under his command as they took the vast majority of St. Louis to the torch, however.

The laughable force under Union general Darius N. Couch was captured in its totality- officially, to Andersonville. And to be fair the vast majority did, but a northern soldier with a poor command of English, (as a disconcerting amount of them did- Mr. Lincoln's War was not just a furious peace party slogan) or just one who drew the ire of his captors, was all too likely to find himself toiling for the rest of his life under the lazy southern son.

Missouri was united under the south, its true, and its also true that Dixie could ill afford to ship nine divisions to such a backwater theatre, and would pay for it later. But both of these facts take a sideshow to what had happened here- the war for southern independence had taken an irreconcilable turn.

Darks63: One can only wonder what the reaction of Europe will be.

stnylan: Glad that you enjoy it!

General Dayan: Hmm, I don't know about Delaware. Historically it had little Dixie culture and there was little chance of them peacefully joining the South. At least Maryland had some slavery and southerners.

Chapter X Roll Tide, Roll

On December, 1860, the CSN was little more than a hopeful dream by a few southern “admirals“. The only warships in the Confederate navy were two obsolete commerce raiders. The CSS Alabama, Florida, and the Sumter was all that were available. By Summer of 1861 the blockade had begun on southern trade shipments. Invaluable supplies guaranteed to the Confederacy were soon lost when southern merchant ships were confiscated and in some cases destroyed.

This had a traumatic effect on the southern economy. Cotton was piling up and there was no where to send it. By fall of 1861 it was becoming an epidemic. The rich elite were demanding that the navy do something about this problem. Outnumbered nearly ten to one, any open conflict with the USN would lead to certain disaster. So while the southern armies marched victoriously through Kentucky and Missouri, the CSN sat in the Charleston port gathering dust.

It would take almost a year before the CSN confronted the Northern vessels. Shortly after the CSS Virginia was christened on January 1st, 1862, four new monitors were completed. The CSS Atlanta, Arkansas, Georgia, and Richmond all made their debute. The navy would never be a glorious position in the south. Even the christening of the CSS Virginia only made it to the second page in most newspapers, page three in some. A sailors life of loading gunports and directing the cannons would never be as glorious as a bayonet charge against an overwhelming enemy. Regardless of this the sailors of the CSN had a sense of pride when their fleet embarked for Chesapeake Bay.

The CSN would not run from a fight. It would not be sent to guard the merchant ships; instead its focus was to destroy the northern navy. Though outnumbered almost four to one, the majority of the USN consisted of obsolete frigate ships and other such wooden vessels. Admiral Semmes’s plan of action would be a decisive battle where the goal would be to cripple the USN. Unsure of the capacity of his fleet, he threw all his money into one hat, so to speak. The first engagement was on December 7th, 1862.


The fleets engaged in the early morning before the sun had risen.

Swiftly gliding through the Chesapeake waters in the very early morning, the CSN was met with the shocked faces of fishermen and clipper patrolmen. It took an hour before the U.S. fleet was spotted. Over two thirds of its number consisted of the wooden frigates. The rest of the fleet was made up of commerce raiders and even a monitor or two. There was a silence before the battle, the only sound being the humming of the vessels. When both fleets had positioned themselves it began with a roar of cannons firing.

Shots were traded between both fleets, the commerce raiders, easily the fastest of the ships, zig-zagged between the much larger monitors and frigates. The shattering sound of masts breaking and wood splintering filled the air as two Union frigates sunk into the ocean. The Confederate commerce raiders were ripped apart. Within ten minutes the CSS Sumter was sinking. Five minutes after that the CSS Alabama and Florida pulled from the battle.


The five Confederate monitors slipped away in the early hours after the exhausting fight.

It took another hour of fighting, and four more sunk Union vessels, one of which included a commerce raider, for the CSN to pull from the waters and return to Norfolk. By that time the CSS Atlanta was running at half capacity and only through luck did it escape to Norfolk. Though they had run from the battle, over five Union ships had been lost at the cost of the CSS Sumter. Deemed an acceptable loss, the victory at Chesapeake bay was in the newspapers the next day. Not only was it a tactical victory but also a strategical one as well. The blockade had temporarily been lifted.

Darks63: I couldn't say what exactly was sunk during that first battle, as you can't scroll up and down to see the other divisions or ships participating in a battle. I'm fairly certain that four frigates and at least one commerce raider was sunk for the Union. The CSS Sumter was sunk for the Confederacy.

coz1: If all goes well it won't be long until the seas are ruled by the CSN. Though then again, I have yet to see the U.S monitors in action.

Chapter XI Dixie Abroad

By the time congressmen in Charleston, South Carolina, were meeting to vote on their secession in the winter of 1860, Britain, France and a few other choice European nations were keeping an eye on how things went on across the pond. When the full rebellion broke out between the states later on in the following year, said countries began to take increased interest. From buying southern cotton to sending weapon arms, the European nations entered the war in their own way. It was only until Stuart’s actions in Louisville did relations between the Confederacy and Europe began its steady decline.

From London to Paris word arrived of the horrors of Louisville, overnight public support for the newly birthed country had decreased by over twenty five percent. However, while public support was declining, the support from the two governments was still there. The aristocracy looked at the southern country as a potential trading partner, while the USA had long discouraged trade. Before the Louisville incident both Britain and France were considering recognizing the independence of the south; afterwards that prospect had diminished.

In 1862, when Patrick Cleburne entered St. Louis relations were still friendly with the south; by the time he left there was not a single man in Britain and France that did not want to see the rupture of the south. The act of capturing northern civilians, European immigrants at that, and then having the audacity to enslave them was an act that was unthinkable to Europe. There were a few aristocrats that demanded that action be taken, but even those voices calmed down within a few weeks’ time. Both public and private support for the CSA was strangled and then left for dead by the winter of 1862.

When the blockade was lifted and southern merchant vessels arrived in the waters off the coast of Britain, they were surprised and angered to find that they were not allowed entrance. Their cotton was rejected as were their greetings. In some cases warning shots were fired from British vessels, but no southern ship was directly attacked. This would be the final straw between the south and Europe. When Forrest learned of what had happened he threw a screaming fit that was heard from all corners of the administration office.


The Austrian 1854 rifle-musket would become a favorite in the Confederate army.

By late 1862 most of Europe looked down upon the Confederacy with a venomous glare. There was one notable, significant exception: The Hapsburg empire of Austria. Austria was quite content to take the windfall of cotton that Western Europe shunned at rock bottom prices. They were more than willing to supply arms to the Confederacy. One such arms, the Lorenz gun, proved a consistent favorite of the south, most prevalent with the Army of Northern Virginia. There were, however, never enough to feed the south's demands.

Sharing nothing but significant internal problems and the disdain of their neighbors, Austria would, in time, become one of the south's only friend’s abroad.

Darks63: It should be working now.

coz1: Well at this point there's not much left in terms of countries willing to support the CSA. Historically the Austrian Lorenz rifle was a greatly underrated weapon; the C.S needs every advantage that it can get its hands on.

stnylan: At this point, yeah. The trouble is to keep it that way.

Chapter XII Lion in the Deseret
Author’s Note: The author of this chapter, the attention whore, has asked that I put in this comment:
“Sorry for the hiatus. Getting into a relationship with a girl has slowed down my ability to update.”

Apart from the titanic clashes that racked the vast majority of the border between north and south,
A disgraced cavalier equipped in quiet five regiments of cavalry, bankrupting his personal estates to embark on an adventure more diplomatic, and almost colonial, then militaristic-All in response to the great turmoil in the west.

The great turmoil of note was that of religious revolt, and what would become therefore the first serious religious war between western powers in a long while- that between the state of Deseret and the Great and Glorious Union. The Lands of Utah had never been stable since falling under American jurisdiction in 1848, but the north was ultimately the catalyst of this rebellion- Religious persecution reached an all-time high, with puritanical orators angrily denouncing southern Baptists, Pentecostals and Episcopalians. The republican party, plat forming to end the "twin evils of polygamy and slavery", wasn't much warmer to the Mormon religion than it was to the south, and such poor tolerance of religion, combined with the north's assault on an agrarian, religious breakaway state, drove the Utah territory over the edge and into open rebellion- A rebellion which the north was in a very poor position to quell- which did not stop them from declaring their intention to do exactly that.

Deseret had little support abroad, despite the fact that several latter-day apostles had gone touring in England and Wales a little over a decade earlier. In truth it was barely a blip on the international radar, although it would signal to Europe that the Union was on the brink of disintegration, and was widely viewed as the failure of representative government, this despite France and Britain's stable parliamentary government.

Jeb Stuart and his merry brigade, then, were the south's attempt to establish friendly relations with the union's second breakaway state, although it should be noted that this venture had no official approval from the confederate government, and was a purely private expedition.

Jeb's band would ironically find more opposition in the form of outlaws then union soldiers, with the cavalier's indiscretions with a sheriff's daughter placing his regiments under more fire then any other incident.

Ogden was finally reached by Stuart in the spring of 1863, and Stuart's men were nearly killed where they stood by overzealous members of the Nauvoo legion unwilling to believe armed soldiers would be anything but union troops come to take their liberties, churches and superfluous wives away.

In fact, the visit was a unilateral success- for both sides. Stuart, having given up the drink in the wake of his fall from grace, was persuaded with some difficulty to give up tobacco, and would become the south's most prominent early Mormon- and a significant minority of his command converted as well, in the warm embrace of a surprisingly welcoming Mormon community.

Completely without authorization from the confederate government, only recently given word of his whereabouts, Stuart rallied his regiment, along with a sizeable portion of the Nauvoo legion, forming all told four infantry with his original brigade, and marched the confederacy's newest troops east, where death and destruction lay in waiting.