- Location
- Not the asylum anymore
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Take command and assume the full duties of the President of the United States.
This Mighty Scourge of War: A Reconstruction-Era Quest
- Thread starter Kirook
- Start date
- Alt. History
Vote closed
Chapter 3: Redrawing the Battle Lines
- Location
- SF Bay Area
May 1, 1865
Schuyler Colfax—or "Smiler" Colfax as he was sometimes known—was a legislator first and foremost. The House of Representatives was his domain, and his sudden ascension to the Acting Presidency forced him to hastily adapt to a new role. As such, perhaps due to discomfort with leading the executive branch, or perhaps out of concern for the appearance of constitutionality and legality, he made it clear to all involved that he was merely doing his civic duty by taking up the Presidency until such time as Foster could recover.
This declaration soothed many fears about the nature of his ad-hoc administration, but it also tied the hands of his staff to a significant degree. Colfax chose to focus their limited capacity on reestablishing contact with the various Union armies in the field rather than on hunting down the remaining conspirators, believing that it was only a matter of time before they were caught and that a Confederate military resurgence would drastically multiply the Union's woes.
The Army of the Potomac, not far from Appomattox Courthouse where it had accepted General Lee's surrender, was the first to have its chain of command confirmed. Lincoln's and Grant's simultaneous deaths had provoked tremendous sorrow and anger amongst the soldiers, but there was little confusion in this case—Grant's command passed on to his immediate subordinate, General George Meade, with assistance from Grant's Chief of Staff, General Henry Halleck. Ordinarily, given their abrasive and confrontational personalities, the two men would have been at each other's throats almost instantly; but the plot against the Union gave them a common enemy against which to direct their anger. "Old Snapping Turtle is looking for someone to bite," wrote one soldier of Meade's infuriated reaction to the news of the assassinations; and Halleck, who had worked closely with Grant in some of the pivotal campaigns of the war, was keen to seek revenge against his killers. Both men immediately moved to place the Army of the Potomac at Acting President Colfax's disposal, ready to be deployed once more against what was left of the Confederacy.
Contacting General Sherman and his army group proved to be more complicated. Sherman had marched deep into enemy territory—being in the process of occupying the Carolinas when President Lincoln and his allies were killed—and getting a message to him took longer than expected. He confirmed that he would accept Colfax's orders (and Foster's, if the situation should permit it). But he had only just managed to restore order to his ranks when Confederate General Johnston—hoping to take advantage of the chaos in the Union to catch Sherman off-guard—attacked him in what would become known as the Battle of Haw River. Had the disorder in Sherman's armies been allowed to persist, Johnston might well have been able to do serious damage; but thanks to the new clarity of command, the severely outnumbered and undersupplied Confederate troops were successfully repulsed (though not yet shattered).
Over the next few weeks, reports trickled in from Union forces further afield, mostly in the Western and Trans-Mississippi theaters of the war. The picture they painted was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a rosy one: notwithstanding the deaths of so many high officials of the Union government and the resulting reinvigoration of Confederate morale, the Confederacy remained materially and militarily on its last legs. With full control of the Union Army restored, the final end of the Civil War remained close at hand.
Then, as the New-York Tribune rather histrionically put it, "a devil arose from Hell to bestow his unholy blessings upon the South"—by which it meant that John Wilkes Booth had returned.
It emerged later that with the help of Confederate sympathizers in Virginia, he had run the Union blockade of the South, landed in French-controlled Mexico, and from there crossed the border into Texas. But regardless of the means of his escape, his return to Confederate-held territory galvanized the South's will to fight, and he was widely fêted as a national hero for the slaying of "the tyrant Lincoln" and his inner circle. The incident was a serious embarrassment for the government that strengthened Radical Republican calls for harsh punitive measures against the South, but more concerningly, Confederate partisan actions began to intensify (especially west of the Mississippi, where Booth had made his new headquarters).
This spike in "bushwhacker" raids was of particular importance because it coincided with a surge in violence between settlers and Native Americans in the western Great Plains. Ever since the mass murder of over 150 natives (mostly women and children) at Sand Creek in November 1864, a large-scale uprising of Plains indigenous tribes had been brewing, with the participation of a variety of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho groups. The simultaneous presence of Confederate and Native American guerrillas in the region threatened to provoke a general crisis in the West, perhaps even cutting the Union off from its Rocky Mountain and Pacific territories.
On the bright side, as the weeks rolled by, President Foster's condition began to improve. His doctors anticipated that he would soon be ready to reassume the full duties of the Presidency; while Colfax's temporary administration would be deciding the Union's immediate military policy, its results and ongoing conduct would fall to Foster's official one.
THE STATE OF THE NATION:
National stability is shaky.
The government's legitimacy is middling.
The capital is on edge.
The mood of the War Democrats is angry.
The mood of the Liberal Republicans is infuriated.
The mood of the Radical Republicans is murderous.
There are four major Confederate armies remaining in the field.
The status of Reconstruction is undetermined.
The intensity of conflict on the frontier is severe.
Of the assassins of Lincoln and his trusted subordinates, one has been killed, two have been captured, one has escaped to Confederate territory, and the rest have gone to ground.
What is to be done?
Schuyler Colfax—or "Smiler" Colfax as he was sometimes known—was a legislator first and foremost. The House of Representatives was his domain, and his sudden ascension to the Acting Presidency forced him to hastily adapt to a new role. As such, perhaps due to discomfort with leading the executive branch, or perhaps out of concern for the appearance of constitutionality and legality, he made it clear to all involved that he was merely doing his civic duty by taking up the Presidency until such time as Foster could recover.
This declaration soothed many fears about the nature of his ad-hoc administration, but it also tied the hands of his staff to a significant degree. Colfax chose to focus their limited capacity on reestablishing contact with the various Union armies in the field rather than on hunting down the remaining conspirators, believing that it was only a matter of time before they were caught and that a Confederate military resurgence would drastically multiply the Union's woes.
The Army of the Potomac, not far from Appomattox Courthouse where it had accepted General Lee's surrender, was the first to have its chain of command confirmed. Lincoln's and Grant's simultaneous deaths had provoked tremendous sorrow and anger amongst the soldiers, but there was little confusion in this case—Grant's command passed on to his immediate subordinate, General George Meade, with assistance from Grant's Chief of Staff, General Henry Halleck. Ordinarily, given their abrasive and confrontational personalities, the two men would have been at each other's throats almost instantly; but the plot against the Union gave them a common enemy against which to direct their anger. "Old Snapping Turtle is looking for someone to bite," wrote one soldier of Meade's infuriated reaction to the news of the assassinations; and Halleck, who had worked closely with Grant in some of the pivotal campaigns of the war, was keen to seek revenge against his killers. Both men immediately moved to place the Army of the Potomac at Acting President Colfax's disposal, ready to be deployed once more against what was left of the Confederacy.
Contacting General Sherman and his army group proved to be more complicated. Sherman had marched deep into enemy territory—being in the process of occupying the Carolinas when President Lincoln and his allies were killed—and getting a message to him took longer than expected. He confirmed that he would accept Colfax's orders (and Foster's, if the situation should permit it). But he had only just managed to restore order to his ranks when Confederate General Johnston—hoping to take advantage of the chaos in the Union to catch Sherman off-guard—attacked him in what would become known as the Battle of Haw River. Had the disorder in Sherman's armies been allowed to persist, Johnston might well have been able to do serious damage; but thanks to the new clarity of command, the severely outnumbered and undersupplied Confederate troops were successfully repulsed (though not yet shattered).
Over the next few weeks, reports trickled in from Union forces further afield, mostly in the Western and Trans-Mississippi theaters of the war. The picture they painted was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a rosy one: notwithstanding the deaths of so many high officials of the Union government and the resulting reinvigoration of Confederate morale, the Confederacy remained materially and militarily on its last legs. With full control of the Union Army restored, the final end of the Civil War remained close at hand.
Then, as the New-York Tribune rather histrionically put it, "a devil arose from Hell to bestow his unholy blessings upon the South"—by which it meant that John Wilkes Booth had returned.
It emerged later that with the help of Confederate sympathizers in Virginia, he had run the Union blockade of the South, landed in French-controlled Mexico, and from there crossed the border into Texas. But regardless of the means of his escape, his return to Confederate-held territory galvanized the South's will to fight, and he was widely fêted as a national hero for the slaying of "the tyrant Lincoln" and his inner circle. The incident was a serious embarrassment for the government that strengthened Radical Republican calls for harsh punitive measures against the South, but more concerningly, Confederate partisan actions began to intensify (especially west of the Mississippi, where Booth had made his new headquarters).
This spike in "bushwhacker" raids was of particular importance because it coincided with a surge in violence between settlers and Native Americans in the western Great Plains. Ever since the mass murder of over 150 natives (mostly women and children) at Sand Creek in November 1864, a large-scale uprising of Plains indigenous tribes had been brewing, with the participation of a variety of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho groups. The simultaneous presence of Confederate and Native American guerrillas in the region threatened to provoke a general crisis in the West, perhaps even cutting the Union off from its Rocky Mountain and Pacific territories.
On the bright side, as the weeks rolled by, President Foster's condition began to improve. His doctors anticipated that he would soon be ready to reassume the full duties of the Presidency; while Colfax's temporary administration would be deciding the Union's immediate military policy, its results and ongoing conduct would fall to Foster's official one.
THE STATE OF THE NATION:
National stability is shaky.
The government's legitimacy is middling.
The capital is on edge.
The mood of the War Democrats is angry.
The mood of the Liberal Republicans is infuriated.
The mood of the Radical Republicans is murderous.
There are four major Confederate armies remaining in the field.
The status of Reconstruction is undetermined.
The intensity of conflict on the frontier is severe.
Of the assassins of Lincoln and his trusted subordinates, one has been killed, two have been captured, one has escaped to Confederate territory, and the rest have gone to ground.
The manhunt for the remaining conspirators continues, but Colfax has primarily concerned himself with military matters and the still-ongoing Civil War. The President's initiative to reconnect with the Union armies in the field has allowed him and his administration to essentially identify three major arenas of conflict.
The first is the eastern CSA, i.e. all Confederate states east of the Mississippi River. It contains the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, as well as three of the four remaining Confederate armies (the Army of Tennessee under Joseph E. Johnston; the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana under Richard Taylor; and Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry force).
The second is the western CSA, centered almost entirely on Texas but including small parts of neighboring states and territories. It hosts the fugitive John Wilkes Booth, as well as the fourth remaining Confederate army (the Trans-Mississippi Department under General Edmund Kirby Smith). Because it has been cut off from the rest of the CSA since General Grant's capture of Vicksburg in 1863, Kirby Smith has been acting largely independently and has taken steps to make the territory self-sufficient, meaning that it is the most economically and militarily coherent Confederate remnant.
The third and final theater is the Union's western territories. These contain no centralized Confederate armies, but federal authority there has been weakened significantly by recent events, and frontier violence has seen a dramatic rise. The region's isolation and underdevelopment means that it would be extremely difficult to restore order if the situation there worsened (not to mention that this would also interrupt the supply of precious metals from California and Nevada, harming the nation's finances).
The first is the eastern CSA, i.e. all Confederate states east of the Mississippi River. It contains the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, as well as three of the four remaining Confederate armies (the Army of Tennessee under Joseph E. Johnston; the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana under Richard Taylor; and Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry force).
The second is the western CSA, centered almost entirely on Texas but including small parts of neighboring states and territories. It hosts the fugitive John Wilkes Booth, as well as the fourth remaining Confederate army (the Trans-Mississippi Department under General Edmund Kirby Smith). Because it has been cut off from the rest of the CSA since General Grant's capture of Vicksburg in 1863, Kirby Smith has been acting largely independently and has taken steps to make the territory self-sufficient, meaning that it is the most economically and militarily coherent Confederate remnant.
The third and final theater is the Union's western territories. These contain no centralized Confederate armies, but federal authority there has been weakened significantly by recent events, and frontier violence has seen a dramatic rise. The region's isolation and underdevelopment means that it would be extremely difficult to restore order if the situation there worsened (not to mention that this would also interrupt the supply of precious metals from California and Nevada, harming the nation's finances).
What is to be done?
| Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy. | Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy. | Focus on restoring order to the West. |
| This will most likely destroy most of the remaining Confederate military forces and will also allow an immediate start to Reconstruction, but Booth will be left to his own devices to agitate against the Union and emancipation and the situation in the frontier may deteriorate dramatically. | This will most likely lead to the capture and trial of John Wilkes Booth, but the time spent reconquering Texas will allow Eastern Confederate partisans to organize more freely. It will also cut off direct Confederate access to the Western territories, although it should be noted that this in itself does not mean that the frontier will be pacified. | This will prevent any serious loss of control of the Union's frontier territories, constrain Booth's activities to regions under actual (Western) Confederate military control, and free up troops for later campaigns against the CSA remnants. However, it may lead to the rise of a coordinated anti-Union resistance across the South. |
Oh shit a very hard choice
Astra Myst
Do you want a wish?
- Location
- Milky Way Galaxy
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy.
It is a difficult choice however the springboard for most successful Confederate actions would come from the eastern part of the Confederacy. Nip it in the bud.
It is a difficult choice however the springboard for most successful Confederate actions would come from the eastern part of the Confederacy. Nip it in the bud.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'm kinda worried about foreign powers involving themselves if we aren't quick and decisive enough, and I think the eastern theater is the area most at risk of it... Though I could see an argument for Texas being the biggest problem in that regard, actually. Trying Booth would also be great for restoring legitimacy.
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Focus on restoring order to the West.
- Location
- somewhere on this dying planet
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy
The Confederacy was already trying to spin out guerilla warfare for a while now with the basically official uniformed Bushwhackers of the Partisan Rangers and so on, but beyond like Mosby, a lot of it has and continues to pewter out into failure, for much the same reasons that like Wehrwolf didn't really ever kick off like the Nazis hoped for. The "Smith-dom" of Arkansas and the west, Texas, all that is fundamentally no place to long maintain even an unconventional war, but at last bagging the whole of the heart of the Confederacy and putting Jeff Davis on trial in revenge for Lincoln? That's our victory right there.
The Confederacy was already trying to spin out guerilla warfare for a while now with the basically official uniformed Bushwhackers of the Partisan Rangers and so on, but beyond like Mosby, a lot of it has and continues to pewter out into failure, for much the same reasons that like Wehrwolf didn't really ever kick off like the Nazis hoped for. The "Smith-dom" of Arkansas and the west, Texas, all that is fundamentally no place to long maintain even an unconventional war, but at last bagging the whole of the heart of the Confederacy and putting Jeff Davis on trial in revenge for Lincoln? That's our victory right there.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
Hard question. I definitely think the eastern Confederacy is the lowest priority here, but ultimately I think the far western focus is the best triage of several problems at once.
[X] Focus on restoring order to the West.
edit: approval vote
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
[X] Focus on restoring order to the West.
edit: approval vote
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
Last edited:
- Location
- Most likely California
I'm actually more concerned about the West than the East. Most of the Old South has already been ground down by the war, so the primary concern is partisans, which are unlikely to force our forces out. Meanwhile, Texas is relatively intact and self sufficient. So let's change that.
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
I am also concerned about the Frontier, since losing control there would damage our prestige and finances. But it's a lower priority than putting another nail in the Confederacy's coffin, and cutting off their western access to the Frontier will probably help there anyways.
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
I am also concerned about the Frontier, since losing control there would damage our prestige and finances. But it's a lower priority than putting another nail in the Confederacy's coffin, and cutting off their western access to the Frontier will probably help there anyways.
- Location
- Derna
[X] Focus on subduing the Eastern Confederacy
Yeah, I'd much rather fight ex-Confederates west of the Mississippi than east. Smithdom is just fundamentally a less threatening chunk of the country in the long run. Bushwhackers in the plains and the Southwest would be a long-term problem, but really more of a nuisance than a major threat. The southeast is gonna be where the whole postwar project lives or dies.
Yeah, I'd much rather fight ex-Confederates west of the Mississippi than east. Smithdom is just fundamentally a less threatening chunk of the country in the long run. Bushwhackers in the plains and the Southwest would be a long-term problem, but really more of a nuisance than a major threat. The southeast is gonna be where the whole postwar project lives or dies.
- Location
- Somewhere in the area
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[X] Focus on subduing the Western Confederacy.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Focus on restoring order to the West.