American Civil War alternate histories

American Civil War alternate histories are texts wherein events during the American Civil War occurred differently from those in history. The most common variant of these detail the victory and survival of the Confederate States of America. Less common variants include a Union victory under different circumstances than in actual history, resulting in a different post-war situation; Black slaves freeing themselves by revolt without waiting for Lincoln; and a direct British intervention in the war. American Civil War alternate histories are one of the two most popular points of divergence to create an alternate history in the English language, the other being an Axis victory in World War II.^[1][2][3]

Example

Story and novel

• If The South Had Won The Civil War by MacKinlay Kantor (Originally published in Look Magazine in 1960, published as book in 1961)
• "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster (one of several alternate realities featured in the story)
• 1862 by Robert Conroy
• Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
• A More Perfect Union by Robert Stapp
• The Shiloh Project by David Poyer
• Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson.
• Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory by Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen, and Albert S. Hanser
• Gray Victory by Robert Skimin
• The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
• A Rebel in Time by Harry Harrison
• Russian Amerika by Stoney Compton
• The Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove.^[4]
• Must and Shall by Harry Turtledove. Different in that the North still wins but because of the death of Lincoln at the Battle of Fort Stevens, Reconstruction is exceptionally harsh and the former Confederate states remain under military occupation for over eighty years.
• If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg by Winston Churchill (in 1931 anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise)
• Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith, re-casts the Civil War as a war on vampires using slaves as a food source.
• By Force of Arms by Billy Bennett, Depicts a world where Stonewall Jackson survived the battle of Chancellorsville and the South won Gettysburg and the war. Six years later William Tecumseh Sherman is elected President of the USA and war breaks out again.
• The Stars and Stripes trilogy (Stars and Stripes Forever [1998], Stares and Stripes In Peril [2000], and Stars and Stripes Triumphant [2002]) by Harry Harrison, where the Trent affair and the death of Prince Albert (the husband of Queen Victoria) elicits a war between the Union and Britain, eventually seeing America reunited under one government.
• Britannia's Fist (trilogy) by Peter Tsouras. England/France enter the War in 1863 when British built warships enter the CSA Navy instead of being seized by British forces before entering Confederate service (as what really happened).
• A Hard Day for Mother by William R. Forstchen - Joshua Chamberlain fights on the Confederate side, winning Gettysburg and the whole war and ends up President of the independent CSA.

Film

• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, a mockumentary directed by Kevin Willmott.^[5]

Game

• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier role-playing game, written by Jolly R. Blackburn, Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson, Dave Kenzer, Jennifer Kenzer and Mark Plemmons,^[6] and published by Kenzer & Company in 2007.
• Damnation by Blue Omega Entertainment and published by Codemasters.
• Deadlands role-playing game by Pinnacle Entertainment Group
• Doomtown collectable card game by Alderac Entertainment Group, Wizards of the Coast, and Five Rings Publishing Group
• Doomtown: Range Wars, a Disk Wars game by Fantasy Flight Games
• GURPS Alternate Earths (1996), a supplement of alternate realities published by Steve Jackson Games for the GURPS Third Edition, which includes the alternate world codenamed "Dixie", where the North American continent, circa 1985, is divided between the northern USA and the southern CSA along an extended Mason-Dixon Line. An updated (current year: 1993) but truncated description of this world, now known as "Dixie-1 , was included in the revised Fourth Edition version of the book (see history at GURPS Infinite Worlds#Dixie-1).
• Victoria II, a grand strategy wargame by Paradox Interactive, offers an opportunity for the Confederacy to win the American Civil War and become a world power.
• Gettysburg: Armored Warfare - A man from the year 2060 travels back in time to the Civil War, bringing weapons from his time, that he gives to the Confederate forces in the hope of changing the future of America.

Comic

• Captain Confederacy by Will Shetterly and Vince Stone.

References