In Squier''s classic alt-history anthology, _If It Had Happened
Otherwise_, Winston Churchill contributed an essay _What If Lee Had Not
Won The Battle Of Gettysburg_.
Poor Winnie would get sympathy even from Hitler on the criticism that
would be leveled at Churchill had he posted _Lee_ on SHWI. The
objection would be that Churchill was an ignoramus for postulating that
the Army of Northern Virginia had the potential of conclusively
defeating the Army of the Potomac in July 1863, or that Northern defeat
at Gettysburg would cancel successes in the West. One troll would
plagarize a Wikipedia article and the other would protest that
Churchill had no academic qualifications to be a historian and had split
from contem****ary consensus when he took the pro-King position in the
abdication crisis. (And Churchill spelled Napoleon without marking a
French accent!)
With critics like that, Churchill would need no sup****ters.
I'm reminded of the Churchill scenario by another thread on SHWI
presently which reviews the _Gods & Generals_ movie that pur****ts that
Lee and Jackson had sympathy for the abolition of slavery in the South.
Thet is the key to Churchill's scenario --- Lee's supposed abolitionist
sympathies --- far more so than whether the capture of Yankee artillery
might significantly augment the strength of the ANV. For in the
Churchill version, Lee in triumph issues a decree that blacks in the
South are no longer slaves.
That is a very signifcant alteration of history. In Churchill's
scenario, the Confederate civilian governments (both federal and state)
are so unim****tant to the outcome that Churchill does not even mention
them or their response to Lee's Emancipation.
Gee, does that not mean that the alt-Confederacy is a military despotism
centered on the personality and opinions of Robert E. Lee? Even if
General Lee returns titular control to the civilians elected to run the
government, the secret is out: the military has control of the South
whenever the High Command so desires.
If the South has debates on government owner****p of railroads, taxes,
child labor, or censor****p (to name a few issues certain to rise before
1920), the Lee Emancipation precedent would make "Seven Days In May"
scenarios frequent in Southern history.
Or would the parallel be with the 5-16 crisis of the Third French
Republic, and the controversial move (in France's case, the dissolution
of the Chamber of Deputies) is not going to be repeated?
I think that almost all Southerners will come to agree that Lee's ukase
of emancipation was a good idea, and maybe the conventional wisdom will
be that military usurpers are only a good idea when ordered by a
demigod, and no subsequent would be coup leader is percieved as
qualified as Lee (at least in legend).
There is more to Churchill's scenario. Ultimately the South and the
North and the United Kingdom discover that they are all on the same page
in domestic and international issues. They join a league called the
English Speaking Association, and that ESA is a federal government
controlling Anglophone relations with the rest of the world. The ESA is
tough enough that the Kaiser's Germany will refrain from the invasion of
Belgium at the ESA's demand.
If Lee espoused emancipation of the slaves, would he be followed by
Southerners? Would even his own men follow him? Or would the first
priority of the independent Confederacy be the suppression of the
Slaveowner's Revolt against Lee's Emancipation Decree?
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