This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History in a variant scenario based on an original idea by Zach Timmons.
On this fateful date in 1865,
a group of partisan raiders
led by former Confederate army cavalry battalion commander John S.
Mosby attacked and killed the Union officers occupying the White House
of the Confederacy.
Following this shocking act of vengeance, the "Gray Ghost" and his men then took to the wilderness to act as guerilla fighters.
A five-year long reign of terror would rule the South as shootings,
lynching's, and bombings became the norm. Much of the blame would fall
upon Union general Ulysses S. Grant for allowing his uncertain status to
persist following the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and his Army
of North Virginia (ANV). Bounties had been placed on the heads of Mosby,
Nathan B. Forrest et. al as some posters above his signature stated
that marauding bands would be destroyed.
Had these renegade
Confederate officers been offered the same generous terms as Lee at
Appomattox House, or had Davis authorized Lee to surrender all four
armies of the Confederacy, then the rebellion would probably have
ceased. The real tragedy was Grant had given Lee favourable treatment
precisely to stop him heading to the wilderness as an American guerilla.
The cowardly Davis also deserved a large share of the blame for
escaping Richmond, disguised as a woman. Though he never ordered the
Confederacy to surrender, he also never told his followers to continue a
Guerrilla war. For his lack of leadership at this crucial time,
President Edward Kennedy would steadfastly refuse to restore his
citizenship during the bicentennial year.
As the ANV commander,
Lee himself was indirectly to blame. Prior to his surrender, he had
stubbornly persisted in Napoleonic-type decisive battle to win the war.
If Lee fought the war and took up George Washington's tactics he would
certainly have lasted much longer. Perhaps even long enough to realize a
recognized Confederacy by the North. Instead, he unwisely chose to line
up against the Union Generals and even tried to take the fight to the
Union in Pennsylvania. After the catastrophic result of these failed
tactics had destroyed Dixie, the radical surviving officers were forced
to turn to the extreme measures of the insurgency to continue the
rebellions.
Finally, after the assassination of President Andrew
Johnson in 1868, Democrat Horatio Seymour defeated Grant for the
Presidency. Seymour immediately opened talks with the rebel leaders,
most notably Forrest and Mosby and a deal was struck. This climax also
marked the end of a paramilitary force of Confederate veterans known as
the Ku Klux Klan. Members of the KKK were rounded up and many executed.
As a consequence of this house-cleaning by Federal troops, many
historical revisionists would later argue that the insurgency was a good
thing for killing off many of the remaining die hards.
This argument was most strongly advocated in Jay Winik's book April 1865 : The Month that Saved America.
According to his logic, this continuation war made Reconstruction easier on the surviving population.
Author's Note
In
reality, Winik argues quite the opposite. The signature of Gen.
Winfield S. Hancock was shown on the posters. By early May, Mosby
confirmed the $5,000 bounty on his head but still managed to evade
capture, including at a raid near Lynchburg, Virginia, which terrified
his mother. When Mosby finally confirmed the arrest order had been
rescinded, he surrendered on June 17, one of the last Confederate
officers to do so.
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