What if Virginia stayed with the union in the Civil war?

[oscssw]

We had a pretty interesting discussion on Lee staying with the union.  I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union.

I would guess most of the battles would be further south say North Carolina but maybe NC stays loyal and the Union can engage the very heart of the rebellion South Carolina in 1861.  From what I have read North Carolina was not all that eager to fight a civil war.  Maybe they would follow Virginia's example and stay with the union.  Now we have the full power of a larger and growing union force against SC.  I'd think a lot of the senior officers of the confederacy, being loyal to their home Virginia

would be available to command union troops.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston  VA

George Pickett VA

OK your thoughts?

[lordroel]

Nov 15, 2021 15:58:31 GMT oscssw said:

We had a pretty interesting discussion on Lee staying with the union.  I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union.

I would guess most of the battles would be further south say North Carolina but maybe NC stays loyal and the Union can engage the very herat of the rebellion South Carolina in 1861.  From what i have read North carolina was not all that eager to fight a civil war.  Maybe they would follow Virginia's example and stay with the union.  Now we have the full power of a larger and growing union force against SC.  I'd think a lot of the senior officers of the confederacy, being loyal to their home Virginia

would be available to command union troops.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston  VA

George Pickett VA

OK your thoughts?

Could we see a part of Virginia forming North Virginia and joining the Confederacy.

[oscssw]

Nov 15, 2021 15:59:44 GMT lordroel said:

Nov 15, 2021 15:58:31 GMT oscssw said:

We had a pretty interesting discussion on Lee staying with the union.  I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union.

I would guess most of the battles would be further south say North Carolina but maybe NC stays loyal and the Union can engage the very herat of the rebellion South Carolina in 1861.  From what i have read North carolina was not all that eager to fight a civil war.  Maybe they would follow Virginia's example and stay with the union.  Now we have the full power of a larger and growing union force against SC.  I'd think a lot of the senior officers of the confederacy, being loyal to their home Virginia

would be available to command union troops.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston  VA

George Pickett VA

OK your thoughts?

Could we see a part of Virginia forming North Virginia and joining the Confederacy.

To make this ATL work I'd think we need united VA. 

[lordroel]

Nov 15, 2021 16:04:48 GMT oscssw said:

Nov 15, 2021 15:59:44 GMT lordroel said:

Could we see a part of Virginia forming North Virginia and joining the Confederacy.

To make this ATL work I'd think we need united VA. 

Well a United Virginia means that most of the people in that state will have to be pro-Union, if we saw in OTL part of Virginia breaking away to join the Union, then why not a part of Virginia breaking up to join the Confederacy.

Also found this old thread: What If: Robert E. Lee commands the Union Army, If he does we would not see this part happening of refusing but taking the offer: 

[stevep]

Nov 15, 2021 15:58:31 GMT oscssw said:

We had a pretty interesting discussion on Lee staying with the union.  I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union.

I would guess most of the battles would be further south say North Carolina but maybe NC stays loyal and the Union can engage the very heart of the rebellion South Carolina in 1861.  From what I have read North Carolina was not all that eager to fight a civil war.  Maybe they would follow Virginia's example and stay with the union.  Now we have the full power of a larger and growing union force against SC.  I'd think a lot of the senior officers of the confederacy, being loyal to their home Virginia

would be available to command union troops.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston  VA

George Pickett VA

OK your thoughts?

  oscssw,

  Interesting idea but prior to joining the CSA didn't Virginia take a neutral stance, i.e. it wouldn't materially or militarily help the rebels but it wouldn't support military efforts to oppose them either?  Which would be a problem unless you get something like what happen in Kentucky with some CSA hotheads breach this Virginian neutrality.  Otherwise you could see something like Virginia staying neutral - which would greatly weaken the rebels without their resources and also the ability to threaten Washington and neighbouring northern areas - but also be a barrier to land operations by the north against the rebels in the east.

  If Virginia fully supported the war against the south then its likely to be over very quickly.  It adds more men and industry to the north and more importantly takes a hell of a lot away from the rebels, especially in industry.  I would also agree that N Carolina is likely to follow the Virginian lead.  In this case the war could be over within 12-18 months with a fairly crushing southern defeat.

  One negative effect of this.  With more loyal slave states and the war over quickly you could see the maintenance of legal slavery in at least the loyal states.  There could be neither the time nor the sense of crisis to make something like the Gettysburg address and ending of slavery in rebel states politically acceptable, let alone in the loyal states.  As such while its political power would be significantly  reduced slavery could linger for possibly a couple of generations.

[oscssw]

Slavery is a very hard nut to crack. Why don't we just concentrate on the campaign in the East with Virginia and North Carolina staying in the union?

Where would the first big battle be?  I'd say on the SC/NC border. 

Would very competent professional officers from VA, like Lee, Jackson and Johnston be able to make the Union volunteers materially better trained for that first battle. 

Would these same officers prove more competent than the ones the union Had at Bull Run and hand the Confederacy a resounding defeat early on?

Would the North have the logistics necessary to follow up that defeat with a rapid advance into SC and capture of the state?

With SC back in Union hands would the rest of the Confederacy sue for peace then and there? I doubt this because the slave owners ran those southern states and they would never willingly surrender. 

I'd prefer Lee to Little Mac commanding the AOP.  Lee would go for the jugular and end the blood bath as soon as possible.

 

[lordroel]

Turtledove short novel Lee at the Alamo sounds a good way for Lee to remain loyal to the Union despite Virginia still succeeding.

The point of divergence is in December 1860, when General David E. Twiggs is unable to take command of the Department of Texas, leaving Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee as the commander. The story itself is set in February 1861 - just after Texas has voted to secede from the United States and join the Confederate States - through March 1861. Lt. Colonel Lee concludes that it is his duty to defend U.S. Army munitions and property in San Antonio, Texas, including the fabled Alamo, rather than allow their surrender to the seceding Texas government, as Twiggs did in OTL.

While Lee is forced to surrender to Benjamin McCulloch after several weeks of siege, he becomes a national hero. When Virginia does secede as it did in OTL, President Abraham Lincoln is able to convince Lee to stay in the Union's service by agreeing to send him west, where he will not be fighting against his fellow Virginians.

[miletus12]

Nov 15, 2021 15:58:31 GMT oscssw said:

We had a pretty interesting discussion on Lee staying with the union.  I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union.

I would guess most of the battles would be further south say North Carolina but maybe NC stays loyal and the Union can engage the very heart of the rebellion South Carolina in 1861.  From what I have read North Carolina was not all that eager to fight a civil war.  Maybe they would follow Virginia's example and stay with the union.  Now we have the full power of a larger and growing union force against SC.  I'd think a lot of the senior officers of the confederacy, being loyal to their home Virginia

would be available to command union troops.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston  VA

George Pickett VA

OK your thoughts?

The issue is complicated. First, it must be borne in mind that in March 1861, Virginia, by voting male population, was roughly 30/30/30/10 with Staunch Unionists / Conditional Unionists / Slavocrat secessionists and 10 % befuddled being the subsets by then current opinion. The political power levers were dominated by the slavocrats and planter "aristocracy" classes. Those "people" were motivated by the bizarre meandering political musings and theories of John C. Calhoun who regarded the United States as an association of independent states only held together by a "common interest". They, the slavocrats, believed the bonds of union only applied as long as a shared common interest held for them as a privileged class within that association.

In practical terms, it meant if the "association of states" acted against the slavocrats' rights to own and exploit human beings as property, then the slavocrats, where they governed or held the levers of political power, could take the state they locally ruled out of the association of states to preserve their own class economic interests.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston VA

George Pickett VA

And so was Robert E. Lee. They believed in the practical Calhoun view of slavocrat centered class economic interests as the underlying principle of "Southern Rights and Special Political Privilege". So, in order for Virginia to remain in the Union, as far as they were concerned, forced slavery and owning human beings as property had to be guaranteed to convince Virginia to remain in the Union. And if that fundamental condition was a necessity to them, then it meant that what held for Virginia would also hold South Carolina.  There would have been no rebellion and treason if the "Southern Rights" had been asserted and emolified and/or Lincoln administration accepted. 

Once the free labor argument prevailed in the confused 1860 election and the Breckenridge third party candidacy broke the Democrat hold on the national polity by splitting northern and southern democrats in two and allowing the Republicans to assert majority political power in the northern polity inside the Union, war and eastern Virginia secession was inevitable. Most Virginians did not initially want secession. The entire western section of the state refused to follow the slavocrat dominated east out of the Union. However, as is the case of the rule of thirds, enough east Virginia residents adamantly followed the slavocrat line and the state joined the Confederacy. The middle third went along with the slavocrat influenced active third as a go along to get along centrist faction and that was enough (the Conditionalists) to generate the awful warfare in northern and eastern Virginia.

As a coda, remember that Robert E. Lee thought he was protecting his state from "Those People" who he regarded as invaders, plunderers and essentially "foreigners" intruding into his "Virginia". I think he would have been shocked if someone (of that era) had called him a mass murderer, a war criminal, a crass butcher of his fellow Americans, and a traitor to the Republic. But then... that was exactly what he was, as well as a slave-owner and a member of an economically and politically privileged social class who earned his wealth and social position off the owning and exploiting of human beings as property.

      

     
       

[oscssw]

Dec 2, 2021 13:02:17 GMT miletus12 said:

Nov 15, 2021 15:58:31 GMT oscssw said:

We had a pretty interesting discussion on Lee staying with the union.  I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union.

I would guess most of the battles would be further south say North Carolina but maybe NC stays loyal and the Union can engage the very heart of the rebellion South Carolina in 1861.  From what I have read North Carolina was not all that eager to fight a civil war.  Maybe they would follow Virginia's example and stay with the union.  Now we have the full power of a larger and growing union force against SC.  I'd think a lot of the senior officers of the confederacy, being loyal to their home Virginia

would be available to command union troops.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston  VA

George Pickett VA

OK your thoughts?

The issue is complicated. First, it must be borne in mind that in March 1861, Virginia, by voting male population, was roughly 30/30/30/10 with Staunch Unionists / Conditional Unionists / Slavocrat secessionists and 10 % befuddled being the subsets by then current opinion. The political power levers were dominated by the slavocrats and planter "aristocracy" classes. Those "people" were motivated by the bizarre meandering political musings and theories of John C. Calhoun who regarded the United States as an association of independent states only held together by a "common interest". They, the slavocrats, believed the bonds of union only applied as long as a shared common interest held for them as a privileged class within that association.

In practical terms, it meant if the "association of states" acted against the slavocrats' rights to own and exploit human beings as property, then the slavocrats, where they governed or held the levers of political power, could take the state they locally ruled out of the association of states to preserve their own class economic interests.

Jackson was from VA

Stuart was from VA

Early was from VA

Joe Johnston VA

George Pickett VA

And so was Robert E. Lee. They believed in the practical Calhoun view of slavocrat centered class economic interests as the underlying principle of "Southern Rights and Special Political Privilege". So, in order for Virginia to remain in the Union, as far as they were concerned, forced slavery and owning human beings as property had to be guaranteed to convince Virginia to remain in the Union. And if that fundamental condition was a necessity to them, then it meant that what held for Virginia would also hold South Carolina.  There would have been no rebellion and treason if the "Southern Rights" had been asserted and emolified and/or Lincoln administration accepted. 

Once the free labor argument prevailed in the confused 1860 election and the Breckenridge third party candidacy broke the Democrat hold on the national polity by splitting northern and southern democrats in two and allowing the Republicans to assert majority political power in the northern polity inside the Union, war and eastern Virginia secession was inevitable. Most Virginians did not initially want secession. The entire western section of the state refused to follow the slavocrat dominated east out of the Union. However, as is the case of the rule of thirds, enough east Virginia residents adamantly followed the slavocrat line and the state joined the Confederacy. The middle third went along with the slavocrat influenced active third as a go along to get along centrist faction and that was enough (the Conditionalists) to generate the awful warfare in northern and eastern Virginia.

As a coda, remember that Robert E. Lee thought he was protecting his state from "Those People" who he regarded as invaders, plunderers and essentially "foreigners" intruding into his "Virginia". I think he would have been shocked if someone (of that era) had called him a mass murderer, a war criminal, a crass butcher of his fellow Americans, and a traitor to the Republic. But then... that was exactly what he was, as well as a slave-owner and a member of an economically and politically privileged social class who earned his wealth and social position off the owning and exploiting of human beings as property.

      

     
       

miletus12, good statement of the situation that caused VA to side with the Secessionists.

That said, this is an Alternate History discussion site.  We get to rewrite history here and then amicably discuss the proposition.

Based on your post I'd guess you know a whole lot about the American Civil war and I, for one, would appreciate reading your thoughts on this Alternate history.

So I put the original question to you again "I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union."

[lordroel]

Dec 2, 2021 15:14:04 GMT oscssw said:

So I put the original question to you again "I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union."

You forgot to add, without Virginia being effected by a giant alien space bat senior Chief.

[miletus12]

Dec 2, 2021 15:15:53 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 2, 2021 15:14:04 GMT oscssw said:

So I put the original question to you again "I'd like to broaden it to Virginia decides to support the Union."

You forgot to add, without Virginia being effected by a giant alien space bat senior Chief.

In order for Virginia's polity as a whole to become "pro-Union" one has to understand the economics and politics that created secessionist Virginia and work out an alternative set of economic and political interest groups to neutralize the slavocrats.


There is a hint in that West Virginia's polity was dominated by hard scrabble free soilers, Appalachian mountain folks and powerful mining combines whose economic interests were tied to the feeding and supplying of the factory workers and nascent industrial centers of Pennsylvania and Ohio.


 Map of Virginia : showing the distribution of its slave ...   

Virginia industrialization...

PDF on industrialization and agriculture interdependence in Virginia.



1. Some of the changes I see as necessary to Virginia society at its base to countervalue its planter slavocracy aristocracy are subtle: more development of the seaports along the Chesapeake Bay as shipbuilding centers for the merchant marine and the NAVY; the concomitant growth of ins state banking creditor lender institutions and a merchant seafarer class invested as heavily in overseas commodities trade as one might see in a New England state, may be necessary. 

2. A heavily industrialized machine tools factories Richmond with a coterie of industrial barons attached to it, as one might see in Hartford, Connecticut or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is indicated.

3. A more Methodist as opposed to Baptist religious base in the populations' belief would factor in. 

4. A far more mixed agriculture underlayment with more dairy farms and other animal husbandry components and less emphasis on single cash crop agriculture based on Cotton and Tobacco would counter-value single cash crop economics and agrarian interests. 

5. Railroad network hubbed into Pennsylvania more than North Carolina to orient capitalist as opposed to mercantilist tendencies in the population's general welfare outlook is another balance.
  
6. Due to economic drivers 1-6, a much larger free yeoman farmer and small farms basis along the Rappahannock, Shenandoah and Potomac river valleys creates a Union yeoman farmer voter block.    

7. More of a George Washington and a lot less Thomas Jefferson mindset about duty to the nation and what kind of Virginian one should be, helps.

8. A much wider Virginia voting franchise in the electorate, including for freed men, is necessary.

9. And no matter how weak, initially, an abolitionist movement, preferably centered in the seaports and working inland west from 1820 forward, neuters the slavocrats' arguments morally and legally. 

Give me that, and Virgina stays in the Union.    

[lordroel]

Dec 2, 2021 17:05:49 GMT miletus12 said:

Give me that, and Virgina stays in the Union.    

To achieve that the butterflies have to be many years in the past i assume.

[miletus12]

Dec 2, 2021 17:13:05 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 2, 2021 17:05:49 GMT miletus12 said:

Give me that, and Virgina stays in the Union.    

To achieve that the butterflies have to be many years in the past i assume.

At least from the War of 1812. I also noticed that I misspelled "Virginia".

[American hist]

So if the Confederates had not attacked fort Sumter and decided to try to be at peace with the union forcing Lincoln to make his move what is the fate of the upper south? I think what would happen is Winfield Scott and Lincoln would promise the rest of the people that they will only invade the South by ship not through land.

The upper south probably would’ve formed a league armed neutrality similar to Kentucky so I could imagine secretly the states would support the confederacy. Now if the Confederates had refrain from attacking fort Sumter there is a chance Maryland and Delaware could join the confederate camp provided the CSA can control those areas.

While Maryland’s governor sided with the union after fort Sumter he had wanted Maryland secede and join this Central confedaercy league.

The Governor went as far as seizing federal property such as arsenals to be placed under state the the authority which was already happening in the upper south including Arkansa