Richards Gray Visions

Book III of the Alternative History Trilogy
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-8193-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 183 Seiten

The author's speculation about how Reconstruction might have taken place if the Confederacy had won the Civil War, including how the Spanish-American war might have played out, as well as World War I. One chapter, which features a reunion of the characters from the first two novels, twenty years later, includes a lengthy narrative of the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Richards, R.W.

Leseproben

Gray Visions Chapter One: 1865
  Peace had come at last. To war-weary Southerners of all races, the agreement negotiated between Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln in the autumn of 1864 could not have come too soon. The conflict between the North and South had raged for over three years and left Southerners facing devastation the likes of which no modern people had ever faced. From Virginia to Texas, from Florida to Kentucky, farms, plantations, towns and no few cities lay in ruins. With the arrival of peace and the abolition of slavery, Southern people, blacks and whites alike, turned their eyes toward an uncertain future. True, the Confederate States had won their independence. Lee’s victory over Grant on the North Anna River in May of 1864 led to a string of Confederate victories, triggering a chain of events which led ultimately to negotiations and an end not only of the war, but of slavery as well. Lincoln had agreed to pay reparations to the newly independent Confederacy and the last of the Union troops were withdrawn from Southern soil. The first few weeks following the agreement were filled with joy. Euphoria swept across the land like a brush fire over the prairie, but as the weeks slipped by and winter approached this elation faded quickly. A stark reality loomed over the citizens of the Confederate States of America. Problems abounded but solutions seemed all too few. The agricultural base of the South had been ravaged. Southern railroads had been left largely in tangled ruins. Only the fractured remains of a transportation system were available for use. What had once been the proud city of Atlanta was nothing but piles of smoldering ashes. One thing was painfully obvious as the people surveyed the scene of destruction which covered much of the South: reconstruction would prove far more a challenge than the war just concluded. Compounding the crisis posed by rebuilding was a factor even more complex. Well over three million of the South’s people were experiencing freedom for the first time. Slavery was finished in North America. Most of the former slaves were illiterate – kept so by the laws of old. Would they be capable of handling the responsibilities which came hand in hand with freedom? Would the abolition of slavery trigger chaos in a land already drained by war? An answer to these questions was of necessity the first objective of the Confederate government as it entered the post-war period. Moreover, time would simply not allow the luxury of extended debate and hand-wringing over the problem; something would have to be done and quickly. No few of the largest slave owners balked at the idea of granting freedom to their slaves. They knew resistance within the Confederacy itself would be useless as Lee had already committed the support of the army to the emancipation. Therefore, many simply chose to leave. Taking as many as their slaves as possible, these people put their land and their homes up for sale and opted to migrate to Brazil, where the institution of slavery was still very much legal. By the beginning of 1865, the bulk of those who had chosen to leave were gone. Those who stayed were turning their attention to finding a resolution to the crisis posed by slavery’s abolition. With regard to a program of action, the Confederate government found itself in a situation which may accurately be described as fortunate. Elsewhere in the world there was one example of a country dealing with a similar situation on a far bigger scale. This country was Russia. Feudalism had developed in Russia at about the same time it was winding down in Western Europe. By the early nineteenth century most of the Russian people were serfs, peasants who were bound to the soil. These people had never known freedom. Their lives and fortunes were completely controlled by the Russian aristocracy. Serfs had no rights to speak of. Their feudal masters could buy and sell them at will. Their status was virtually the same as that of slaves. All through the nineteenth century, pressure had been building in Russia to improve the lot of the serfs. By 1860 this pressure was proving difficult to resist, and it would not be alleviated merely by making life more tolerable for the serfs. The movement had as its goal the abolition of serfdom and nothing less. In 1861, Czar Alexander II signed and issued the Emancipation Edict, granting freedom to Russian serfs and ending the institution of serfdom forever. Alexander and his advisers realized the potential for chaos in Russia if these people were left landless and without a source of income. A plan was devised which insured land for all the former serfs but it was not without its drawbacks. The plan left those same people with a mountain of debt which most found difficult to service. For the Confederate government in Richmond, it wasn’t necessary to look all the way to Russia to seek solutions. Prior to the war there were well over 150,000 free blacks in the South. Prosperous communities of free blacks could be found throughout Northern Virginia. Charleston, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana also boasted of substantial communities of free blacks who appeared to be doing quite well for themselves. In all of these situations one item seemed the deciding factor between success and failure: land. Land would be the key in administering a program of emancipation in the Confederacy, and land was something the South had in abundance. The citizens of the Confederate States weren’t the only ones whose attention was riveted on the challenges posed by emancipation. Much concern had arisen in the United States as well. Maryland and Delaware were the last two states of the Union to abolish slavery, but it wasn’t the former slaves of loyalist states which concerned most northerners. Fear was fast growing throughout much of the United States, a fear of a mass migration of newly freed blacks from the Confederacy to the United States. Many people who toiled for a wage in northern factories expressed alarm at the prospect of Southern blacks migrating north. They were afraid these former slaves would take their jobs at lower wages. Several states in the midwest already had laws on the books prohibiting free blacks from entering those states. Such laws had been in effect for quite some time, and plans were put into place to step up the enforcement of these statutes. Others among the Northern states began considering similar legislation. It was against this background that the Confederate Congress convened in early February of 1865. As agreed to by President Lincoln, monetary reparations from the United States had already begun to trickle into the Confederate treasury. The problem facing the Confederate Congress as it gathered in Richmond was how best to use this money to stabilize the economy, reimburse the former slave owners for the slaves who were now free, begin the daunting task of rebuilding, all while preventing social chaos. No easy task to be sure. A major priority would be placing the government itself on solid financial ground. During the course of the war every department of the Confederate Government operated at a deficit. Every department save one that is. The Postal Service of the Confederate States managed to outshine the rest of the government by emerging from the war debt free, a rather fine example of efficiency in austere circumstances. Fortunately, the victorious conclusion of the war provided a ready-made solution to these financial difficulties. Federal war reparations would quickly erase the various deficits run up by the Confederate Government. Thus were the Southern legislators freed to turn their attention to more pressing problems. Among these was the runaway inflation which had ruined their currency. However, the infusion of federal gold promised to bring this raging beast under control with very little pain involved. The most pressing crisis was that posed by the newly freed slaves. Their plight would have to be addressed first, lest chaos rear its ugly head and rip the new country apart. To this end, public hearings were scheduled in the Confederate House of Representatives to debate the merits of a bill coming from the hands of Jefferson Davis himself. The bill would essentially allow black men, who could establish a need, to apply to the government for a grant for the specific purpose of acquiring land and securing for themselves a home. Controversy was fast on the heels of this bill as it entered the halls of Congress. Many of the die-hard slave–holders of old were determined to see it defeated. They preferred to see a program which would leave the blacks free but penniless and with no means to support themselves. In this fashion they hoped to insure themselves a bountiful supply of cheap labor. All eyes were on Richmond in those stark, cold, dreary days of February. Much was riding on the outcome of this debate. A bitterly cold, winter, wind whipped across the gently rolling hills of the Covington farm. Wil Covington paused in his labors to pull his ragged scarf more tightly about his neck. His ears were freezing and he lacked gloves, which left his hands red and raw. For several moments he stood motionless with his head bowed and his back against the wind. At last it died down and he raised his head. He’d been working most of the day and had managed to split nearly half a cord of oak, maple, and locust. Ideally he would have been working with well-seasoned wood but these were not ideal times. He and Levi Henry had been away at war for more than two years before...