Book Review: If the South Had Won the Civil War
The novel, “If the South Had Won the Civil War” initially featured in the Look Magazine in November 22, 1960 where it stirred an overflow of correspondence across the world from its readers. It was published in the year 1961. For any serious civil war enthusiast, this novel is a must-have. The writer of the novel Kantor MacKinlay Kantor is a Pulitzer Price-winning author and a master in story-telling. He shows us how the civil war would have been won by the South and how a minor shift in the history during the 1863 summer could have twisted the tide for the Confederation. The novel postulates questions about what would have happened to the Union, to the people of the South and North America, to Abraham Lincoln and the people of the world at large if the south could have won the war.
This book though short, is an application of alternate history that sets out how the South might have won the Civil War of America, and anything that might have occurred afterwards until the year 1960 when the novel was written.
The novel is written well in a plausible manner that makes it have the capacity to superficially convince an enthusiast reader. It is also quite pleasant to read for anybody who has deep interest in the subject of Civil War.
Kantor’s first alteration in history is excellently well placed. It is a very minute and plausible alteration or change that bears great consequences and repercussions that comes afterwards. On the twelfth day of May, in year 1863, the horse belonging to the United States Grant fell on him causing a serious accident that left him with serious injuries in his body. In the novel’s alternate history the U.S Grant is reported to have been killed in the fatal accident. This was a serious setback in the eyes of the union even though not necessarily resulting into the victory in the Civil War for of the Confederation.
After this making this reasonable change in history, Kantor trudges ahead, to propose not less than three other changes to the history, which is vulgar. The accepted form in art is the art of making a reader change to history where every event flows from, in the genre of alternate history.
Kantor again supposes that the forces of the confederate who were in the west corporate in a manner that is better that they actually did in real history so as to capitalize on the confusion of the Union that was basically brought about by the untimely death of the Grant of the United States. The army of the Tennessee is trapped and afterwards forced to surrender before Sherman is brought down by a shot from a sniper.
In the battle of Gettysburg, Kantor supposes that Stuart and Lee carefully corrects the wrongs and the mistakes that they got themselves in, in real history. The war is a decisive win to the Confederate. The forces of the union are moved and mostly wiped out by the forces of the confederation. The great Washington is seized followed by the capturing of Lincoln and the great battle comes to an end in the year 1863 in the month of July.
The process of establishing new boundaries starts after the end of the war and West Virginia is lost by the confederacy even though they gained a small portion of Delaware, Kentucky, most parts of Maryland and of course Washington D.C. The union becomes untenable after their loss of Maryland. The Union moves their capital to Columbus in Ohio after moving it from Philadelphia.
In the year 1878 Texas declared itself non-dependent on the Confederacy anymore. During the late years of 1870s individuals in the Confederates states began freeing their slaves. The entire Confederacy followed afterwards by freeing all their slaves. Texas also joined the cohort afterwards in the abandonment of the vice of slavery. The problem of integration after freeing the slaves continued for a while.
The confederacy in the year 1898, indulges in a war for a short duration and she seizes the island with a lot of ease.
After the election of Woodrow Wilson as the president of the Confederate in the year 1910 he starts to speak of the reunion of the Confederacy with the United States of America. The three partitions of the initial United States of America join hands in participating in the two world wars and finally comes to an agreement to unite once again in the year 1960. This reunion was somehow accelerated by the dread of the Soviet Union in the east.
About the deliberate abolition of the slavery that saw to the release of slaves across the Confederation, to some extent it is quite plausible as the world had a robust trend towards that direction generally. The time taken before the abolition of slavery was effected was somehow longer than Kantor had suggested but on this he ought to have known better than I can imagine.
The reunification of the United States of America into one robust nation also looks plausible especially with the issue of slavery being wiped out and it is no longer a cause for such division.
I am really not a big fun of the genre alternative history but after reading this novel I became fascinated by the great effect that the Confederate States of America could have had over the entire world for a long period of decades as a result of the South becoming victorious in the war.
I particularly liked the way the novelist realistically and cleverly follows the scenario of what-if all way from the beginning through the termination of the second world war where the greatest enemy states Confederation States of America and the United States of America join hands in fighting a common enemy.
The novel is however disappointing in the aspect that it completely neglects the issues of economic bearing of beginning a new nation. The notion that the South territory would have successfully and totally brought racism and slavery to an end twenty years afterwards when left to themselves. surely? I really bet that that is the way it would have happened due to the simple reason that the issue of racisms does not have room in the north. The north came to end the slavery by themselves. For this, I found it wanting and somehow weak.
An alternative history as a genre maybe should not be critically judged because they only consider one of possible many options. But still the idea that the south would have easily ended the vice of slavery, strikes me as an unlikely phenomenon to occur. The competence of the American divided army to corporate together with coherence and the necessary cohesion that was required to win the world war also seems to be far much stretched. Given the divisiveness based on regions in the contemporary politics of America, the final portion of the novel looked despairingly enthusiastic.
In general, I tend to think that though plausible, the book is too much optimistic more so on behalf of the confederation, which in this case was a disaster in her economic operation, disunited politically and quarrelling. If it had won the civil war as described in the alteration of history it would have experienced hard times still, in making steps towards her recovery from the numerous problems that entangled her operations in order to emerge as a health and robust nation.
Work Cited
Kantor, MacKinlay. If the South had won the Civil War. New York: Forge, 2001. Print.
