​A Southern victory in 1865 is perhaps one of, if not, the most fascinating alternate history scenarios to explore. The American Civil War was the ultimate test of the North American experiment. The Confederacy, fighting for their homes and posterity, faced an enemy hellbent on keeping those rebellious states in line. Outmanned and outgunned, they faced an almost insurmountable- but not impossible task. Here I’d like to present an alternate history stretching from 1863 to 2026 where I explore what such a divergence would look like, from possible ways the Confederacy could have won, to how a modern North American continent would look.  

​Jefferson Davis faced an impossible choice. The Union’s Anaconda plan was beginning to take shape. Coastal cities in the South were facing an impenetrable Union blockade, while war reports came across his desk revealed that the Union navy was snaking its way down the Mississippi River. At the same time, desperate and starving coastal cities begged for reinforcement to break the blockade. In our timeline, Vicksburg was woefully unprepared for a siege of the magnitude that the Union forces brought upon it. President Davis had to choose between reinforcing Vicksburg, relieving the coastal cities, and supplying the Army of Northern Virginia. Vicksburg was the anchor to the South. Once Vicksburg fell, it truly was the turning point for the Confederacy. With Vicksburg fallen and the Mississippi River secured by the Union, the Confederate States were effectively split in two. The Anaconda Plan was successful in starving out many thousands of Confederates, and created a jumping point for Sherman to begin his march to the sea. While many view Gettysburg as the nail in the Confederacy’s coffin, it truly was Vicksburg.
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In this alternative timeline, by late 1862 Confederate strategists, most urgently Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, sound the alarm that the Mississippi River is the Confederacy’s critical artery and must not be lost.


This is where Davis makes his impossible decision. Davis orders the Mississippi turned into a fortified corridor and shifts roughly a quarter of the Army of Northern Virginia westward to reinforce Pemberton. Lee protests bitterly; his entire operational philosophy rested on striking north rather than dispersing strength. Lee’s operational philosophy led him to believe the fastest way to end the war was a direct invasion of the North. Without a quarter of his men, General Lee is forced to abandon his plans for an invasion of Gettysburg, and is forced to take up an entrenched defensive line along the border in Maryland. Davis further orders any and all torpedoes (sea mines) be removed from coastal cities, such as Mobile, and move them to strategic choke points within the Mississippi River. Removing the torpedoes worsens the blockade and angers the States that are besieged by Union gunboats. In the west though, Lt. Gen. Pemberton is incredibly grateful for the trust Davis placed in him, assures Davis that the sacrifices of the coastal cities and to General Lee’s army would not be in vain.


The guiding philosophy of the Anaconda Plan was simple. Surround the Confederacy from all sides and starve them out. In this scenario, only one side of the Anaconda is able to wrap a coil. Meanwhile, on April 13th 1863, Ulysses S Grant orders Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter to make a daring run. Admiral Porter was tasked with getting Union gunboats to Vicksburg through Louisiana to siege the city and provide support to Grant’s forces which approached inland from the north and east. In this scenario, due to the torpedoes which dotted the Mississippi river, Admiral Porter’s gunboats never make it to Vicksburg. One by one they fall as they traverse the winding narrow channels of the lower Mississippi. In our timeline, Admiral Porter had the element of surprise and stealth. Engines were muffled, lights were extinguished, and livestock were moved off the ships to reduce as much noise as possible. In this alternative timeline, Admiral Porter loses all stealth. As the torpedoes detonate, Confederate defenders that were holding checkpoints unleash volley after volley of cannon fire in the darkness and sink Porter’s fleet.



On May 18th 1863, the Battle of Vicksburg begins. General Grant, without the cover of Admiral Porter’s gunboats, attempts a daring “blitzkrieg” of Vicksburg. General Grant has to take the city for the Anaconda Plan to be successful, so he accepts the risk and charges. The Confederate forces at Vicksburg in this alternative timeline are well fed, armed, and outnumber Grant’s forces.


The result is a sharp Confederate victory. After several days of hard fighting, Grant orders a withdrawal; Confederate cavalry and infantry under Polk and Forrest press the pursuit across Mississippi and into Tennessee, ultimately forcing the surrender of the bulk of Grant’s army near Paducah, Kentucky.


The capture of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman is a devastating blow to the Union. Calls for peace with the South become deafening in Washington. Meanwhile, Confederate negotiators in the UK and France use these victories as leverage to seek official recognition and assistance from their foreign allies.


In the months following victory at Vicksburg, England is given a trade deal. England gets exclusive import rights to Southern cotton at a discounted rate. In return, the CSA requests official recognition of sovereignty, and for assistance in breaking the Union blockades on the coastal cities. The UK is hesitant at first over the issue of slavery in the South, however the trade exclusivity deal is too good to pass up, and the idea of a divided America is appealing to them as it weakens American influence on the Continent.


France is also given a trade deal. France gets exclusive import rights to Southern tobacco. In exchange, the CSA asks for official recognition of sovereignty, and for lethal and non-lethal aid from France to keep the CSA army fed and supplied. France accepts on the condition that the CSA respects the territorial rights of Mexico. By this time, Napoleon III placed Archduke Maximilian of Austria to be the emperor of Mexico and had a vested interest in French influence in the region. Davis accepts Napoleon III’s terms.


With formal recognition from Britain and France, the Confederacy gains critical breathing room. British naval squadrons, acting under the new treaties, break the Union blockade at key ports within months. French materiel aid reinforces CSA armies across the country. For Robert E Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, his time had come. Armed and supplied with more men, Lee begins his push northwards to cut the Union in half.


The pressure on Lincoln is palpable. Between the failure of the Anaconda Plan, CSA support from France and England, and Lee’s army burning through Pennsylvania, he has no choice but to come to the negotiation table.



​Lincoln sends diplomatic envoys across the Potomac waving the white flag. They bring a letter to Richmond addressed to Jefferson Davis. The message is a request for Davis to meet Lincoln in Washington DC to discuss terms of peace.
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Davis had done it. He had secured independence and peace for his budding new nation. The cheers of “Hurrah” were deafening as Davis finished his address to his Confederacy in Richmond. There was work to be done.


Immediately, pressure is put onto Davis from the UK on the issue of slavery. While the UK is grateful for the exclusive rights to cotton trade in Europe, they are not keen on it being sourced from slave labor. The UK demands a plan be drafted by the CSA for full emancipation within 10 years.


Additionally, there’s also the issue of reconciliation with his bitter northern neighbor. Davis recognizes that coexistence on this continent with another nation that you share so much history with will be difficult and competitive, but not impossible. Foreign relations can wait however, for now, Davis must focus on domestic issues and reconstruction of the South.


In this alternative timeline, the newly independent CSA and USA are now locked into a new fierce version of “Manifest Destiny”. The rush to claim previously unclaimed land had begun. Between 1865-1880, mad dashes are made between both nations to expand as much as they possibly can. The CSA claims land west of Texas all the way to California. These become the states of Arizona and New Mexico respectively. The Union, not looking to be outdone, is able to claim more land more rapidly than the CSA due to their higher population and robust railway network. This leads to the USA claiming the remaining states north and west of New Mexico. In this timeline the state of Sequoia is created in what is modern-day Oklahoma and granted to the Native tribes that fought for the Confederacy. Its citizens receive full Confederate citizenship and representation in Richmond. In stark contrast to how Indians are treated in the Union, Citizens in Sequoia are grateful to the CSA for fair treatment and political representation.



With the mainland mostly claimed, the CSA now points their sights South. Confederate ‘Knights of the Golden Circle’ draft plans to annex Cuba, the Bahamas, the Yucatán Peninsula south to Panama, Baja California, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guyana. In this timeline, the CSA was able to rapidly industrialize by 1870. With the support of the UK and France, and much of the Confederate interior remaining intact, the CSA can produce enough naval ships to begin their conquest of the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America by 1875. By 1895, the Confederate Golden Circle was complete.


In the Union, they can’t bear to be outcompeted by their Confederate neighbors. Furthermore, they desperately needed a victory. In 1876, the Union army begins a surprise invasion of Canada. The Union justifies this invasion as retaliation for the UK and French actions during the “Second War of Independence”, as it is known in the South, and cites the necessity to connect the lower USA to the recently acquired Alaska. At this time, the British empire was spread too thin across Africa and India to put up much of a fight in Canada. The invigorated US army quickly overwhelms Canadian cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. By 1880 the USA fully annexes and controls the “Great White North” at the chagrin of French and British leadership.


By 1880, the issue of slavery is coming to a head. The UK gives the South an ultimatum. Abolish slavery or face a total cessation of all British trade. As is the nature of politics, the original “10 year emancipation plan” that the UK originally demanded had been delayed multiple times by now however it was currently unignorable. The CSA had to face the emancipation of slavery or become an isolated pariah state. Luckily, resistance to emancipation wasn’t as strong as the CSA government had anticipated. With the advent of industry in the South, slaves were becoming more expensive and less efficient of a labor force as the plantation system industrialized. The border states, especially Virginia, become leaders in the abolition argument. CSA congressmen from Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri submit their plans for emancipation. Their plan goes like this:

1. All importation of new slaves into the CSA will immediately cease
2. Over a period of 5 years, every current slave owner must turn in their slaves to the federal government for buyback of each slave’s monetary value.
3. First and second-generation former slaves will be repatriated back to their country of origin.
4. Public blacks only schools will be built to prepare the newly emancipated former slaves 3rd generation or more into Confederate society.
5. All 3rd generation or more former slaves would be given the choice to stay within the CSA or be repatriated back to their country of origin.
6. Emancipated blacks do not have the right to vote.
7. Emancipated blacks are barred from holding public office

The plan is imperfect and meets stiff resistance from planters in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Yet a majority in Congress, driven by industrializing border states and the threat of British economic isolation, ultimately accepts it. The ‘peculiar institution’ is dismantled on a schedule the Confederacy can claim as its own. The British and French empires accept the CSA’s terms of emancipation and back down on their threats of sanctions and embargos.
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​By 1888 slavery is abolished, yet a rigid racial hierarchy remains. Black Confederates occupy a legal and social status well below that of whites and Indians, with segregation and restricted rights defining daily life. Unofficially the CSA has a clear racial caste system. Whites at the top, American Indians below that, then Spanish and Latinos living in the Caribbean and Central/South America, and finally, the newly emancipated blacks. Segregation and indentured servitude is their new reality. Black Confederates, now free from living on their plantations, move into their own close-knit communities dotted throughout the South. Some choose to stay with their original masters to work for an allowance as that is the only life they knew. Still many others use this chance to try and escape up north. Those that do though face perhaps an even worse fate. Africans that escape to the Union face persecution they never witnessed before in the South. Northern states, while they abhorred slavery, were almost even more violently racist than in the South. Any blacks found in the Union would be lynched, harassed, and deported back to the South on sight. The Mason-Dixon Line becomes a tense frontier as black Confederates try to cross northward, only to encounter hostility and forced to return southward. While it wasn’t ideal in the South at this time, at least they had a chance to live in their own communities away from White cities.  
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​War has begun in Europe. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated sparking a war declaration between Austria, Hungary and Serbia. This quickly escalates from a regional conflict into a global war as the Allied Powers and Central Powers vie for control. In this timeline, the CSA and USA largely stay out of direct fighting until 1917 like in our timeline. The USA, having been declared hostile to the UK and France due to their actions in Canada, become close allies with Russia. From 1914-1917, the USA supplies the Russian war effort due to becoming a serious industrial powerhouse. The USA arms and feeds the Russian war machine. The support looks similar on the CSA side. The CSA, while not as industrious as their northern neighbors, is able to provide warm clothes, abundant food, tobacco, and some arms support for their French and English allies.


In 1915, everything changed. Unrestricted German U boat attacks sink the RMS Lusitania. In our real timeline, this attack killed 1,198 people, 128 of which were Americans. In our alternative timeline, those 128 Americans were CSA citizens who were on board. Warhawks within the CSA and the families of those killed call for action to be taken. The CSA government, however, was still staunchly isolationist and saw little reason to get fully involved with a war in Europe. Opinions in the USA are mixed. While they shed no tears for the loss of CSA citizens, the fact that the Germans were escalating to killing non-belligerents is incredibly concerning. Confederate diplomats are sent to Germany in outrage to demand that the Kaiser immediately cease unrestricted U Boat attacks. Temperatures cooled for a time until 1917 when the CSA was hit with a double whammy. German U-Boats began unrestricted attacks once again, and the British intelligence intercepted and relayed the infamous Zimmerman telegram to the CSA. Richmond regards the Zimmerman Telegram as a direct threat to Confederate territory in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Outrage is immediate and bipartisan. The decision was made in Richmond to formally declare war on Germany for the sake of protecting their hard fought borders.


Author’s note: The Zimmerman Telegram was a message that the German Empire sent to the Mexican government stating that Germany would assist the Mexican military in re-taking the land they lost in the Mexican-American war. In this alternative timeline, this is a much greater threat to the CSA than it was to the USA in our real timeline and thusly is the biggest spark for the CSA to enter the war against Germany. British intelligence intercepted the message and it was made public in the USA (in our real timeline) in March of 1917.
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In mid-1917, the CSA formally enters the war against Germany. The Confederate battle flag, emblazoned on CSA Ironclads, sails across the Atlantic to meet the German eagle for the first time. Meanwhile the United States faces its own overseas crisis. Russia is collapsing into revolution and civil war. Fearing the loss of its most important remaining great-power partner, the United States decides to intervene decisively on the side of the White armies. By 1920, with the war in Europe ending, American supplies, advisors, and limited forces help tip the balance. By 1922 the Bolsheviks are defeated and a non-communist Russian government, authoritarian, but Western-aligned, emerges. The Soviet Union never formed.  

​What’s something that Lynyrd Skynyrd, Billy Idol, Johnny Cash, NASCAR, and the old Mississippi state flag have in common? They all used to proudly display a banner of rebellion. The Confederate Battle Flag. What was once a ubiquitous symbol of the South has become twisted into something unrecognizable. For decades in the United States, it was commonly understood by everyone that the Confederate Battle Flag represented heritage, hospitality, polite manners, and rejection of authority. Now, in a world post-Dylann Roof and George Floyd, the flag has become stained by hate and violence. The great man HK Edgerton first popularized the phrase “heritage, not hate” and I would like to carry on his message. As Southerners, we must reclaim the good and wholesome symbolism of our Flag.


Growing up in the South, the Confederate Battle Flag was an incredibly common sight for me. The very first video game I have a distinct memory of playing was “Dukes of Hazzard” on PlayStation. My cousins had Battle Flag blankets. My grandparents would tell me great stories of the South and what it meant to be Southern. I’d eat grits in the morning and sing “Dixie” in the evening. I was shown roads that General Nathan Bedford Forrest marched his cavalry through. I was taken to state fairs where Civil War battle reenactments took place. I say this to highlight that my upbringing was about as Southern as it got. Despite being raised to be proud of who I was and surrounded by symbols of the South, never once was I ever taught hate. I was raised to treat everyone the way I’d want to be treated, never judge anyone by the way they look, and pray for people who trespass against me. Southern culture was normalized for me and my peers in a way that someone growing up in the North could never understand. It was so normal for me in fact, that I never considered the Battle Flag to be anything different. The Flag represented my home, my culture, and my heritage. I was proud to be both an American, and Southern.


Today, the common zeitgeist of the Flag has taken on a completely different connotation. Instead of the Flag meaning sweet tea and warm weather, it has been corrupted into something it is not. Dylann Roof was the kindling for that. In 2015, Dylann Roof, a White supremacist neo-Nazi, murdered nine people in a mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. While flying the flag of my homeland, Roof was responsible for a heinous and cowardly attack against innocent worshippers. Overnight the image of the Battle Flag had been sullied forever in the minds of millions of Americans. If Roof was the kindling, then George Floyd was the spark. The 2020 “summer of love” needs no explanation for those who lived through it: a year highlighted by riots, protests, and violence over the death of George Floyd. This was the turning point. For many state governments and private businesses, Confederate imagery became anathema, the most notable examples being the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Mississippi changing their state flag, and NASCAR banning its display at races. In the five years between Roof’s attack and Floyd’s death, 160 years of Confederate history was being erased nationwide.


Furthermore, Southern symbols have been co-opted by bad actors. People who have no business carrying our symbols have hijacked them. Neo-Nazis, edgelords, and various extremists now fly the Confederate Battle Flag right next to swastikas, SS runes, and other foreign garbage. Nothing disgusts me more. The men who carried that flag in 1861–1865 were fighting for the South — not European fascism, not genocide, not totalitarianism. Those who mix our banner with Nazi symbols are poisoning it for the rest of us. If we want the Southern Cross to fly proudly again, we must loudly and publicly reject these clowns every single time. This may be one of my more divisive opinions here, but I firmly believe one of the most important ways to reclaim our banner will be to loudly disavow any association with these groups. There is no world wherein the public accepts the Confederate Battle Flag as a symbol of heritage when it’s flown by the same groups who have adopted Nazism. They use these symbols to sow fear and division in people. To reclaim our Flag, we must loudly denounce its use by bad actors.


Finally, I would like to discuss what can actually be done to reclaim our symbols. I’ve been inspired by Southern biker culture. Bikers embody so many of our values — freedom, loyalty, brotherhood, independence, and respect for heritage. What makes them respected in their communities is that they don’t just talk — they do. They run toy drives, charity rides, disaster relief efforts, and help take care of their own. I believe these kinds of community outreach done by Southern heritage groups would make incredible progress in the public eye. Imagine food drives, car washes, charities, worship events, toy drives, all done while flying the Confederate Battle Flag. This accomplishes a lot in my opinion. First, it raises awareness within your community that Southern heritage groups are active. Secondly, by directly helping people, you help re-associate Southern symbols with everything that they originally stood for. By reclaiming the Battle Flag from a “hateful” symbol to a symbol of fellowship and community, we will begin the steps of re-legitimizing it. I’m not saying that this idea is perfect or fool proof, but I am saying that I believe that this would be one of the best ways to directly change people’s minds about what our Flag represents. That’s how we turn “Heritage, Not Hate” from a slogan into living truth.


This isn’t about asking permission from outsiders. It’s about living our values so clearly and proudly that the smear campaign loses its power. The South has always been a place of resilience. We rebuilt after the War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, and every other hardship thrown our way. We can reclaim our symbols the same way — through pride, hard work, and love of our people


The South means everything to me. It is my home, my people, my heritage, and my future. Seeing her symbols and culture be reduced to symbols of hate and division saddens me greatly. “Heritage, not hate” is the mantra I live by. I hope that one day, the Southern Cross will once again be free to fly high with no baggage. That Robert E Lee will be back on his rightful place in Richmond. That Mississippi will have her flag back. We must reclaim our symbols from those who wish to take them from us.