But if he had gotten the command after Joe Johnson, or if Stephen Lee hadn't kept him in Mississippi when Forrest went out to cut Sherman's supply lines, things might well have been different.
Of course it would have been absurd, but no more absurd than the idea of an unknown artillery officer gaining control of France, and then most of Europe. History is full of such absurdities. As a Yankee, I’m glad that Forrest’s qualities were not recognized until late in the war, and I shudder to think of what may have happened had it been otherwise.
I’m not one who believes that the two nations would have lived peacefully thereafter on the continent had the Confederacy succeeded in maintaining its independence. There is no evidence of it. I think much of Harry Turtledove’s alternate history has a lot of merit.