[tanknetter]

The South fought a gentleman's war against a ruthless rapacious enemy. It should have been an eye for an eye.

Lee specifically rejected that philosophy as being counterproductive.

The only thing worse than the South having gone that way and losing (Reconstruction would have been magnitudes more brutal than it was) would have been the South having gone that way and WINNING.

Harry Turtledove did an excellent series - not without its faults and flaws, certainly (I don't see the South ever trying to implement a version of Hitler's "Final Solution" against the blacks, for instance) - of exploring that possibility starting with a Southern win at Sharpsburg/Antietam. In all likelihood the CSA would have aligned with the Brits and the French (who would have probably entered the war at that point), the USA with the Germans. In a scenario where post-war the USA still develops as the world's industrial powerhouse while the South has a difficult time evolving beyond the agrarian. Turtledove hypothesizes a further war between the USA/CSA in the 1880s, followed by escalating conflicts as part of WWI and WWII.

[central_va]

I am tired of listening to your denigrations. Just leave it at that. The speculation is moot. I do it too. We now live in the aftermath(afterbirth) of Lincoln’s war. The republic is dead long live the empire.