[jmacusa]

Before he left for Appomattox Lincoln told Grant “Let them up easy’’. Had the South prevailed would Jeff Davis had been so magnanimous?

[Wallace T.]

Yes. The Confederacy had no intentions on the North, any more than the American colonies had any designs on the British Isles. They may have had designs on the three slave border states and West Virginia. With France in control of Mexico and the desert Southwest being unsuitable for slavery based agriculture, the Confederates may have tried to expand into the Caribbean and Central and northern South America. With Southern secession accomplished, the Monroe Doctrine would have been moot. The South, with British and French cooperation, may have pushed the Spanish out of Cuba and Puerto Rico and colonized the Latin American countries that had been independent for 40 years.

[DesertRhino]

It would look different if the south would have won. And Jeff Davis might not have been very nice, but Robert E. Lee would have be magnanimous. The Southerners, in truth were very similar to the northerners.
many were classmates, former coworkers, and family members.