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If The South Had Won The Civil War
a great book to read
128 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1960
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About the author
MacKinlay Kantor
228 books66 followersBenjamin McKinlay Kantor, was an American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He wrote more than 30 novels, several set during the American Civil War, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his 1955 novel
Andersonville
Kantor was born in Webster City, Iowa, in 1904. His mother, a journalist, encouraged Kantor to develop his writing style. Kantor started writing seriously as a teen-ager when he worked as a reporter with his mother at the local newspaper in Webster City.
Kantor's first novel was published when he was 24.
During World War II, Kantor reported from London as a war correspondent for a Los Angeles newspaper. After flying on several bombing missions, he asked for and received training to operate the bomber's turret machine guns (this was illegal, as he was not in service).
Nevertheless he was decorated with the Medal of Freedom by Gen. Carl Spaatz, then the U.S. Army Air Corp commander. He also saw combat during the Korean War as a correspondent.
In addition to journalism and novels, Kantor wrote the screenplay for Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female) (1950), a noted film noir. It was based on his short story by the same name, published February 3, 1940 in a "slick" magazine, The Saturday Evening Post. In 1992, it was revealed that he had allowed his name to be used on a screenplay written by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, who had been blacklisted as a result of his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) hearings. Kantor passed his payment on to Trumbo to help him survive.
Several of his novels were adapted for films. He established his own publishing house, and published several of his works in the 1930s and 1940s.
Kantor died of a heart attack in 1977, at the age of 73, at his home in Sarasota, Florida.
Kantor was born in Webster City, Iowa, in 1904. His mother, a journalist, encouraged Kantor to develop his writing style. Kantor started writing seriously as a teen-ager when he worked as a reporter with his mother at the local newspaper in Webster City.
Kantor's first novel was published when he was 24.
During World War II, Kantor reported from London as a war correspondent for a Los Angeles newspaper. After flying on several bombing missions, he asked for and received training to operate the bomber's turret machine guns (this was illegal, as he was not in service).
Nevertheless he was decorated with the Medal of Freedom by Gen. Carl Spaatz, then the U.S. Army Air Corp commander. He also saw combat during the Korean War as a correspondent.
In addition to journalism and novels, Kantor wrote the screenplay for Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female) (1950), a noted film noir. It was based on his short story by the same name, published February 3, 1940 in a "slick" magazine, The Saturday Evening Post. In 1992, it was revealed that he had allowed his name to be used on a screenplay written by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, who had been blacklisted as a result of his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) hearings. Kantor passed his payment on to Trumbo to help him survive.
Several of his novels were adapted for films. He established his own publishing house, and published several of his works in the 1930s and 1940s.
Kantor died of a heart attack in 1977, at the age of 73, at his home in Sarasota, Florida.
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September 3, 2019
In the vein of "Fatherland" and "The Man in the High Castle", this is another fascinating vision of what might have been, had the Fates decreed History take a different turn from today's reality. Regardless of whether you accept Kantor's stab at this with respect to a victorious Confederacy, it's a great book to provoke thought --- on so many of the historical events we take for granted today. Which for those into political science, geopolitics, or history buffs like me is a lot of fun.
The singularity at which this alternative chain of events begins is with the death of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the key point in the Vicksburg campaign. In reality, Grant very nearly was killed when a new spirited horse on which he rode was startled and fell, injuring Grant, but not fatally. In this alternative reality, it is fatal. The political appointee and next senior in command, the incompetent Gen. John Alexander McClernand, assumes command with disastrous results, giving the formerly beaten Rebels a chance to unify their divided forces and take apart the Union Army's western forces, culminating in their defeat in July 1863.
While this disaster is unfolding, the Battle of Gettsyburg begins. Unlike in the reality where Gen. Robert E. Lee may have overdelegated to some of his field commanders, failed to see the importance of taking Little Round Top early on, and lost contact with Jeb Stuart's cavalry, in this alternate reality, Lee manages not to do these things, decisively turning the tide of the battle in the favor of the CSA, smashing the Army of Potomac into isolated elements, then destroying or forcing the surrender of each in detail piecemeal.
With Union forces decimated, leaderless, and demoralized, the Confederacy seizes Washington, DC, and captures Lincoln, forcing the Union to the peace table. Lincoln's VP, Hannibal Hamlin, assumes the Presidency of the North, and temporarily relocates the shattered remnants of the Federal Government to Philadelphia.
As negotiations between the USA and CSA proceed, Maryland and Kentucky declare for the CSA and leave the Union. Efforts by the CSA to seize back West Virginia by force during the negotiations fail disastrously, beaten by its militia, remnant Federal forces, and indigenous guerilla fighters. Eventually the southern part of Delaware is given to the CSA while a county of Maryland returns to the Union. Washington, DC, is ceded to the CSA, which makes it their new capitol as Washington, DD (District of Dixie).
With the loss of DC, the USA relocates its capitol to Columbus, OH, renaming it "Columbia". The costs of relocating and rebuilding a new capitol after the bloody war preclude the USA from purchasing Alaska from Russia, and it remains in Russian hands.
From here, I think Kantor has been on fairly solid ground in his vision of what might have followed, and clearly has a solid knowledge of Civil War history, no doubt. However, from here, I think his alternative reality becomes increasingly fanciful. Like many, he tends to view American history and America's place in the late 19th Century world in a vaccum, apart from events going elsewhere, particularly with respect the Great Power rivalries increasing in Europe and boiling over elsewhere into the rest of the world.
In Kantor's history, the USA and CSA coexist, more or less peacefully, fight alongside each other during WWI and WW2, and, faced with the might of a Soviet Union still having a foothold in Alaska, reunite together to face this Cold War threat.
These things, based upon my own knowledge of history, I think highly unlikely. For one thing, a broken apart America is one that would not have had the same influence in the world that it did increasingly as the 19th Century went on. That the great powers did not exploit, occupy, and subjugate the various countries of Central America and South America may well have been due to a strong, united USA and its Monroe Doctrine that acted as a disincentive to these to pursue their imperialist ventures in the Western Hemisphere as they were doing so in Africa and Asia. Indeed, during the Civil War, France took advantage of America's distraction and weakness to invade and occupy Mexico and install a puppet regime under an Austrian archduke it crowned as "Emperor of Mexico". With the Union victory, the US basically told the French to get out or face an American army coming their way, and the French pulled their forces out. Unlikely, that they would have done so if the South had won. And emboldened by this, it's not improbable that the British Empire and a rising Germany may have come up with reasons to meddle in and even occupy other Latin American nations.
I also don't think it likely that the great European powers would have stood aside from intervening in USA-CSA relations. Reportedly, one reason that the British never intervened on behalf of the South was because Queen Victoria was repulsed by the South's practice of slavery and abuse of its black population. In the aftermath of a Southern victory, I think it likely that the British might have moved to strengthen relations with the USA and diplomatically and economically isolate the CSA. With Germany's unification and rise and increasing rivalry with Great Britain, I think it likely the CSA would have been driven into closer and closer relations first with France, Britain's rival, then later with the German Empire, the result being an American continent riven with increasing military and economic tensions, mirroring those occurring in 19th Century in the rest of the world at the time. So I think it unlikely that, had the South won, both the USA and CSA would be fighting side by side together in World War 1 as Kantor's version has happening, and, perhaps, World War 1 may have even ended up being fought not only on the Eastern and Western Fronts, but on the Mason-Dixon line as well.
Kantor's version also has the CSA, instead of the USA, fighting the Spanish-American War, capturing Cuba and absorbing into the CSA as a state. Highly unlikely ---- not likely that the South, with its lesser industrial and economic resources, would have had the military and naval strength that the real USA had, but, even if it had, it would then have found itself embroiled into an unwinnable guerilla war with Cuban freedom fighters who then had no more wish to be occupied by Confederates any more than they did by Spain.
One deficiency in this book is how Kantor addresses a victorious South's handling of the issue of slavery. He asserts that, on its own, by degrees, the South would have ended slavery, such that it no longer existed by the 1890s. Given that, by that time, the rest of the developed world had done so, I don't find that part unbelievable. However, Kantor seems to think that ending slavery would have meant freedom and equality for blacks by then. That I think highly unlikely. If with white minorities in South Africa and Rhodesia, blacks were able to be marginalized to barely better than slaves, I think that in the CSA, having white majorities throughout, slavery would only be replaced by an apartheid system, limiting educational, occupational, and social opportunities, effectively relegating blacks to a status that was little better than of the slave status they formerly held --- and, having read a number of books on the South during the Civil Rights Era, I think it highly likely, that the CSA would have maintained that apartheid system even to this day.
Without a strong America, instead broken between likely weaker Northern and Southern halves, what might the impact have been on World War 1? By 1917-1918, the Central Powers had defeated Russia and were sending millions of troops to the Western Front --- only the arrival of a million fresh American troops just in time stemmed the time. But I think it highly unlikely this same would have happened if the America had split apart --- the World War 1 combatants would both have worked to play the two off each other --- with the result that American forces would not arrive, resulting in victory for Germany. And with a victorious Germany controlling most of Europe --- no Treaty of Versailles, no defeated Germany --- and no Nazis or Adolf Hitler -- and likely no World War 2 --- and no Holocaust as a result. And with German victory, victory for their ally, the Ottoman Empire as well -- which would mean no British Mandate over Palestine --- and likely no State of Israel either. All that --- if the American Civil War had gone the other way than it did.
It's an interesting thought exercise --- all this. That's why I think this is an excellent book for Civil War enthusiasts, political science students, and history buffs, and I recommend it for that reason!
The singularity at which this alternative chain of events begins is with the death of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the key point in the Vicksburg campaign. In reality, Grant very nearly was killed when a new spirited horse on which he rode was startled and fell, injuring Grant, but not fatally. In this alternative reality, it is fatal. The political appointee and next senior in command, the incompetent Gen. John Alexander McClernand, assumes command with disastrous results, giving the formerly beaten Rebels a chance to unify their divided forces and take apart the Union Army's western forces, culminating in their defeat in July 1863.
While this disaster is unfolding, the Battle of Gettsyburg begins. Unlike in the reality where Gen. Robert E. Lee may have overdelegated to some of his field commanders, failed to see the importance of taking Little Round Top early on, and lost contact with Jeb Stuart's cavalry, in this alternate reality, Lee manages not to do these things, decisively turning the tide of the battle in the favor of the CSA, smashing the Army of Potomac into isolated elements, then destroying or forcing the surrender of each in detail piecemeal.
With Union forces decimated, leaderless, and demoralized, the Confederacy seizes Washington, DC, and captures Lincoln, forcing the Union to the peace table. Lincoln's VP, Hannibal Hamlin, assumes the Presidency of the North, and temporarily relocates the shattered remnants of the Federal Government to Philadelphia.
As negotiations between the USA and CSA proceed, Maryland and Kentucky declare for the CSA and leave the Union. Efforts by the CSA to seize back West Virginia by force during the negotiations fail disastrously, beaten by its militia, remnant Federal forces, and indigenous guerilla fighters. Eventually the southern part of Delaware is given to the CSA while a county of Maryland returns to the Union. Washington, DC, is ceded to the CSA, which makes it their new capitol as Washington, DD (District of Dixie).
With the loss of DC, the USA relocates its capitol to Columbus, OH, renaming it "Columbia". The costs of relocating and rebuilding a new capitol after the bloody war preclude the USA from purchasing Alaska from Russia, and it remains in Russian hands.
From here, I think Kantor has been on fairly solid ground in his vision of what might have followed, and clearly has a solid knowledge of Civil War history, no doubt. However, from here, I think his alternative reality becomes increasingly fanciful. Like many, he tends to view American history and America's place in the late 19th Century world in a vaccum, apart from events going elsewhere, particularly with respect the Great Power rivalries increasing in Europe and boiling over elsewhere into the rest of the world.
In Kantor's history, the USA and CSA coexist, more or less peacefully, fight alongside each other during WWI and WW2, and, faced with the might of a Soviet Union still having a foothold in Alaska, reunite together to face this Cold War threat.
These things, based upon my own knowledge of history, I think highly unlikely. For one thing, a broken apart America is one that would not have had the same influence in the world that it did increasingly as the 19th Century went on. That the great powers did not exploit, occupy, and subjugate the various countries of Central America and South America may well have been due to a strong, united USA and its Monroe Doctrine that acted as a disincentive to these to pursue their imperialist ventures in the Western Hemisphere as they were doing so in Africa and Asia. Indeed, during the Civil War, France took advantage of America's distraction and weakness to invade and occupy Mexico and install a puppet regime under an Austrian archduke it crowned as "Emperor of Mexico". With the Union victory, the US basically told the French to get out or face an American army coming their way, and the French pulled their forces out. Unlikely, that they would have done so if the South had won. And emboldened by this, it's not improbable that the British Empire and a rising Germany may have come up with reasons to meddle in and even occupy other Latin American nations.
I also don't think it likely that the great European powers would have stood aside from intervening in USA-CSA relations. Reportedly, one reason that the British never intervened on behalf of the South was because Queen Victoria was repulsed by the South's practice of slavery and abuse of its black population. In the aftermath of a Southern victory, I think it likely that the British might have moved to strengthen relations with the USA and diplomatically and economically isolate the CSA. With Germany's unification and rise and increasing rivalry with Great Britain, I think it likely the CSA would have been driven into closer and closer relations first with France, Britain's rival, then later with the German Empire, the result being an American continent riven with increasing military and economic tensions, mirroring those occurring in 19th Century in the rest of the world at the time. So I think it unlikely that, had the South won, both the USA and CSA would be fighting side by side together in World War 1 as Kantor's version has happening, and, perhaps, World War 1 may have even ended up being fought not only on the Eastern and Western Fronts, but on the Mason-Dixon line as well.
Kantor's version also has the CSA, instead of the USA, fighting the Spanish-American War, capturing Cuba and absorbing into the CSA as a state. Highly unlikely ---- not likely that the South, with its lesser industrial and economic resources, would have had the military and naval strength that the real USA had, but, even if it had, it would then have found itself embroiled into an unwinnable guerilla war with Cuban freedom fighters who then had no more wish to be occupied by Confederates any more than they did by Spain.
One deficiency in this book is how Kantor addresses a victorious South's handling of the issue of slavery. He asserts that, on its own, by degrees, the South would have ended slavery, such that it no longer existed by the 1890s. Given that, by that time, the rest of the developed world had done so, I don't find that part unbelievable. However, Kantor seems to think that ending slavery would have meant freedom and equality for blacks by then. That I think highly unlikely. If with white minorities in South Africa and Rhodesia, blacks were able to be marginalized to barely better than slaves, I think that in the CSA, having white majorities throughout, slavery would only be replaced by an apartheid system, limiting educational, occupational, and social opportunities, effectively relegating blacks to a status that was little better than of the slave status they formerly held --- and, having read a number of books on the South during the Civil Rights Era, I think it highly likely, that the CSA would have maintained that apartheid system even to this day.
Without a strong America, instead broken between likely weaker Northern and Southern halves, what might the impact have been on World War 1? By 1917-1918, the Central Powers had defeated Russia and were sending millions of troops to the Western Front --- only the arrival of a million fresh American troops just in time stemmed the time. But I think it highly unlikely this same would have happened if the America had split apart --- the World War 1 combatants would both have worked to play the two off each other --- with the result that American forces would not arrive, resulting in victory for Germany. And with a victorious Germany controlling most of Europe --- no Treaty of Versailles, no defeated Germany --- and no Nazis or Adolf Hitler -- and likely no World War 2 --- and no Holocaust as a result. And with German victory, victory for their ally, the Ottoman Empire as well -- which would mean no British Mandate over Palestine --- and likely no State of Israel either. All that --- if the American Civil War had gone the other way than it did.
It's an interesting thought exercise --- all this. That's why I think this is an excellent book for Civil War enthusiasts, political science students, and history buffs, and I recommend it for that reason!
February 11, 2017
My interest in finally reviewing this long-ago read, which was my first introduction to the whole idea of alternate history, was sparked by the fact that I'm currently reading another, though very different, fictional scenario in which the South wins the Civil War, The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. Interestingly, I discovered just before starting to write this review that Turtledove wrote the introduction to the edition of this book that Goodreads links to first in a search! (That wasn't the edition I read, however; I actually read it, as an 8-year-old child, when it was first published in Look magazine, and the edition I'm using to refer to for this review is its 1967 printing in the Kantor collection Storyteller.
Iowa native Kantor's interest in the Civil War was longstanding; he'd already been the author of a least two major historical novels with that setting, Long Remember (1934) and the Pulitzer Prize winner Andersonville (1955), and at least two nonfiction Civil War books for younger readers. The premise for this particular exercise in alternate history was actually suggested to the author by Daniel Mich, then executive editor of Look, rather than original with Kantor; but the development of the idea was entirely the latter's own. The resulting work is short; at 42 pages, it's novella, not novel, length. (The reprint in Storyteller is accompanied by a roughly six-page postscript that explains the genesis and reaction to the story, and some of the research that went into it.) Though it's fiction, Kantor eschews fictional technique here; he writes as if he were writing an actual popular-level historical article in 1960 in his alternate world. From this perspective, he actually pays as much attention to the imaginary postwar history as to the events that supposedly determined the (alternate) outcome of the war.
Alternate history scenarios are usually based on aspects of quantum theory (which is why I and others consider the sub-genre a branch of science fiction). Without going into all of the theoretical background (which I don't necessarily understand or believe anyway!), it's based on the idea of history taking an alternate branching path from an event or decision that actually could just as easily have happened differently than it did, and further differences ensuing as a result of that. Alternate history writers usually posit just one basic change. Kantor, however, resorts to at least three pivots where events happened differently.
Gen. Grant actually did suffer a serious equestrian accident on May 12, 1863, near the beginning of the Vicksburg campaign; it could easily have killed him, as it does here. It's true that his immediate successor would have been his most senior subordinate, the politically-appointed John McClernand, who might have proven as incompetent as Kantor represents him; and the Army of the Tennessee was indeed in a precarious physical position at that point. But the author also represents Confederate generals Johnston and Pemberton acting much more aggressively and unitedly than they actually did; and Grant's hypothetical death would not have produced that. (Johnston was actually a very cautious field commander with a preference for fighting on the defensive, and Pemberton had been ordered by Confederate President Davis to keep his garrison in Vicksburg --a decision that's also changed here for no reason.) Meanwhile, here, General Lee wins the battle of Gettysburg by assaulting Cemetery Ridge in the late afternoon of the first day of fighting there (as Confederate Gen. Trimble actually wanted to do) and then pushing south to crush the still strung-out Army of the Potomac piecemeal. But there's no guarantee that such an assault would have carried the ridge; I think it more likely that it would have been repulsed with heavy losses. (The alternate history novel Gettysburg, by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen, takes my view of that matter, and develops a more plausible scenario for how Lee might have won the Gettysburg campaign --but even that hypothetical victory wouldn't by itself have won the war.)
The rest of Kantor's speculations on the conclusion of the war, the peace, and the postwar history are a similar mixture of the plausible and the less plausible (and IMO in a few cases the fairly implausible). It also has to be taken into account that he wrote this on the eve of the Civil War centennial, an event that many of the country's political and cultural elites saw as a great occasion for both hagiographic triumphalism and for promotion of warm-fuzzy sectional reconciliation (which might have helped to inspire editor Mich's idea in the first place), and in a time when the Cold War was at its height and greatly influenced both elite and popular thinking. I give him credit for reflecting accurately the truth that many Northerners of the 1860s harbored savage anti-black sentiments, and for realizing that, even had the South won the war, legalized slavery would finally have been abolished there by the white Southerners themselves --even during and before the war, there was more real-life pro-emancipation sentiment in the South than most people realize now. His speculations about the contributions to history that people who in our world were killed in the war after July 1863 (when, in his alternate world, it ended) --as well as the descendants they might have subsequently sired!-- might have made are ingenious; and his straight-faced "quotations" from writings and speeches that never existed in our world, as well as the use of some real-life quotations, are also masterfully employed.
As a third-grade kid, I didn't know enough about the war, or the forces shaping the later history, to compare the reality and his reconstruction of it with the same understanding and insight that I can now; that came from thinking back on it as I grew older. But it was still fun to read even then; and I well remembered enough of it to think back on it in later years, which says something! And even though it was quite a few years before I read another work of alternate history (of course, it wasn't as common decades ago as it is now), I think my early exposure to it here may have helped to form the taste I have for it now. It's still a read that was fun to revisit for the review; and even in cases where I disagree about what would have likely happened, it's a good stimulus for thinking about the subject. Other readers might find it so as well!
Iowa native Kantor's interest in the Civil War was longstanding; he'd already been the author of a least two major historical novels with that setting, Long Remember (1934) and the Pulitzer Prize winner Andersonville (1955), and at least two nonfiction Civil War books for younger readers. The premise for this particular exercise in alternate history was actually suggested to the author by Daniel Mich, then executive editor of Look, rather than original with Kantor; but the development of the idea was entirely the latter's own. The resulting work is short; at 42 pages, it's novella, not novel, length. (The reprint in Storyteller is accompanied by a roughly six-page postscript that explains the genesis and reaction to the story, and some of the research that went into it.) Though it's fiction, Kantor eschews fictional technique here; he writes as if he were writing an actual popular-level historical article in 1960 in his alternate world. From this perspective, he actually pays as much attention to the imaginary postwar history as to the events that supposedly determined the (alternate) outcome of the war.
Alternate history scenarios are usually based on aspects of quantum theory (which is why I and others consider the sub-genre a branch of science fiction). Without going into all of the theoretical background (which I don't necessarily understand or believe anyway!), it's based on the idea of history taking an alternate branching path from an event or decision that actually could just as easily have happened differently than it did, and further differences ensuing as a result of that. Alternate history writers usually posit just one basic change. Kantor, however, resorts to at least three pivots where events happened differently.
Gen. Grant actually did suffer a serious equestrian accident on May 12, 1863, near the beginning of the Vicksburg campaign; it could easily have killed him, as it does here. It's true that his immediate successor would have been his most senior subordinate, the politically-appointed John McClernand, who might have proven as incompetent as Kantor represents him; and the Army of the Tennessee was indeed in a precarious physical position at that point. But the author also represents Confederate generals Johnston and Pemberton acting much more aggressively and unitedly than they actually did; and Grant's hypothetical death would not have produced that. (Johnston was actually a very cautious field commander with a preference for fighting on the defensive, and Pemberton had been ordered by Confederate President Davis to keep his garrison in Vicksburg --a decision that's also changed here for no reason.) Meanwhile, here, General Lee wins the battle of Gettysburg by assaulting Cemetery Ridge in the late afternoon of the first day of fighting there (as Confederate Gen. Trimble actually wanted to do) and then pushing south to crush the still strung-out Army of the Potomac piecemeal. But there's no guarantee that such an assault would have carried the ridge; I think it more likely that it would have been repulsed with heavy losses. (The alternate history novel Gettysburg, by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen, takes my view of that matter, and develops a more plausible scenario for how Lee might have won the Gettysburg campaign --but even that hypothetical victory wouldn't by itself have won the war.)
The rest of Kantor's speculations on the conclusion of the war, the peace, and the postwar history are a similar mixture of the plausible and the less plausible (and IMO in a few cases the fairly implausible). It also has to be taken into account that he wrote this on the eve of the Civil War centennial, an event that many of the country's political and cultural elites saw as a great occasion for both hagiographic triumphalism and for promotion of warm-fuzzy sectional reconciliation (which might have helped to inspire editor Mich's idea in the first place), and in a time when the Cold War was at its height and greatly influenced both elite and popular thinking. I give him credit for reflecting accurately the truth that many Northerners of the 1860s harbored savage anti-black sentiments, and for realizing that, even had the South won the war, legalized slavery would finally have been abolished there by the white Southerners themselves --even during and before the war, there was more real-life pro-emancipation sentiment in the South than most people realize now. His speculations about the contributions to history that people who in our world were killed in the war after July 1863 (when, in his alternate world, it ended) --as well as the descendants they might have subsequently sired!-- might have made are ingenious; and his straight-faced "quotations" from writings and speeches that never existed in our world, as well as the use of some real-life quotations, are also masterfully employed.
As a third-grade kid, I didn't know enough about the war, or the forces shaping the later history, to compare the reality and his reconstruction of it with the same understanding and insight that I can now; that came from thinking back on it as I grew older. But it was still fun to read even then; and I well remembered enough of it to think back on it in later years, which says something! And even though it was quite a few years before I read another work of alternate history (of course, it wasn't as common decades ago as it is now), I think my early exposure to it here may have helped to form the taste I have for it now. It's still a read that was fun to revisit for the review; and even in cases where I disagree about what would have likely happened, it's a good stimulus for thinking about the subject. Other readers might find it so as well!
January 13, 2012
One topic I really love reading about is the Civil War. Besides the obvious implications this event had on American history, the Civil War is a bastion of "what if" type of thinking.
What if England or France had entered the war?
What if the South had won at Gettysburg?
What if this or that general/officer had not been killed?
These are generalizations, mind you, but you get the point.
IF THE SOUTH HAD WON THE CIVIL WAR takes these what-ifs and goes beyond the Civil War to ask: How would America be different if the South had won; what would have changed in American history?
A quick read, it is fun to debate the different scenarios that MacKinlay Kantor envisions within the novel...my favorite was the possibility of Texas succeeding after the Civil War to create its own nation. Oh, Texas, you silly state you.
RECOMMENDED
What if England or France had entered the war?
What if the South had won at Gettysburg?
What if this or that general/officer had not been killed?
These are generalizations, mind you, but you get the point.
IF THE SOUTH HAD WON THE CIVIL WAR takes these what-ifs and goes beyond the Civil War to ask: How would America be different if the South had won; what would have changed in American history?
A quick read, it is fun to debate the different scenarios that MacKinlay Kantor envisions within the novel...my favorite was the possibility of Texas succeeding after the Civil War to create its own nation. Oh, Texas, you silly state you.
RECOMMENDED
March 25, 2023
5 stars because this is the book that got me interested in reading alternate history. I read it in elementary school and then recently reread it!
March 25, 2021
If the south had won the civil war is a Alternative take on the great American civil war it gives a potential glimpse into what could have been if the south had been triumphant!
Mackinlay lays down a interesting scenario for the south winning one is the Demise of Grant the other of course is Lee taking Gettysburg. I found the Alternative history he painted was not the dark vision I had always saw if the south won he showed that America stayed fairly stable after though there was social conflict but it seemed most tryed to progress forward for a better America.
Another interesting approach was America having three presidents and how they worked side by side even after WW2 that the greater good of all Americans stayed at the core values even under a southern win!
MacKinLay writes a fun take on this subject I really wish it was longer and in more detail on the politics right on through to the modern day but overall good read and if you love Alternative history you may enjoy this one!
Mackinlay lays down a interesting scenario for the south winning one is the Demise of Grant the other of course is Lee taking Gettysburg. I found the Alternative history he painted was not the dark vision I had always saw if the south won he showed that America stayed fairly stable after though there was social conflict but it seemed most tryed to progress forward for a better America.
Another interesting approach was America having three presidents and how they worked side by side even after WW2 that the greater good of all Americans stayed at the core values even under a southern win!
MacKinLay writes a fun take on this subject I really wish it was longer and in more detail on the politics right on through to the modern day but overall good read and if you love Alternative history you may enjoy this one!
November 14, 2009
I was torn betwee 3 and 4 stars for this one but went with the four for the history interest. I read this back in the mid 1960s while I was in school, a history teacher recommended it.
Basicly you get a picture that with a few odd changes in history (Grant killed in an accident etc.) things could have been different. not great literature, but interesting history manipulation in a "what if" sense.
Basicly you get a picture that with a few odd changes in history (Grant killed in an accident etc.) things could have been different. not great literature, but interesting history manipulation in a "what if" sense.
October 30, 2012
A pretty good book with a suprise twist at the end.
December 11, 2019
Adapted from a magazine article, MacKinlay Kantor's foray into alternative history is one of the earliest, and best, examples of the genre. He crafts a new world which is whole and believable without becoming bogged down in minutia, and despite a few missteps, the work is a pleasure to read and offers some interesting insights into popular conceptions of the War Between the States.
July 26, 2012
An alternative history should, perhaps, not be judged too critically since it is only one of many, many possible alternatives. Still, the notions that the South would have voluntarily ended slavery as soon as Kantor suggests strikes me as a little unlikely. The ability of a divided American military to work together with the cohesion needed to still help win the two World Wars seems a stretch. And given the regional divisiveness in contemporary American politics, the final pages of the book seemed hopelessly optimistic.
So, tending to 2-1/2 stars. It's the fact that I like speculative fiction as a genre that rounds it up to three.
So, tending to 2-1/2 stars. It's the fact that I like speculative fiction as a genre that rounds it up to three.
December 14, 2009
A very short book, probably because it was originally a very long magazine article. It definitely takes a sanguine view of events after 1863 in an alternate history, with the slaves being freed by the 1880's and the south and north reuniting around 1960 (when the book was written). After an interesting start, it just sort of peters out by the early 20th century.
December 10, 2024
A quick read but very interesting! I love thinking about what would happened if we changed a few moments in history. It feels like I’m reading a real account. Very interesting! I would recommend if you already know a lot of Civil War history or it could be a little bit confusing.
August 20, 2023
Interesting book on what the civil war would have looked like if the south had won. I wish it was more on the aftermath though. Probably would have been 5 stars if I knew more about the war.
December 30, 2025
3.5. Interesting take.
March 22, 2025
This short book is an exercise in alternative history, setting out how the South might have won the American Civil War, and what might have happened afterwards—up until 1960, when the text was written.
The book is well written in a plausible style that makes it superficially convincing and quite pleasant to read, for anyone with an interest in the subject. The author has a good knowledge of his subject and also wrote heftier books about the Civil War.
His first change in history is excellent: a very small and plausible change with significant consequences. On the 12th of May 1863, U.S. Grant was seriously injured when his horse fell on him. In the alternative history, he was killed in this accident: a serious setback for the Union, but not necessarily leading to a Confederate victory in the war.
So Kantor goes on to make at least three other changes to history, which is inelegant. In the genre of alternative history, the accepted form of the art is that you make one change to history from which everything else flows.
He supposes that Confederate forces in the west cooperate better than they actually did in order to take advantage of Union confusion caused by the death of Grant. Sherman is shot by a sniper, and the Army of the Tennessee is trapped and forced to surrender.
Moving on to the Battle of Gettysburg, he supposes that both Lee and Stuart correct the mistakes that they made in our history; the battle is a decisive Confederate win; the Union forces are routed and mostly wiped out by pursuing Confederates. Washington is taken (what of the fortified garrison?), Lincoln is captured, and the war ends in July 1863.
In the establishment of new boundaries, the Confederacy loses West Virginia but gains Kentucky, most of Maryland, a small part of Delaware, and Washington D.C. (untenable within the Union after the loss of Maryland). The Union capital moves temporarily to Philadelphia and then to Columbus, Ohio.
In 1878 Texas declares itself independent of the Confederacy. In the late 1870s, individual Confederate states start to free their slaves; in 1885 the Confederacy as a whole does so, followed shortly by Texas. Though problems of integration continue for some time.
In 1898 the Confederacy fights a short, successful war in Cuba and annexes the island.
After Woodrow Wilson is elected as Confederate president in 1910, he begins to speak out in favour of reunion with the USA. The three parts of the original USA cooperate in the two world wars and eventually agree to reunite in 1960, somewhat motivated by fear of the Soviet Union.
Overall, I think the book is plausible but too optimistic, especially on behalf of the Confederacy, which was an economic disaster (the book doesn’t go into this at all) and politically disunited and bickering. Had it won the war as described, it would still have had a huge task to recover from its various problems and become a healthy country.
I think the voluntary abandonment of slavery is quite plausible, because there was a powerful trend in that direction in the world in general. It might have taken a bit longer than Kantor suggests; but he ought to know better than I do.
The reunion of the USA also seems plausible, with the slavery issue no longer dividing people.
The book is well written in a plausible style that makes it superficially convincing and quite pleasant to read, for anyone with an interest in the subject. The author has a good knowledge of his subject and also wrote heftier books about the Civil War.
His first change in history is excellent: a very small and plausible change with significant consequences. On the 12th of May 1863, U.S. Grant was seriously injured when his horse fell on him. In the alternative history, he was killed in this accident: a serious setback for the Union, but not necessarily leading to a Confederate victory in the war.
So Kantor goes on to make at least three other changes to history, which is inelegant. In the genre of alternative history, the accepted form of the art is that you make one change to history from which everything else flows.
He supposes that Confederate forces in the west cooperate better than they actually did in order to take advantage of Union confusion caused by the death of Grant. Sherman is shot by a sniper, and the Army of the Tennessee is trapped and forced to surrender.
Moving on to the Battle of Gettysburg, he supposes that both Lee and Stuart correct the mistakes that they made in our history; the battle is a decisive Confederate win; the Union forces are routed and mostly wiped out by pursuing Confederates. Washington is taken (what of the fortified garrison?), Lincoln is captured, and the war ends in July 1863.
In the establishment of new boundaries, the Confederacy loses West Virginia but gains Kentucky, most of Maryland, a small part of Delaware, and Washington D.C. (untenable within the Union after the loss of Maryland). The Union capital moves temporarily to Philadelphia and then to Columbus, Ohio.
In 1878 Texas declares itself independent of the Confederacy. In the late 1870s, individual Confederate states start to free their slaves; in 1885 the Confederacy as a whole does so, followed shortly by Texas. Though problems of integration continue for some time.
In 1898 the Confederacy fights a short, successful war in Cuba and annexes the island.
After Woodrow Wilson is elected as Confederate president in 1910, he begins to speak out in favour of reunion with the USA. The three parts of the original USA cooperate in the two world wars and eventually agree to reunite in 1960, somewhat motivated by fear of the Soviet Union.
Overall, I think the book is plausible but too optimistic, especially on behalf of the Confederacy, which was an economic disaster (the book doesn’t go into this at all) and politically disunited and bickering. Had it won the war as described, it would still have had a huge task to recover from its various problems and become a healthy country.
I think the voluntary abandonment of slavery is quite plausible, because there was a powerful trend in that direction in the world in general. It might have taken a bit longer than Kantor suggests; but he ought to know better than I do.
The reunion of the USA also seems plausible, with the slavery issue no longer dividing people.
September 2, 2017
Compared to Turtledove's "Southern Victory Series" this is a masterpiece. I've never liked how Turtledove basically rotoscopes the south as the north American version of Nazi Germany. It's just lame and lazy storytelling.
Kantor, thankfully, goes a slightly different route and I think he is correct that slavery would have eventually be phased out, though difficulties would still follow. The historical easter eggs and the frequent "what if" questions from the perspective of this alternate history that we know the answers to are fun.
However, I do think things are just little too rosy between the United States, the Confederacy, and Texas. Realistically, there would still be bad blood regardless of how the early date of victory. Resentment would still be there for some time and I doubt all three would automatically participate in the world wars. And I was disappointed by the implication of eventual reunification.
Look, the entire point of writing and imagining an alternate history is to explore how the world would be different. For Kantor, Southern Victory is merely a detour, not a vergence. America unites again eventually it's just under different circumstances. I was also saddened that even in this timeline people were stupid/gullible enough to elect Woodrow Wilson as President
So, up until that part, it was really good. Definitely a must-read for fans and students of the alternate history genre.
Kantor, thankfully, goes a slightly different route and I think he is correct that slavery would have eventually be phased out, though difficulties would still follow. The historical easter eggs and the frequent "what if" questions from the perspective of this alternate history that we know the answers to are fun.
However, I do think things are just little too rosy between the United States, the Confederacy, and Texas. Realistically, there would still be bad blood regardless of how the early date of victory. Resentment would still be there for some time and I doubt all three would automatically participate in the world wars. And I was disappointed by the implication of eventual reunification.
Look, the entire point of writing and imagining an alternate history is to explore how the world would be different. For Kantor, Southern Victory is merely a detour, not a vergence. America unites again eventually it's just under different circumstances. I was also saddened that even in this timeline people were stupid/gullible enough to elect Woodrow Wilson as President
So, up until that part, it was really good. Definitely a must-read for fans and students of the alternate history genre.
February 12, 2009
I think I read this in grade school...
So, Grant's horse throws him and he breaks his neck. The South takes advantage and wins the War. Now there are three other countries besides Canada in North America: The United States, The Confedaracy (I think that what they called it) and Texas. Funny how things work out once the 20th Century begins and the World Wars hit.
So, Grant's horse throws him and he breaks his neck. The South takes advantage and wins the War. Now there are three other countries besides Canada in North America: The United States, The Confedaracy (I think that what they called it) and Texas. Funny how things work out once the 20th Century begins and the World Wars hit.
June 12, 2018
I thought the battles would be interesting , it turns out the transition of two nations moving forward was most interesting. The way he writes it from a 1960 point of view as if it had actually happened this way. Some key thought are brought up. Short read and worth the time if you like alternate history.
March 4, 2011
An interesting look at the turn of events if the Conferderates had won the Civil War. The turn of events was caused by the death of an important Union General. The book was originally published in Look Magaizine in 1961.
September 26, 2011
I had envisioned this to be like an alternate-history novel in the same vein as, for example, Man in the High Castle. It wasn't like that at all, which isn't really its fault. I just went in with the wrong expectations.
August 5, 2012
Read as a teenager.....like the Cold War Spin...the US, Texas and CSA reunite to stop Stalin's buildup....in Russian Alaska...back in the 80's a scary premise....in the 21st Century a hilarious premise.
August 15, 2009
My first foray into Alternate History. I was fascinated.
August 27, 2009
Written like a history book by an interesting history author, the novel explores the Civil War and the aftermath IF a few elements changed enough to allow the South to win the War.
May 5, 2023
Interesting, plausible, overly optimistic.
November 30, 2020
I’ve have asked myself what would things have been like “if the South had won the Civil War..”. This book proposed that two events in 1863, could have led to that happening. I think that someone who really knows the Civil War well would find this book fascinating. I’m not someone who knows more than the basics that were learned in school. So it’s a little harder to tell all the parts that are fiction, and all the parts that are true. The author covers this at the very end though. Overall, something interesting to think about, how a small change in outcome here or there could have changed the courses of history.
June 17, 2021
Wow. Talk about alternate history- all in a short 2-3 story, original published around 50 years ago in a magazine.
So much what if?
In the alternate world this happens. SPOILER ALERT
1. US Grant dies in a horse accident (that really almost happened).
2. South wins at Gettysburg
3. Maryland and Delaware side with the south
4. Lincoln resigns, District of Columbia become District of Dixie
5. Texas is with the south, then secedes to become its own country
6. Slavery is abolished in CSA after the rest of world abolished it
7. 3 countries US,CSA and Rep of Texas all fight as allies in WW1 and 2
8. Then they come back together again in the 1960s.
So much what if?
In the alternate world this happens. SPOILER ALERT
1. US Grant dies in a horse accident (that really almost happened).
2. South wins at Gettysburg
3. Maryland and Delaware side with the south
4. Lincoln resigns, District of Columbia become District of Dixie
5. Texas is with the south, then secedes to become its own country
6. Slavery is abolished in CSA after the rest of world abolished it
7. 3 countries US,CSA and Rep of Texas all fight as allies in WW1 and 2
8. Then they come back together again in the 1960s.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2023
I didn't expect much and so I can't be too PO'd about not getting much. It's written like a dull middle-school textbook of the 1950s, but with different characters and a few key battles of the Civil War going the South's way.
Is it repugnant that Kantor paints a picture of Confederate states ending slavery just 'cause they decide it's the right thing to do, and they do it in a way that cause none of the racial issues the USA has actually experienced?
Yeah, it is.
Luckily, the book is bad enough that virtually no one ever reads it.
Btw, the "full-page illustrations" look like they were all done during some kid's lunch hour.
Is it repugnant that Kantor paints a picture of Confederate states ending slavery just 'cause they decide it's the right thing to do, and they do it in a way that cause none of the racial issues the USA has actually experienced?
Yeah, it is.
Luckily, the book is bad enough that virtually no one ever reads it.
Btw, the "full-page illustrations" look like they were all done during some kid's lunch hour.
September 16, 2025
MacKinlay Kantor’s If the South Had Won the Civil War is a provocative work of alternate history that imagines a Confederate victory reshaping America’s destiny. Written in a documentary style, the narrative presents a plausible chain of events leading to Southern independence and a divided continent. Kantor avoids sensationalism, instead grounding his “what if” scenario in political, military, and social developments that feel strikingly real. While the book reflects its mid-20th-century perspectives, it remains an engaging exploration of contingency in history. Both a thought experiment and a cautionary tale, it compels readers to consider how fragile unity and freedom can be.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2025
Unlike more recent alt-history books that tend to focus on only one break point Kantor includes two, but two so close together in time that the extra nudge can be understood. Following that point, everything presented is both well researched and plausible (or perhaps the figures involved were just better know 65 years ago). In total, it is a more hopeful version of the future than many similar works tend toward today, making for a better read.
November 3, 2017
Civil war revision!
I had always wondered what it would be like if the south had won. Mr. Kantor I am afraid limited the scope of his book, as 75% of his book dealt with reversing civil war battles , but what were the results? Mr. Kantor put 100 years into the last few pages. The book was far to short and left me gasping for more, but there was none.
I had always wondered what it would be like if the south had won. Mr. Kantor I am afraid limited the scope of his book, as 75% of his book dealt with reversing civil war battles , but what were the results? Mr. Kantor put 100 years into the last few pages. The book was far to short and left me gasping for more, but there was none.
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