Confederate

The makers of Game of Thrones have floated the idea of a new HBO series that considers what America would be like had the South won the Civil War.  Doubtless, the success of Man in the High Castle - which proposes an alternate history in which Germany and Japan divided the United States between them after winning WWII.  Let's look at the numbers.

The 1860 Census found that the United States had 31.4 million people.  Of those, approximately 9 million lived in the South and 22 million in the North.  That's a pretty impressive advantage for the North but there's more.  Of the 9 million people in the South, more than 40% were black.  In South Carolina, the population was 57% black, virtually all of whom were slaves.  The North had 72% of the railroads, 92% of iron & steel production, 75% of the wealth, 68% of the exports, and 85% of the factories.  The math is quite hostile to a Confederate victory.  The only reason the South lasted as long as it did was because they had a better officer corps at the start of the war.

 

The South was fighting a defensive war, which is often a recipe for defeat.  Twice, Lee sallied into the North; some of his army refused to follow.  They had joined to fight against Northern aggression, not commit Southern aggression.  However, suppose that Lee took Washington, DC and even captured Lincoln and most of the government.  Suppose that the North accedes to the South's separation.  There still remains an Underground Railroad.  More John Browns will attempt to spark slave revolts.  After the Colonies won the Revolutionary War in 1783, England tried to undo it in the War of 1812.  The same would happen with the North and South and unless the South dramatically departed from the King Cotton economy, the North would be even more formidable in a rematch.

 

I may watch the premiere but my suspension of disbelief is going to be stretched to the breaking point very quickly.