Month: September 2023

After finishing the alternate history classic, The Man in the High Castle, I decided to read the book Phillip K. Dick cited as his inspiration, Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore. My impression of Bring the Jubilee is much like that of The Man in the High Castle. It is a remarkable story, well worth reading, but with a slightly unrealistic premise.

In Ward Moore’s story, the South gained its independence after General Robert E. Lee decisively defeated Meade’s Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg. Lee then captures Washington D. C. The North is forced to admit defeat the following year on July 4, 1864. In the Peace of Richmond, the Confederates imposed a harsh peace upon the North. The North ceded the Border States to the South, as well as Kansas and California. The enormous indemnity imposed by the South led to hyperinflation that destroyed the Northern economy.

By the time of the protagonist of Bring the Jubilee, Hodgins “Hodge” Backmaker, roughly the same as Ward Moore in the early and middle twentieth century, the United States is a defeated and depressed nation. The Confederate States has become a major world power, second only to the German Union. The Confederates have annexed much of Latin America, and the CSA is a leader in science and technology. Hodge, like many people in the United States, begins his life with few opportunities to get ahead. Life in the North for many is one of frustration, bitterness, and regret, and Hodge is no exception. He cannot get a decent education. All the worthwhile universities are in the South. He cannot get a decent job without “Indenting” himself to a big corporation. Hodge finds a haven in the academic commune of Haggershaven, where he can study history, particularly the history of the War of Southron Independence.
The chief problem in this scenario is that the Battle of Gettysburg was not really the decisive battle of 1863. Grant’s Capture of Vicksburg on July 4, a day after Gettysburg ended, was far more momentous. The capture of Vicksburg not only effectively split the Confederacy in two but it opened the Mississippi to the North. The Mississippi River and its tributaries were the main artery of transport and trade for most of North America, even in the age of the railroad. Northern farmers had depended on the Mississippi to export their produce abroad. Once the Mississippi had been opened, unhindered trade with the outside world could resume. At the same time, the use of the Mississippi was denied to the South, harming the Southern economy. The Capture of Vicksburg was the beginning of the end for the South.

I do not think it would have made that much difference if Lee had won the Battle of Gettysburg. The loss of morale in the North by another defeat in the Eastern theater might have been catastrophic if it were not balanced by Grant’s victories in the West. In practical terms, Lee could not have remained in the North, no matter how many victories he might have won Even in defeat, the Army of the Potomac would have outnumbered the Army of Northern Virginia, and Lee could not risk being cut off from the South. He would have been obliged to return South by autumn. That could have been regarded as a partial win for the North. Lee could not have captured Washington D. C. At the time, Washington was probably the best-defended city in the world. Lee might have been able to capture Philadelphia or some other city, but it would have been risky, and he could not hold against attack. The most likely outcome of a loss at Gettysburg would have been a telegraph from Lincoln urging Grant to send as many men from the Army of the Tennessee, east as he could to reinforce the Army of the Potomac and come east himself to assume command. The defeat of the South might have been delayed, but by the end of 1863, it had become inevitable.

But what if the South had won the Civil War? It was not impossible. Most people seem to pay more attention to the Eastern theater of the war, but it was in the Western theater that the North won the war. While the Armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia were butting heads together in one bloody battle after another, Grant was consistently winning victories in the West. He didn’t win every battle, but he won enough to establish a steady momentum of victory that destroyed the South. What if something had occurred to upset that momentum? What if Grant had been a lesser general or his opponents had been better? What if the West had been as bloody a stalemate as the East? Could the victorious South have imposed such a harsh peace on the North as the Treaty of Richmond?

I don’t think so. Even a victorious South would hardly be in a position to demand concessions from the North other than independence. The South could not defeat the North militarily. It could only hope to prevent a Northern victory until the North decided that keeping the South in the Union was not worth the cost. The South could have demanded that the slave states Missouri and Kentucky be ceded to the Confederacy. It could hardly have asked the North to give up a free state like California. The North might have agreed to pay for war damages, but the South could not have asked for the crippling indemnities of Bring the Jubilee.

What of the aftermath of a Southern victory? No doubt the North would be demoralized for some time after the war, but it would have recovered in time and gone on to become one of the world’s leading industrial economic powers. The South, meanwhile, would have continued to have a largely agricultural economy. Confederate victory in the Civil War would have convinced many in the South that the Southern way of life was superior and needed no changes. No doubt, the Confederate States would have ended up as a sort of colony of either the United States or Great Britain. The Confederate States might have attempted to expand into the Caribbean and Latin America. Perhaps the South would have developed into an American Sparta, a militarized society to hold down the people in bondage. The South would likely have emancipated the slaves due to international pressure but the plight of the former slaves would have been a good deal worse than that of the Blacks under our world’s segregation.

Despite my criticism of the novel’s premise, I have found Bring the Jubilee to be a first-rate alternate history story. The characters, especially Hodge Backmaker are well-formed and relatable and Ward Moore creates a fascinating world different from our own. Mr. Moore manages to really convey life in a defeated and bitter nation where individuals have limited hopes of bettering themselves. It may be that he was inspired, to some degree, by the experience of the defeated South in our world. In any event, Bring the Jubilee belongs on any alternate history fan’s reading list.