His truth keeps marching on
This story is about what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War. Most books regarding this are say that slavery would end eventually due to economic reasons. This is probably true, but there are many uneconomic items and theories sold and espoused. This story is to show what I think would have happened about 15 to 20 years after the end of the American Civil War.
"John Brown's body lies a moldering in the grave, but his truth keeps marching on." "Glory, glory hallelujah, Glory, glory hallelujah, Glory, glory hallelujah, his truth keeps marching on." Original words to the tune of "Battle hymn of the Republic."
Twenty miles east of Richmond, Virginia 1882
"How did it come to this?" exclaimed General Pierre Gustav Tousaint Beauregard. He looked around at the men gathered around the campfires. They were a scruffy, poorly-fed, and ill-disciplined lot, and as badly armed as any guerrilla band during the war of Southern Liberation. Indeed, most guerrilla bands during that conflict on the Southern side were better armed, as they could raid and seize arms and every other acontrament of war from their better armed and far better supplied neighbors. His army, the Army of Northern Virginia, was unable to buy arms anymore, since the ports of Savannah, New Orleans, Charletown, and all the rest were seized by the rebels. His army was all that was left from Florida to Virginia to stop the rebels. More to the point, it was the only force that could prevent the fall of the capital of the Confederacy. As he walked across the encampment, he could see the eyes of his men, some still defiant, some given up, some not caring so long as they could take a rebel with them. Halfway down, one of his men said "How did they whup us?" "They're only niggers, after all!" Beauregard looked at the man and said " That's what everyone in the Confederacy thought."
"Praise God." John Henry exclaimed, as he watched the campfires. It had been a long road from his master's plantation in South Carolina, and there had been many campfires to watch. He had grown up in bondage, praying to Christ that someday he would be free. He had listened to the white preachers speak from the Bible many times, and they had mentioned submission, and Christ speaking of forbearance. But white people did not seem to live by that code,and when struck on the left cheek, they struck back on the right cheek of their neighbors. And they never explained why, in Exodus, Moses went to Pharaoh and demanded that his people be set free. This was a good thing, but for a slave to want freedom was bad, and for a slave to disobey his master was evil. Then the war had burst upon his continuousness. He had heard the whites on his plantation talking about the Abolitionists, and they made them sound like devils, who would destroy peace and order in the South for nothing. But Henry understood that they wanted to free slaves. This was certainly good, for didn't the Bible say that slavery was, if not wrong, then at least undesirable for people who knew better. Then Lincoln was elected, and the South, as it had threated for years, seceded. All the able-bodied white men went to war, leaving the plantation in a bad way. And then, a year later, the area was ocupied by the Union army. There were schools set up by people from New England, and skilled trades were taught by soldiers. The war went first badly, then well, then badly again. Finally there was a truce worked out by the diplomats. And they were taken over by the Confederacy again. Most of the former slaves went into swamps, and build free villages and small towns where the Confederate army and state militias couldn't destroy them. And they waited for the Conferate States of America to forget about them. And thye built up small armament industries to supply them with the means to fight off the militias. It had been Henry and some of his friends who had duplicated machinery for building weapons into much smaller areas. They had also bought modern weaponry and tested it, discovering what made it work or not work, and under what conditions. Eventually the Confederacy decided to forget the problem, and took over Cuba from the Spanish. The freed communites were able to supply the Cubans, who wanted independence, with enough weaponry to keep the Confederacy bogged down indefinately. And then the Confederacy, in a silly policy of utter stupidity, decided to attack the now independent states of New Mexico-Arizona and the Republic of California. Both regions had strong ties with the United States of America and had no interest in becoming part of the Confederacy. And if they ever had had such notions, they were driven out because of the Sacramento Massacre. When the first wave of invaders had crossed Nevada and come across the Sierras, their first resistance was at Sacrameto. A Brigade of Californian Bear Volunteers were attacked by the Missisippi Detachment of the Army of the West, and after a strong defence of the area around Sacramento, they were forced to surrender. After the surrender, they were lined up and butchered by elements of the Missisisippi Detachment. This action was so counterproductive that the entire Army of the West was soon thereafter caught around Oakland and driven into San Fransisco Bay. The Confederate army was bleeding itself white in faraway battles. That was when the free settlements armed slaves all over the South and made their drive for independence. There had been many battles since then, and some defeats, but now it seemed like it was nearly over. *
