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Economic conditions in CSA continue to deteriorate; it can only trade with United States and Mexico and cotton rots on piers, Indian and Egyptian cotton dominate most of the European market.
CSA General Robert E. Lee dies, US allows Confederate honor guard to go to Arlington funeral. Many US generals attend.
Military buildup triggers massive industrialization in United States.
CSA opens trade with new German Empire, helping to stop economic decline. Confederate economy is also helped by war between the United States and Great Britain. Britain protests the German action but will not take action while at war with the United States.
Confederate filibusters begin to move into the Sonoran Desert.
With US factories fully mobilized for war, the US begins to import goods from CS factories, causing an economic boom in the CSA and providing Confederates with hard currency. Most of the business comes from Virginia
Seward, runs for reelection for Republicans. General McClellan gets Democratic nomination. Radical Republicans break off and nominate Edwin Stanton. Stanton calls for a reconquest of the south after capturing Canada; McClellan and the Democrats propose a ceasefire with the British. Seward barely wins reelection in November.
France stops its embargo and starts trading with CSA, Britain protests. France also makes overtones with Mexico on avenging defeats. With the US & UK preoccupied, Germany begins it own efforts in Mexico.
Using Stanton's platform as an example, Breckinridge pushed though the New Military Act which expands the standing army to 200,000 and a new fleet. The CSA Congress also sets up the Confederate Supreme Court.
Confederate politicians break into two main groups. One group support war hero James Longstreet, advocating gradual emancipation and a friendly attitude toward the United States. The other group, with obscure Nathan Bedford Forrest at the lead advocates an expansionist policy and keep slavery indefinitely.
Longstreet wins the election.
Democrats, discredited hold convention in Ithaca, NY. Ithaca Convention remakes democrats with a different platform, ideas and idology. The "New Democrats" retake some seats in congress. New "Radical Party" forms the primary opposition to Seward's Republicans forming out of Stanton's campaign.
Britain offers to lift embargo on CSA if it declares war on USA. CSA President Longstreet declines. Some Confederate politicians call for helping the USA in the Canada War; citing an alliance as only way to prevent American attack of revenge in the future.
Forrest's supporters form an anti-adminstration coalition in the Confederate Congress.
CSA begins to export manufactured texile goods.
CSA offers to buy the strip of Mexican land separating Arizona Territory from the Gulf of California to gain access to Pacific, Mexico refuses. CS Congress passed National Railroad Act which will add new routes, including a transcontinental one from Atlanta to Arizona.
Treaty of Nashville: Ends the Canada War, ratified by 1878
Mexican general Porfirio Diaz seizes power in Mexico and declares he wants to bring Mexico "back to its former glory".
War hero Winfield Hancock is elected President of the US, there is no considerable opposition. William T. Sherman refused to be nominated.
A bill is proposed in the US Congress to make Philadelphia the permanent capital, it is defeated.
CSA Supreme Court declares the National Railroad Act unconstitutional in its first act of judical review.
US establishes and continually enlarges Liberia Protectorate in Africa as European powers start claiming colonies.
United States economic power grows against rivals Great Britain and Germany. "American" comes to be used for the United States while "Confederate" is used for the Confederate States. Confederate States have limited industrialization in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Unsure over the security of the Mississippi, American railroads run to meet the demand to connect the plains with the ports of New York, Boston, and Baltimore. Both the USA and CSA expand their navies, the former much more than the latter. US dollars become the currency of choice in the CSA.
British begin a major industrialization program in Canada.
US population swells with immigrants. Many Irish people migrate to the USA. Many blacks from both the USA & the CSA move to Liberia, with Philadelphia's and Richmond's encouragement. As a result, Asians become the largest minority group in the USA.
USCT Revolt, after requests to invade and emancipate the CSA are denied by the US Government. Several USCT divisions attack into Virginia. US apologizes and offers normal US Army troops but the CSA Army repels USCT units at Bull Run. Another major battle occurs when revolting troops take and burn Baltimore.
In the aftermath, the leaders of the revolt including many white officers, are tried and executed for treason. All remaining USCT, including those not in the revolt, are shipped to Liberia; 100,000 army troops dispatched to Liberia. US pays $20 million reparation to CSA.
In October, a labor strike turns violent in Pittsburgh. It is brutally supressed by army units.
US Congress passes the Two-Ocean Navy Act, aim to compete with Britain.
US enacts first peacetime federal income tax.
US bans immigration of freed blacks from the CSA; however they are free to move to Liberia.
The Confederate-Mexican War breaks out when Mexican armies invade Arizona and New Mexico, claiming that they were stolen in 1848.
Lacking railroads Confederate troops cannot move fast enough to the west and Mexican troops reach the Colorado border. US diplomats threaten war if Mexicans enter US territory.
A Confederate army, led by John Bell Hood leaves Texas and engages the Mexicans at Monterey, routing them. A second army, Jubal Early commanding, leaves Texas to cut across Mexican supply lines but is held in constant fighting in Sierra Madre.
With Confederate industrial capacity at its maximum, CSA buys huge amounts of American and German weapons paid with American loans.
In November 1878 Diaz is killed in a battle near Santa Fe, Confederate armies, led by Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson defeat the Mexican Army and by January 1879 reach Hermosillo, Sonora where Early's Army arrives, cutting off the northwest corner of Mexico.
Hood's army reaches Tampico where it met reinforcements coming by sea. Hood, however, attacks prematurely and is forces to retreat back to Tampaco. Longstreet replaces Hood with General Lewis A. Armistead.
Jackson, now Confederate General-in-Chief, attacks from the west while Armistead attacks from the east. By September the two armies are approaching Mexico City from opposite directions attack retreating Mexican forces. A provisional Mexican government in Puebla surrenders on October 4, 1879.
Forrest's supporters from the 1873 election support John Bell Hood for Confederate President, but is defeated, in absentia, by Stonewall Jackson, endorsed by the pro-adminstration coalition, who is elected by all states except Texas.
Treaty of Annapolis, is signed & ratified between the USA & CSA. In return for naval bases in the Gulf of Mexico, the US agrees to pay the CSA in desperatly needed gold. The site of such bases is deferred until after the CSA signs a peace treaty with Mexico.
Former Virginia counties of Accomack and Northampton ceded to Maryland.
Last Modified July 4, 1998
Copyright 1998 John Mullervy
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