What if the South Won the Civil War?
American History Hit
History Hit
4.3 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2023
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if the Civil War had ended differently, with the South seceding from the Union? Would slavery have continued? Would the southern states have continued as a whole? Would any other states have followed suit?
To explore this hypothetical history, Don spoke to Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Department Chair of history at Louisiana State University. Aaron specialises on the Civil War and reconstruction and is the author of 'The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War', 'Reckoning with Rebellion: War and Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century' and 'Why Confederates Fought'.
Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Siobhan Dale. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's July 4th, 1863. On the 87th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, |
| 0:11.0 | a Philadelphia newsboy hawks his papers at the corner of Mark of read all about it, Union defeat at Gettysburg, Confederates win, Union retreats. |
| 0:27.0 | It has been a tense number of days since General Robert E. Lee invaded the north, |
| 0:31.8 | marching his forces into southern Pennsylvania, |
| 0:34.3 | eventually attacking Union troops on July 1st at the small town of Gettysburg. |
| 0:40.1 | At first, after a rocky start, the Union soldiers managed to hold their lines against the |
| 0:45.1 | rebel onslaught. |
| 0:46.9 | But eventually, the relentless charges in muggy oppressive heat took their toll, and the Union |
| 0:52.2 | Blue collapsed, falling into disarray. |
| 0:55.0 | Everyone is now dreadfully aware of the obvious implication. |
| 0:59.0 | The union effort cannot possibly survive this defeat. The war will soon be over, so it seems will be the nation, at least as generations |
| 1:09.2 | of Americans have proudly known it so far. |
| 1:12.3 | In this alternative reality a great existential question looms. |
| 1:17.5 | What would the country and the world be like without the South. |
| 1:46.6 | How will the United States fare when they are officially no longer united? Hi there everyone welcome to American History Hit I'm Don Wildman today we're in the realm of the counterfactual |
| 1:54.8 | What if history conjecture and hypothesis on what might have been had pivotal events of history not transpired as they did. What would the consequences be in a topsy-turvy world if say Rome hadn't fallen? |
| 1:59.8 | Would we have had the Renaissance? |
| 2:01.3 | What if Gutenberg had never considered the printing press? Would common |
| 2:04.3 | folk have ever learned to read? If Thomas Jefferson had followed his own declaration and |
| 2:08.6 | insisted that all men are created equal and freed those he enslaved, you get the idea. Counterfactual speculates on what |
| 2:15.6 | didn't happen in order to more fully grasp what did. And today we turn this lens on one of the great |
| 2:21.7 | questions of American history. |
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