re: So you've just been given command of the Confederate army in late-June 1863....

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What do you do differently if history could afford you such a chance?

Probably panic.

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This is what Robert E. Lee did.

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I'm wildly unqualified.

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Well then Mitch the bitch probably would have removed your statute too.

I would surrender the Confederate Army to face justice for treason

Why did we have to fight for 4 years and lose 600k Americans? You can’t tell me that this was inevitable. Lincoln wasn’t on the ballot in the southern states during the election of 1860. It was obvious that the southern states had no say in the direction the nation was going and the constitution protected their right to leave the union so again I ask the question; Why did we have to fight a civil war? There was no need for bloodshed

This is knowing what I know now about 20th century events?

I would immediately pull Lee back from his Northern operations, fortify my lines with a new thing I would call "barbed wire", and try to rush development of the gatling gun and the zeppelin. My new gunships would devastate Federal supply routes and disrupt northern manufacturing to some degree. I would try to create a panic at the thought of the firebombing of civilian population centers without actually following through with mass murder. I would offer a deal to the British Foreign Service that in return for lifting the Federal blockade of my ports I would credit the crown for convincing us to not only free the slaves but to show restraint in the use of my terrible new weapons.

After forcing the North to a grudging truce I would beg for aid and credit from Britain on whatever seemingly ruinous terms they required in order to prop up my shattered economy and help the freedman transition to yeoman farmers All while quietly investing every remaining dollar into speeding up the development and application of my oil reserves. The rise of the petrodollar would ease the strain of that foreign debt but not before I use the greed and villainy of European bankers as justification for my break with Queen Victoria and shift toward Constantinople. Confederate aid in developing Middle Eastern oilfields would deliver prosperous times to stave off the collapse of their broken society, in return for which I would ask them to crush Wahabbism in it's crib. (And possibly grab those Romanian oilfields as well.)

As we moved into the 20th century I would use my now staggering economic might to try and hold off the German war fever until the Bolsheviks emerged as the graver threat.

By the time the carnage of a redirected WWI settles my DixieTurk alliance will be firmly in control of the resources needed to enter the modern world.

Yeah, I get weird when I drink wine.

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shinerfan

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He is glorious!

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I would surrender the Confederate Army to face justice for treason

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There's a moron in every discussion, and here he is.

Built a trojan horse, bring it to DC filled with chocolate pudding. They never would have known what to do.

Take the high ground. People don’t realize how close the confederate army was to wiping the field with the Union army.

Jackson was sorely missed.

Double time it so I can take the high ground with half my forces for the Union forces arrive, flank to the north with the other half to try to get behind oncoming forces and surround them as they come in.