1827 Shuffle.

And here is the situation in the 1830's. Butterflies are a bit minimal here, but they do begin to take off eventually.

1830

On March 26th, the Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York. It garners a significant amount of interest in New York and Joseph Smith's home state of Vermont, but it also sparks concern in neighboring Pennsylvania as well as much of New England outside of Vermont. About a week and a half later, on April 6th, Smith establishes his first church of the Latter Day Saints.

On May 29th, the Indian Removal Act fails to survive a veto from President Adams. This angers many more conservative Southerners, including John C. Calhoun, the notorious South Carolina senator.

On June 26th, George IV of the United Kingdom dies. His brother succeeds him as William IV.

The bloody Paris Uprising occurs on July 26th, after Charles X issues a decree known as the “Ordinances of Saint-Cloud”, which effectively puts France under an early form of the police state. The attempt to force Charles X off the throne fails, but it does allow for further actions in the country to occur.

The city of Brussels is taken by Belgian nationalists on September 27th, during the War of Belgian Independence.

Inspired by the uprising in Paris, a similar event takes place in Warsaw, Russian Poland, on November 15th[2 weeks earlier than in our world]

1831

On New Year's Day, William Garrison, a budding young abolitionist, starts to publish “The Liberator”, an anti-slavery periodical, in Boston, Massachusetts.

A major revolt begins in Bosnia over the abolition of the Ayan system in late March.

The slave rebellion headed by Nat Turner paralyzes much of the American state of Virginia, beginning in late August. It ends with the execution and/or imprisonment of over two hundred slaves[as in the real world]

Also in August, the Dutch Ten Days' Campaign against Belgium is called off after French partisans fighting against Charles X threaten to intervene on behalf of the Belgians.

On September 7th, a failed attempt to take Warsaw ends with the death of the Russian general Ivan Paskevich; but also, with the destruction of much of the city. This is considered to be the peak of the Polish Uprising, which gradually winds down over the next 2 years.

1832

During the month of February, a terrible cholera outbreak ravages the United Kingdom, killing thousands, as many as 3,000 in London alone. It spreads to France and North America by the end of the year, claiming thousands more lives.

In the month of April, the Black Hawk War begins in the United States.

On June 6th, the bloody June Rebellion starts when the French Army opens fire on demonstrating students in Paris. Many of the students fight back, some with guns. News of the unprovoked attack sparks a massive outcry in much of the country, and leads to more widespread, and more constant rebellion. [the real world uprising occurred under Louis-Phillipe, and failed]

In early August, the Bad Axe Massacre in Wisconsin proves to be the last major Native American resistance against European settlement east of the Mississippi River.

On December 8th, Martin Van Buren wins by a large margin in a surprisingly modest campaign season against the Federalist Candidate, Henry Clay. The winning motto: “Any One But Adams. Vote Van Buren”.

1833

On April 6th, Charles X is forced to flee Paris after Army personnel opposed to his rule capture the city.

In Mexican Texas, a convention is held on April 10th, for the reason of requesting Mexico to provide more civil liberties to the settlers. Mexican President Santa Anna refuses.

On June 5th, a young Ada Lovelace is introduced to Charles Babbage. The famous inventor's life is permanently changed by this chance meeting.

On the anniversary of the June Rebellion, a provisional government is set up in Paris.

What would become the city of Chicago, Illinois, is settled on August 12th.

The Carlist War breaks out in Spain on September 29th, following the death of Ferdinand VII.

October 4th, sees the coronation of Louis Phillipe, Duke of Orleans, supported by many moderates in the hope that France's social condition will improve.

On the 14th of December, a young man named Kasper Hauser, claiming to be the son of nobility, is murdered in Germany. Many years later, his death will inspire a number of novels, and even a play.

1834

The town of York, Upper Canada, is renamed Toronto on March 6th, a name that it keeps to the present day[as in the real world]
On March 27th, American Vice-President Andrew Jackson is censured by the U.S. Congress.

On June 7th, Theodoros Kolokotronis is convicted of treason for his opposition to the rule of Otto I in Greece.

Slavery is abolished in the British Empire on the 1st of August, causing many to rejoice from New York City to London and back.

Sir Robert Peel, the creator of the world's first official police force, is elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on December 10th.

1835

In March, American inventor Thomas Davenport demonstrates a small electric vehicle model he had constructed the year prior. It's nothing more than a curiosity, but does help provide later inspiration.

In July, the Catholic Apostolic Church is founded in the United Kingdom.

What becomes known as the “Ragamuffin War” by some more humor-inclined historians begins in Brazil on September 20th.

On October 2nd, a major battle erupts in Mexican Texas, in the town of Gonzales, over the seizure of a cannon. This eventually provides the impetus for the 'Texians', as they are called, to declare independence.

James Pratt and John Smith, two British gay men convincted of buggery, are hanged on November 27th. Thankfully, however, they are the last two to be executed for such in the United Kingdom.

1836

On February 24th, Samuel Colt files a patent for what he calls a “revolver” pistol; the weapon later becomes a major success and is eventually elevated to cultural status in America and other places.
Also, on this same day, the Texians begin to occupy the Alamo in San Antonio[these two events occurred a day later and a day earlier than in our world, respectively].

The Battle of the Alamo occurs in San Antonio in Texas on March 6th. The large majority of the defenders die in the fighting. William B. Travis, the head of the commanding forces, is injured, but survives, and later, when the opprotunity arises, escapes the Goliad Massacre, so that he may fight another day[in our world, Travis died at the Alamo, fighting to the end].

On April 21st, the Battle of San Jacinto ends with Mexican President Santa Anna, surprisingly, losing. William Travis makes a last minute appearance towards the end, and afterwards, is given a hero's welcome.

In June, the British scientist, Charles Darwin, leaves on a scientific voyage that takes him across much of Africa in search of new discoveries to make. He returns to England on October 2nd.

On September 11th, the Riograndense Republic is officially proclaimed in southern Brazil.

On December 28th, the colony of South Australia is founded by John Hindmarsh. Also, Spain finally recognizes Mexico's sovereignty on this day.

1837

On March 4th, Martin Van Buren is re-inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.

On May 10th, the markets crash in New York City, sparking the first series of economic problems which will culminate in the Panic of 1837.....

June 20th, sees the ascension of Victoria I to the throne in Great Britain. She will rule for 61 years and 10 months before her death.

An important milestone in British regal history occurs, as the seat of royalty moves from St James's Palace to Buckingham Palace in Kensington, on July 13th.

The French capture Constantine, Algeria, on October 13th, after only three days of fighting.

On November 7th, anti-slavery activist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois.

November 9th, sees the beginning of the Canadian Rebellion, led by Louis-Joseph Papineau, and William Lyon McKenzie[three days later than in reality].

1838

An interesting meteorological milestone occurs on January 21st, when a temperature of -76 degrees Fahrenheit is recorded in the Siberian town of Yakutsk. This is the first time that a confirmed record of a lowest temperature has ever been produced.

On April 22nd, Isambard Brunel completes the first ever transoceanic voyage of a commercial steam ship. He later creates a successful ferrying business around such.

On April 30th, Nicaragua breaks away from the United Provinces of Central America. A month later, this leads to the country's complete dissolution.

William and Grace Darling, a father and daughter pair of lighthouse keepers, rescue a small number of survivors from a capsized ship off the coast of Northumberland in September.

October 27th, sees the attempt by Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs to eliminate the presence of Mormons in his state.

In December, the Pastry War, which will later be regarded as one of the most trivial conflicts in Western history, not to mention one of the most embarrassing disasters for the French military, begins when the French try to seize the port of Veracruz.

At some point during this year, in a fascinating turn of events, the isolated Pitcairn Islands, in the South Pacific, becomes the first place in the world in which women are able to obtain, and hold, suffrage.

1839

On January 6th, the highly unusual event that will be known as the “Big Wind” occurs in Ireland; wind gusts of as high as 185 km/h(about 115 mph) are reported, along with heavy rains. Several hundred people were killed, and three and a half dozen ships were also lost.

The French military pulls out of Mexico on March 9th, having been humiliated. As a seeming gesture of generosity, however, Santa Anna allows 50,000 pesos to be paid to one Msr. Remontel, the man whose claims started the whole conflict.

On April 19th, the Kingdom of Belgium is formally established as a sovereign nation.

May 12th, sees the end of the Carlist Wars in Spain, with a Liberal victory.

On June 6th, Louis-Phillipe, King of France, abdicates the French throne under much pressure. This time, however, there is no one to replace him.

On June 30th, an assassination attempt is made against the life of American Vice-President Andrew Jackson, in St. Louis. Jackson survives, but former Ky. Senator Robert Mentor Johnson dies of his wounds a week later. The murderer is eventually caught, and hung on July 28th.

On July 12th, the Chinese Emperor, Daoguang orders Lin Zexu to destroy opium deposits in Humen. This annoys the British, who demand that they stop. China refuses, and the Emperor decides to evict British diplomats & other government figures from his nation, sparking the First of the Opium Wars.

Louis Daguerre is given a lifetime's pension for his invention of the Daguerreotype machine by the provisional government of France, on August 19th. In return, Daguerre allows the machine to be used by anyone, without mandatory royalties.

On August 31st, the Carlists and the Liberals meet in the town of Vergara in the Basque Country, to discuss a treaty. One is signed several days later, finally ending conflict between the two sides.....for now, at least.

The Great Fire of Mobile burns hundreds of buildings in the Alabama town of the same name on September 9th. Dozens are killed.

On November 4th, the infamous Newport Rising occurs in Wales, in the United Kingdom. The battle between the Chartist reformers, and local police, is rather brief, and the Chartists lose, but not before many of their leaders escape on a boat in the city docks, sailing for North America. The escapees, William Jones, William Price, Zephaniah Williams, and John Lovell, amongst a few others, all made it safely to New Haven, Conn. in the United States. The rest were all sentenced to death, but eventually, all of their sentences were commuted to either imprisonment or transport to Australia; perhaps the most famous of the transportees would be Allan Pinkerton, who eventually became a feared soldier, and later constable in western Australia[somewhat different to our timeline; in our world, only Pinkerton escaped to the United States-he later founded the world-famous Pinkerton Detective Agency. All of the others who had not been deported to Australia remained in Britain.].

On December 8th, Frederick VI of Denmark dies in his sleep. His son, Christian Frederick, is crowned King in his place[five days later than in the real world].

1850

On May 22nd, a hippopotamus named “Obaysch” is brought to the London Zoo from the Nile; it's the first such animal to be spotted in Europe since the days of the Roman Empire.

On July 9th, the founder of Babism, Sayyid `Alí Muhammad Shirazi, is executed by the Persian government for heresy; the religion will linger on until the 1880s in Ottoman Turkey, where the last believer dies. The Bahai movement that was inspired by it, however, will last to the present day.

On September 17th, the Lyttelton colony is founded in British New Zealand.

Johann Coaz, a young Swiss amateur mountaineer, tries to claim the Piz Bernina mountain in Switzenland in October, but fails. Three years later, he will die of pneumonia while trying to climb another mountain, Piz Corvatsch.

On November 9th, Edward May, an Indiana State Senator, gives an impassioned speech in favor of granting suffrage to African-American citizens. Two years later, the state government votes in favor of a bill allowing for just that(albeit, causing some hardcore conservatives to protest, and, in some cases, leave the state altogether).

1851

A somewhat controversial bill that would have disenfranchised African-Americans in Pennsylvania, is shot down by a vote of three to one in Harrisburg, on February 22nd; even many of the openly prejudiced legislators cannot bring themselves to deny rights that have already been granted[Unfortunately, perhaps largely due to sheer poor luck, a similar measure was actually *approved* IOTL].

The first confirmed sighting by European-descended peoples of the Yosemite Valley occurs on March 27th. The government of California initially shows interest in the region, but ultimately decides to leave it alone for now.

On May 1st, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations opens in London, England; it is a marvelous success.

Sometime in July, an abolitionist is shot to death in Knoxville, Tennessee. The murder generates outcry up North, but little can be done for the man.

During the month of September, John B. Russwurm, the Afro-American publisher, arrives in Liberia in the hopes of establishing permanent residence there.

1852

The Studebaker brothers found a small wagon company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on April 9th.

On May 17th, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the first major anti-slavery novel ever written in America, is successfully published in Boston. It quickly becomes a best seller.

On September 7th, Former U.S. President Henry Clay passes away in Washington, D.C.; 2 days later, he becomes the first statesman to ever lay under the Capitol Rotunda.

U.S. Presidential Elections, 1852: In a surprising twist, Republican candidate from Illinois[He never left Ohio IOTL] William Dayton, manages to beat both the Whig candidate from North Carolina, William Mangum, and the Democrat ticket of Stephen Douglas/Lewis Cass, to the White House. Dayton becomes the first Republican candidate to ever win a Presidential election in the U.S. Also, in California, William B. Ide of the Bear Party loses to American immigrant David Broderick of the Liberal Party.

1853

On March 17th, Levi Strauss founds a clothing company in San Francisco, California.

John Brown Russwurm, the African-American publisher, and Liberian statesman, dies in Monrovia following a bout with malaria on April 2nd.

On May 14th, the city of Nanjing comes under siege by Taiping forces.

Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandito, survives an encounter with the California Republic Militia on July 21st.

Iesada Tokugawa becomes the 13th Shogun of Japan on July 27th, after the death of his father.

A major slave revolt occurs in Alabama, in which a notorious slave driver is killed, started by about 400 African-Americans, but manages to grow up to 2,000. Despite the seemingly small-scale rebellions, it takes 3 weeks in September and October to put down the revolt, in which 180 of the blacks are executed. President Dayton angers many conservative Southerners by refusing to condemn the revolt, or the killing of the abusive overseer.

In November, growing discontent over the lack of responsible government, and what is seen as continued neglect by Britain, broke out into a full-scale revolt on the 7th, after a demonstration in Montreal went horribly wrong.....when a blundering policeman shot into the crowd. By the end of the month, half a dozen other revolts were taking place in both Canada East and Canada West.

On December 22nd, an American wannabe filibuster by the name of James Gadsden is shot after a botched money deal in Sonora. He dies five days later, but the shooter is not prosecuted. A fellow adventurer, William Walker, then living in West Texas, then took advantage of the shooting, and, as it's said, formed the James Gadsden Society with a small group of friends on December 29th, of that year, in Franklin, just outside of El Paso.

1854

On Feb. 27th, the Canadian militias seized the small town of Bytown, Canada West, after a short firefight with colonial forces.

The body of Friedrich Beneke, the famed German psychologist, is found in Berlin on April 8th; the man has apparently committed suicide.

A brief, but bloody skirmish occurs between the West Texas militias and the Army of the Republic of the Rio Grande, near Laredo, West Texas, on April 27th. It doesn't amount to much on it's own, but it does make clear to some that the border is not yet secure for Americans.

The James Gadsden Society organizes their first filibustering raid against the small town of Santa Teresa, Sonora, on July 2nd, sparking attention and concern in both Mexico and the United States.....

On August 7th, William Walker personally leads an attack on a Sonoran garrison 50 miles southwest of Santa Teresa, which sparks concerns of a larger invasion of the country, in Hermosillo.....

The Canadian Patriotes seize the city of Laval, Canada East, on October 7th; they then use this as a bridge head for a future invasion of Montreal. This tactic proves to have paid off, as Montreal falls on October 12th, after 3 days of heavy fighting. Significant concern is sparked in Britain as many fear this could lead to rebellions elsewhere; the Prime Minister considers sending a large contingent to Canada, but American President Dayton warns that the United States will intervene if London makes that decision. At the end of the month, the British back off.

On November 3rd, Quebec City falls to the Canadian insurgents.

A large number of mercenaries swarm out of El Paso, West Texas, during the afternoon hours of November 28th, headed westward with much haste.

On December 27th, a pair of enslaved African-Americans from Kentucky make a bee-line for the North; slave catchers desperately try to find them before they lose track of them.

1855

On March 9th, former American President Daniel Webster dies in Massachusetts.

The Battle of Peterborough occurs in Canada West between May 26th and May 29th, ending with a Canadianist victory.

To the horror of many, the Fugitive Slave Act is signed into law by a slight margin on September 17th. President Dayton attempts to veto the bill but it passes anyway, when his veto is over-ridden by the remaining congressmen.

1856

On April 7th, West Texas is admitted to the Union as a slave state, with it's capital at San Antonio. As a compromise, however, some counties are allowed to ban slavery from their jurisdictions: chief amongst them are Bexar County,[or at least the purchase or sale of slaves], Crockett County, and Pecos County. This essentially makes West Texas a border state of sorts.

April 27th: A major schism begins in the Mormon faith after a heated debate between the conservative Brighamites, and the more liberal Smithites, over interpretations of certain doctrines.

June 6th: William Walker's men raid and otherwise terrorize the small town of Caborca in Sonora. Many of the Mestizo inhabitants are either brutalized or murdered outright, and there are several instances of Hispano women being raped by the vicious thugs.

On July 28th, widespread allegations of corruption in the California Democratic Party are released in San Francisco, to the outrage of many; several Democratic officials, two of them Southerners(one of them a member of the notorious Calhoun family of South Carolina), are lynched in the city.

On October 4th, William Walker's men attack the small town of San Luis, Sonora, near the American border. This becomes the final straw, and three days later, the government of Sonora asks America to intervene, to which Dayton gladly accedes.

William Dayton narrowly loses the 1856 American Presidential election to N.J. Democrat Robert F. Stockton, a noted war hero.

The fighting in Canada eventually wears down during the latter half of 1856, as British forces find themselves unable to hold on, mainly as they are engaged in combat elsewhere, chiefly in Persia and Crimea. The Canadians agree to a cease-fire and treaty in October, with the promise that Britain will pull out all troops by no later than 31 May of the following year; in return, the Canadian government will make their best effort to ensure the safety of those British troops not engaged in further fighting.

1857

On January 21st, William Walker's forces retreat back to West Texas, having been chased out of Sonora altogether.

Elisha Gray Otis installs the first elevator in a small apartment building in Chicago, Ill., on April 4th[in the real world, this occurred on March 23rd, in New York, at 488 Broadway]. These machines also become known as levitators in Europe later on.

On April 9th, The United States finalizes it's annexation of the Republic of California, when a new state constitution is ratified. For the first time, the popular sovereignty doctrine is put to the test, as voters decide whether or not to allow slavery; California becomes a free state by a margin of nearly 4 to 1(a clause is inserted, however, that does allow individual counties to restrict or even ban the settling of free blacks in the area; at least a few counties, nearly all dominated by Southerners, do the latter). Admission to the Union is granted on July 9th.

On June 2nd, a treaty is signed between Persia and the U.K., after 9 months of fighting.

Minnesota is admitted to the Union on July 10th; unsurprisingly, as with California, it is a free state. With this, however, the balance between slave and free states has been thrown off and concern eventually develops amongst many southern quarters.

On July 19th of this year, the Canadian government comes together in Ottawa[formerly Bytown], Ontario for it's first official business. This day later becomes memorialized as Canada Day, similar to the Fourth of July in the U.S.

(However, though, a dispute does develop between the U.S. and Canada in regards to the western border between them.)

On July 20th, Baja California officially breaks away from Mexico, as an independent state of its own.

Frederick Douglass, the African-American abolitionist, survives an assassination attempt in Chicago on July 30th. The shooter, a cousin by marriage to Democratic Congressman Levi Boone, is apprehended quickly by police. When the connection to Boone is revealed, the Congressman becomes so embarrassed by this that he essentially shuts himself away from the public; despite retaining support from conservative Democrats, he will resign his office in February, 1858.

On August 19th, the Welsh city of Cardiff becomes home to Britain's, and the world's, first association football team[In the real world, it was Sheffield that became the home of the first such sports organization in our reality, on October 24th of the same year, to be precise].

Also, in August, the African-American abolitionist, Sojourner Truth, travels to the British Isles. Her reception in Britain is a tad mixed, but receives a rather warm welcome in Ireland. She will return to America in November and discuss her experiences over there.[Based on, and inspired by, Frederick Douglass's own trip to the Emerald Isle in the real world in 1855.]

Ignacio Comonfort steps down as Mexican President on Sept. 12th of this year. Felix Zuloaga, a veteran of the Mexican War, will take his place[this occurred on Nov. 30th in the real world].

Sometime in October of this year, a small settlement was founded in Malaysia at the confluence of the Gombak and Klang rivers, as a trading post. It would eventually evolve into the town of Kuala Lumpur, later becoming the capital of British Malaya.

1858

Felix Zuloaga is assassinated in Mexico City on February 7th, by a pro-Liberal veteran of the Mexican War. Jose Mariano de Salas takes his place, but he is not popular with many liberals or some moderates and thus, unrest begins to become a problem....
Without the ascension of Napoleon III to power, there is no French Empire, as we know it, exactly. And thus, Felice Orsini does not try to assassinate him on March 10th of this year, as it the real world.

In Italy, the attempted kidnapping, in April, of a young Jewish boy named Francesco Mortara, fails, and his parents flee to New Orleans, in the United States. This attempted kidnapping will later provoke much international controversy. [In the real world, this young man was named Edgardo and, unfortunately, the real-world individual could not escape his kidnapping. He later joined the Augustinian Order and became a priest, including spending some time in New York].

On August 7th, an assassination attempt is made on the life of elderly former South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun. The shooter, a free black man, manages to flee the country, despite the best efforts of authorities to capture him, and results in the creation of a bill that supports either the eviction, or enslavement, of any free African-American that the government chooses to target.....[In the real world, the state of Arkansas passed a bill that would have enslaved all free people of color by 1860. Amazingly, this OTL law wasn't enforced but it did, unfortunately, terrorize many free African-Americans into leaving the state.]

Two major slave revolts occur in the American South in September, one in Alabama and the other in Mississippi, both of which cause extensive damage in certain areas. In both cases, free blacks and abolitionists are both blamed for supposedly causing the uprisings, and as a result, many begin to openly call for even harsher laws against abolitionism.

In October, to the horror & astonishment of many observers, even some Southerners, the legislature of the state of South Carolina passes the “Rhett Bill”, after a brother of Robert B. Rhett, the firebrand pro-slavery extremist, who was currently serving in the State Senate at the time.

Martin Delany, a successful African-American businessman, survives a murder attempt by a South Carolina slaveowner's son in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 22nd. His assassin is jailed, but tries to escape on Christmas Eve; the boy doesn't get far, however, and is lynched by a multiethnic mob after he slaps a white woman who doesn't cooperate with his demands. News of this causes an uproar amongst conservatives in South Carolina, but little can be done.

1859

On February 27th, American congressman Daniel Sickles is shot by Philip Barton Key, after it's discovered that the latter had been engaged in adultery with his wife. Sickles dies of his wounds a few days later and Key makes a run for Mexico.

On July 11th, a protest occurs in Venice over recent alleged abuses and general wrongdoing by the Austrian government. The authorities don't take this well, and later on that very day, some protestors end up being shot by Austrian soldiers. This incident sparks further unrest across the Hapsburg lands.

At the end of August, and early in September, a truly incredible solar storm amazes many on Earth with it's dazzling displays of light in the skies above many places, even reaching to the tropics. Unfortunately, however, the storm also affects many telegraph lines across the world, costing many millions of U.S. dollars' worth in damages.

On September 22nd, John Brown and some associates raid the plantation of a Mr. Simmons in southeast Virginia. Brown is injured by gunfire, but he is able to convince 4 dozen of the man's slaves to go with him. They are later led to a ship which takes them to Liberia.

Mekteb-i Mülkiye, the Ottoman Empire's first modern university, is founded on November 17th of this year.

For anybody watching, I sincerely apologize for the long delay: real life has been just a little challenging for me, in terms of getting things done. Nonetheless, here's the Civil War. Warning: huge block o' text may be ahead:

1870

On January 24th, Robert Barnwell Rhett writes an editorial for a reactionary newspaper in Columbia, S.C., calling for the immediate secession of all remaining slave states and territories in the U.S.

A major slave revolt occurs on, and eventually spreads beyond. the plantation of the Simons family near Bainbridge, Ga., between the 24th and 28th of February; 36 of the slaves are killed but none of the men of the Simons family survive, nearly all of whom had developed a reputation for extreme cruelty in recent years.

Another major incident involving slaves occurs near Dyersburg in west Tennessee, when an overseer is stabbed to death during the night of April 8th as part of a revenge/escape plot; two slaves who try to warn their master are themselves disposed of as well. During the overnight hours, 150 of the slaves flee to New Madrid, into the now free state of Missouri, most of them reaching their goal. A few are eventually caught by slave catchers, but most elude capture. When word reaches Washington, President Chase issues an official Executive Order for the National Guard to arrest any slave catchers operating in free states, whenever they are found. This serves only to further anger many more reactionary slaveowners, and cries for secession become louder and louder with each passing day.

On June 4th, the organization known as the “Knights of White America” is founded in Maryland by members of the pro-slavery “Golden Circle” secret society, and the former Know Nothings, and several other reactionary groups. They soon become a major recruiter for the secessionist cause outside of the South, which prompts the federal government to try to take them down.

On June 28th, the abolitionist Lysander Spooner survives an assassination attempt in San Francisco, California. His assailant, 22 year old Benjamin Ryan Tillman, had been on the run from Kentucky lawmen after he murdered an African-American couple in Louisville supposedly involved in abolitionist causes. Tillman is bailed out of the attempted murder charge, but when California authorities learn of the Kentucky murders in August, they discover that Tillman already fled the state.

The final spark that will set off the powder keg towards civil war in the United States will be lit on August 4th, when New Mexico senator, and former soldier, Ulysses S. Grant, writes a resolution condemning the institution of slavery in the United States; he reminds his fellow Congressmen that the Founders neither wished, or intended, for slavery to remain forever a reality in the country, and called for a solution to the problems that lay ahead for America, including the total abolition of slavery. It is only a resolution, but it draws bipartisan support, not just from Republicans, but also from many moderate northern and western Democrats as well. The resolution passes the Senate by a slight majority at the end of the month; the same later holds true for the House, despite vigorous protests by Southern Democrats.

And when word of this eventually reaches the South, it ignites a public uproar never before seen in the area. Starting in early September, riots occur from Richmond, Virginia, to the town of Waco in East Texas, and back again. And after secessionists fail to take the port at Galveston, East Texas, at the end of the month, this proves to be the absolute last straw for the Southron nationalists....

On October 4th, the state of Mississippi decides to finally secede from the Union, with nearly 80% of the public supporting them. The state of South Carolina followed later that month after a truly disastrous failed slave revolt nearly destroyed the small town of Clemson. The new nation is named the Confederate States of America, and it's first capital becomes Montgomery, Alabama, after that state and Georgia secede in November. Jefferson Davis would be elected it's first(and only) President by a near unanimous margin, and only a day after he is inaugurated, he declares outright war against the Union, or, more specifically, those states most opposed to slavery in particular. And with this, the Civil War has officially begun.....

[As the year comes to a close, there are several hundred thousand Northern and Western reactionaries who find themselves becoming highly sympathetic to the Confederacy, and many tens of thousands actually volunteer to ally themselves with the C.S.A., including hardcore anti-Chinese racists in California and other far Western states, anti-immigrant xenophobes in the border states, and even a few hardcore conservative immigrants themselves, wishing to be recognized, if for no other reason. As mentioned before, the Knights of White America are one of the primary instigators of such. As a result, President Chase orders that any Union citizen caught aiding the Confederacy in any way be charged with high treason.].

1871

U.S. Civil War: The Confederacy wins its first major battle at Hampton Roads, Va. on March 11th; after 3 days of fighting, 1,800 Union and 1,500 Confederate soldiers have died.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Lafayette(April 2nd-6th): Confederate soldiers and pro-C.S. partisans attacked this primarily pro-Unionist community; 400 Confederates and 800 Union soldiers & partisans perished in the fighting.

U.S. Civil War-The Skirmish at Beaumont(April 20th-25th): Union soldiers tried to defend the important port town of Beaumont, East Texas, from the Confederates, but were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Southron force.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Bull Run(June 9th-12th): The Union Army manages to rout a Confederate offensive in the area, although with heavy losses.

U.S. Civil War-The Raid at Nacogdoches(July 18th-23rd): Nacogdoches, one of the few towns in East Texas with a large Afro-American population, was pillaged and burned down by the “Harkin's Hornets” division of the C.S. Army; over 200 were killed.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Evansville(Sept. 12Th-18th): The first major Union victory of the war came when a Confederate force lead by General Alexander Stephens was rebuffed and humiliated by a both slightly smaller and somewhat weaker Union defense force, led by a Colonel Dezotell of the Minnesota 4th, who'd been assisting local units clean up anti-Union partisans.

U.S. Civil War-The Silver City Incident(Sept. 25Th/26th): The Western Unionists were caught largely off guard when a pro-C.S. partisan group managed to devastate the small Army garrison east of town. The community would be held hostage for several months until the U.S. could finally get enough men and resources to liberate them.

U.S. Civil War-The Raid at Barstow(Nov. 2Nd): The small town of Barstow, California, was terrorized by a pro-C.S. partisan group calling themselves the “Gray Devils”, a primarily anti-Asian group. Reportedly, before they left, several of the town's more prominent Chinese citizens disappeared into thin air, never to be heard of again.....which sparked much attention and unease throughout California, especially amongst the minority populations.

U.S. Civil War-The Massacre at Wills Creek(Nov. 22nd-23rd): Wills Creek, East Texas, a town of about 2,200 people about 75 miles northeast of Dallas, was attacked by two divisions of the the C.S. Army and members of a group calling themselves the “Sons of Tom Green”, named after a Texan planter and judge who died during the last days of the Mexican War. The town's militia stood no chance against them, and surrendered on the 23rd. Unfortunately, the Sons of Tom Green took things farther than even many of the most radical Confederates would be willing to do; they actually executed civilians who even looked like they wouldn't cooperate with their every demand, including much of the small free black population of about a hundred souls.

Also:

On November 22nd, the final building blocks for consolidating the British colonies of Australia are laid down with the signing of the Melbourne Agreement; this leads to the official formation of the Dominion of Australia on 8 April of the following year.

1872

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Chattanooga(Jan. 25th-30th): This important East Tennessee town, still rather pro-Unionist like so many other communities in the Appalachian area, was invaded by the Confederates in the hopes of further securing the Tennessee River Valley. The Unionists did their best to hold out, but were thwarted when Confederate units from Georgia arrived to assist their fellows.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Sulphur Springs(Feb. 22nd-24th): Another East Texas town fell to the Confederates on this day, as they edged ever closer to Dallas and Fort Worth.

U.S. Civil War-Raid on Johnson City(Mar. 30th): The largely undefended small town of Johnson City, Tenn., was taken by Confederate General Jubal Early, after a brief battle with local militias. The Rebels then pilfered much of the town of it's supplies and food and razed several homes in the process.

U.S. Civil War-The Rout at Palmyra(Apr. 25Th): Union Lt. General William Mahone was able to rout a Confederate army led by Albert S. Johnston on this day.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Lenoir(May 5Th): The small town of Lenoir, North Carolina, became a major battleground when a Confederate force led by Lt. Gen. Christopher Memminger, Jr. attacked a Union company led by Col. James M. Pullen; Colonel Pullen escaped, but one of his lieutenants, Gideon Matthews, was captured and imprisoned at Andersonville, Ga., were he later died, in March, 1873.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Waco(May 28th-30th): Waco, East Texas, was, at this time, home to a garrison of about 8,000 Union soldiers, when a Confederate force of about 15,000 led by General David Bozeman attacked the garrison, just east of town. The battle was costly for the Confederates, but ultimately resulted in their victory; 2,000 Union men were dead, versus about 3,500 Confederates. with the fall of Waco, Gen. Bozeman's forces were able to cut throught the Hill Country with ease.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Springfield, Mo.(Jun. 16th-20th): A narrow, if rather costly, victory for the Union forces defending this growing prairie town, as 9,000 Confederates led by Col. James Stedman found themselves running out of ammunition, due to poor planning on the part of the Colonel; 1,000 Confederates surrendered.

U.S. Civil War-The Raid on Fresno(Jul. 11th): Fresno, California, was terrorized by a group calling themselves the “Army of Gadsden”, after the slain filibusterer, James Gadsden; 30 militiamen and volunteers who tried to stop the raid were killed, and 2 dozen civilians, including 2 entire families of the small black population, were taken hostage and disappeared.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Houston(Aug. 4th-9th): After several months of preparation, a Confederate force of 40,000, lead by Generals Clement Vallandigham and Andrew Humphreys, invaded Houston, the largest city in East Texas, with a population of about 50,000 residents. Much of the city was decimated during the fighting, and despite their best efforts, the Union troops led by Colonel William Travis, Jr., were unable to hold back the Confederates. Travis and his surviving men were ordered to retreat back to Austin to await further orders.

U.S. Civil War-The Burning of Fort Carter(Sept. 6th): On this day, Fort Carter, Arizona[On the site of the real world Flagstaff], was attacked and badly damaged during an engagement by the Grey Devils. Before the Grey Devils left, the fort was set alight, virtually destroying what was left. They also killed a Native American non-combatant, known only as Jose, who was attached to the installation.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Rowlett's Station (Sept. 9th): This battle took place in Kentucky not far from Woodsonville; it ended in a Confederate victory, and the loss of Union General John A. Wharton, of the West Texas 2nd, who was killed by long-range rifle fire.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Austin-(Sept. 24th-28th): In an attempt to hamper the Unionist war effort in East Texas, Clement Vallandigham opted to try to take out the state's capital city. But the Texas Rangers and 10,000 Union soldiers encamped near the city were tipped off by Braxton Bragg, a defecting Confederate colonel, allowing them some extra preparation time. The battle proved to be inconclusive, as neither side could gain much of an advantage. Vallandigham eventually realized that this endeavor would be too costly to pursue any further, and ordered his men to change course. However, though, the Confederate retreat proved to be a fruitful decision in the long run, as by mid October, southern East Texas would be cut off from the rest of the state.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of the Pecos-(Oct. 25th-26th): This was perhaps one of the most interesting battles of the war. On the east bank of the Pecos River, were the 10,000 men of Confederate Generals Vallandigham & Humphreys, and on the West Bank, a Unionist force of 7,000 led by General Samuel Pomeroy, and assisted by Colonels William Travis, Jr., and Elisha Pease, the latter man from West Texas himself. The battle relied a good deal on cannons and artillery and it's estimated that two fifths of Union deaths and half of Confederate deaths that had occurred were caused this way.

U.S. Civil War-The Defense of DuQuoin-(Nov. 3rd-5th): A Confederate attempt headed by Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson to take the town of DuQuoin, Ill., was thwarted by Colonels James Davidson of the Ohio 1st, and Stephen Dezotell of the Minnesota 4th, the latter of whom had also defended Evansville, Ind., in Sept. of the prior year.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of El Paso-(Nov. 11th-14th): This bloody battle occurred when Confederate General Clement Vallandigham saw an opprotunity to control a portion of the Rio Grande; at this time, West Texas had already been split in two, just as East Texas had been. Union General Samuel Pomeroy had fallen back to El Paso after the battle over the Pecos River, and had warned local authorities of an impending incursion. And just as well, because on November 11th, Vallandigham's Confederates made it just outside of town at 2 p.m. What followed was 3 whole days of hard fighting, including with the use of cavalry and cannons on both sides of the battle lines. Tragically, several dozen of the town's 8,000 residents perished during the fighting, including some women and even a few children.

U.S. Civil War-The Burning of El Centro(Nov. 24th):The Grey Wolves attacked this small primarily Latino desert settlement, murdering 40 people and taking many hostages; rumors circulate for weeks afterwards that some of the Mexicans may have been enslaved and sold to Southern plantations.
U.S. Civil War-The Liberation of Miami(Dec. 7th-8th): This was one of the more unusual battles of the war, because it took place in South Florida. This particular area of the state had never been particularly pro-Confederate, and in the small, primarily Yankee-settled town of Miami, which had been occupied by Confederate troops since early October, there was growing resistance against the secessionist cause. Seeking to distract the Confederates, the U.S. had requested permission from the Republic of Cuba to station troops near Havana temporarily, in the hopes of setting a foothold in Florida. The Cubans agreed, and a few people in the country even volunteered to help the Yankees fight the Confederates; many greatly feared the slavers in Montgomery and despised them greatly.

On November 24th, 5,000 American troops landed on the southern tip of the peninsula, completely unnoticed, as there were few people living in this area. The trip to Miami was slow, as they were tredging through miles of swampland, but by December 6th, they had finally reached the outskirts of Miami. The battle that followed was low-key, but took longer than expected, as many of the Confederates stationed there were natives and knew the area well. However, though, by the afternoon of the 8th, the Union had won.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Mt. Carmel(Dec. 24Th/26th-28th): This small Illinois town was home to the last battle of 1872 as a Confederate force of about 10,000 men led by Edmund K. Smith, of the Army of Western Kentucky[This division didn't exist in OTL's Civil War; the group that General Smith commanded was just the Army of Kentucky]. Defending Mt. Carmel, were 8,000 Union soldiers and volunteers lead by Colonel P.G.T. Beauregard, a Louisiana native who had defected to the Union early on. Although the fighting had started on Christmas Eve, neither side wished to fight on Christmas Day, so both sides agreed to a temporary cease-fire for the duration of the holiday, with the fighting only resuming the next morning. But when it did, it made the snow-covered ground run red with blood as the two sides fought fiercely, lasting until the 28th. It had been costly for the Union, but they managed to hold their ground; Mt. Carmel would remain free.

Also, thanks to the outbreak of war, Salmon Chase and Schuyler Colfax won by a landslide in the 1872 U.S. elections; the conservative Democratic “peace ticket” of Thomas Bayard and John Scott Harrison won only Missouri, Kentucky, and one electoral vote in Ohio, with Bayard winning everywhere else, including even Kentucky and Virginia.

Other events of the year-

On Apr. 4th, the husband of Queen Victoria, Crown Prince Albert, dies after a brief illness in the Windsor family estate. She will not remarry.

The Taiping Republic opens an embassy in Great Britain on June 6th.

In August, a young American newspaper writer, and aspiring inventor from Iowa, named John Stiles, perfects the first modern typewriter, after 5 years of work[There are actually several claims as to who created the first modern typewriter in our reality, but it is generally agreed that Rasmus Malling-Hansen, a Danish educator, successfully finished work on, and sold, the first *commercial* modern typewriter, in 1870. Others may point to a small group in Milwaukee, Wis., led by one C. Latham Sholes, who made their first prototype in 1868]. He is later able to convince a Mr. Sholes, a respected Aurora, Illinois businessman, to help him take his promising business off the ground, and in 1875, sells his very first machines.

After years of talks, the German Empire is formally created on Sept. 9th; the famous statesman, Otto von Bismarck, is elected as it's first Chancellor.

In November, disputes over the control of Schleswig-Holstein explode into violence after a pair of border incidents, beginning what will be known as the Jutland War.

The United States will become the first nation in the world to open an embassy with the German Empire, on December 8th, in Washington, D.C.

1873

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of the Narrows(Jan. 22nd-25th): Near the site of the Battle of Fort Harrison 60 years earlier, pro-Confederate bushwhackers, associated with some auxiliary units of the C.S. Army, ambush an encamped U.S. Army division led by Lt. Colonel Calvin Campbell, on the 22nd. It turns into a 4-day long skirmish between the Yankees and the bushwhackers. The Yankees manage to fend off their assailants, but nearly 200 men die, or 80% of Campbell's total forces.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Fort Cotton(Jan. 31St): Confederate forces lead by Clement Vallandigham attacked this understaffed fort in southern Arizona. The fort is occupied by the Confederates for much of the rest of 1873.

U.S. Civil War-The Sacking of Carleton's Cove(Feb. 22Nd): The U.S. Army captures this small outpost on the southwest Gulf coast of Florida[this is not too far from the real world town of Fort Myers, Florida].

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Waxahachie(Mar. 24th-25th): Waxahachie, East Texas, then a small town of 4,400 people, was attacked by forces led by C.S. General D.W. Bozeman. Despite his best efforts, however, Union Colonel Fritz Teneger held the Confederates off.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Lynchburg(Mar. 30th-31st): Confederate Colonel Daniel Harvey Hill led a two-day offensive against Union forces headed up by Colonel James M. Pullen, who'd previously fought in the Battle of Lenoir, in May of the year prior. Hill's men fought fiercely, but with better tactics, and more supplies, Pullen was able to hold off the Confederates, although suffering substantial losses, and Colonel Hill was forced to withdraw back to the east.

U.S. Civil War-The Ojinaga Incident(Mar. 31st): Confederate soldiers under Colonel Jeremiah Worley, subordinated to Andrew Humphreys, pursued a small group of Tejano pro-Union partisans, and chased them to Presidio, West Texas, before the Tejanos were spotted on a scout on horseback crossing the Rio Grande and into Ojinaga, Chihuahua. Worley ordered his men to cross the river to continue pursuing the Tejanos. Worley's men ransacked the town for hours, but didn't find the men they were looking for. Colonel Worley then ordered his men to withdraw when he heard that the Rio Bravo Army was on it's way to Ojinaga; they escaped, but at a cost. They had wasted most of their ammunition trying to apprehend the Tejanos, and several amongst their ranks had died.

U.S. Civil War-The Razing of Edwardsville(Apr. 5th-7th): The last major incident to occur in Illinois for the duration of the war. Confederate troops led by Colonel Jacob Ezekiel Collins made one last thrust along the Wabash River, and raced towards Edwardsville. The small garrison in town stood no chance, and by sundown, most of the 50 or so militiamen guarding the town had been killed or otherwise put out of action. Collins then ordered the town be razed and pillaged of anything worth stealing; this went on for 2 whole days until Lt. Colonels William C. Oliver, of the Illinois 7th, and Joseph P. Matthews of the Indiana 2nd, intervened, and chased out the Southrons, capturing several dozen in the process. News of the atrocity would spread far and wide, and newspapers as far away as the Washington Territory blared the news on their front pages; several tens of thousands of additional volunteers would later join the war effort in the next three weeks alone, because of this.

U.S. Civil War-The Massacre at Cripple Creek(Apr. 22nd-23rd): The tiny village of Cripple Creek, in the Colorado Territory, was accosted by members of the “White Crusaders”, an anti-immigrant group associated with pro-Confederate terrorism. Armed with surplus Confederate ordnance, the gang of about a hundred men, some on horseback, terrorized the community's 250 residents, several dozen of them Chinese and European immigrants, and their children, and a few blacks. The minorities were all rounded up and taken hostage, and several were killed, including an elderly African-American freedman, and a 10-year-old Chinese immigrant boy. The “White Crusaders” continued causing trouble until about 11 a.m. on the 23rd, when the territory's militia intervened and rescued the town. The firefight that followed resulted in the deaths of 15 of the “Crusaders”, one of them a relative of a prominent Democratic former Congressman from Missouri.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Paducah(May 2nd-4th): This battle actually took place just to the southeast of the aforementioned town. Most notable for the death of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon the evening the battle ended, of injuries sustained on the 3rd.[Gen. Lyon, it should be noted, was the first General to have perished in our reality's U.S. Civil War]

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Fort Connor(May 26th-27th): This battle took place in the southeast of the Indian Territory[later Oklahoma], near one of the Union's newer military outposts. The fort was destroyed and it's surviving inhabitants imprisoned.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Tucson (Jun. 20th-22nd): Confederate General Clement Vallandigham made a run towards this small Arizona village; just outside of town was a U.S. Army barracks where Lt. General Robert Patterson had headquartered for his current operations. The battle lasted three days, and although Vallandigham took heavier than expected losses, still managed to defeat Patterson, who made the call for those men who were alive and hadn't been captured, to retreat back to California.

U.S. Civil War-The Orange Grove Incident(July 3rd): A contingent of about two dozen members of the Grey Devils, all on horseback, terrorized the town of Orange Grove, California, then located in Los Angeles County, during the afternoon hours; only a few hours prior, they had also robbed a general store twenty miles east of there and murdered it's proprietor, a German immigrant, and two of his three employees(one black and one a Yankee from Massachusetts). They were eventually driven off by the local state militias along with the county sheriff and several deputies, but not before a dozen more people had been killed.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Rocky Point(July 11th-12th): The only significant battle to have occurred in the Territory of Sonora. A small Navy outpost was located near there, which made the town an attractive target for the Confederates. Clement Vallandigham, accompanied by Andrew Humphreys, led the charge, and after a two day battle, captured the town, but not before the U.S.S. Webster fired a few parting shots at the Rebels, one cannonball actually coming close to killing Gen. Humphreys.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Yuma(July 20th-22nd): As Andrew Humphreys and Clement Vallandigham continued towards California, they came across the village of Yuma, Arizona, mostly comprised of Native Americans and protected by only a few Union volunteers. This battle, which took place mainly during summer rains in the area, likely would have lasted only a single day, where it not for an unexpected complication: some local Native warriors, nominally friendly to the Union, had heard of the approaching Confederates and launched their own attack. They were only a few dozen in number, but it took until the evening of the 22nd for them to finally scatter; a Confederate Colonel, John D. Massey, was one of 15 Confederates killed by the Natives.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Fort Pierce(Aug. 19Th): This was a short battle, and the last one of note before the Confederates' next major assault in the West. Fort Pierce was wrecked, and 70 surviving Union soldiers and their commander, junior Lt. Colonel Joseph Craydon, captured.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of San Diego(Sept. 2nd-11th): The most significant offensive of the Western Front of the Civil War, and would be the deadliest. Having managed to gain some extra supplies and reinforcements at the last minute, C.S. Generals Vallandigham and Humphreys were able to move out from Ft. Pierce on the 27th and make a run for San Diego thru the then largely uninhabited Cuyamaca Mountains area. However, though, because Lt. General Robert Patterson had warned of just such a possible attack, some preparations were made ahead of time, which would prove to be quite favorable to the Union. Vallandigham's men attacked first, as he ordered them to swarm Fort Travis, just outside of El Cajon, late on the morning of the 2nd. The first Union response came at around 3:00 p.m. when 500 men under Lt. Colonel David Johnson, subordinated to Colonel John Taylor, arrived to assist in the defense of the fort. The fort was overwhelmed, however, and Johnson's surviving men were forced to retreat back to the west. This would repeat several times until the Confederates were centered just 10 miles to the northeast of San Diego by the 5th. However, though, a saving grace for the Union came that very day in the form of 2,500 men lead by U.S. General Christopher “Kit” Carson from Los Angeles, including with extra supplies for the other Union troops as well. From then on, everything would go downhill for the Confederates. The most vital turning point came on the 7th when Union Col. Taylor's men were able to ambush the Confederates led by C.S. Colonel Jeremiah Worley, utterly obliterating them; Col. Worley himself sustained mortal wounds and would die the next afternoon. The rebels' morale slowly began to fall apart, and by the afternoon of the 11th, they had evacuated the area entirely, retreating back to Fort Pierce.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Coyote Creek(Sept. 18Th): This Baja California battle took place a week after the defeat at San Diego. 500 Confederates led by Colonel William Fike, under General Andrew Humphreys, were ambushed by a group of Union volunteers and some Native American allies. The Confederates were defeated, and Col. Fike surrendered to the Unionists.

U.S. Civil War-The Raid on Rowlett Creek-(Sept. 24th): One of the bloodiest incidents in East Texas during the war. Just about 11 miles due northwest of Rockwall, a small Union garrison of about 4 dozen soldiers, of roughly half volunteers, half regulars, was brutally attacked by members of the Sons of Tom Green about 40 minutes after noon, killing thirty of them. They then engaged in an impromptu terror raid up and down Rowlett Creek; although it lasted just a few hours, they killed a dozen civilians, including a black freedman and one of his sons, before a few deputies from the Dallas & Collin County Sheriff's Offices and members of the state militia drove them off, just after sundown.

U.S. Civil War-The Buenaventura Massacre-(Sept. 26th): Members of another pro-Confederate mercenary group, the Devil Dogs, headed up by David S. Terry, a Mexican War veteran and failed lawyer from Arkansas, and assisted by the El Paso branch of the Army of Gadsden, and about 200 auxiliary Confederates under Sgt. Thomas Bingham, engaged in pursuit of a group of Mexican fighters & some Natives, who had attacked a camp just outside of El Paso a couple days prior, and killed a Confederate Lt. Colonel, as they fled through eastern Sonora, and south thru the border & into Rio Bravoan Chihuahua, until they reached the town of San Buenaventura. Sgt. Bingham demanded to speak with the mayor of the town, who showed up promptly. Bingham then asked him if he had seen the men they were looking for. The mayor informed him that he had not, and then asked him to leave. Bingham, however, soon discovered that they had indeed been there. A furious David Terry later assassinated the mayor and ordered his own men to start ransacking the town. He also ordered that a hundred hostages be taken as punishment for the mayor's deception.....or nearly a tenth of the town's whole population, and to begin shooting them, one every two minutes. But just as three quarters of the hostages had been killed, just before sundown, members of the Rio Bravoan military arrived on site, catching the ransackers completely off guard, and causing them to hurry out of town. And when one captured adjutant of Bingham's admitted his nation's complicity in this attack, it was the final straw for the Rio Bravoan government; three days later, they declared war on the Confederate States on behalf of the Union.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of San Angelo(Oct. 18th-19th): The battle that cut the Confederate occupation in half and led to the collapse of the Western front. Occupied since October of the prior year, San Angelo, then a town of about 2,500 residents, had once been a small town that wasn't all that important in the scheme of things, compared to other West Texas communities such as El Paso or San Antonio. It did, however, have the South Pacific Railroad running thru town, which would prove to play a role in what was to come. The small Confederate troop of about 1,200 was led by Lt. Colonel Edmund Smith of the Army of Kentucky, demoted after the failure at Mt. Carmel in December, and was not aware of the trouble that lay ahead. On the afternoon of the 18th, two Union cavalry divisions, headelld up by Lt. Colonel Joseph Allen, arrived just outside of town and several of them attacked some of the Confederate sentries, killing twenty of them, crippling Smith's early warning network. But this was just a preview for the real act. Late that afternoon, a Union detachment of about 1,600 men boarded a commandeered train in the town of Granbury, East Texas, about 170 miles away. The train made a stop near Castleberry[about five miles northeast of the real world Coleman, TX], at about 9 p.m., before their disembarkation at around 5 the next morning. They arrived just outside San Angelo not long after sunrise, and waited for the Rebels to stir. And when the first Confederates spotted them, the Yankees opened fire. This was a truly nasty surprise to C.S. Lt. Colonel Smith and his men as they hadn't expected a full-blown battle so early in the day.

The battle lasted for just over ten hours, and when it ended, had clearly been a humiliation for the Confederates: not only had they been caught off guard, but had also been outgunned and outmanuevered, with 300 losses compared to 180 men for the Union. Lt. Colonel Smith surrendered, and was imprisoned in Rock Island, Ill., for the remaining duration of the war.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Clarksville(Nov. 2nd-4th): This important battle resulted in the collapse of most of the Middle Tenn. Confederate resistance. Union Lt. General William Mahone, now well known for his successes in Virginia and East Tennessee, had been transferred to Bowling Green, Ky., from Richmond, the month prior and had been tasked with driving C.S. General Jubal Early out of the Clarksville area to help the Union take control of more of the Tennessee River, so they could re-take Nashville, and re-install the Union government of that state.

Mahone's force of about 5,000 men was backed up by Colonels Frank Wolford, of the Kentucky 3rd Army, and William C. Oliver, of the Illinois 7th Army, with 2,500 men each. Advancing to the southeast from their position on the south bank of the Little West Fork, they reached Clarksville at about 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon of the 2nd. Only 20 minutes passed, however, before the Confederates fired on the Yankees and the battle had begun.

During the first half of the battle, most of the fighting was done across the Red River[not to be confused with the one in OTL N. Dakota or the TX/Okla. river; this is a tributary of the Cumberland River], including with cannons; a few Union cannonshots on the 2nd managed to land just outside of town, including one that injured a few Confederates on the sidelines.

But the worst fighting began at around 10 or 11 a.m. on the 3rd as the Confederate line began to collapse, and the Unionists were able to make it over the Red River, and began to advance into town. From then on, the C.S. line began to collapse, and by noon on the 4th, General Early had lost about 1,500 men; He soon decided to cut his losses and flee to the South, with some of the survivors. One of his Colonels, Julius McCormick, had died, and the other, Wade Hampton, the former two-time South Carolina congressman, surrendered to Mahone and his men.

U.S. Civil War-The Raid on Santa Fe(Nov. 7Th): The Devil Dogs terrorized the western half of the Union State of New Mexico during much of Nov., 1873; this was one of their worst atrocities. David S. Terry, the leader, was in hiding in Utah at the moment, so to lead up this raid, was Andrew Jackson Green, a son of the late Thomas J. Green. Green's two dozen men, all on horseback, decided to make the state capital of Santa Fe, then a small town of only 4,500, their target. This raid, like so many others, was also racially motivated; only this time, the Hispanophone population was the main target. The attack really only took place between 4 and 5 p.m., but resulted in the murders of ten people, including an Anglo from Illinois who died trying to protect his family; his wife was a Mestizo Mexican.
Luckily, the local militias were able to intervene in short order before any more damage could be done; four of the Devil Dogs were killed by gunfire and several others were captured.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Blountville(Nov. 10Th): Short battle that probably would have remained obscure were it not for the wounding of Union Lt. General William Brownlow; his injuries eventually resulted in his death from complications in February of the following year.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Jackson, Tenn.(Nov. 14Th-15th): This West Tennessee battle actually had little direct effect on the town it was named after; most of the actual fighting took place in between the forks of a local stream by the name of Brown's Creek. Union General William T. Sherman's 16,000 men were able to overwhelm a force of 4,000 led by C.S. Colonel James Bilbo, who fell back to Jackson, and then back to Wolf Creek, on direct orders from the C.S. War Department, to join Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Milledge Bonham, and William Davis in the Memphis area, for an anticipated significant Union offensive against that city.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Elizabeth City(Nov. 18Th): Notable for the death of Colonel John Martin, former Kansas congressman, of wounds sustained late in the fighting, on the morning of the 19th.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Memphis(Nov. 22Nd-27th): The last major engagement between the Unionists and the Confederates in 1873. Union Generals William T. Sherman and Samuel Pomeroy consolidated their forces near the Wolf River area on the 20th and planned out their move towards the port city of Memphis; they would begin moving out on the 21st, and by the end of that day, were now just 10 miles east of the city.

Memphis, at this time, was a growing port city of almost 40,000 people, that had been thriving on Mississippi River trading[Although this is actually slightly lower than it's real world population at that time]. Nearly 40,000 Confederate troops were stationed in and around the city, as this was an important port for the Confederacy, and one they couldn't afford to lose.


The Union forces arrived just outside the city on the late morning of the 22nd. The 26,000 men under Sherman and Pomeroy had a dozen artillery companies, and one hundred and twenty cavalrymen, amongst their ranks, and many of them were skilled veterans of prior battles, whereas the C.S. force was mostly comprised of men who had only recently been conscripted; this would prove to be favorable to the Union later on.

The initial fighting took place near a large plantation owned by a Mr. Wickham, about 5 miles east of the city proper, when the forward troops of C.S. Colonel Edmond Rhett, serving under General Johnston, opened fire on the advancing forces of U.S. Colonel William Oliver, placed under Sherman's command, who promptly responded. These Confederates beat a hasty retreat back to Memphis on the 23rd not long after Colonel Rhett was killed by sniper fire. The Unionists followed and a couple of hours later, encountered a larger force headed up by Colonels Samuel Maxey and Evander McNair just outside the city limits.

The fighting that followed from then on would be nothing short of intense; the Unionists had a great deal of trouble advancing any further, for the next couple of days, due to the rather stiff resistance put up by the Confederates. To try to turn the tables, General Sherman, on the 24th, ordered that his artillerymen begin bombarding the C.S. forces, and certain buildings within the city of Memphis, if possible, including known gunpowder stores and other military structures to be used by the Confederates. This tactic seemed to be ineffective at first, but as more artillery bombardments continued, the C.S. defenses began to falter, and they fell further back into Memphis, proper.

The battle continued for two more days. until Nov. 27th. And on that day, a Unionist cannonball destroyed a particularly large gunpowder store in the area, killing several dozen Confederate men, including Colonel William Preston, and two other officers. But it didn't end there; that gunpowder store just happened to be next to some storage for munitions, and a whiskey store, both of which were also subsequently destroyed. And by the time the Unionists realized the magnitude of what had just happened, a fire had begun to spread rapidly in that corner of the city. Many of the surviving Confederates began to flee, and the fighting stopped within two hours. Union General Sherman ordered his men to evacuate as many civilians and wounded Confederates out of the city as possible, and Gen. Pomeroy ordered his own men to assist Sherman's efforts.

The city of Memphis would burn for 2 more days, but General Sherman's efforts to save lives minimized casualties, compared to what could have been. And with the loss of Memphis, and the destruction of it's port, came yet another heavy blow to the Confederate cause.

U.S. Civil War-Ambush at Gatlin Gulch(Dec. 26th): Andrew Humphreys was caught almost totally off guard when he and some of his remaining men were ambushed at Gatlin Gulch, not far from El Paso. The ambush was so damaging that Humphreys decided to cut his losses and head out east, abandoning his subordinates in El Paso; three days later, they would all surrender.

Other events of the year-

March 31st-Polish War of Independence Begins: After years of neglect by the Russian Empire, and months of open rebellion, a formal war of liberation began in Poland, as revolutionaries coalesced around the organizations of Władysław Niegolewski, Apollo Korzeniowski, and Antanas Mackevičius, amongst others; this was the day in which the Czestochowa Compact was signed.

May 4th-A Schleswigian cargo ship headed for the Confederacy is intercepted by the U.S. Navy, and is sent back.

July 13th-Another ship of German origin, this one named the Freistadt Hamburg, is found by the Unionists attempting to dock in the Confederacy, but it's captain defies orders to turn around. And decides to try to run the blockade. A U.S. Navy ironclad sinks the ship, and it's surviving crew are captured and kept prisoner in Pennsylvania for the duration of the war, before they are sent home to Germany. The U.S. later pays a small compensation to the families of those sailors who were lost.

On September 2nd, representatives of the Austrian government meets with representatives of the Polish rebels and quietly agree to allow some arms to be sent to them.....at least for the moment, anyway. Representatives of the German government offer a similar deal, just two weeks later. The Poles take both deals, as they'll need all the help they can get.

Aleksander Głowacki(alias Bolesław Prus), the Polish writer turned revolutionary, dies in battle with Russian forces near the city of Biala, not far from Russia proper, on November 20th. [Thus, works that some may recognize such as “Pharaoh”(1895), don't come into existence as in the real world. There are some rough equivalents, however.]

1874

As the Civil War began to wind down, it was becoming clear that the Confederates were losing. In a last ditch attempt to save their country, the C.S. government, in January, ordered a mass mobilization of all of their available forces to the border regions; the Union, meanwhile, had responded with a similar offensive of their own. As of January, Union Generals William T. Sherman, Samuel Pomeroy, David Farragut, Winfield Scott, Jr., Philip M. Dallas, George G. Meade, Philip Sheridan, and William Rosecrans led the Deep South effort(Rosecrans was in Florida), while Ambrose Burnside, “Kit” Carson, George McClellan, Joshua Chamberlain, and Henry H. Sibley headed up the Union advance on the Western Front.

As Confederate resistance became more desperate, so, too, did the attacks by various pro-Confederate terror groups become more vicious.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of the Lakes(Jan. 7Th-9th): The first battle of the year took place in south central Florida, in the Lake Placid area. Only occasional skirmishes had taken place in the state since the first Union landings; only the northern half of the state was considered to be terribly strategically important, and the Confederates were more occupied with West Texas and Illinois + Indiana as is. Now, however, the Confederates sought to hold on to as much territory as they could. On January 2nd, Confederate Colonel Francis M. Tillman(elder brother of the now infamous would-be assassin, Benjamin Tillman)was dispatched to the area from his post in Haines City, following the main road to the town of Lakeville. Tillman arrived on the afternoon of the 7th, and just before sundown, several dozen of the Confederates opened fire on some of Rosecrans's forward sentries, killing ten of them. The battle that followed touched the shores of half a dozen lakes as the Yankees scattered their forces; the tactic worked well, and Tillman was forced to flee back to Haines City, having lost nearly 400 of his 1,000 or so men.

U.S. Civil War-The Battle of Mesilla(Jan. 24th-25th): General Adelbert Ames, previously known for his valiant efforts to rescue Virginia from total Confederate domination, was currently stationed in El Paso, West Texas, when he'd received a report of Confederate stragglers attacking Union soldiers on patrol just north of the city on the 20th. Ames and Colonel William Travis, Jr. left El Paso the next day with 1,000 men, and not long after they left, they themselves were fired upon. The Confederates fled after a few shots, and were spotted riding along the Rio Grande. Ames ordered his men to follow them; the trail ended just outside of Mesilla, New Mexico, late on the 22nd. Union scouts spent two days trying to find their attackers, but to no avail. But on the 24th, just as they were about to pack up and go home, rifle shots rang out just the first soldiers were headed out of town. Many of the stunned Unionists looked around in shock. And then another, much larger volley opened up; they had walked right into an ambush, from both Confederates and Devil Dogs. General Ames was badly wounded during the fighting, and Colonel Travis had to take over the command for his fallen boss. Eventually, the Yankees drove out the interlopers, having killed over half of them. After initial treatment, Travis personally escorted the General to a hospice in El Paso, where he would spend the next month recurperating from his wounds. For this heroism, President Chase personally recommended his promotion to General, and Travis was also awarded a Medal of Honor.

The Battle of Pecos Pass(Feb. 4th): Colonel(and soon to be General)William Travis's 1,600 men were ambushed by about a hundred Confederate stragglers and several dozen members of the Devil Dogs, on their way to Austin; 50 Yankees died that day, but almost an equal number of their attackers were also killed. The rebels were forced to abandon their plot and scattered outwards by about 3 p.m.

The Battle of Wharton(Feb. 11th-12th): Minor but somewhat intense battle that resulted in the destruction of much of the town. Confederate Colonel Thomas J. Sellers died when his position took a direct hit from Union artillery fire.

The Battle of New Orleans(Feb. 12th-18th): The liberation of New Orleans was a somewhat complex operation, and it required both Union Army troops and local anti-Confederate dissidents, mainly Cajuns & Creoles, as well some free blacks and escaped slaves. Union Lt. General Robert Patterson led the offensive starting near Galliano, already under the control of a few pro-Union volunteer militias(most of the official Union regiments from Louisiana having had to flee back to the Indian Territory), on the morning of Feb. 8th, while his fellow Lt. General, Patrick Mahan, directed his own troops to the northwest, along the Bayou Lafourche, on the same day. Patterson's men arrived just outside of New Orleans at around 10 a.m. on Feb. 12th; defending the city, were Confederate General Henry Clayton and his 8,000 troops, many of them veterans.

The city suffered thru several days of intense fighting and the desperate Confederates did everything they could to hold the city. But it just wasn't enough, and Patterson's surviving men were able to take New Orleans on the 18th, and General Clayton would surrender to Union forces a week later not far west of Baton Rouge.

The Battle of Thibodeaux(Feb. 15th-16th): This small southern Louisiana town became a battleground itself when Patrick Mahan's forces ran across a Confederate regiment led by Col. James Chesnut. Unfortunately, the battle resulted in a fire that later destroyed much of the town; as it turned out, the Confederates had actually caused it when they blew up a spare gunpowder store to prevent the Unionists from using it.

The Battle of Honey Creek(Feb. 21st): Disastrous loss for the remaining Confederates in East Texas; Union Lt. General William Travis steamrolled over the 800 men of Col. Isaiah Barnwell; Barnwell, a relative of the infamous Fire-Eater, Robert Rhett, would later die of injuries that he sustained during this battle, just two days later. Meanwhile, Travis's men would continue eastward with due haste.

The Battle of Davidson(Feb. 23rd-24th): This East Texas town was only lightly defended, but Confederate Col. Hiram Granbury and his men gave Union Colonel Fritz Teneger a rather tough time through it all, only ending when Col. Granbury was himself cut down by rifle fire. [Davidson is a fictional town, though right next to what was, and still is in our reality, the town of Columbus.]

The Battle of Tupelo(Feb. 25th-26th): Union victory; Confederate Colonel James Bilbo narrowly escaped death as his fellow Colonel, John Echols, was mauled and killed by a Union artillery shell, fired by the men of Union Colonel James Deshler.

The Battle of Richmond(Feb. 28th): This East Texas town was razed by the Confederates in an attempt to hamper the advances of Col. Fritz Teneger, as his men drove towards Houston.

The Battle of Houston(Mar. 5th-6th): The struggle over Houston was a far shorter battle than had been expected; the Confederates led by Colonel George Atzerodt had not been well supplied for the most part, as more and more munitions were needed to defend the Southron heartland. Atzerodt surrendered just a day after the battle had begun.

The Battle of Huntsville(Mar. 6th-9th): Union General George G. Meade led the assault on Huntsville, Alabama, as part of the drive to complete the Union take over of the Tennessee River Valley area. Trying to hold back the invaders were Confederate General Alexander W. Campbell, and Lt. Generals John C. Breckinridge & Matthew Butler with about 10,000 men, versus the 20,000 under General Meade on the Union side. The battle was an intense one, and Meade lost one of his Colonels, Austin Wright, to Rebel artillery fire. But the Confederates suffered worse losses, with both Breckinridge and Butler each losing a Colonel of their own. Eventually, with 2,800 of their men dead, or dying, General Campbell was forced to order a withdrawal from the area.

The Ambush at Norris's Farm(Mar. 10th): Two Confederate Colonels, Thomas Harrison and Walter Gwynn, were killed by pro-Union irregulars not far from the southernmost bend in the Tennessee River, on the farm of the Norris family.

The Battle of Muscle Shoals(Mar. 12th-13th): This assault was lead by Union Lt. General William Vandever, serving under George Meade, and was done to put the final nail in the coffin for the C.S.'s usage of the Tennessee River. Confederate Lt. General John T. Morgan attempted to defend the town, and although managed to inflict significant losses on the Yankees, still could not defeat them, and Morgan retreated further south to Russellville.

The Battle of Rosedale(Mar. 18th): U.S. General William T. Sherman's forces quickly defeated a small force of about 1,000 led by C.S. Colonel Mosby Parsons. Sherman also freed a number of slaves in the area, many of whom volunteered to join the Union Army as auxiliaries.

The Battle of Anderson(Mar. 21St-24th): Union General Winfield Scott, Jr. commanded about 30,000 men versus the forces of Confederate Generals Thomas Smith and George Johnston, numbering about 40,000. Although a hard-fought battle, Scott's men were able to cut the defensive in two and this forced Smith and Johnston to retreat, the former to Augusta and the latter towards Atlanta.

The Battle of DeWitt(Mar. 26th): A Confederate attempt to defend this town in southeast Arkansas ended with the deaths of Colonels John Gregg and Julius De Lagnel, and the retreat of Lt. General Johnson Hagood to the extreme southeast corner of the state, near Eudora, where he would later surrender.

The Battle of Cleveland(Mar. 30Th): U.S. Lt. General William Jay Smith, serving under General Sherman, led this battle that ultimately culminated in the destruction of the Mississippi town.

The Battle of Darlington(Apr. 2nd-3rd): U.S. Lt. General Eliakim Scammons died during this brief but intense battle in South Carolina.

The Sacking of Columbus(Apr. 4th-6th): A Union Victory, but a costly one: Lt. General Paul Oliver was gravely wounded by artillery fire on the last day of the battle, and died of his wounds six days later. General Samuel Pomeroy personally made arrangements for his body to be returned to his Pennsylvania home.

The Surrender at Laurens(Apr. 7th): Confederate General William J. Hardee voluntarily surrendered to U.S. Army Colonel Joseph Garrett at Laurens, South Carolina; the rationale he gave was that he realized he'd been fighting for the wrong side this whole time[a sentiment that, even with a somewhat more extreme C.S.A. than our own, was still shared by not a totally insignificant number of Southern fighting men at this point in the war; Hardee was escorted to Richmond, Va., and was later pardoned by U.S. President Salmon Chase.

The Battle of Cincinnati(Apr. 6th-9th): One of the last major battles between the Confederates and the Union in East Texas; this ended shortly after the death of C.S. General David Bozeman, after which his troops either surrendered to the Yankees or scattered out into the wilderness.

The Battle of Cowan's Meadow(Apr. 10th): William T. Sherman's forces were ambushed by Confederate stragglers just outside of a large plantation not far from Anguilla, Mississippi. The plantation was later occupied, and it's slaves, numbering some two hundred persons, were freed.

The Battle of Gadsden(Apr. 11th-12th): Union General George G. Meade personally led his men to victory here. The town was later pillaged of surplus food and money.

The Holly Bluff Incident(Apr. 16th): General Sherman's men would again be ambushed, but this time by a local militia calling themselves the “Defenders of the White Magnolia”; two Union Colonels, William Draper and Thomas McKean, were killed by them, and several dozen other men died as well. Sherman, for his part, allowed Lt. General William Nelson to burn down and pillage a pair of large plantations from which the attackers had planned their assault; it was reported some time afterwards that one of the plantation owners died from smoke inhalation and burns as his property was destroyed by the Yankees, aided by some of the revolting slaves.

The Surrender At Anniston & the Battle of Oxford(Apr. 19th): Two incidents of note happened on the same day. Confederate Lt. General William T. Martin(of no known relation to the late U.S. Colonel John Martin) surrendered to Union Lt. Generals Joseph Revere and Halbert Paine without resistance during the mid-morning hours. This would have turned out to be a rather normal day otherwise, were it not for the fact that C.S. Lt. General Howell Cobb and his fellow in rank, John P. McCown, ordered their men to charge towards Anniston at full speed; the swiftly-planned attack backfired, however, and Lt. General McCown was mortally wounded by Union artillery fire. Howell Cobb was himself forced to flee southwards with his remaining men.

The Battle of Vicksburg(Apr. 22Nd-26th): General Sherman came to Vicksburg on the 22nd to fulfill an important objective: capture the last of the Confederacy's significant Mississippi River ports. The city was well defended, with about 20,000 Confederate troops under the aegis of General Raphael Semmes. However, though, Sherman had the advantage of not just experience, but the fact that the Union now controlled most of the Mississippi River, except for the area immediately around Vicksburg. The battle proved to be one of the bloodiest in the entire war, with nearly 11,000 Union deaths attributed to the fighting, versus 9,800 on the Confederate side. General Semmes himself was captured and shipped to St. Louis, where he would be held for the remainder of the war.

The Bombing at Barstow(Apr. 24th): A bomb set by a pair of members of the Grey Devils was detonated at a U.S. Army barracks in the town, killing not only 50 Union soldiers, but several non-combatants as well, including a couple of Chinese and Mexican immigrants. The perpetrators were later caught near Fort Blythe on the 28th, trying to escape to Arizona and beyond; one of them later admitted that he had been a participant in the Indian Island Massacre in 1860. Both men were later executed for treason.

The Battle of Great Wootton(Apr. 26th): Named after the plantation on which Union soldiers led by General Carter L. Stevenson defeated the forces of Confederate Lt. General Henry Heth, who fled into Columbia during the night.

The Battle of Jacksonville(Apr. 27th-28th): The last battle of note within the state of Florida; Union General William Rosecrans was able to defeat the men of Confederate General Henry Lee, III, within just two days.

The Battle of Columbia(Apr. 28th-30th): The state capital of South Carolina was badly rocked by three days of intense fighting between the forces of U.S. General Stevenson, and the defending forces of Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest. Forrest was forced to capitulate and leave the city; one of his Lt. Generals, Arnold Elzey, had died in the fighting when a Union artillery shell landed right in front of the building in which he was headquartered. The loss of Columbia would prove to be a mortally crushing blow to the morale of many C.S. soldiers, as many South Carolina state officials had been captured before they could leave the area.

The Henderson Incident(May 3rd): This ambush of Union forces in this small East Texas town, not far to the southeast of Tyler, by Confederate stragglers only lasted a few hours, but resulted in the death of General George McClellan when a stray bullet hit him on the top of his head. The man who coordinated the ambush, a former C.S. Army Sergeant named Thomas J. Fike, was executed for the act on the orders of one of McClellan's subordinates.

The Battle of Natchez(May 4th-5th): With all but a few Confederate forces cleared from Louisiana, Union General “Kit” Carson made his next move towards the city of Natchez, to ensure that the Confederates truly would be cut off from the Mississippi once and for all. Confederate Lt. General William Y. Slack, formerly a two-term Congressman, was defending the city with about 10,000 men. Unfortunately for the C.S., however, Slack proved to be a substandard commander, and he surrendered on the evening of the 5th, realizing he'd been beat, with nearly 3,000 Confederate deaths. This battle is also notable in another respect, because there were several hundred Rio Bravoans also present in the Union effort.

The Battle of Gainesville(May 6th-7th): As Union General David Farragut closed in on Atlanta, the men of C.S. Lt. General Arthur P. Bagby attempted to defend their position at Gainesville.

The Battle of the Tallapoosa River(May 10th-12th): General George Meade's men came across the 10,000 men serving directly under Confederate General Clement H. “Rock” Stevens, while they were headed towards Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, and the former capital of the Confederacy[The capital had been unofficially moved to Macon, Georgia at this time, on April 17th, 1874]. Meade's men were able to fend off the Confederates, and moved on to the west.

The Battle of Alexander City(May 15th-16th): Confederate Lt. General John B. Villepigue, a former Alabama state Senator, died during this battle.

The Battle of Foster's Bridge(May 16th): The Union forces of U.S. General Philip M. Dallas had moved thru Tuscaloosa on the 12th, not only without resistance, but were actually welcomed as liberators; the Tuscaloosa area had been a hotbed for Union sympathizers in Alabama, and there were several incidents involving Confederate soldiers and dissident citizens in the town, over the past couple of years.

Meanwhile, Confederate Lt. General Theophilus Holmes had been ordered to intercept the Unionists and had just come across Foster's Bridge, crossing what was then the Black Warrior River, when they spotted Dallas's men. However, though, Holmes had not been fully prepared to actually engage in combat, and due to low supplies, was forced to disengage and fall back to Demopolis.

The Battle of Cherry Bluff(May 18th): An attempted ambush of the forces of Union General Samuel Pomeroy failed here.

The Sacking of Savannah(May 19th-20th): An ambitious gamble by William Rosecrans that paid off. With some help from the Union Navy, the Marines were able to storm & neutralize the port of Savannah, and the Yankees took over the city after only two days of fighting.

The Battle of Atlanta(May 21st-24th): One of the final humiliating losses for the Confederacy. General David Farragut's men faced off against those of C.S. General George Johnston, which ended with Johnston losing almost half of his force of 15,000. Johnston would surrender to Union troops the following day.

The Battle of Charleston(May 26th-28th): Union General Francis J. Herron scored a majorly decisive victory for the Union when he was able to seize the city of Charleston from the Confederates, and General Wilmot de Saussure. Although the Union suffered significant losses, the Navy, once again, proved to be quite helpful; the Confederates attributed perhaps as many as two-fifths of their losses to the Navy bombardments.

General De Saussure himself was gravely wounded on the 28th when a Union Navy shell landed right in right of his headquarters, mauling him and killing more than 3 dozen others; he would himself perish on June 8th from his own wounds.

The Battle of Montgomery(May 28th-31st): The battle for the now former (unofficially) Confederate capital would perhaps be *the* final nail in the efforts of the Southern rebellion. Union General George Meade had 40,000 men at his immediate disposal, including 10,000 volunteers, many of them dissident Southern Unionists. Defending Montgomery were 48,000 Confederate soldiers under General Samuel Cooper, himself a veteran officer. The Union attack initially began on the western and eastern outskirts of town, on the 28th, having just crossed a couple of minor bridges along the Alabama River. The Confederates were initially able to inflict a rather staggering amount of damage on the Yankees, and General Meade had concerns about the viability of the strategy. However, though, Confederate morale, already not in the best of shape, fell sharply when popular Lieutenant General, Henry Allen, was mauled by a Union artillery shell. Things went downhill from there, as the Confederates became increasingly mired in desperation and tactical mistakes. By the afternoon of May 31st, it was all over; 12,000 Unionists were either dead, or dying, but the Confederates had sacrificed nearly 16,000 men for the defense of Montgomery, and the former capital was now so badly wrecked that even few longtime residents could really recognize the place. General Cooper would surrender to George Meade that same evening, as did many of the good number of Confederate federal officials who had opted to remain in Alabama for the duration of the war.

The Battle of Brunswick(June 2nd-4th): Brunswick, Georgia, was the last of the C.S.A.'s operational seaports, anywhere in the country; losing it would have surely doomed whatever was left of the Confederacy's already badly devastated Navy. In an attempt to hold on to the city, Confederate Generals William Wirt Adams and James E. Harrison were tasked with 46,000 men. Meanwhile, U.S. Lt. Generals Meredith Solomon and John Newton, serving under Generals Rosecrans and Stevenson, respectively, with 30,000 men on their side, had moved into position to the north and southwest of the city, in an attempt to create a successful pincer movement, thus cutting the Confederates off from any outside help.

The Confederates fought fiercely and managed to inflict higher than expected casualties on the Union men. But the Union Navy was again able to intervene, and when the few available Confederate ships tried to stop them, they were all sunk, while the Unionists only lost a single vessel, the U.S.S. Sam Houston. When it was all said and done, the Unionists lost about 10,000 men, but the Confederates, nearly 18,000, including General William Adams. One other notable aspect of this battle is that both the Confederates and the Unionists used conscripts who had been directly recruited from foreign countries; Adams had a “Prussian Regiment” and several hundred Cubans fought with Gen. Solomon on the Union side of things.

The Battle of Demopolis(June 2nd-4th): Interestingly enough, this occurred in roughly the same specific timeframe that the Battle of Brunswick did. Union Generals Samuel Pomeroy and Philip M. Dallas joined their force

The Battle of Augusta(June 4th-6th): Confederate General Thomas Smith was holed up here, with a total of 40,000 soldiers under his command, and that of John Roane as well. Union General Carter Stevenson, however, now had 80,000 men at his disposal, including a good number of Southern Unionists, and even about 5,000 immigrants, many of them Irish. In any case, the Confederates were at a disadvantage from the beginning; they were not only outgunned, but also outsupplied as well. It took only two days for Union General Stevenson to break thru any defenses they had, and when it was all said and done, the Confederate force truly had been shattered. General Smith had been mortally wounded and John Roane was forced to surrender. Stevenson, meanwhile, left 5,000 men behind to guard Augusta while he ordered his men to move out towards their penultimate target: Macon.

The Battle of Macon(June 13th-18th): The last major battle of the war took place around the temporary Confederate capital of Macon, Georgia. In a desperate attempt to save the Confederacy, President Davis ordered Generals Joseph Johnston and Alexander Stephens to defend the capital city by any means necessary, with 40,000 men apiece, and 20,000 militia volunteers besides. Meanwhile, U.S. General Carter Stevenson rushed towards the city in a mad dash, hoping to put a quick end to the problem once and for all. Unfortunately for the Union, Stevenson had not been informed of the exact strength of the Confederate defense force, and when his men arrived outside of the city on June 13th, many of them were worn out from almost a whole week of speedy travel. This proved to be a significant tactical mistake, and because of both of these errors, the Union suffered 8,000 direct fatalities on the first day, alone.
Even as Union artillery pounded the area around Macon day in and day out, the Union's casualties continued to mount higher and higher for three whole days. Just when things started to look bad, however, Stevenson's fellow General, William Rosecrans, rode up with 29,000 men of his own. And then the Confederates truly began to lose, as their defenses fell apart. Outflanked and outgunned, some Confederates, mainly conscripts, actually surrendered and threw themselves at the mercy of the Yankees. By the 18th, Macon had been so completely brought down to ruin, that there was very little of any value, at all, to actually defend. General Stephens retreated with whatever men he still had available for combat—maybe 10,000 at most—but Johnston, however, surrendered. All in all, 36,000 Confederates had died, or would die, from wounds sustained in this battle. The next day, a large majority of the Confederate government, including even the President, Jefferson Davis, surrendered to the Union Army, or more specifically, General William Rosecrans.

The Surrender at Macon City Hall(June 19th): As briefly described above, this was the event that brought an official end to the Civil War. [Not unlike the Apr. 9th, 1865, surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Va., in our world's Civil War.] Unofficial fighting would continue for several more months, but the Union had finally and truly won.

[Unfortunately, however, the troubles would not quite end just yet.....and not only in terms of diehard Confederates refusing to surrender, either.]

The Bombing at Fort Carson(Aug. 3rd): An explosive package left on the front entrance of the fort exploded when a U.S. Postal Service courier tried to inspect it. Two dozen people, including four non-combatants, were killed.

The Capture of Benjamin Tillman(Sept. 11th): This notorious murderer, after spending several years in hiding, mainly in the Confederate Deep South, was captured in the Territory of Nevada, not far from the tiny Fremont County town of Perryville[For anyone interested in locating where it would be, it's location would have been about 10 miles due south of the real world farming town of Hiko, Nevada.]; he had just murdered a Latino man and tried to kill his wife as well, farther north in another area of the county. Tillman was extradited to Mississippi, where he would be executed for his crimes on Nov. 18th.

The Assassination of Schuyler Colfax(Sept. 18Th): While Vice-President Colfax had just finished making a speech in Louisville, Kentucky, a man pulled out a revolver, yelled, “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” and then fired, hitting Colfax on the top of his forehead, and again on the upper part of his chest. The assassin was soon taken down, but not before getting off a couple more shots. A visiting young Maryland Congressman who happened to be attending, John Booth, ran to the Vice-President's aid, but to no avail. Vice-President Colfax would die of his wound on Sept. 22nd, and another man, a local citizen and father of four, who tried to intervene, would also die four days later(a woman who was hit by one of the stray shots would survive, however). The assassin, William S. Vardeman, currently a vagrant, had been a Confederate draftee who had lost his home in Copiah Co., Miss., and driven to anger by the death of his wife. Vardeman was tried, convicted, and hung on October 30th.

The 1874 United States Elections: The Democrats suffered a significant loss in both Houses of Congress in many areas, as the Republicans swept the board in several places from western Massachusetts to Oregon and back, sometimes winning as much as 75% or more of the vote, especially in House races; the Grand Old Party now controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress. The Democratic Party was forced to reinvent itself, once again, as a primarily populist and urban party nationwide, no longer just in the Northeast or in coastal California.

Other events of the year:

April 10th-The recently selected Prime Minister of Denmark, Peter Kierkegaard, dies unexpectedly in his sleep from a stroke. Christian Fonnesbeck, the former Culture Minister, replaces him.

April 12th-The Jutland War comes to an end, in favor of the Danes. The Treaty of Fredericia ensures that squabbles over the territory finally end once and for all.

May 24th-The British Parliament issues an order denying refuge in their country to Confederate expatriates wanted for war crimes; the government of France issues a similar edict two weeks later[Interestingly enough, however, the British do not mention their dominions in the edict, including Australia and South Africa].

June 9th-A tornado strikes a prisoner-of-war camp in southern Alabama, killing 21 persons. Some papers discovered in a loose safe deposit box a month later reveal that the Confederacy was in talks to permanently establish relations with Germany. This doesn't sit well with many Americans, especially not some of the more liberally-inclined German immigrants and their children.

June 28th-The Territory of Nevada applies for statehood in the U.S. Congress.

July 4th-A somber informal Fourth of July commemoration ceremony is held in several cities to mourn the deaths of those who died in the Civil War, civilian and military alike.

July 21st-The unexpected death of Emperor Francis Joseph I[Franz Josef]in Austria allows for his wife, Elizabeth, to take the throne as Empress.

Aug. 5th/6th-A critical battle near the town of Radzyn in Poland ends with the utter humiliation of a Russian force of 70,000, versus only 25,000 Poles. The next day, protests are held in St. Petersburg and Moscow, demanding an end to what some are beginning to see as a pointless conflict. These protests are quickly dispersed, but this only serves to engender more support for ending the war.

Aug. 30th-Salmon Chase, the President of the United States, issues an edict stating that his country will cooperate closely with any nation seeking to hunt down Confederate war criminals in their country.

Sept. 24th-Crown Prince Phillip of Saxe-Coburg is shot and killed by a mysterious assailant in Vienna; his killer is not identified for many years[but with his early death, Princess Louise of Belgium does not suffer the unhappy marriage she had to contend with in the real world].

Sept. 26th-Narciso Lopez, a former Venezuelan diplomat living in Cuba, expresses interest in the idea of the country becoming an American protectorate, writing for a newspaper in Havana. Cuba is a poor nation, having only recently been cut loose from Spain and in desperate need of money. Although somewhat controversial at first, the idea does become an acceptable one, however, mainly as several tens of thousands of Cubans had volunteered to aid the Union during the Civil War[mainly out of fear of a Confederate takeover, in the event that the Southron rebellion was able to succeed].

Oct. 8th-U.S. President Salmon Chase issues an Executive Order authorizing U.S. Marshals to apprehend, and detain for a reasonable length of time, the members of any organization suspected of having, or known to have, aided the Confederates in any way, by any means, during the Civil War.

Oct. 28th-Charles A. Parsons, a cousin of the pioneering female scientist, Mary Ward, who was working on a steam turbine, is badly injured in a motor carriage accident along with his father. Charles dies a couple days later[So, therefore, Parsons doesn't get to invent the type of steam turbine that was named after him in the real world] .

Nov. 11th-The government of Rio Bravo begins to discuss the possibility of bringing their country under the permanent umbrella of the United States, given their still cold relations with Mexico and their economic issues.

Dec. 8th-The Territory of Arizona applies for statehood, although only containing 40,000 people at the moment.

1875


On February 21st, a renegade former Confederate general is caught trying to enter Britain via ship; he is immediately deported back to the United States.

After several years of conflict, it has become clear to many Russians that the Poles have no intention of ever giving up the idea of independence, and on May 25th, both Canada and the United States offer to intervene diplomatically on behalf of the Poles. Russia, not wanting to strain relations with America in particular, acquiesces.

A young Australian bandit, known only as Kangaroo Kelly, begins his operations in Victoria on May 30th, when he manages single-handedly to rob a bank of it's entire stash of money in the early morning hours.

After years of hard work, a young American entrepreneur located in the Midwest is able to finish the very first working automobile, in August of this year.

American President Salmon Chase, whose health had been declining for some time, only exacerbated by the stresses of fighting the war, decides to voluntarily resign on August 18th. The following day, his new Vice-President, Benjamin Bristow of Vermont, succeeds him.

On Christmas Day, the city of New Haven, Conn., holds an elaborate holiday festival to raise money for wounded Civil War veterans. The festival proves to be a huge success, and many more are held.

And here's the last decade of the 19th Century.

1890

The first successful commercial steam car is sold in Britain in April of that year. There are many imitators that pop up shortly afterwards.

On June 2nd, a major early summer flood, coming after a chillier, and snowier, than normal spring, wipes out several small settlements along the Yenisei River in Russian Siberia; over 180 people are killed, and 8,000 are left homeless.

A controversial article is penned by Australian reporter John Cooper in a Sydney, New South Wales newspaper on July 25th, voicing concerns of a possible split in Australian society as many of the disparate regions of the country are already developing rather significantly differently from one another .

James Tilden, a Republican Senator of Ohio, admits to financial improprieties during an interrogation by federal officers in Washington, D.C., on September 2nd.

William Jones, one of the last surviving perpetrators of the Newport Rising in 1839, tells his life story
to the Chicago Picayune, one of the Midwest's finest papers, in it's Sept. 18th issue. The story garners a fair amount of interest across America and many other papers from Boston to San Francisco reprint the story.

On October 2nd, Francis J. Herron, former Union General, and ambassador to Great Britain under President Sherman, dies in Washington, D.C., and his funeral is attended by important political figures from several different nations, even including William Gladstone, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Albert Meyerling, vice-president of the United States, resigns on November 9th, to deal with personal business back home. President Randall offers the job to a Nebraska Congressman, Joseph Simmons, who accepts the position.

1891

U.S. President Samuel Randall suffers another stroke on March 22nd of this year, while attending an event in San Francisco. He will spend much of the rest of his term in and out of office, with Vice-President Simmons acting on his behalf much of the time.

A young prospector by the name of William Furnifold Simmons[of no relation to the U.S. Vice-President] is killed by a couple of Washoe Native Americans over a money dispute on the California side of Lake Tahoe on April 6th. To the horror of many in his home state of North Carolina, the local judge in Tahoe Falls, California, is unable to convict either of the two men, due to a lack of evidence; also, both men claimed that Simmons had threatened them at least once, and that he had had a history of committing violent acts against others that he'd crossed with.

On April 22nd, a rare springtime tornado occurs near the small town of Salmon Bay in northern Ontario following a brief warm spell, with temperatures occasionally coming close to 80 degrees[more typical of July than April, as this is around 50 degrees north of the equator], coupled with high humidity. This event sees no damage done to human property, but offers a visitor a chance to photograph the tornado.

On July 19th, a major economics study, done over five years, is published in a Brazilian journal regarding the effectiveness of slave labor versus free labor in both industrial and agricultural studies. The results are quite clear; on a per capita basis, free laborers are anywhere from 2 to 8 times as productive, over all, as slaves, on average. There are, already, at this point, a significant number of Brazilians, particularly many of those leaning in favor of Republicanism, who support the elimination of slavery on a moral basis; now they also have the economic data to back them up. Some conservative elements of Brazilian high society attempt to have these findings hushed up, but to no avail. Even Princess Isabel, the daughter of the late Pedro II, comes out in support of abolition. As the word spreads, tensions begin to mount all around the nation of Brazil.

The death of Prussian immigrant to America, William Sprengel, after a gunfight in Milwaukee, Wis., on September 15th, raises some questions over the effectiveness of many city police departments in the United States in general.

1892

John Gracie, an inventor from Bel Air, Maryland, claims to have invented a potentially revolutionary new type of propulsion for motor vehicles in the February issue of a respected specialist publication, the American Mechanics' Monthly. His vehicle, however, fails to deliver on it's promise[although this does not prevent Gracie from continuing to embark on other endeavors of fleeting fancy].

Also in America, a Pennsylvania garage owner named Albert Davidson builds a three wheeled vehicle powered by coal; surprisingly, the car actually drives halfway decently, but is still expensive to operate and is rather dirty, as well[much more so than even for the era].

Early election polls held in mid-April thru early May indicate that a surprisingly significant number of Americans are willing to give the new Progressive Party a chance in this year's upcoming elections.

The current Brazilian Emperor, Pedro III, falls ill of what seems like a benign disease during the month of June; unfortunately, it is eventually discovered to be something much worse.

In America, the first commercially successful motorcycle goes on sale in June of this year.

After years of neo-Imperialist misrule, Jose Andres de Iturbide is forced out of Mexico City by a U.S. sponsored counter-coup led by Anselmo Juarez, who had been exiled in 1881.

An Indiana man named Madison Rone, currently on the run from authorities following a drunken spat with his second wife, robs a family-owned bank in the small town of Pardeeville, East Texas, just outside of Dallas[Pardeeville is roughly around where Mesquite, TX was in our world.], on August 21st. No one is killed, but Rone hijacks a stagecoach on his way out; one of the passengers is a former Senator from Kentucky. The news soon makes headlines across the country and the U.S. Marshals begin one of the first modern manhunts in the history of the country's law enforcement.

The last surviving veteran of the War of 1812 dies in early September, in the state of Missouri.

William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolitionist, dies peacefully in his sleep on September 30th in the small northwest Ill. town of Galena, at the home of one of his daughters. Three former U.S. presidents(Sherman, Rousseau, and Bristow, that is; Chase wished to attend but was ill in bed, and Randall was also too busy), the current President of Canada & that nation's ambassador to the U.S., and one of the sons of former British PM Benjamin Disraeli, amongst quite a few others, attend the October 19th processions, of what was originally intended to be a small funeral.

The 1892 U.S. Presidential Elections: At this point in time, both of the current major parties were the victim of some serious electoral fatigue, not to mention various other problems; several Republican Congressmen and Senators had been caught up in incompetency scandals and quite a few Democrats were under investigation for corruption. The GOP, seemingly randomly, nominated a little-known Tennessee Congressman named Henry Evans, who talked a good game, as it were, but didn't have much of an actual record to run on. And the Democrats nominated Orlando Culver, an Illinois Senator with a strong pro-business streak; unfortunately, as they would later discover, Culver also wasn't terribly honest, either.

The Progressive Party, meanwhile, nominated a fellow by the name of Charles T. Martin, a 53-year-old two-time state senator and longtime anti-corruption activist from the state of Kansas. Martin, the son of Welsh immigrants, wasn't just any Progressive, however; he was also an advocate of women's and labor rights as well. It was a tough race between the three, but Martin managed to pull ahead by banking on America's newfound prosperity in the wake of the Civil War, and a desire to continue the society building legacy of Presidents Bristow and Sherman. Despite only winning a total of 44.8% of the popular vote, Martin won just enough electoral votes to be able to take office; it was the state of Colorado that put him over the top.

Unfortunately, his stances on civil rights also angered many Southern conservatives, and soon, forces would be set in motion to try to unravel the progress made under Reconstruction.....[similar, unfortunately, to what happened in the real world.]

1893

The first working primitive submachine gun is invented by Jonathan Pelley in the American state of Missouri; it quickly becomes colloquially known as the “Pelley Gun”. It doesn't see a lot of commercial success, being purchased mainly by sportsmen and eccentric gun collectors, but it does spark interest in other things.

On February 14th, Pedro III, Emperor of Brazil, dies at 7:30 in the evening, leaving no clear heirs; his only son, who would have been Pedro IV, was killed in a hunting accident in Wales in the United Kingdom, five years earlier. His sister, Princess Isabel, is the one possible successor, but there is a heated debate over this; for four whole months, Brazil has no monarch at all.

The American city of Brickston, New Jersey, is terrorized during a heated gun battle between two rival Italian-American crime syndicates, in late February, in which half a dozen policemen and over twenty civilians die.

A majorly destructive tornado wiped out much of the towns of Fayette and Marvinville, Alabama, on February 28th, killing 48 people, with 58 other people also dying in other tornadoes during this two day outbreak.

On March 30th, a rare hurricane, with winds over 110 miles per hour, slammed directly into Auckland in New Zealand; over 400 people were killed.

A distressed former Civil War veteran named Gabriel Tapley shoots and kills Tennessee Lt. Governor Joseph Monaghan on April 7th, in Murfreesboro. Monaghan, the son of Irish immigrants, hadn't just been popular with first and second-generation citizens in his state, but had made efforts to improve the lives of the African-American community as well.
Another devastating tornado in Alabama destroyed several small towns just south of the bustling metropolis of Manchester, killing 36 people, on the evening of April 16th.

An anti-Polish ethnic riot breaks out in Clarksville, Tennessee, on May 18th, after an immigrant named Vladislav Karolek is accused of having robbed a nearby jewelry store. The man is found not guilty during his June 2nd trial, but, dissatisfied with the ruling, a lynch mob attacks his home just two days later; he, his wife, and their two children survive, but Vladislav's brother, Michael, does not. The news of this event makes national headlines for a week and horrifies many in the growing Polish-American community in particular.

The political situation in Brazil finally blows up on June 16th when Princess Isabel is accepted to the Brazilian throne. Many of the remaining planters do not take kindly to this, as they had hoped to install a particularly conservative Hapsburger on the throne, who had become sympathetic to their cause. Herman I, as this Austrian prince has named himself, decides to help lead the growing pro-slavery revolt in the country, and the Brazilian Civil War begins in earnest.[Interestingly, amongst his most ardent supporters are many of the small number of Confederate exiles who'd arrived in the half-decade immediately after the American Civil War ended].

After years of growing anti-Italian prejudice in this area, a number of the residents of Beaufort and several other towns in the south end of lowland South Carolina break out into a riot on June 24th after an immigrant by the name of Luigi Brescia is publicly accused of raping and attempting to murder Anne Benson, the daughter of a well-respected planter(and former slaveholder) named Jeremiah Luckett, in a nearby rural area. On the 28th, an impartial judge finds that there is no solid evidence that can convict Brescia of the crime, but that only drives the gathered crowd into a fury. Brescia is brutally lynched by the rioters, and the judge has to be escorted out of the county by the local sheriff and a sympathetic deputy.

(As it turns out, the real offender was actually revealed to be a former lover of Mrs, Benson's, a man named Elijah Waters, himself the son of a planter, who had been rejected by her. Waters, however, was never charged, as the judge in the Brescia case had since been forcibly removed from office. He later was killed in 1908 during a dispute over a ranch in Arizona. Anne Benson committed suicide in Florida in 1918.)

On June 27th, a 35 year old Czech American newspaper writer named Anton Hradek, originally from Galveston, East Texas, is murdered, and his offices ransacked, by angry protesters in Vicksburg, Mississippi, after he published a scathing editorial condemning the murder of Michael Karolek in Tennessee the previous month; he was also noted as a supporter of Reconstruction, which many suspect contributed to his assassination.

A highly unusual mid-winter tropical storm sliced it's way through northern Cooksland, Australia, on the 15th & 16th of July, killing over 80 people, mainly thanks to flooding; the town of Weipa in particular was almost totally destroyed. Winds approaching hurricane force also exacerbated the damage, trashing many homesteads, and even downing a few telegraph lines.

The August 7th shooting death of a Russian nobleman in Paris by anarchist Jean-Pierre Castell raises much concern in both France and Russia; law enforcement in the latter country urges Tsar Alexander III to crack down on “dangerously subversive” elements.

On August 27th, two street gangs, one Catholic Irish and the other Ulster Protestant Irish, battle it out on the streets of the bustling city of Roscommon[Wollongong in the real world], New South Wales. Concerns will soon be raised as to whether or not settling Ulster Protestant and Southern Catholic Irish together was all that good of an idea. A debate begins in Canberra regarding possible solutions to the problem.

After years of simmering tensions between them, the Chinese Empire and the Taiping Republic find themselves on the brink of war at the end of the summer of 1893, after a number of border incidents. On Sept. 16th, the tensions finally boil over when a Qing Chinese diplomat is assassinated in Fujian; later that day, thousands of Qing troops surge across the border, and the Taiping War begins.

The American town of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is devastated by a hurricane on Sept. 24th; over a hundred people die there and elsewhere in the state, as winds of over 95 miles an hour and torrential rains lash the South Jersey coast. Two days later, the storm landfalls again in eastern Connecticut, causing more destruction. One of the grandsons of former President Daniel Webster, Jerome Scammell, a newspaper owner from Warwick, Rhode Island, is amongst those who perished in the storm.

On October 16th, former American President Lovell Rousseau passes away in the home of one his daughters in St. Genevieve, Missouri.

A devastating hurricane, with winds exceeding 160 miles per hour, slammed into the northern half of the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico on November 8th, killing 8,000 people, and badly devastating the capital city of San Juan. When the news reached Spain, which had already been in dire financial straits for over a decade primarily thanks to conservative[that is, pro-Carlist] misrule, two weeks later, many people began to demand an answer to the increasingly unavoidable “Puerto Rico Question”.

King Christian IX of Denmark dies in his sleep on December 27th. The following evening, his son, who takes the name of Frederick VIII, is crowned in his stead.

After years of neglect by Britain, there is a growing movement for independence in Ireland, and with much support from people, both prominent and ordinary, in France, Canada, and the United States in particular. Bulgarians, too, are seeking their independence from an increasingly repressive Ottoman government.

1894

A rare wintertime tornado devastates a large swath of the town of Gainesville, Georgia, on January 27th. 35 people die in two counties, 30 in Gainesville alone.

The Conservative Spanish Prime Minister, Marcelo Palmero, resigns from his post on February 22nd; the seat remains vacant until April 2nd, when Liberal Praxedes Sagasta, himself a veteran statesman, takes his place.

On April 26th, a rare cyclone[rare, that is, for this area of the world] with winds exceeding 120 miles per hour landfalls not far from Shippington[near OTL Ravensthorpe], Western Australia, devastating the small coastal village of Coolacollup in particular; over a hundred people die. Help takes just under three weeks to arrive, and when it does, it's not enough; it takes until mid-June for the required assistance to finally appear on the scene. Many Western Australians are flustered by what seems to be a terrible case of incompetence, and this serves to only further underscore the growing social and geopolitical disparity in Australian society.

British anarchist John Liddell plants, and explodes, a pipe bomb at the local Conservative Party offices in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, during the early morning hours of June 7th. Perhaps as intended, no one is physically harmed, but the building is trashed. Liddell is caught, and for his crimes, is deported to Australia after his trial[yes, the practice of sending undesirables Down Under was not entirely stopped by this time ITTL, and had, in fact, been revived in recent years, mainly thanks to growing worries over anarchist and other strains of radical terrorism.].

An incident occurs in Amsterdam on July 22nd, when members of a radical Communist group get in a heated argument with a right-wing nationalist group over items and money that were allegedly stolen from the former. A shoot-out erupts, and by the end of it, the majority of the Marxists are dead, and the nationalists flee the neighborhood. Some of them are eventually caught, but are later acquitted under some rather dubious circumstances.

In retaliation for the July 22nd Amsterdam attack, a small explosive device explodes at the main headquarters of the nationalist organization that had been responsible for such, in Leiden, on Sept. 4th; the founder, Hendryk Groenewegen, and several others, are killed in the blast. The Communist who planted the bomb, a 23 year old factory worker from nearby Almere, Steffan van der Griff, admitted to having been inspired by the Rotherham incident in June. As a result, Van der Griff is sentenced to 20 years in prison, though he later escapes, and manages to hide out in Western Australia for a few years, during which time he fathers two children.

On Sept. 26th, a major ethnic riot broke out in the town of Zanesville, Ohio, after a young woman named Amelia Tiddings came forward claiming that a Serbian immigrant by the name of Michael Dukevich had raped her the Sunday prior after she refused his advances. Twenty people, mainly Eastern European immigrants, including Dukevich, would die before the truth was discovered; as it happened, both her father and her lover had demanded that she lie to the police as to not embarrass either of their families(Notably, both men died violent deaths about two weeks after this revelation. Many will speculate that this was revenge for causing the riot).

The Russian Tsarevich, Victor, the eldest son of Alexander III, is killed after a bomb is thrown into the carriage he was riding in, in the center of St. Petersburg, on the afternoon of Sept. 27th. Danish Prince Eric zu Oldenburg, a nephew of Frederick VII, also dies. The attack throws Russian high society into a frenzy, and Tsar Alexander, upon learning of his son's death, has a massive stroke. A pair Communist radicals by the names of Georgi Bronshtain and Matvei Zinovieff, are soon arrested and accused of masterminding the crime. Both profess their innocence, but it does them no good, and are convicted, despite a lack of any evidence, and are sentenced to be executed in January.

Another anarchist strikes Great Britain; on the 10th and 13th of November, a mysterious man plants packages at the homes of two prominent anti-labor industrialists, both of which explode, killing one of the victims, and badly maiming another. He is eventually identified as Anthony Onslow, but evades capture, dying in America at an advanced age(only confessing to the crimes on his deathbed in 1948)

Catherine Gladstone, the wife of former Prime Minister William Gladstone, dies on December 26th, shortly after visiting a Canadian relative. She is buried in the Westminster Abbey, and upon Mr. Gladstone's death in May of the following year, he will be next to her.

1895

The January 25th executions of Georgi Bronshtain and Matvei Zinovieff, despite a not all that hidden anti-Communist fear in the West, are still criticized by many, due to the circumstances, and more than a few newspapers several countries make jabs at Russia's justice system. Needless to say, this doesn't sit well with the Russian government or high society.

The American city of New Orleans, and by extension, the entire state of Louisiana, is thrown into sociopolitical turmoil shortly after the mutilated, and badly decaying bodies of a number of Italian and Irish immigrants are found in an abandoned home in the French Quarter on February 18th. As it turns out, however, it was actually the doing of a major white supremacist group called the “Sons of White Freedom”, based in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Certain sections of Southern society try to have these findings hushed up when they come out, but it manages to make national news, anyway. U.S. President Charles Martin quickly orders the formation of a Federal task force to deal with groups like this, and by the time he leaves office, all but a handful of the most violent notable white supremacist, anti-immigrant, etc. domestic terror groups active ten or even five years before will have been disbanded[There is no Ku Klux Klan in this world's America, although that has resulted in the formation of various smaller reactionary secret societies, many of the nastier ones taking direct inspiration from those groups that assisted the Confederacy during the Civil War. And, unfortunately, as with the Second Klan in our world, the Sons of White Freedom's base of support in particular is not at all limited to the Southeast.....]. Many more conservative elements of American society criticize the Martin administration for what they feel is a significant overreach of Federal power, but they are largely ignored by the press in many areas.

John Tyler Spencer, a member of an anti-Catholic Richmond, Va. based group called the “True Christian Militia” shoots and kills Maryland state senator Steven Mayfield and injures his wife, Dianne, an Irish immigrant, as they exit a local theater in Arlington, Va., on April 28th. Mayfield, a liberal Democrat from Annapolis, had recently co-drafted a bill in his home state which would have severely restricted the legality of potentially violent extremist groups such as the True Christian Militia, the Sons of White Freedom, and several pro-Confederate organizations. The Mayfield Act passes on May 9th, making Maryland the first state to successfully draft a comprehensive one-piece anti-terrorism plan.

On May 18th, a 20,000 person protest occurs in Melbourne, Victoria, six days after an Irish immigrant, Sean O'Malley, was shot dead by a local Constable, Thomas Barlowe. Barlowe, originally from Western Australia, had only worked in Melbourne for about 5 months, and was rather clearly unfamiliar with the Melbourne area, including it's growing diversity. He was acquitted the day before the riots, but was shot dead two weeks later, possibly by a relative of O'Malley's.

Salmon Chase, former President of the United States, passes away in Aurora, Ill., on June 9th; former Presidents Dayton, Bristow and Sherman, and Charles Martin, the incumbent President, all pay their respects to “The Liberator”, the nickname bestowed upon him by the late Supreme Court Justice Abraham Lincoln.

A hurricane makes landfall in the southern portion of the recently admitted U.S. state of Tamaulipas on July 11th; over a hundred people die as the storm wipes out a good portion of Tampico and several villages to it's north.

French anarchist Auguste Roberteaux explodes a bomb at the residence of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, on July 30th; no deaths occur, but it has the small nation on high alert. Five days later, Roberteaux is caught in Metz, back in his home country of France, trying to repeat his feat. He is sentenced to 12 years in prison for his crimes.

After years of neglect, if perhaps not a malignant kind of neglect, several thousand people in what had been the Mughal Empire rise up and revolt during the fall, beginning with the Battle of Delhi on September 4th, sparked by an argument over local constables' treatment of the native Indians. The Mughal Revolt, as it becomes known, begins on that day.



Due to his failing health, badly exacerbated by the murder of his son Victor, Tsar Alexander III abdicates the Russian throne on September 11th: he dies only 13 days later. His eldest son takes the throne as Tsar Nicholas II. Just before this, however, the real murderer of the Tsarevich is revealed, thru the confession of one of his three accomplices; Wilhelm Rosenberg, the son of a wealthy factory owner in Tallinn, had been unhappy about Alexander's recent turns towards reform, and, believing that the Tsar himself was occupying the carriage, attempted to assassinate him.

Wilhelm Rosenberg is immediately arrested upon his being discovered in Smolensk on September 15th; his brother, Waldemar, escapes to Poland, then Germany, while Hans-Georg Wiebke, a German national from Kiel, is located in Sweden, and brought back to Russia to stand trial. As his last act before abdication, Tsar Alexander posthumously pardons Georgi Bronshtain and Matvei Zinovieff, the two Jewish Marxists who had been falsely convicted and executed for a political crime in which they took no part[For those wondering, the former is an ATL “brother” of none other than Leon Trotsky, born Leon Davidovich Bronstein; the other was based on Grigori Zinoviev, the Ukrainian Soviet revolutionary well known IOTL for forming part of Josef Stalin's “troika” during the 1930s].

Rosenberg and Wiebke are tried, and both executed on November 9th. The third accomplice, Ole Sven Bilstrom, a Swede who had been a Russian citizen for 17 years prior to the incident, was sent to Siberia for a 20 year prison sentence. As a result of this, some Russians begin to engage in significant forms of anti-German prejudice, often butting heads, and worse, with anti-Semites, a significant number of whom are pro-German.

In Bulgaria, the Battle of Pleven proves to be a decisive victory for the Independence movement on October 8th, as the Turkish troops aren't just routed, but brutally beaten back; despite being twice the size of the rebel army, the Turks take quadruple the casualties. The government in Istanbul finally begins to realize that the remnants of their eastern European empire is falling apart and fast. On top of this, there are increasingly numerous and worrying reports of ethnic Turks being driven out of the general area; many of them are eventually forced to leave for Germany and the British Empire[including even the various Indian states, as well as Britain itself, excluding Ireland]. The Austrian Empire is forced to disallow Turkish immigration after many loud protests from the [highly sympathetic to Bulgaria] Hungarians, as well as the Croats. Neither Canada or the United States takes in many themselves, due to significant sympathies for the anti-Ottoman independence movements in the Balkan region[on the other hand, many thousands of Serbians, Bulgarians, and later, even some Bosniaks, will find their way to both countries; this presents a rather tough dilemma to hardcore rightists in America in particular, many of whom strongly dislike the Turks for one reason or another, but who also loathe the immigration of “undesirable” peoples to their country, some to the point of almost wanting them to be thrown back home.]. Bulgaria does not become officially recognized until February 1897, but the struggle is now largely over.

The well respected Irish-Canadian politician, Patrick Whelan, is injured, although not badly, in an unusually executed assassination attempt during a visit to Buffalo, New York, on November 15th. The attack, carried out by one Josiah Williams of Prince William, Va., involved the usage of a bundle of firecrackers tied together and aimed in a certain direction; luckily, despite the brief chaos, nobody is killed. Williams is quickly captured, and, on Christmas Eve, sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Right around this time, the anti-Reconstruction, and anti-progressive Southern “Freedomite” movement[who are rather similar to the so-called “Redeemers” in the real world; also a reference to the Freedom Party in Harry Turtledove's “Southern Victory” AH series.] have begun to gain significant amounts of political steam in portions of that region. Mississippi already elected a Freedomite Democrat governor in 1894, and Georgia and South Carolina voters are considering doing the same. Freedomite candidates are also running for other offices in Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, West Florida, and East Texas by this year.

1896

The legislature of the U.S. state of Mississippi, increasingly being swamped with Freedomites and their sympathizers, attempts to ban immigrants not of “the proper race”[which basically means that, at least after the law is signed, only people of Anglo-Saxon, northern German, and Ulster Protestant heritage are guaranteed residence in the state; even Welsh and Cornish are severely restricted, and must take additional tests to determine whether or not they are “proper” enough to be allowed to live in the state. Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, Croats, and definitely Latin Americans are prohibited, period. The law does not, however, take Jewish immigrants into account] from settling in their state altogether. The law passes on the night of February 27th, despite some opposition from the still standing Republican opposition in that state, along with Clemmon Jones, the lone Progressive[himself of Welsh heritage, albeit from Tennessee originally].

The Australian town of Murrumbateman, New South Wales, is raked by a major ongoing wildfire on April 16th; ten people die from smoke inhalation and all of the remaining 2,800 residents are forced to evacuate. Just under two weeks later the town of Geelong, Victoria, suffers a similar fate thanks to another wildfire, with eleven residents dying and much of that community destroyed as well. All in all, forty people will die between April and mid May, 1896, making it one of the worst wildfire seasons in the history of modern Australia.

More ethnic trouble in Europe, striking Britain this time, as a major protest took place in Cardiff on the 30th and 31st of May over the alleged use, by unethical mining barons, of Turkish immigrants to replace native-born Welshmen, including some of Italian & Swiss heritage who came earlier[and some Slavic people from the Balkan area, in more recent times], to try avoid paying higher wages. Around the same time as the Cardiff protests were happening, so too, were strikes by the miners themselves beginning to occur. Unfortunately for the people of Merthyr Tydfil, things turned ugly on June 4th when the owner of one of the local mines turned his strikebreakers on the miners....many of them Turkish. 28 miners would die, and this sparked a not terribly insignificant amount of anti-Turkish prejudice throughout much of Wales, some of the most hardcore versions often coming from many of the more recent Croatian, Serbian, and Bulgarian immigrants to Great Britain. However, it also sparked a much wider pro-labor outcry throughout the entire country, and one that could not be ignored by high society or Parliament at that.

The U.S. state of South Carolina passes a law severely restricting the settlement of “socially and racially improper” immigrants from anywhere within the state, on June 30th; Greeks, Italians, Catholic Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and Serbian are amongst the ethnic groups covered, similar to the Mississippi law passed in February of this same year.

On August 4th, Catalan immigrants Esteban Dos Santos and Francesc Davila are brutally attacked and almost killed by members of a local chapter of an Ill.-based anti-immigrant group called the “American Values Preservation Society”, in Galveston, East Texas. Both men report their experiences to the local police, but they do not act for two more weeks, until one of Davila's young sons is robbed, and a female friend raped, by this same group. All of the known perpetrators are eventually captured and jailed, although some more liberally-inclined local reporters do criticize the police for what appears to be a lack of initiative.

The first heavier than air flight occurs in the U.S. state of Colorado, the craft piloted William Ransome, a 30 year old tinkerer from Minnesota, on August 18th. The “Ransome Flyer”, as the plane is called, garners a significant amount of press, as does it's pilot.

A devastating hurricane with winds of over 150 miles an hour lashes the town of Bluefields, Nicaragua, on September 12th, destroying most of the community. Over a thousand people die over the next several days as the storm floods significant portions of several areas in both Nicaragua and nearby Honduras.

Lysander Spooner, the well-respected American abolitionist, and early utopian thinker, dies in his Vermont home on October 20th.

The 1896 U.S. Presidential Elections: Another three-way race between the Progressives, Republicans, and the Democrats, with a “Southern Freedom” splinter group as a fourth contender. By this point, the Progressives had lost quite a bit of the steam they'd gained just four years earlier; as likable as current President Charles Martin was, his administration had just become too controversial for some people to easily support, especially as many feared his actions would alienate the South to the point of widespread political unrest breaking out. Colorado Republican Sylvester Pennoyer ran a decent and honest campaign, but had very little in the way of real funding(although winning West Florida was no easy task, rest assured!). And then there was the Democrat from Missouri, Patrick Wilkinson. Wilkinson, one time governor of Missouri and two term state-level senator, may have had the least experience of the three, but he not only had something reasonably approximating Martin's down-to-earth approachability, and Pennoyer's willingness to stick to honesty, he had the charisma to boot, not to mention his appeals to urban immigrants from New York to L.A. and back. Wilkinson won all but a handful of the Midwestern and Southern states(Miss., Ala., Georgia, and S.C. went to the Thomas Watson/William F. Knox “Southern Freedom” ticket), and even the new states of Coahuila and Juarez.

The states of Havana and Holguin, however, went for Martin, as they had in 1892, as the Progressives had been the most dedicated supporters of Cuban statehood. Martin's home state of Kansas, as well as all of the West Coast states, now including Cascadia, and Sonora + Cheyenne, also voted Progressive. But with all his efforts, Martin simply couldn't quite recapture the success he had in 1892, facing second.

(Author's note, thanks to the good folks at AlternateHistory.com for name suggestions for the Cuban states.)

The first electric car is created in France during this year, and premieres at a convention in Geneva in December.

Samuel J. Randall, one of the most controversial Democratic presidents of the latter half of the 19th Century, dies in Pennsylvania on December 29th. His ceremony is a private one, attended only by his closest family and friends, as was requested.

1897

On February 8th, the Progressive and Republican dominated legislature of the state of California signs a law which protects immigrants & minorities from “incendiary” speech and writing; many conservatives across criticize this as an alleged abridgment of the 1st Amendment. However, though, as many of the law's proponents point out, the legislation was only intended to mainly address things such as inciting threats, including that of murder and other types of bodily harm.

Outgoing U.S. President Charles Martin makes one last State of the Union Speech on February 20th, again congratulating Patrick Wilkinson for, in his words, “a game well played, and a victory well earned.”, and voicing his concerns about the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, but also

After almost 4 whole years of combat, the last remaining pro-slavery forces in Brazil are defeated near Cidade Bahia. Herman I is forced to flee to Austria to avoid prison time in Brazil, and never returns to the country.

The state of Georgia passes a law restricting the settlement of most nationalities of immigrants within their state on March 11th of this year, with many regional Democrats supporting, and most Republicans & Progressives opposing the legislation.

An unusual anticyclonic tornado is captured on film in Kansas on April 12th. It becomes a topic of discussion in meterology related academic studies for many years to come.

Conservative legislators in the U.S. state of Utah submit their own anti-immigration legislation in May; this is somewhat unusual at the moment as it's a Republican who submits the bill, one Jeremiah P. Vandervoort of Jordan[there is no West or South Jordan in this world's Utah]. This bill, however, is mainly targeted against South & East Asian [Christians & Mormon converts are exempted], Ashkenazi Jewish, and Hispanic immigrants[Again, as with the South and East Asians, Christians & Mormons are exempted], as well as also keeping African-Americans out of the state. The bill doesn't quite attain the level of support that it would have had in the South, but it does pass by a slight majority, even if mainly due to being less severe than the Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi laws[it may be noted that, and this may surprise some, a fair number of later Mormons were themselves post-Revolution immigrants, or the descended from the same, by this general time in our reality; this is actually even more true ITTL.].

An attempt to pass an anti-immigration bill in Virginia on June 2nd, fails, primarily thanks to the German, Scottish, and Swedish immigrants who had gained a significant amount of influence in the western half of the state. In response, many conservatives hold protests in Richmond, Newport News, and Portsmouth decrying what they feel is nothing less than a betrayal of (southern) American values. Army General William Mahone, still actively serving his country, helps the understaffed and underpaid police in Richmond keep disorder to a minimum.

Two young Jewish Austrians, Theodor and Wilhelm Herzl, both activists for the nascent and growing New Israel movement, publish a suggestion in a local community paper in Vienna, on July 22nd, regarding an idea of setting up a Jewish colony around the Lake Victoria area of British East Africa. This proves to be somewhat controversial, as many in the movement would prefer the still Ottoman Palestine, although the Turks are becoming increasingly insular and suspicious of foreigners, mainly due to the recent troubles in the Balkans[Russian organizations in particular are heavily suspected to have been involved in many of the incidents there, especially where Bosnia is concerned].

An American prankster, John Melzer, leaves a package at a San Francisco, California, post office, leaving a note claiming that there's a bomb inside, on August 29th. This concerns many of the workers, but when the package is opened by a particularly brave female clerk, all there is a tiny replica of a phonograph, and another note saying, “P.S., fooled ya, didn't I? Hasta la vista, amigos!” Melzer's antics briefly make national news, and when caught, he is fined a hundred dollars, and serves a couple of weeks doing community service. Melzer later claims he was poking fun at radical European anarchists for actual acts of violence.

During the month of September, the last of the Taiping Empire's still-active forces are defeated on Hainan Island, and the rump government there disbanded. Tens of thousands of Christian Chinese begin to flee to wherever they can, including even Great Britain and the United States.

Former U.S. President Benjamin Bristow passes away in his home in Vermont on Sept. 21st. Fellow ex-Presidents John Sherman and Charles Martin attend his funeral, as well as the sitting Democratic President, Patrick Wilkinson(William Dayton declined attendance due to his own failing health, though sent his best regards).

Early in October, American journalist Steven Jackson writes a piece for a small-time San Francisco newspaper about costume parties held around Halloween over the past few years, mainly in the Midwest and West. This article, however, gains much interest around the time of the holiday itself, including even as far east as Portland, Maine.

On November 22nd, Anna Dickens, the second youngest daughter of the late famous British novelist Charles Dickens[who died in 1886 ITTL], and herself a writer, dies of a stroke in Ville-de-Laval, Quebec, at the side of her Canadian-born husband.

1898

In January, British Labour MP John Hywell introduces a bill, the “Ethnic Tranquility” Act, that puts significant restrictions on immigration of Balkan Turks and a certain few other “potentially problematic elements”[including Prussian and Russian Baltic Germans, Austrians, and a few others, in terms of ethnicities, as well as various political elements, such as known anarchists, etc.], due to the recent social problems & general tensions in Wales and much of the rest of the country. Though controversial, perhaps reminding many Britons of the worst of the anti-immigration laws being passed by reactionaries in the U.S., many newspapers are quick to point out that this proposed legislation does not come with nearly the level of severity of the American laws, and that immigrants from within the Empire are still welcome in the U.K. proper. The legislation passes with a three-fifths majority.

A major hurricane strikes the northern coast of the South Island of New Zealand on the night of February 27th, devastating several small communities, including the growing market town of Port Picton and killing over 400 people in the area; with sustained winds of over 140 miles an hour and storm surges rising to as much as 16 feet, it's the worst storm to strike the area in many years. However, though, the storm does manage to avoid directly landfalling over Cardiff [OTL Tasman] Bay or too near the much larger city of Swansea[what was Blenheim in the real world], on the other side of the Kaikoura Mountains.

On April 7th, a devastating tornado wipes out much of the Midwestern town of Mt. Vernon, Ill., killing 63 people and leaving a large majority of it's 28,000 residents homeless. 33 others also die in two other Ill. Counties, thanks to this same storm.

Charles XV, the longtime king of Sweden[since 1857 here], passes away in Stockholm during the afternoon of April 28th. As Prince Oscar Frederick William, his first-born son, had passed away in September 1892 thanks to a hunting incident in the north of the country, Eugene Charles, the next in line, takes the throne instead[Charles XV's brother, Oscar II, had died of natural causes in 1877], and is crowned Eugene I.

On May 12th, a particularly xenophobic California state Assemblyman, Josiah O. Wentz, attempts to introduce a bill halting all non-European immigration to the state. However, though, his legislation is criticized from just about every end imaginable: labor advocates chide him for not addressing European immigration and workers' issues(and accuse him of hypocrisy besides; a charge that may be quite fair, all things considered.), a few fellow xenophobes chide him for not going far enough, legal scholars criticize the punishments for “illegal” immigrants caught in state, and of course, the progressives attack him for having written up such a harsh law in the first place. Needless to say, only a few people back the law, virtually all of them hardened xenophobes like Wentz.

June 27th sees the death of Ulysses S. Grant, the much respected four-time Republican senator from New Mexico. Grant, a Mexican War veteran and personal friend to both former President Salmon Chase and Chief Justice Abraham Lincoln, was regarded fondly by many comtemporaries as a fair dealer and true patriot. As per his request, Grant's body is taken back to his home state of Ohio, and is buried there on the Fourth of July.

A hurricane, with sustained winds of just under 120 miles per hour at landfall, swipes thru the island of Cuba, right between the state borders of Havana and Holguin, on August 7th; 280 people die, mainly thanks to collapsing buildings and torrential rainfall wiping out roads and farms. This same storm later strikes land again, this time hitting the central area of the Mexican state of Veracruz[although having just missed the Yucatan Peninsula] on August 16th; another two hundred people are killed in Mexico over the next three days, before the storm finally weakens enough to the point where it no longer poses any real threat to human life.

Normally peaceful Franco-Canadian anarchist Charles Pelletier, angered that his brother and sister-in-law are being held in a German prison on a trumped up charge, devises an elaborate plan to liberate them both. After over a month of preparation, he arrives in Germany on September 12th to put the final phases into action. On the night of the 16th, he finds the jail where they are being held, near a small village just east of Frankfurt. He detonates a small explosive device, destroying the rear wall of their cell, allowing the three of them to escape.

Although he's really better known for philosophical musings than radicalism in his home country[or, more specifically, Quebec, where he was originally from], Pelletier becomes known as just another terrorist in the German Empire, once his identity is eventually leaked. However, though, he leads a once-again peaceful life after this event.

On October 24th, Frederick III, the German Emperor, suffers a massive heart attack late in the evening. He survives, but his health, already in decline, is further drained. Concerns are raised regarding his health. Including from his son[and next in line for the Kaisership], Prince Wilhelm.

The 1898 Congressional Elections: This was a particularly important election, as the splinter Southern Democrats saw a huge surge in popularity down in many more conservative districts in “Ol' Dixie”, even winning one of East Texas's seats[albeit, in the Piney Woods part of the state, perhaps the most conservative area anywhere in the Lone Star State]. The Progressives, meanwhile, lost several of their own seats, including the only one they had in Ohio[more specifically, the area around Dayton], filled by either the Democrats or the Republicans, trying to regain some of their own lost moxie.

Frederick III suffers another debilitating episode of cardiac arrest on the day after Christmas. This time, however, he never really recovers, dying only about a week later. His death also marks the end of a more liberal era in German governance. Wilhelm has already proven to be rather more conservative than his father in more than a few ways, and this worries many more reformist minded people in the German government & nobility.

1899

With the ascension of Wilhelm II to the German throne on January 8th, the world watches for new developments in regards to Germany's foreign policy.

Ernst Haeckel, a failed German evolutionary theorist, who once suggested an Asian origin for humanity, and later became known in racist eugenicist circles, dies in Macon, Georgia, aged 65, on April 26th, having lived in America since 1882.

A historic period of flooding occurs in much of the western parts of the Canadian provinces of Assiniboia and Victoria[Our world's Alberta; not to be confused with either the U.S. state, or the one in Australia], in the last third of June through early July, thanks to unusually late snowmelt in the Rockies, coupled with a cooler-than-normal early summer weather pattern and rather high precipitation.

On September 21st, Much-loved former American President William Dayton dies peacefully in the home of one of his daughters in Grant's Pass, Oregon, where he had lived since 1876; he lived to the age of 92, a remarkable feat in this day and age.

As the 19th century draws to a close, many people across the world wonder what will happen in the next 100 years; which nations will rise, and fall, and what will be invented, et cetera, et cetera; celebrations take place across the globe.