A classic of AH, right up there with the Second World War. The most popular ideas pivot around the Confederate States of America winning the American Civil War - as VoCSe once put it, “The most original What If ever”. Done to death as a topic of AH, threads nonetheless still crop up about it, and occasionally a new idea is produced.

• Lee's Lost Orders aren't lost - Southern Victory series by Harry Turtledove
• ASB intervention by future racists - The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
• CSA wins Gettysburg by taking Little Round Top - Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
• CSA wins Gettysburg by maneuvering and capturing the Union supply dump - Gettysburg by Newt Gingrich, with sequels Grant Comes East and Never Call Retreat
• The Laird Rams cause war between the Union and the British and French Empires. Russia allies with the Union - Britannia's Fist by Peter G. Tsouras

Numerous ACW scenarios involve foreign intervention by European powers, usually on the side of the CSA. The most common of these is the Trent Affair - the taking of Confederate diplomats from the neutral British ship RMS Trent by Union Navy forces - instead of being smoothed over as one of the last acts of Prince Albert, turning into a war between the USA and the British Empire, sometimes also including Napoleon III's France as an ally.

• The USN beats the RN in 1862
• Discussion of the aftermath if Britain had beat the USA in the war
• General discussion of a British intervention in 1862 over Trent
• Timeline and discussion about the Trent War itself by 67th Tigers
• British intervention in 1863 leads to an early Great War
• AHC/WI: British join ACW, US still wins
• British, French and Russian intervention
• A Realistic British Intervention in the ACW
• The UK sides with the Union in the ACW
• Challenge:Bring Japan into the ACW
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Earlier
• Later
• 1850
• 1854
• 1864
• 1868
• 1890s (!)
• Zachary Taylor and the Civil War
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• No American Civil War 1
• No American Civil War 2
• No ACW, what happens with slavery?
• If the ACW was averted indefinitely, how would the Northern states developed ?
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• WI Union troops in Texas (to prevent secession)
• Texas remains part of the Union 1, 2, 3
• For more Texas secession PoD's, see Secessionist Texas
• If no Fort Sumter, does Upper South secede?
• Virginia decides to stay in the union
• A Virginia independent of the Union and Confederacy
• Border States join CSA
• Maryland secedes 1, 2, 3
• Confederate Missouri
• Military strategy with a Confederate Maryland
• Plausibility check: Western states of the Union secede (but don't join the CSA)
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• First Shot Over Texas: AWC
• Missouri State Guard more successful
• Possibility of a Union victory at First Bull Run ? (Another brief discussion here.)
• WI Leonidas Polk Doesn't Enter Kentucky?
• Confederacy honors Kentucky and Missouri neutrality
• Battle of Yorktown: 1862
• Peninsular Campaign Succeeds
• "TL-191 Mark II": a lengthy Confederate victory timeline starting in a "Super-Perryville"
• Vicksburg captured in 1862
• Lee does not invade Pennsylvania
• Impact of CSA victory at Gettysburg
• Effect of a Confederate victory at Gettysburg on the 1864 elections
• WI the CS Navy held Mobile Bay?
• The Battle of the Crater successfully breaking the Confederate lines around Petersburg 1, 2
• Confederate guerillas after Appomatox
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• WI John Brown was (at least initially) successful at Harper's Ferry? Three threads: 1, 2, and 3. Also see Bob Lee's Body, an in-progress TL where Robert E. Lee (who was, historically, there) is killed while leading the assault on John Brown in Harper's Ferry; and WI John Brown tried in a federal court?
• Challenge: Robert E. Lee fights for the Union
• WI Garfield dies at Shiloh
• WI: 1863 - Bragg resigned from the Army of Tennessee
• WI: Joseph Johnston wasn't replaced in July 1864?
• WI: Jefferson Davis as Confederate General, not President?
• What if a different Confederate President?
• Lincoln assassinated at Fort McNair
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Most detailed discussion of the Confederate States of America is filed under CSA.
• On Mexico
• On Canada
• On slavery in the USA
• On Arkansas
• On the Virgin Islands
• On the development of southern Florida
• On US foreign policy
• On US culture
• On Sports
• On the building of the Panama Canal
• On the US flag
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Steampunk Confederate Victory TL
• Ways for CSA to Win Civil War?
• An essay on why the capture of Washington D.C. by Southern forces is extremely unlikely or impossible, courtesy of Amerigo Vespucci
• A quicker Union victory
• An extremely brief US Civil War
• An extended TL: The Union wins by November of 1864, this produces a world where Russia is a Fascist Italy on steroids and the United States is its major rival in World War II
• WI: President Lincoln commits suicide? (Immediate answer: he wouldn't.)
• WI the CSA adopts scorched-earth tactics?
• ASB WI: A Remington 700 is ISOTed to the American Civil War (to April 13th 1863)
• Austrian Lorenz rifles more common than Enfields during US Civil War ?
• Larger state of Texas: Effects on ACW
• WI Modern medicine in Civil War?
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

Points of Divergence : American Revolutionary War

Points of Divergence : War of 1812

Confederate States of America Points of Divergence

Wars and Battles PODs Main Directory

United States of America Points of Divergence

Points of Divergence Main Directory