John Brown lives longer

[Roger II]

(Inspired by which I have said in the Civil War thread feels like a song from an ATL where he disappears and becomes a folk hero)

Let's say that either 1) he calls off the raid on Harpers Ferry or 2) he manages to pull off a quick smash-and-grab and avoids getting bottled up, and then manages to stay on the lam from the law some amount of time. He probably gets caught fairly quickly in 2) although I suppose weirder things have happened, but that could still have interesting ramifications. Supposing 1) happens, does he become notable anyways? What does he do in the alt-civil war)

 

[zaffre]

(Inspired by which I have said in the Civil War thread feels like a song from an ATL where he disappears and becomes a folk hero)

Let's say that either 1) he calls off the raid on Harpers Ferry or 2) he manages to pull off a quick smash-and-grab and avoids getting bottled up, and then manages to stay on the lam from the law some amount of time. He probably gets caught fairly quickly in 2) although I suppose weirder things have happened, but that could still have interesting ramifications. Supposing 1) happens, does he become notable anyways? What does he do in the alt-civil war)

2) is interesting but after looking into it I don’t think Brown can really escape unless he raids somewhere that’s not a literal peninsula with two bridges in and out.

For 1) there’s some (imo a bit overblown) debate in the historiography around Brown about whether he was a necessary precursor for the Civil War in mimicking the worst fears of secessionists and further radicalizing the discourse - frankly, I think a Republican president winning is still enough, albeit without the furor over Brown you may not see the specific desire for political muddying that led to the party choosing Lincoln. President Seward could botch the initial crisis entirely, if not we get war and Brown probably bushwhacking Confederates in Missouri or thereabouts. Brown with the postbellum is like a fish with a bicycle, no clue what he could or would do.

 

[Japhy]

Agree with Zaffre on all counts. President Seward or Chase is more likely and any Republican is going to set off the Confederacy because ANY slight or major limitations to Slavery's spread were no longer acceptable to the Southern Political leadership.

Missouri does seem like a likely place for Brown, as the commander of some sort of Redlegs-like regiment of Missouri Unionist or Kansas infantry. He strikes me as the type to get himself got during the war if he had made it to then, either by making a major target of himself for the Missouri Bushwackers or because in many ways he severely misunderstood how modern warfare worked (IOTL he brought Pikes with him to Harper's Ferry to arm some of the army he hoped to bring with him.)

There is a chance he winds up fighting outside of Kansas though, the embryonic core of the Army of the Tennessee that Grant and Sherman led was made up of troops from the Department of Missouri and always looked to draw more troops from that sector, so theoretically Brown *could* have wound up at battles spread out from Shiloh to Atlanta. While a Colonelcy is within easy grasp at any of these places I do not think he would have had the qualities needed to make it to a generalship, at best he caps out as a Brigade Commander.

 

[Roger II]

Oh I'm not expecting anything important from him, but I think it would be an interesting AH microhistory.

 

[Japhy]

Oh I'm not expecting anything important from him, but I think it would be an interesting AH microhistory.

I think there's a lot of room for a cool story. Just laying out what I think the parameters of that would likely be.

 

[claybaskit]

turn this into a tl

 

[Roger II]

turn this into a tl

Between this and "Kit Marlow escapes death, is sent by Her Maj to do important state business in Konstantinyye partly because good spy and partly because he has too much blackmail on too many influential people at this point to kill him outright, and then proceeds to do espionage and other stuff for the crown while screwing every hot guy in town who'll put out and writing vitriolic yet strangely friendly and even loving letters to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and Thomas Kyd about the bad quality of their writing and the lovely ass of whatever dervish he screwed last week in the coffeehouse" I'm going to have waaay too many projects to start.