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Harry Turtledove writes very interesting atlernative history books written in the 1st person. Now one of his series which I have read from start to finish is the civil war one where the South won their independance with the help of britain and france and became their own country, now the thing is is it an actual possibility that is the South had won that Utah might try to seceed from the Union if they felt oppressed enough? I'm afraid I don't have any history books dealing with the subject so I'm interested to know of your opinion of the situation or of his books if you have read them. I must say I liked his World war books the best, 4 foot lizard aliens with 21st century technology invading Earth in 1942 (before Stalingrad) its both history and sci-fi!
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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The emigration to Utah happened about a decade before the Civil War, and then Utah was not granted statehood until 1896. I think Utah is too far North, so any potential secession or alliance would probably involve another migration. However, shortly after arriving in Utah the Mormons sent out settlements up into Canada and down into Mexico and everywhere in between.
Reports differ on how abhorent Mormons found slavery- I tend to favor the "a lot" camp. I'm not sure if they could have cut a deal with the slaveholding nation to continue polygamy in exchange for tolerating slavery. But considering that Mormons had settlements in Canada and Mexico and did not flee there due to the duress they did experience, I'm not sure I believe they would. Then, I'm not familiar with this story.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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My understanding is that Turtledove had Utah as a Unionist sympathising, but mostly renagade territory. They didn't support the Union, but they were flat out against the South.
As for history, I think that Utah would have ended up pretty much the way things already have no matter who won the Civil War. The South and the Union both hated the Mormons. The Union because of poligamy and the Communitarianism. The South because of the predominantly Eastern U.S. and European, and therefore anti-slavery, background of most converts. I think that history would have played out with the Mormons exactly the way it did, only with different actors. Even today Mormons are slightly weary of both the South and the Government that happens to be Eastern.
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I think the Mormons would've only tried to leave the union as a last resort. When the Union sent the army to Utah during the "Utah war" to put down a supposed mormon uprising the President of the Church gave the order to only delay the army till they could sort things out with the government in Washington and he stressed under no circumstances was anyone to kill any U.S. soldiers.
It's an intreasting thing to study if you want to learn how to stop an army without anyone dying.
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Turtledove's views on the Mormons is always interesting...I say "interesting" in the same way that a dead animal in the road is "interesting". Speaking of authors who let their views get in front of the story, I've always felt that Turtledove was far too much of an anti-Mormon to read. Not that he spends his whole book bagging on Mormons, but you can bet that if we're mentioned, it's not in a good light. So is Turtledove a "biggit"?
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The whole reason Mormons left for Utah in the first place was to GET AWAY FROM THE UNITED STATES. Both the prophet and many ordinary saints had been murdered there, our property had been stolen and our people had been mobbed often enough to make it discouraging, and government had alternately ignored us and betrayed us.
But the Mexican War meant that the United States expanded to include the Mormon place of refuge. So even though Brigham Young declared the independent "State of Deseret" when he first arrived with the pioneers in Salt Lake Valley, we very quickly had to recognize that the U.S. would not leave us alone.
Politically, Mormons in that era had no choice but to be Democrats and thus politically allied with the South. The republican party's slogan in the 1856 presidential election was to have done with "the twin relics of barbarism: slavery and polygamy." so even though most Mormons were vehemently opposed to slavery, they could not choose their own bedfellows; for many years, the Mormon Church was staunchly Democratic by party affiliation, directly in proportion to the anti-Mormonness of the Republican Party.
If the South had seceded successfully, it is almost certain that the North would have redoubled its efforts to secure control over the western territories. Nobody would have intervened to protect Utah's "independence," and it's doubtful Utah would have tried to join the Confederacy as a slave state. But Utah would have loathed being part of the North, too. Let's face it: the South was not known for tolerance of any kind, and it was southerners like President Buchanan who sent an invading army into Utah. We were a friendless community then and for decades afterward, and no matter who won the civil war, we would have been struggling to just get people to leave us alone.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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That is precisely the feeling I get when I read "How Few Remain" plus the other 6 books that I so far read in thw whole series. Utah tried to suceed in the 1881 second Mexican war (according to the books, this never actually happened) but only half heartedly they wanted mostly to get the US to see things a little more their way, kinda blackmailing the states when their in a "sore state" so to speak.
However, they gave up that as soon as the US army made a deomonstration with artillery and the new gatling guns that the US wouldn't be blackmailed and Utah was in for a very sore time, their leaders were executed as traitors, homes were destroyed, and Utah was hardly had any rights. This set the stage supposedly for their outright rebellion during the first world war (the alliances are thus: US-Germany-Austria and CSA, England, France, Russia) they were chrushed but only after a brutal long sturggle and was considered an "occupied territory" for over 20 years until the Al Smith Socialist Administration were they when they regained their state rights.
Harry Turtledove as far as I can tell never "bashed" the LDS church but is merely protraying an historical possibility if the Confederacy won the civil war. (In case your wondering how they won; apparently a confederate messenger droped some cigars (now I dont remember if they were in a package that contained the orders or were secretely wrapped as cigars) that included orders with them for his offencive and were picked up bu Union soldiers.
This allowed the Union to plan their moves accordly win a victory and then President Lincoln declared the Emmancipation which changed the moral outlook of the war stopping Britain and France from recognizing the CSA, what Harry did was have it so that these orders weren't dropped preventing the Union from gaining a victory and thus Britain and France recognized the Confederacy. Springing a whole different alternative history for all of us. Canada got conquered damnit! Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Alternate histories are wonderful fun, but the further you take them the more likely they are to become absurd.
But the corrective is simple. Just take Turtledove's series, find a place where a single accidental event changes things, and then make it go the other way and write the ALTERNATIVE to Turtledove's alternate history <grin>.
Of course, good fiction writers don't have important events hinge entirely upon accidents. That's the sort of thing that can only happen in reality.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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I think the reasoning for the accident was that all of it was possible based on that accident. Though I think he wrote another civil war book where time travelers changed history by bringing an AK47 to the civil war, I never read it though.
Have you read either of his recent works "Days of Infamy" of "In the midst of Mine Enemies" I only read the latter so far and its great. Reminds me of a German version of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it kept me on my feet throughout the book. Essentially Germnay won world war 2 and world war 3 and has pretty much has the world divided in 2, south America is fine Canada is a german colony, the east coast is occupied, Germany has colonies reaching into India and east-asia/china is Japan's.
The premise is as I said a parallel of the collapse of the USSR but it deals with the view point of a Jewish family trying to pass themselves off as "Aryans" hoping for the day that they wont have to live in fear. 4 stars out of 5. I think Harry does his best when not writing these far ranging book series(es).
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The premise of Canada being overrun in the first world war is that the US outwieghed the British and Canadian forces in Canada and also we share a VERY long border witht eh states so it is very difficult to hold back you yankees. We had to surrender in 1917 *sniff* However the only thing I disagree with is the failure of the Menshevik/Bolshevik revolution in 1917. I don't think anything could have stopped that.
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I have read Days of Infamy and it is also very good. It is based on the premise that the Japanese follow up the attack on Pearl Harbor with an amphibious assault of Hawaii. It gives a comepletely new perspective on World War II in the Pacific. I really enjoyed reading it.
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Yeah... I am so buying it once its in softcover or heck even in hardcover once I save up enough.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote: It's an intreasting thing to study if you want to learn how to stop an army without anyone dying.
Umm, the Mounatain Meadows Massacre was pretty much a direct result of the Utah War (and also the conflation of civil and religious authority in Mormon society and the fear of Native American hostility). So the idea that the Utah War was bloodless is not true in my opinion. Granted, the victims of MMM were from Arkansas, where Parley P. Pratt had been beheaded the year before. Those events were 1856-7.
I don't think there would have been a Utah war in a scenario where the Union had not won the civil war. As it was, the Utah war was called "Buchanan's folly" i.e. a waste of time and resources.
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That's pretty much par for the course for Turtledove, unfortunately. They're kind of popcorn books, so to speak.
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I kinda agreee even so I like the books the writing can be repetitive and the WW series could've been two-3 books not 4. But still oncew you start you cant stop.
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Turtledove's books are fun, and I've read most of them. I enjoy the ideas he comes up with quite a bit. They're light, quick, plesant reads that don't have much in the way of depth of character.
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Parley P. Pratt beheaded. Interesting thought. I wonder how in all these years of reading Mormon history, including a biography of Parley P. Pratt, that was never mentioned.
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Oh, thank you. I was wondering if I had missed something spectacular - I would have thought I'd remember that detail.
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Isn't the web a wonderful tool? From what I can find in just a few minutes, Elder Pratt was stabbed and shot by Hector McLean on May 13 1857, after having been released from custody by a federal judge in Arkansas.
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Yet I read Pratt was attacked by circus clowns, trampled by elephants, then attacked by those same clowns again after he refused a ride in their little clown car.
Since that theory now exists on the world-wide-web, it must be right.
Viva La Internet!
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quote:I've always felt that Turtledove was far too much of an anti-Mormon to read. Not that he spends his whole book bagging on Mormons, but you can bet that if we're mentioned, it's not in a good light.
IIRC, some of Turtledove's "viewpoint characters," through whose eyes we see the action, don't like Mormons. However, again IIRC, the particular viewpoint characters who really don't like Mormons, and persecute them (such as Custer) are NOT characters whom we are supposed to admire and like. Custer, for example, doesn't like Mormons, and he's an asshole in most other ways as well.
Lincoln, on the other hand, grows to admire the Mormons during his extended stay in Salt Lake.
quote:and it was southerners like President Buchanan who sent an invading army into Utah.
Buchanan a southerner? He was an incompetent boob, but he wasn't a southerner, was he?
quote:I don't think there would have been a Utah war in a scenario where the Union had not won the civil war.
If I remember right, the Utah War happened before the Civil War.
[ March 18, 2005, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Yozhik ]
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Buchanan was a diehard Democrat who served the Southern cause - as did the whole Democratic Party in that era. From Jefferson's time on, despite the rhetoric, the bottom line for the Democratic Party was slavery.
Sorry that I misremembered Buchanan's birthplace; but I was right about his politics.
It was the commander of the army, Johnston, who was the southerner.
posted
The only reason I know where Buchanan came from is that his birthplace is near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania -- I grew up one town over. The public middle and high school in Mercersburg are named after Buchanan.
Mercersburg played a role in Mormon history as well: as the majority of the Mormons migrated west to Utah after Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed, a small split-off group, led by Sidney Rigdon, moved to a farm located between Mercersburg and Greencastle (my home town). The group made some converts in the area.
However, the group, um, failed to thrive: while the Utah Saints led by Brigham Young made the desert bloom, Rigdon's group was unable to farm even a pleasant green valley. The group dissolved within a short time, though the newspaper founded by some of its members, "The Conococheague Herald" is still publishing as the weekly newspaper of Greencastle, "The Echo-Pilot."
Some members of the group then went west to join the Saints in Utah. I wonder if any of my long-ago relatives were among them.
I only learned about this recently -- I must have driven by the farm and cemetery site many times on Route 16, without having any idea that it was there or what it was.
[ March 20, 2005, 09:55 PM: Message edited by: Yozhik ]
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Lee Allred's novellette "For the Strength of the Hills" (a Writer's of The Future winner) is an interesting alternative history where Utah becomes the focal point for prolonged military action by a rapidly disintegrating Union -- indeed, most of the U.S. Army is in action in Utah as the South secedes. At one point Generals Johnston, Lee and Grant even all meet up. For those interested in the idea, I'd suggest you read Dave Wolverton's review.
It's a very good -- one of the best pieces of speculative fiction by a Mormon author that features a specifically Mormon setting.
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Now I enjoy reading Turtledove, but I have a feeling that I would not enjoy meeting Turtledove. I think he has a very low opinion of his reader's intelligence. I just got done, In the Presence of Mine Enemies. Great idea, and I though a great story. But Turtledove repeats information way to much. This is fine in a trilogy where it helps refresh your memory from prior books, even then I think he does it a little to much.
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Turtledove's earlier books are better than the last few he wrote. The last book I read by him was the finale for the Colinization series, and it could have been half as long if he had cut out all the repetition and nonsense. Unfortunately, many authors fall into this trap when they realize that 5 watered down books about a story can make more money than 1 really good quality book about a story.
Hint hint.
As far as his treatment of Mormons, I do not believe he paints them in a bad light. If anything, I feel the way he portrays the US occupation of Utah paints his alternate USA in a bad light and makes the Mormons look like freedom fighters.
Posts: 1042 | Registered: Jan 2001
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I really do wish Harry would cut out all of the stupid repitition, I don't care if Sam Yeager was a bassball player for x years before he had an acident once is freaking enogh. Though personally I have to say the premise alone is enough to keep me reading. Some of his characters are worth hanging on to like Irving Morrell, I found it embarasing that tanks used to be called Barrels though I found myself saying barrels by accident. But ya I do he doesn't put mormons in bad light, "Mormons I know in the army aren't bad people" one of the characters said something like this, I geuss Mr. Turtledove was saying subtly that he doesn't personally think anything bad about mormons its just part of the story. Meh, I read In the Midst as well and man great book. 1989 all over again.
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However the only thing I disagree with is the failure of the Menshevik/Bolshevik revolution in 1917. I don't think anything could have stopped that.
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