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| - Beginning of time - 1860 - As in our OTL 1860 - South Carolina secedes 1861 - Six other southern states secede, four more following Battle of Fort Sumter; CSA Formed. June 30, 1862 - Point of Divergence - General George Meade killed at Battle of Glendale. Winter 1863 - Command of Army of the Potomac is given to General Joseph Hooker, dubiously known better for his alcoholism and tolerance of political cronyism than military prowess. Despite being routed by Robert E. Lee's forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863 he retains command as Lee's forces march into Pennsylvania. July 1863 - Lee defeats Hooker again in spectacular fashion at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Army of Northern Virginia goes on to wreak havoc in Pennsylvania during the following months, razing the cities of Harrisburg and York. August 1863 - Washington, D.C. is evacuated as Confederates lay siege to the city. Lincoln and his cabinet relocate to Philadelphia. October 1863 - Britain announces its recognition of the Confederate States of America, declares war on the Union. December 1863 - France recognizes the CSA and begins trade but remains neutral in the North-South conflict. April 11, 1864 - Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis agree to a provisional ceasefire. May 1, 1864 - The war officially ends with the signing of the Treaty of Richmond. The Confederacy is officially recognized by the United States, followed shortly thereafter by various other world powers. The Confederacy acquires the New Mexico territory, while the Kansas and Utah territories remain part of the US. September 1864 - Kentucky votes to secede from the US and join the Confederacy in a statewide referendum. November 1864 - Lincoln is defeated in a massive landslide by George B. McClellan in the first postwar election. He retires from politics, resumes his law practice, and dies without fanfare at his homestead in Illinois on May 16, 1891. 1865-1880 - The CSA gradually establishes relations with the rest of the Western world, gaining recognition and building embassies across Europe. Rapid industrialization spurs a boom in the trade of cotton and tobacco, the CSA's foremost exports. 1869 - The forces of Emperor Maximilian I finally defeat Mexican nationalist rebels in the French-Mexican War, with the assistance of the CSA and France. 1870 - 1871 - Prussia and the German Confederation unite to decisively defeat the French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War. The German Empire is founded. A small-scale insurgency against Maximilian's regime resumes with France's subsequent withdrawal from Mexico, and the Mexican Empire comes to rely on the CSA as its primary benefactor. 1880 - The Confederate Congress overwhelmingly approves a bill that repeals the ban on the slave trade at the behest of factory and farm owners, who demand a cheap and plentiful source of labor to meet the newly increased demand. The bill is promptly signed into law by Democratic president James Z. George. Hundreds of thousands of Africans are enslaved and shipped to the CSA in the following decades, often with the blessings of the nascent European colonial regimes in Africa. Unemployment among poor whites soars and leads to class and racial struggle throughout the CSA. 1871 - 1893 - The insurgency in Mexico gradually grows from a small guerrilla conflict into a full-scale civil war. Only large amounts of Confederate aid keep Maximilian's regime propped up, and the Mexican Empire becomes a full-fledged client state of the CSA by the mid-1880s. Even so, rebels seize all of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and the Yucatan peninsula by 1890, and threaten to lay siege to Mexico City itself by early 1893. Maximilian appeals to the CSA for a military intervention, and the Confederate Congress authorizes President Fitzhugh Lee to order 50,000 troops to reinforce Imperial forces in Mexico City. December 6, 1889 - Jefferson Davis dies at the age of 82. Over one million solemn Confederate citizens turn out to line the route of his funeral procession in Richmond. 1893 - 1896 - The Confederate/Imperial alliance in Mexico gradually subdues the rebels, albeit at a great cost. Congress authorizes two additional supplements of 15,000 soldiers each in 1894 and 1896 to bolster the wavering forces in southern Mexico. The rebels are gradually ousted from Chiapas and Oaxaca, and are finally suppressed for good at the Battle of Merida in 1896. The victory comes at a high cost, however, as nearly 13,000 Confederate soldiers lose their lives in the conflict, with millions of dollars being spent on the war effort. 1896 - Reeling from the sting of the war, Richmond demands immediate monetary compensation for its assistance in the conflict from Maximilian. His coffers empty, he refuses to offer them anything but his gratitude. President Lee orders an immediate occupation of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahulia. These areas are soon annexed directly into the CSA as new territories. Hundreds of thousands of poor native Mexicans and the wealthy French-Mexican elite alike are driven from these territories without compensation in the following year, while Maximilian responds with nothing but futile diplomatic protests to Richmond and the world community. 1898 - With the remaining Mexican rump state in a state of total disrepair, the CSA occupies the rest of the former Mexican Empire without any significant resistance from either Imperial troops or scattered remnants of the defeated rebel army. Maximilian, now fully discredited and shamed, is exiled back to his native Austria with his family and nearly all of his former royal court. He eventually dies in obscurity in Vienna in 1911. 1900 - CSA population stands at 28,500,000, including slaves. 1901 - The northern Mexican territories annexed in 1896 are consolidated and officially declared the State of Davis, in honor of the CSA's first president. By this time nearly all of the state's original Mexican population has been expelled, with millions of Confederate soldiers, citizens, and slaves taking their place. 1904 - A skirmish between Confederate and Guatemalan troops along the Suchiate River serves as a pretext for an all-out Confederate invasion of Guatemala. Poorly-equipped and vastly outnumbered, the Guatemalan military is routed early. Guatemala City is surrounded and laid siege to by the CSA within one month. Guatemalan President Manuel Cabrera secretly attempts to offer a full surrender in return for personal considerations from the Confederates, but is assassinated by members of his own enraged cabinet when they learn of his duplicity. A military junta replaces him and vows to continue resistance to the Confederates. 1905 - Guatemala City falls, and the entire southern portion of the country follows suit by early spring. Surviving resistance forces retreat to the sparsely-populated El Peten province to make a final stand. The provisional capital of Santa Elena falls in late August, effectively ending the war in Guatemala. Guatemala is officially made a territory of the CSA by the end of the year. Sporadic armed resistance continues for over a decade in remote areas, but makes negligible impact. 1906 - Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador agree to form a close military alliance to deter Confederate aggression.
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