What if the South had won at Gettysburg? I picked that timeline for a school project

For my 8th grade history fair last spring in Austin, I had to choose between two alternate scenarios: the South winning at Gettysburg in 1863 or the Axis taking Moscow in 1941. I picked Gettysburg because it felt more doable to research, and honestly it was a Mess. I built a whole diorama where Lee pushes into Pennsylvania and the war drags into 1866, but then I read about how the Confederacy still had no industry or railroads to sustain it. The more I dug, the more I realized the South winning at Gettysburg just delays the inevitable, maybe even makes Reconstruction worse. My teacher actually said my conclusion was too contrarian for the project rubric, and I got a B minus. Has anyone else picked a losing side just because the story seemed cooler, only to find the boring answer is more true? I'd love to hear your picks.

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piper_kim22d ago

Getting a B minus for following the research where it led is rough, but honestly that teacher missed the point. Your conclusion sounds more interesting than the typical "what if" fantasy anyway.