What if the Confederacy Reunited Today?

The American Civil War was the bloodiest war in the entire history of the United States and as much as one million people died as a result of it. One of the sides fighting this war was none other than the Confederate States of America, or C.S.A, or the Confederacy, how ever you want to call it. During its very brief existence, the CSA directly controlled the entire southern modern-day United States stretching from the state of Virginia, in the east, to the state of Texas, in the west and was completely built up on the idea of slavery being legal within the country, compared to the rest of the US, known as The Union, which had abolished slavery and made it illegal. At the start of the war, the Confederacy seemed to have some extent of power capable of pushing the Union back but gradually, however, as the war slowly dragged on, and after the Naval blockade of the CSA's whole coastline, the Confederate States Army began to become extremely exhausted and with no food and arms coming in from global trade, the the country's first and last president, Jefferson Davis, finally surrendered to the union, marking the end of the US Civil War and the Confederacy. But what if it reunited today?

To begin, the first thing we need to think about a reunited Confederacy is the population and land it would effectively have in control of. For starters, a total of 11 modern-day US states would lose all of their territory to the country: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

However, despite it seeming like not many states would make up the country, the CSA would still have a huge land area, if you take into consideration how large these states would really be. For example, Texas, alone would have a land area of a significant 695,662 Square Kilometres (268,600 Sq mi) but would actually only make up 35% of the entire country's land area of a massive 1,996,800 Square Kilometres (771,000 Sq mi). Altogether, the Confederacy would become the 14th biggest country in the world, even larger than Mexico (1,964,000 Sq km) and Indonesia (1,904,500 Sq km), but slightly smaller than Saudi Arabia (2,149,500 Sq km) and the DR Congo (2,345,000 Sq km).

As well as this, the population of the Confederate States of America would also be massive, in total standing at 108 Million people calling the country home. This would easily be enough to make it the 14th most populous country in the world, ahead of many other very populated countries such as Egypt (102 Million) and Vietnam (97 Million) but behind the Philippines (109 Million) and Ethiopia (115 Million). This would also be very interesting, considering the fact that the population of the Confederacy back in 1861 was just over 9 million.

Similar to the modern-day United States, the Confederate States would also boast some huge cities with millions of people. Choosing a capital city of the reunited country would be a very difficult to predict as most of the very significant cities, including the historic capital, barely have a population of 1,000,000. So in my opinion, the most likely option for a new capital would be Austin as not only is it the current capital city of modern-day Texas, which would essentially be the most powerful state in the country but also is a fairly big city with an urban population of 1,920,000. Here would be the rest of the top 10 biggest urban areas within the Confederacy:

Next, we come to the economy side of a reunited Confederate States of America which would be very interesting to talk about. In total, the combined Nominal GDP of all of the states making up the CSA would collectively be a whopping $5.953 Trillion. This would just enough be able to put it in 3rd place, just beating up the massive economies of Japan ($5.103 Trillion), Germany ($4.230 Trillion) and the United Kingdom ($3.108 Trillion), but still significantly behind the top two economic juggernauts of the China ($16.862 Trillion) and the modern-day United States ($22.939 Trillion). Talking about the United States in particular, when comparing the CSA's GDP to the Union's, it would still just about retain it's title as the number one economy with still a Nominal GDP of $16.986 Trillion.

On top of this, the average yearly income of a median citizen (GDP Per Capita) of the Confederacy would stand at a very high amount of $55,120, below the average per capita income of the whole US ($69,375) though but still enough to put it in a strong 25th place, ahead of many other very wealthy countries and territories such as Hong Kong ($49,485), the British Virgin Islands ($48,511) and Israel ($49,840), but behind the countries of Belgium ($50,412) and San Marino ($50,934).

In contrary to the historic Confederacy back in 1865, this new and highly modernised one would most likely not reincorporate Slavery back into its economy and manufacturing mainly due to the fact the work which Slaves used to do are now done much more easily and efficiently by massive machines working 24/7 and probably not due to people knowing that Slavery would be wrong if you asked the same leaders in the historic country to lead it again assuming that they are alive of course which you may find to be quite sad.

Next, we come to talk about the religious and ethnic groups of a reunited Confederate States of America.

Starting off with religious groups, 51% of the Confederacy's population would adhere to some sort of Christianity with it mainly being split between 25% Protestants, 23% Catholics and 3% other. Following behind after this would be Jews and Muslims with very similar representations at 1.4% and 1.2% respectively. The final chunk of the population would be a mix of various different small religions and Atheists/Irreligious people at a huge 46.4%. In fact, having this many Atheists in its borders would actually make the CSA one of the countries with the most irreligious people in the world with roughly 44 Million irreligious people of their own.

Coming to ethnic groups now, people that identify as exclusively White would in total would represent the majority of the population at 74%. People that have ancestry tracing back to exclusively European would make up a further 6.1% which would be followed by people that identify as exclusively Black at 18.5%. The final 1.4% would be a mix of various other small ethnicities.

Coming off of the CSA's religious and ethnic groups, the next thing we need to think about is its linguistic groups. Obviously, English would by far and overwhelmingly be the most spoken first language in its borders with a huge 87% of it's population natively speaking it. Despite this, many different languages would also be spoken among this as well, especially Spanish, which focusing on that in particular, would actually be represented at a moderately significant 10.6%, mainly due to the high native Spanish speakers in Florida and Texas and with the latter having nearly half of its population speaking the language. The remaining 2.4% of the population would be made up of a variety of different speakers of many different small languages.

If we were to choose an official language for the Confederacy, the most probable option would be English as this would by far be the most spoken in its borders but Spanish may also become one as well since a fair amount of the population only speak that language and also due to the many places in parts of Texas and Florida where Spanish is the only spoken language.

The next and final topic we need to think about a reunited Confederate States of America is its military size and budget which as always would be no disappointment at all. Starting off with its Infantry and manpower, the country would possess a huge 570,150 active-duty personnel if all the all the soldiers in the current US military returned home to their home state to be counted. This would actually be very high even on a world scale, being the 8th largest standing force, larger then some other strong armies such as Vietnam (482,000 troops) and Egypt (438,500 troops), but remaining behind the number of troops belonging to South Korea (599,000 troops) and Iran (610,000). In addition to this, the Confederacy would also have an extra 590,500 troops that would be placed in reserves bringing its army to at total of 1,160,650 troops.

The budget to fund this enormous military would also be extensively high at around $181 Billion, or 3% of the Confederate States' whole GDP, which would become the 3rd highest budget in the world, ahead of both India ($71.1 Billion) and Russia ($65.1 Billion) but still extremely behind the two most obvious military juggernauts I don't even need to say it because it's so obvious. When comparing this to the United States, however, despite seeming massive on a world scale, this would not even make a dent in the US's current budget of $732 Billion and would still have by far the largest budget in the world and even double the size of China's.

Lastly, the Confederacy would control a portion of Nuclear Weapons, from the modern-day United States' current stockpile of 3,000-4,000 warheads. It is unclear what the new country would do with access to some of these nukes but it would definitely give a more formidable look to its military. But would the US even allow this to happen anyway?