Ed Ayers was quoted in an interesting and somewhat related speculation in
Sunday's Times-Dispatch
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2012/may/06/6/tdmain01-war-history-at-richmonds-doorstep-ar-1894135/
Reflecting upon the facts 1) that Union forces were coming up the James and
were only 8 miles from Richmond in 1862 . . . and 2) that a victory at that
time might have ended the war before the termination of slavery had become
a Union policy-objective, Ayers commented :
"World history would have been different if (the Union) had come a few more
miles into Richmond; we would not have had the end of slavery in any way
like it happened. Slavery had been damaged, but it was not official federal
policy to end slavery. If the Union had come back together with slavery in
place, I think world history would have been different."
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