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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