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Originally Posted by timewalker I always remember a talk I attended by Shelby Foote. He contended that there was no way for the South ever to win. He states that "the Union fought the war with one hand tied behind its back" and said that if the South had really started to do better, the North would simply have started focusing more on the war effort and less on things like the transcontinental railroad.
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Straight out of the lost cause myth.
Regards,
Cash
Cash, I know the lost-causers like to use that excuse for why they lost the war, but isn't there at least some truth in that? If the chips were really down, and there was the possibility, however slight of course, that Johnny was getting a second wind, perhaps even foreign troops to help him, should such a thing as foreign recognition had happened, wouldn't Lincoln have had to tap some of that enormous wealth of manpower & equipment/weapons in the North to meet and overcome the crisis? Why would that not be at least plausible? Thanks.
Terry
__________________ "In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one." Abraham Lincoln - August 18, 1864 Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment
IMHO, the South had a good chance to win it, though not strictly militarily. Their best chance to win came in one or both of two ways. The first is to keep defeating the Federal armies like they had been in the first couple years of the war and causing massive casualty lists, tiring the Union populace to the point of not reelecting Lincoln and bringing in a Peace Democrat. The weariness that we see with Iraq today was there in the Civil War.
The second was foreign intervention. This is a much likely possibility because I don't think that either England or France would come in and fight for a nation built on the idea of slavery. Abolitionism was big in England, and if England didn't come into the war, France wouldn't, because France was following England's lead.
There was a chance, but the military victories were lopsided. Whereas the CSA was winning in the Eastern/Virginia theatre, they were losing massive amounts of ground in the West. They needed to win in both.
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Here's why the idea the confederacy never had a chance to win is lost cause mythology.
The reason it's put forth is to show the noble southerners fighting against insurmountable odds, knowing they would be defeated but fighting on anyway. It also lets the confederate command structure off the hook for any failures they caused, since they had no chance anyway.
In reality, they stood a good chance of winning. The Federals had to conquer and occupy a huge amount of territory. They had to overcome well led troops who fought with courage and tenacity. Most of the military schools in the United States were in the south. Southerners had a culture that encouraged military service and experience. They were more likely to be used to riding horses in the south. White men could go to war and slaves would still be available to grow the food and do the labor. When free state white men went to war, they took their labor with them. There was a greater industrial capability in the North, but it would take time for that advantage to weigh in. In the meantime, the United States Army consisted of only 16,000 men, while the confederates were in the midst of building up to a strength of 100,000 men. The war would take place in the south, on territory southerners were well acquainted with. The US Army knew little of this territory and had generally poor maps to guide them. The confederates had the advantage of interior lines, meaning they could rush reinforcements to areas faster than the Federals could do so.
The defense had the advantage in the Civil War due to the rifled musket and the minie ball. Add fortifications to that and you create a much larger advantage for the defense. The confederates were on the defense for most of the war.
The longer the war went on with little progress and large numbers of casualties, the greater the chance the Northern public would tire of the war and elect antiwar politicians to office.
Just think if Kentucky had seceded. Add another state to the confederacy and add the manpower that would bring to the confederates and it may have been too much for the Union to overcome.
The idea the confederates didn't have a chance is ahistorical and straight out of lost cause mythology.
The idea the confederates didn't have a chance is ahistorical and straight out of lost cause mythology.
Have yet to match up the idea that the Confederacy didn't have a chance and giving it a shot anyway. Both ideas are present. Which only complicates the discussion.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
You suggest it makes the southern soldier look noble for fighting insurmountable odds. I suggest opposite because the Confederates didn't BELIEVE at the time that the odds were insurmountable. They believed the actually had a chance, when none existed, and in my book, that is chalked up to egotistical stupidity.
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
You suggest it makes the southern soldier look noble for fighting insurmountable odds. I suggest opposite because the Confederates didn't BELIEVE at the time that the odds were insurmountable. They believed the actually had a chance, when none existed, and in my book, that is chalked up to egotistical stupidity.
The thing is, the lost cause myth was a postwar creation. For the purposes of the myth, it doesn't matter what they felt at the time. What matters is what was manufactured afterward.
You have a point, but since I pay no heed or even acknowledge the lost cause myth, it has no factor to me and I don't even consider it when I think that way. Stupidity, naivety, egotistical blunderbusses... a bunch of idiots I say. They can make any excuse they want, anyone with any actual historic knowledge knows it for just that... an excuse.
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
So would it be good to say that the South did have a slight chance of winning the war but probably not from a conquering standpoint.
Their main threat of winning would have come from dragging the fighting on long enough to where the North's disapproval rate of the war would have become so strong that they would of had to have made a peace treaty with the South.
Their main threat of winning would have come from dragging the fighting on long enough to where the North's disapproval rate of the war would have become so strong that they would of had to have made a peace treaty with the South.
I don't think it would happen. Lincoln is much like Bush in this aspect.. he would see the thing through even at the risk of alienating his party and his constituents. and he did. I'm a little surprised still that he got reelected (Lincoln not Bush)
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
In my mind, there is a distinct difference between concluding, using 20/20 hindsight, that the South did not have a chance to win and the South knowing at the time that it did not have a chance to win. The Southern soldier fought believing in his cause, believing that he was fighting to defend his home and his family. For any Lost Causer to say that he fought for some masochistic sense of honor in some kind of cultural/nationalistic ritual suicide cheapens what he did and what he fought for.
The only chance the South had to win was to draf out the war long enough to tire of the struggle and sue for peace, but Lincoln would have had to been out of the picture for that to happen. The idea of foreign intervention was a pipe dream. England was never going to enter the war militarily and even if France and England recognized the South, Lincoln would never have agreed to mediation to end the war. The Civil War was definitely NOT the American Revolution - there was no superpower willing to join the war and make it part of a larger conflict. England has much more to lose in a war with the United States than it had to gain and France was going to follow England's lead.
I have always believed that it was something of a fluke the South lasted as long as it did. If McClellan had not been such a wuss in the Peninsular campaign he could have taken Richmond and dealt a huge political and economic blow to the Confederacy. Or if he would have acted timely on the Lost Order, he could have dealt Lee a possibly mortal blow at Antietam. If Burnside had brought up the pontoons timely at Frericksburg he could have gotten across the river and on the high ground before Lee could have gotten there. If Hooker had not either wimped out or got knocked loopy at Chancellorsville, he had a chance to again deal major damage to the AoNV. If Meade had followed on hard after Gettysburg he could have gutted the AoNV. Even if you disagree with any one of these, the combination shows that but for poor command in the East, the war could have ended much more quickly. In the West, if Halleck had pursued more quickly after Shiloh, the West could have been split off years earlier.
The South's only hope was that this progression of incompetance continued long enough for the war to end in a draw which would equate to a Confederate victory. The remarkable thing to me is not that the South lost but that it held out as long as it did. I do not think they stood a realistic chance, and I am certainly not a Lost Causer.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
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