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I couldn't have said it better myself. (Obviously, because i didn't lol)
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"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
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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Thanks everyone for your replies. Forgive me, but I'm still not clear on something. Shelby Foote's statement posted above where he states that there was no way for the South ever to win, and his follow-up on that, (paraphrasing) hypothetically if the South really started to do better, the North would have just brought its other hand out from behind its back (figuratively - put in more men, weapons etc) to finish the job, i.e. win the war. (He says this in Ken Burns' Civil War documentary also).
I'm hearing that this assertion,(south had no chance but if so, North brings out other hand) in essence, was foolish for him to say that, due to the south not having a chance of winning (being labeled a lost-cause tenet), and I'm hearing that the south had a fairly good chance of winning, the opposite of what Foote said. Ok, I still don't see what's wrong with his statement. It is a hypothetical, the part about the south "doing better" and requiring an addition of men and materiel from the north, but it could have happened, could it not?
Maybe I'm over-analyzing this to the point where I now cannot see the forest for the trees, but when I heard Foote say it (the above) it made perfect sense to me, and still does. Anyway....I gotta headache.
PS: Timewalker, your 9:18pm post is an excellent analysis. I like your "progression of incompetence" line in the last paragraph.
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
I myself think the South had an excellent chance of winning the war, especially in the first two years of the conflickt, before Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
Too often I think it is overlooked just how fragile Northern morale and the Lincoln administration really were.
What if Vicksburg had not fallen? What if Gettysburg had been a Southern victory on the first day? Those were real turning points in the war.
But Northern morale is another key to victory. I even think that as late as 1864, before the re-election of Lincoln, there was a good chance for the Confederacy to have fought for a cease-fire and a negotiated peace. If there had been a great defeat of Sherman or some disaster along his March to the Sea, I am sure the Peace Democrats had more than a fifty-fifty shot at getting Lincoln out of the White House, and without Lincoln, as timewalker has pointed out, the war would have stopped dead in its tracks.
No, the South had a chance, victory was possible, and the Union never had a sure thing until Lincoln was reelected and Sherman had victory.
IMHO.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
"Did the South really ever have a chance of winning the war. If the Rebels successes of 1862 and 1863 had continued past the Gettysburg War do you think the North would have given in."
Too much appropriations and time had passed for the Confederacy to have won, what they thought was the solution to the war. Much of the Confederacy was already lost by mid-1862. Lincoln and the Congress never did give up their effort to defeat the Confederacy.
"Or do you think if Lee hadn't made that crazy charge on the third day at Gettysburg and they had won that battle and continued on into Northern Territory it only would have postponed the inevitible a little longer."
Well Lee fought as he did, at Gettysburg, because he found his army in a bad place, without sufficient supplies to await an attack. He had poor egress, once he brought his three corps to Adams County.
Attacking wasn't crazy. Lee had to at least make sure he had a second egress road, back to Virginia, and out of Adams County. The "battle readers" usually pay little attention to logistics and army movement.
By the second day, the Confederacy was nearly out of artillery ammunition. It had one good battle left, and it expended most of its long-range artillery ammunition on July 3rd. By that date, the only place the Army of Northern Virginia was going was back to Virginia.
Last edited by whitworth : 03-03-2008 at 09:56 AM.
At the start of the conflict, history had still yet to be written. Frankly I don't think its written in stone. After the first wave of secession, the first question is whether the Upper South is coming. They do.....which brought on the question of the border states (Union wins this one), but was that written in stone?
If the border states go, do the free states simply compel Lincoln to negotiate?
Even given what happened, do the results of the American Revolution lead one to believe that victory is possible?
Leave it to sam to sum the whole thing up in one sentence!
Exactly. The Confederacy didn't have to win; it only had to not lose.
Not Lincoln nor the Federal Congress can physically keep the support of the citizen. The south's only hope to win was wear out that support. Wars are fought and won (or lost) with the will of the citizen.
It can be argued that the A-bomb was used because the will to smash Japan was waning. It can be argued that the truce in Korea was made because we tired of the police action. It doesn't take much of an argument to show that we lost in Vietnam because the people turned away from it
Lincoln faced the same situation. For him it was a constant struggle to keep the average citizen interested in winning.
It's been said (George Patton?) that Americans love a war. That may be true. But we also have a short attention span and an appalling lack of foresight.
If the Confederacy had prevailed a bit more than it did, it could have "not lost." Ergo, it had a chance.
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
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
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 agree with you wholeheartedly on half that time (I know, it sounds funny). Their best chance was to drag it out, or decisively win in the first two years, is how I see it. If they could completely defeat the Union armies in the first two years (doubtful, but a possibility) then they could have won. But the losses in the west counteract the victories in the east. Therefore, a quick win wasn't going to happen. The whole 90 Day war notion quickly went out the window.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timewalker
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.
Here, I agree completely, no halves here. If McClellan had not wimped out and just pushed up the Peninsula and taken Richmond, or if he had used the gift laid right on his lap during the Maryland campaign, or if Burnside had forded the river (it was possible from what Hancock was saying) then the war in the East, at least, would have been over by Christmas 1862. There are so many things that if they had gone the other way, the war would have been over much sooner, with a far less amount of blood spilt by both sides.
__________________ "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
It's been said (George Patton?) that Americans love a war. That may be true. But we also have a short attention span and an appalling lack of foresight.
All quite true. I think it was George Marshall who said that a nation with a democratic form of government can realistically sustain a war for about 5 years before the people will turn against it. There are a few exceptions, but generally speaking the 5-year rule holds pretty well.
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