The 100% Factor

[whitworth]

Some historians will consider the chances of the Confederacy to win the war. Some will say the Confederacy had a chance. But what chance. A 100% chance? I doubt it was ever anywhere near that percentage.

While I could consider the Confederacy retaining some states, it was fairly clear in the west that the Confederacy had little or no chance of maintaining some states.
In some of these states, the Confederacy could only bring so many troops to the battle, and then much poorly supplied than the U.S. troops.

The Confederates could never occupy for any length of time, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee or Arkansas. By mid 1862, the Confederacy had lost control of almost the entire Mississippi River, except some key points in Mississippi. How could the Confederacy make peace demands for most of the southern Mississippi River territory, even as early as mid-1862? How could the Confederate government demand, what they were unable to defend?

The Confederate army could make raids into Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri. But it could never occupy that territory for long.
Even early in the war, much of western Virginia was lost. Raid it, the Confederates could do that. Capture and occuply western Virginia was beyond its grasp.

Even the British government questioned, in early 1862, the Confederate representative about the ability of the Confederate government to adequately protect Kentucky, Missouri, and western Virginia.
The great Achilles heel of Confederate secession, was the inability to adequately protect all "Confederate" territory. Some of it was lost in early 1862, and the Confederate government never appeared that they could accept that loss. For them it became all or nothing, and that meant the loss of every slave in the Confederate states.