What if the CSA had aggressivley pursued a Guerrilla Campaign against the Union?

[DHPatrick]

I guess I'm feeling like stuck LP record. I don't ask whether guerilla warfare had merit - rather a better understanding of why Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman were as concerned about it as they were.

Are we saying the top leaders of the Union Forces had no real concept of what guerilla war was about?

[Elennsar]

Well, it has to be noted that there's a huge difference between "worried we'll lose" and "worried of how horrible it would be."

So they could easily be worried about B without being any more worried about A than B.

And of course, its quite possible they didn't. Recall what the United States's military experience has been up until this time. No one knows a lot of what we take for granted as part of how things (including war) works then, not counting the things that hadn't happened as of the 1860s even.

[DHPatrick]

Originally Posted by Elennsar

Well, it has to be noted that there's a huge difference between "worried we'll lose" and "worried of how horrible it would be."

So they could easily be worried about B without being any more worried about A than B.

And of course, its quite possible they didn't. Recall what the United States's military experience has been up until this time. No one knows a lot of what we take for granted as part of how things (including war) works then, not counting the things that hadn't happened as of the 1860s even.

Elennsar,

So, you believe their concerns may have been more about how horrible it would be? ..and that had nothing to do with their resolve?

[Elennsar]

I believe that they were more worried about guerilla warfare being horrible than guerilla warfare being the best way to win the war.

[johan_steele]

Sherman, Grant & Lincoln were well aware of the effect of the irregulars in Missouri and elsewhere. The worry, IMO, wasn't so much that the US would lose, but how ugly it would get. Ask the Blackhawk, Seminole, Kiowa or Lakota how ugly it got and I think you'll see my point.

[Borderruffian]

I've got to go with Mister Steele on this. The Union had plenty of Officers schooled in Guerilla warfare. Sam Curtis, Sam Sturgis and John Schofield to name three. They also had expierance in the Volunteer Officers serving in the Trans-Miss.

I believe that Lee knew that any attempt to conduct that type of war would result on no quarter war against the south and all her people.

And I can see what Steele is talking about. The Confeds all them would have been rounded up and penned up like the Native Americans or more probably like the Boers. It would have been Lord Kitchner come early.

[OldGreyWolf]

I think I might have to disagree with you all on this matter.

If a wagon load of dynamite had blown up alongside of a few of Boston's Abolitionist Churches .....

If William Lloyd Garrison had been shot, lynched and burned .....

The South did not have to conquer the North. Just make 'em see how horrible it would be.

And as for "rounding 'em up and penning 'em up", I reckon General's Sherman and Sheridan would've found it a whole lot more difficult than the Plains Indians turned out to be.

[Elennsar]

A couple points.

That's not guerilla warfare. That's terrorism.

A practice of such gross violations of the rules of "civilized warfare" as the South's way of fighting the war would stab any attempt at gaining international sympathy in the back. The South could not win the war by itself without unbelievably good luck. Ensuring that the rest of the world is hostile towards the so-called CSA and that the North feels righteously justified in sowing the fields with salt and burning every buildng between the Potomac and the Gulf is not a war winning strategy.

Regarding penning them up...

The British managed to pen up the Boers very nicely. I don't think the South is going to do much better here, if any. It might be harder than the Plains Indians, but it would not be impossible.

[timewalker]

Originally Posted by Elennsar

A couple points.

That's not guerilla warfare. That's terrorism.

A practice of such gross violations of the rules of "civilized warfare" as the South's way of fighting the war would stab any attempt at gaining international sympathy in the back. The South could not win the war by itself without unbelievably good luck. Ensuring that the rest of the world is hostile towards the so-called CSA and that the North feels righteously justified in sowing the fields with salt and burning every buildng between the Potomac and the Gulf is not a war winning strategy.

Regarding penning them up...

The British managed to pen up the Boers very nicely. I don't think the South is going to do much better here, if any. It might be harder than the Plains Indians, but it would not be impossible.

Your points on guerillas vs. terrorists are right on the money. Guerillas might generate sympathy. Terrorists generate reprisals.

The Boers had the same problem the South would have and which did not affect the Plains indians to the same degree: the women and children of the South (and the Boers) were not nomadic and would therefore have been easy to catch and pen up. That took the fight out of the Boers and would no doubt take much of the fight out of any Southern guerillas.

Indeed, if guerillas in the South had embarked on a terror campaign, then the terrorists would quickly lose the support of the majority of the Southern population and R.E. Lee, along with many other of the Confederate generals, would have no doubt have been some of the loudest voices condemning such barbarism.

[johan_steele]

How long did it take to defeat the Plains Indians... now how long did the CS last? Forrest & Wheeler were no Crazy Horse or Red Cloud.

Perhaps the compatrison w/ the Brits and the Boers is quite apt.

Reprisals... blow up a church and the whole of the US would have exploded and God have mercy upon the CS. THere weren't too many CSers w/ low enough morals to blow up churches.