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Let's not forget that any Confederate victory at Gettysburg might be nullified somewhat by the July 4th fall of the Vicksburg garrison.
In that scenario, perhaps. You left out Early capturing Philadelphia then marching to Baltimore and Lee accepting Lincoln’s surrender at the White House after he took DC.Let's say the ANV performs perfectly late on July 1 and either captures or finishes off the I and II Corps. Hancock is captured after hiding behind a gravestone. Then the next morning the ANV promptly moves south/southeast, gobbling up the other Union corps like a Pac Man on steroids. Meade falls off his horse and, stunned like the turtle he was likened to, withdraws into a shell and loses command and control. On July 3, Pickett charges the heights at Pipe Creek and scatters the remaining Union forces, achieving the positive immortality he so richly deserved.
So, yea, in that scenario, South wins the war.
I agree. Had Lee won at Gettysburg, it would have provided a huge morale boost to the Confederacy. But militarily? I doubt that a Lee win would have had long term effects.It's not so much a shift in military realities as it might be in psychological impact.
I believe that...Hello everyone, I was wondering how would the tide of war changed if lee won at Gettysburg? I believe the war would have ended with a southern victory. What are your thoughts?
But would Rosecrans even attack for fear of another defeat?Think of the West. A rebel victory in Pennsylvania might cause a Stanton railroad trick in reverse with the Army of the Tennessee going east and an earlier, rather than later, Federal victory in the East. And if Longstreet doesn't go to Georgia Rosecrans is unlikely to be whipped.
"Well, well well! If it ain't ol' Hancock the Superb, running scared like a jackrabbit! Come on, let's MOVE, yankee!"Hancock is captured after hiding behind a gravestone.
But would Rosecrans even attack for fear of another defeat?
Rosecrans and his army might be in low spirits after a major CSA victory on Union soil.Rosecrans' only defeat was Chickamauga which in my fantasy doesn't even happen, or has a different result, because Longstreet doesn't go west, being too busy in the east dealing with the reinforced Federal forces there.
Rosecrans and his army might be in low spirits after a major CSA victory on Union soil.
See Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations by Howard Jones, Chapter Requiem for Napoleon—and Intervention -No. At this point the Emancipation Proclamation was in affect and it could be rightfully said that it was a war about slavery. The British would never align themselves with a breakaway government who openly stated that their cause was rooted in a desire to defend slavery.
Any hopes of British intervention went away in the fall of 1862 when Lee retreated from Maryland and the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
See the Battle of Fort Fizzle in Ohio in 1863, the Detroit Race Riots of 1863, the Charleston Riot in March of 1864 in Illinois, the Fishing Creek Confederacy in Pennsylvania from July to November of 1864, and the occupation of New York City by the Federal Army in the Fall of 1864. You can also view the newspaper reporting in the Summer of 1864 in general, as the Northern public was shocked by the immense casualties taken by Grant and inflation in July of 1864 reached its war-time height. This all had a tangible effect on the war effort: Between July 1863 and December 1864, 161,224 men failed to report to service under the draft.Of course we'll never know, since it didn't happen, but I think any victory in the north stirs up the anti-war faction in the north to become a serious threat to carrying the war on. Though there's no election in 1863, you can use 1864 as an example. Until Atlanta was taken, Lincoln was convinced he was going to lose and that the new administration would broker a peace. That was after Gettysburg had been won, Vicksburg had been taken, and Grant was maneuvering Lee onto the ropes: the point being that things seemed to be going much better in 1864 for the northern war effort and he was still convinced he was going to be defeated because people were tired of the war. In 1863, things were not going well in the east (which Washington, DC was most concerned with, being right in the middle of it). A Confederate victory on northern soil - even if it weren't a catastrophic defeat for the AOP - may have had major (and possibly war-ending, for all intents and purposes) effects.
I think it's worth noting that one of Lee's intentions (not the only one) was to roam around PA enough to stir that anti-war faction up to the south's benefit.
Slavery was 100% the issue the upper classes were completely out of sync with the middle and lower classes.the prime minister also rejected the plan, insisting that slavery was not the obstacle to intervention; the Confederacy had not proven its independence on the battlefield. The Richmond Dispatch glumly noted, “No one would receive us as a gift." The responses should not have surprised the Confederacy.
Britain was also the nation that continued to be the biggest buyer of American cotton as well as continued to buy goods from Brazil, which retained slavery until the late 1880s. Britain was opposed to the international slave trade, but it didn't impact their foreign policy in the sense you are purposing. As far as the breakdown in British popular opinion, not really; the lower and middle classes were much more divided than you suggest on the topic and the idea of violent rebellion over the issue has no real historical documentation to support it:Slavery was 100% the issue the upper classes were completely out of sync with the middle and lower classes.
While Britain was indeed split over loyalty to the Union or Confederacy with nearly all the lower classes supporting the Union and with the Manchester cotton famine causing great hardship it would have been suicide by any government to support the Confederacy.
You forget it was Britain that banned the international slave trade they would look very stupid siding with a country that supported slavery.
This is not really a correct description of the reaction to the cotton famine. There was significant pro-Confederate support in the cotton areas, it's just that the political classes tried (and successfully managed) to ignore it.While Britain was indeed split over loyalty to the Union or Confederacy with nearly all the lower classes supporting the Union and with the Manchester cotton famine causing great hardship it would have been suicide by any government to support the Confederacy.
We have been here before it most certainly is correct the lower paid overworked lower classes overwhelmingly supported the North especially in the North West of England , Lancashire , Cheshire , Yorkshire.This is not really a correct description of the reaction to the cotton famine. There was significant pro-Confederate support in the cotton areas, it's just that the political classes tried (and successfully managed) to ignore it.
... the vast progress which you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on civilisation and Christianity – chattel slavery – during your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honoured and revered by posterity. We are certain that such a glorious consummation will cement Great Britain and the United States in close and enduring regards.
— Public Meeting, Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 31 December 1862.
You realize that that was astroturfing, right?On 31 December 1862, a meeting of cotton workers at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, despite their increasing hardship, resolved to support the Union in its fight against slavery. An extract from the letter they wrote in the name of the Working People of Manchester to His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America says:
It was no great secret the upper classes supported the confederacy they also controlled the newspapers.Within a couple of weeks, the news of Antietam reached England, where the ministry initially believed the premature accounts of Confederate victory and resumed its interest in a mediation to stop the blood fest. The Earl of Shaftesbury, Lady Palmerston’s son-in-law and of considerable influence in ministerial circles, had visited Paris a few days before the battlefield news had reached the Continent and, according to Slidell, assured French officials of imminent British intervention. From the outbreak of the war, Shaftesbury told Slidell, he had supported the South’s struggle for independence against the Union’s quest for empire. He had been nearly alone in that stand, for his associates had defined the issue as slavery versus freedom. But British public opinion had undergone a revolution in feeling. Lincoln’s recent speech to the black delegation from New York and his published letter on slavery to Horace Greeley had alienated those English people calling for abolition. They now believed it more beneficial to black liberation if the Confederacy became independent.