12 Days To Win the War...

[5fish]

Following the attack on Ft. Sumter, Washington, DC. was open to being conquered by the Confederate rebels. Over the next 12 days, the Confederate rebels could have for the most part just waltz into our nation's capital without much resistance to stop them... Why did Davis not attack the Capital?

I will let Amazon set up the what if...

On April 14, 1861, following the surrender of Fort Sumter, Washington was "put into the condition of a siege," declared Abraham Lincoln. Located sixty miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the nation's capital was surrounded by the slave states of Maryland and Virginia. With no fortifications and only a handful of trained soldiers, Washington was an ideal target for the Confederacy. The South echoed with cries of "On to Washington!" and Jefferson Davis's wife sent out cards inviting her friends to a reception at the White House on May 1.

Lincoln issued an emergency proclamation on April 15, calling for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion and protect the capital. One question now transfixed the nation: Whose forces would reach Washington first: Northern defenders or Southern attackers?

For 12 days, the city's fate hung in the balance. Washington was entirely isolated from the North--without trains, telegraph, or mail. Sandbags were stacked around major landmarks, and the unfinished Capitol was transformed into a barracks, with volunteer troops camping out in the House and Senate chambers. Meanwhile, Maryland secessionists blocked the passage of Union reinforcements trying to reach Washington, and a rumored force of 20,000 Confederate soldiers lay in wait just across the Potomac River.

Drawing on firsthand accounts, The Siege of Washington tells this story from the perspective of leading officials, residents trapped inside the city, Confederates plotting to seize it, and Union troops racing to save it, capturing with brilliance and immediacy the precarious first days of the Civil War.


The Siege of Washington: The Twelve Days That Shook the Union

A Timeline

April 14, 1861 The Union flag is lowered over Fort Sumter in surrender. In Washington, President Lincoln drafts an emergency proclamation calling for 75,000 Union volunteer troops to suppress the rebellion and defend the capital. Lincoln tells his cabinet, "If I were Beauregard, I would take Washington."
April 15 Lincoln formally issues his emergency proclamation. Americans in both the North and South are transfixed by a single question: Who will reach the capital first? Confederate attackers? Or Union defenders?

April 16 As militiamen begin to mobilize across the North, General Winfield Scott has only 900 U.S. Army troops and 600 District Militia under his command to defend Washington.

April 17 Virginia votes to secede from Union. South Carolina Governor Pickens writes to Jefferson Davis that the "true course is to take Washington city immediately."

April 18 The First Pennsylvania Volunteers arrive in Washington—without weapons—and are quartered in the empty Capitol building. The danger is so extreme that emergency volunteer troops are stationed in the East Room of the White House. An assault on the city is expected that night.

April 19 The Sixth Massachusetts are attacked in a bloody riot in Baltimore as they change trains on their way to Washington. Baltimore leaders bar further Union troops from passing through the city, imperiling the arrival of reinforcements for days.

April 20 Baltimore secessionists rip up rail lines to Washington. Meanwhile, the Eighth Massachusetts and Seventh New York regiments are stalled in Philadelphia as their leaders debate the best route to the capital. One prominent Virginian telegraphs the Confederate secretary of war: "Lincoln is in a trap."

April 21 Panic seizes Washington, particularly among free blacks, who fear that they will be re‐enslaved if the South takes the capital. Thousands of people flee.

April 22 Washington is entirely cut off by rail and telegraph. Food supplies dwindle. According to journalist Henry Villard, it seemed "as though the government of a great nation had been suddenly removed to an island in mid ocean in a state of entire isolation."

April 23 Secessionist forces in Maryland plot an attack on Union troops moving toward Washington. The Baltimore Sun reports that "armed men [are] stationed everywhere, determined to give the Northern troops a fight in their march to the capital."

April 24 The Seventh New York and Eighth Massachusetts set out on an epic march from Annapolis to rescue Washington.

April 25 The Seventh New York arrives in Washington and stages a spontaneous parade down Pennsylvania Avenue amid cheering residents and ringing church bells. Washingtonians exclaim their joy that the "Capitol of the Nation is Safe!"

Historians have long been perplexed over why the South didn't attack Washington, D.C., in the early days of the Civil War.

What if Davis had given the order to attack our capital? What would have been the aftermath of such a feat?

Beauregard would be famous not only for firing the first shots of the war but for capturing Washington D.C. Its true Davis and the Confederacy had a 12-day window where they could have easily captured our nation's capital and won the war?

Here is a book about those 12 days in April 1861...

 

[5fish]

I like to point out the few confederate states had mobilized and could have sent a large force by train to Washinton in the few days after Ft. Sumter.

 

[mofederal]

The Confederate states were not very organized at that point early in the war. No one was ready for war, especially those that started it. It was more like action and reaction. It takes time to gear up for war. Not much happened in 1861, mostly early opening moves.

 

[5fish]

No one was ready for war,

I agree in a general sense but they did organize and take control of federal property around the Confederacy. They were able to bring weapons and force against Ft. Sumter. At this time, Washington has no troops in numbers to protect it. The South could have sent a small force of 5000 or so and taken the city. It's open for debate.

If they had a smaller force, they could have just capture Lincoln and his cabinet, important members of Congress and the Supreme Court justices and decapitated the U.S. government without securing the city. The Davis and the Confederacy missed their chance, 12 days to victory missed.

Think of the turmoil that would have caused throughout the Northern states.

 

[5fish]

Here the 7th New York Regiment that saved Washington, the only problem the print is from 1852...its bio... https://www.sethkaller.com/item/471...ton-Square,-With-NYU-in-the-Background&from=7

During the Civil War, the 7th was one of the first units to respond to President Lincoln's call for volunteers on April 19, 1861, occupying Arlington Heights, Virginia to help protect the capital from possible attack by the Confederate Army during the first months of the war. In July of 1863, the 7th was ordered back to New York to respond to the Draft Riots and was on duty under General John A. Dix in New York City from July 16–20.

After the war, a new armory, designed by Sanford White, was constructed for the unit in 1877. The 7th Regiment Armory still stands on Park Avenue between 66th and 67th streets in the heart of Manhattan's Upper East Side.

 

[Burning Billy]

I agree in a general sense but they did organize and take control of federal property around the Confederacy. They were able to bring weapons and force against Ft. Sumter. At this time, Washington has no troops in numbers to protect it. The South could have sent a small force of 5000 or so and taken the city. It's open for debate.

If they had a smaller force, they could have just capture Lincoln and his cabinet, important members of Congress and the Supreme Court justices and decapitated the U.S. government without securing the city. The Davis and the Confederacy missed their chance, 12 days to victory missed.

Think of the turmoil that would have caused throughout the Northern states.

Even if a Confederate army had been able to march on Washington it almost certainly would not have captured Lincoln, his cabinet, and Congress. They would have withdrew to some other city.Jeff Davis wasn't found sitting at his desk when Union troops poured into Richmond, after all.

The capture of Washington very likely would not have ended the war either.

 

[5fish]

Camp Fires at Night of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment and a Portion of the 7th Regiment of New York on the Road from Annapolis, Maryland, to Washington, D.C.


Drawing: Graphite and black ink and wash on paper. 8 1/2 x 12 in. A small military camp among trees. Soldiers sit and stand around small fires outside their tents. Inscribed at lower center outside image in graphite: 'Camp fires at night.' At upper center outside image: 'No 3 there can be plenty of Figures put in.' Verso is inscribed vertically at left: 'On the Route from Annapolis to / Washington 8th Reg Mass and a portion / of 7th N.Y.'
See also 1945.580.53. The following excerpt is from taken from the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs: Military History 7th Regiment, New York State Militia, New York National Guard: 'April 19, 1861, the regiment, commanded by Col. Marshall Lefferts, left the State, en route to Washington, D. C., where it was mustered in the service of the United States for thirty days, April 26, 1861; it served at Washington and was mustered out at New York city, June 3, 1861.' The following excerpt is taken from the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Military Statistics of the State of New York, Albany: [The Bureau], (C. Wendell), 1866. SEVENTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. MILITIA. 'News of the riot in Baltimore, in which Massachusetts soldiers were killed, was received before the regiment left New York and increased greatly the interest attending its departure. The Seventh went by railroad to Perrysville; thence by steamer to Annapolis, and along or near the railroad track to Annapolis Junction and Washington, where it served for thirty days. Arrived at Annapolis April 22d, and at Washington the 25th, and was mustered into the United States service April 27th. The regiment crossed the Potomac with the first troops that entered Virginia, when Alexandria and Arlington Heights were occupied, and labored with the New Jersey brigade in the construction of 'Fort Runyon'. The Seventh remained on duty at and in the vicinity of Washington until the 31st of May, when it returned to New York.' According to the Maryland Civil War Centennial Commission, when Lincoln called for volunteers in the spring of 1861, the 8th Massachusetts Militia (The Minute Men), including the Salem Zouaves, were among the first units to respond. They left for Annapolis, Maryland, on April 18, to guard the frigate U.S.S. Constitution until it was safely removed to New York Harbor. The 8th Massachusetts Infantry reached Annapolis on April 21. Colonel Benjamin F. Butler forwarded the 8th Massachusetts and the 7th New York Infantry regiments to Washington.

The print is at the link...

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora:31554

 

[5fish]

The capture of Washington almost certainly would not have ended the war either.

I agree to capture Washington would not have ended the war but would have been a bad start... but capturing Lincoln and other political elite may have... If you read the secessionist in Maryland seemed organized when you read about those days after Ft Sumter... They were tearing up rail lines and telegraph lines leading to Washington. If Lincoln had tried to sneak out maybe the locals would have captured him.

 

[5fish]

Here is this description of Washington during those 12 days by journalist Henry Villard,

The President issued the call for 75,000 men on April 15. On the following day I received a despatch from James Gordon Bennett asking me to come at once to New York. I obeyed the summons by the night train. On reaching the Heraldoffice, I found an invitation to accompany him in the afternoon to his residence at Washington Heights and to spend the night there. As was my host's regular custom, we drove from the office up Broadway and Fifth Avenue and through Central Park to the Heights. I had seen Bennett only twice before, and then but for a few minutes each time, and the opportunity to learn more of this notorious character was therefore not unwelcome to me. I must say that his shameful record as a journalist, and particularly the sneaking sympathy of his paper for the Rebellion, and its vile abuse of the Republicans for their antislavery sentiments, made me share the general prejudice against him to such an extent that I had been thinking for some time of severing my connection with the Herald, although the agreement that all I telegraphed should be printed without change or omission had been strictly kept. With his fine tall and slender figure, large intellectual head covered with an abundance of light curly hair, and strong regular features, his exterior would have been impressive but for his strabismus, which gave him a sinister, forbidding look. Intercourse with him, indeed, quickly revealed his hard, cold, utterly selfish nature and incapacity to appreciate high and noble aims.

His residence was a good-sized frame house in parklike grounds, with no great pretensions either outwardly or inwardly. On the drive and during the dinner, at which his one son — a fine-looking, intelligent youth of twenty — was the only other person present, he did nothing but ask questions bearing upon the characteristics and doings of President Lincoln and the circumstances of my acquaintance with him. After dinner he disclosed his true purpose in sending for me. First, he wanted me to carry a message from him to Mr. Lincoln that the Herald would hereafter be unconditionally for the radical suppression of the Rebellion by force of arms, and in the shortest possible time, and would advocate and support any "war measures" by the Government and Congress. I was, of course, very glad to hear this, and promised to repeat these assurances by word of mouth to the President. The truth was, that the Herald was obliged to make this complete change in its attitude, there having been ominous signs for some days in New York of danger of mob violence to the paper. Secondly, he wanted me to offer to Secretary Chase his son's famous sailing yacht, the Rebecca, as a gift to the Government for the revenue service, and to secure in consideration thereof for its owner the appointment of lieutenant in the same service. The last wish I thought rather amusing, but I agreed to lay it before Secretary Chase, to whom I had ready access as the representative of the Cincinnati Commercial, his strongest supporter in Ohio. My host retired early, and was ready before me in the morning for the down drive, on which I accompanied him again. Mr. Hudson — the managing editor, a fine-looking man, and one of the most courteous and obliging I ever met, with extraordinary qualifications for newspaper management — told me in the course of the day that Mr. Bennett was very much pleased with me and had increased my weekly allowance to thirty-five dollars.

I started on my return trip to Washington on the night train of the next day. The run now made in five hours then took from ten to twelve. It was most tiresome, especially at night, as it involved no less than five changes of cars, three crossings by ferryboat over the Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehanna Rivers, an hour's street-car ride through the whole length of Philadelphia, and the slow passage through Baltimore on railroad-cars pulled by horses. We reached Perryville, on the east bank of the Susquehanna, from which place passengers were transferred on a ferryboat to Havre de Grace, opposite, at 3 A.M. We got out of the train and walked to the boat. As it remained stationary, an explanation was sought from the captain, who said that he had been directed to remain where he was until further orders. One weary hour after another passed without any light as to the cause of the delay. There was not even a chance to sit down on the boat, except on the deck. At break of day I made my way to the telegraph-office at the station, but no one was there. The operator did not appear till seven o clock. He said that, during the night, despatches had passed over the line to the managers of the company in Philadelphia, announcing that bridges and trestles had been burned in the night between Havre de Grace and Baltimore, and that accordingly the movement of all trains between those two points had been ordered stopped. The operator did not know who had done the burning, but it was clear to me at once that the rebel sympathizers in Maryland were the perpetrators, in order to stop the transportation of troops from the North to the capital. This had commenced the very day before on a large scale with the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, which the great War Governor, John A. Andrew, had started from Boston, one thousand strong, within twenty-four hours after the President's call, and with an equal number of Pennsylvania volunteers. My surmise turned out correct, but I was far from suspecting the bloody events of the memorable nineteenth of April in Baltimore.

Here was a predicament for me. On the one hand, the very interruption of communication with Washington made it the more desirable and necessary for me to be there, in order to supply news through extraordinary channels if the ordinary ones failed. On the other, there was the embarrassing question how to get through, the broken railroad being the only line of land communication between the North and the capital. The first thing I did was to beg for a breakfast at one of the few houses in the hamlet of Perryville — there being no hotel — and I got one of bacon, "hoe-cakes," and indescribable coffee. Next, having seen some small boats tied up at the bank, I went in search of their owners. I found one of them who agreed to row me to Havre de Grace for a dollar, and he landed me there in an hour. This place was a village of a few hundred inhabitants, who were gathered in knots on the streets, discussing the stoppage of trains. They confirmed the burning of the superstructures, and not a few showed their rebellious disposition by expressing themselves as rather glad of it. I set about finding some sort of a vehicle to convey me to Baltimore, about thirty-eight miles distant. There was no livery-stable and but few private owners of carriages, all of whom were afraid to undertake the job, not knowing what had actually happened. After wasting a couple of hours with them, I determined to start on foot just as I was — my valise being checked to Washington — and take my chances of finding means of transportation on the way. After walking some six miles, about noon I reached the home of an apparently well-to-do planter on the roadside. My request for a meal was readily acceded to. The planter proved to be a strong anti-secessionist, though a slaveholder. To my great relief, he consented, in response to my offer to pay twenty-five dollars for the accommodation, to send me in a buggy with one of his slaves as a driver to Baltimore. Although I had heard stories at Havre de Grace and all along the road that the country was "swarming with rebel cavalry," we met no armed men, nor any sort of adventure, and arrived at our destination a little before dark. In driving through the city, I saw no sign of disturbance; the street life seemed to be going on as usual. I went to the Eutaw House, the proprietor of which I had known as a New York hotel-keeper. First of all, I gleaned from the morning and evening newspapers the details of the fearful occurrences the day before during the passage of the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania troops. They also contained the alarming announcement that railroad communication with both the North and the South was entirely interrupted. This left the problem how to get to the capital only half solved for me, but I was too tired to consider at once the other half of the solution, and so, after supper, I sought my bed without delay.

I rose early to consult the landlord as to the best means of reaching Washington, which I was resolved to do at all hazards and at the earliest possible moment. As the speedy reopening of the railroad seemed very doubtful, he recommended the hiring of a carriage, and sent for the keeper of the livery-stable attached to the hotel, who declined, however, absolutely to furnish me a conveyance at any price. Other stablemen were sent for, but with the same result. Finally, it occurred to me to try to secure a saddle-horse, and in this I was successful. But I had to put up a hundred dollars with the hotel-keeper as security for the return of the animal, and to pay five dollars a day and all expenses till returned. I was mounted by nine o'clock, and rode leisurely like a pleasure-rider to the suburbs, where I took by-roads instead of the main highway to the Relay House, the junction of the main and Washington lines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, nine miles from the city. Here rider and horse had a repast, and then started on the long ride of over thirty miles to Washington, where I arrived at seven o clock without having met any one but harmless country folk en route. After putting up the horse and getting a bath and change of clothes, I went to Willard's for supper. I was surprised to find the halls and public sitting-rooms almost empty, and still more so when the office clerk, in answer to my question, "What's the news?" said, "Well, as you have been away, it will be news to you that we are going to shut up this hotel to morrow, and this meal will be the last you can be served with here." And so it was. The great caravansary was to be closed for an indefinite time.

An extraordinary change had, indeed, taken place at the capital since my departure. What with the proclamation of the President, which was really a declaration of the existence of civil war, with the prospect of Washington becoming the main objective-point of hostilities, with the riot in Baltimore, and the consequent stoppage of all railroad, mail, and telegraph service with the North, a veritable panic had ensued. Between the fifteenth and the nineteenth, the floating population, to the extent of tens of thousands, had dispersed to the North and South, and they were still leaving, notwithstanding the railroad blockade, by every sort of conveyance. Instead of the nearly one thousand guests that were stowed away at Willard's at the inauguration, not two score remained, and that was the reason for closing it. The other hotels were also empty. Walking on Pennsylvania Avenue in the morning, I could almost count the people in sight on my fingers. A great many private houses and a number of stores were also shut up. The whole city had a deserted look.

This exodus had a redeeming feature, as it consisted largely of secessionists, whose departure was, under the circumstances, a direct relief to the Government. But there was otherwise cause for the gravest alarm, which, in my visits to the White House, to the departments and public offices, I found shared by all loyalists, from the President and Cabinet officers down. The telegraph did not work, the mails did not arrive or depart. From the night of the twentieth on, there was practically no intercourse in any form between the national capital and any part of the country, and the Government remained without any intelligence from any quarter for several days. It knew only in a general way that the destruction of the railroad between Perryville and Washington had led to the adoption of the plan to transport the troops from the North by water to the capital. Literally, it was as though the government of a great nation had been suddenly removed to an island in mid-ocean in a state of entire isolation, and with all the inconveniences, uncertainties, and risks incidental thereto. This extraordinary situation naturally made me and all patriotic minds most anxious.

From what I saw myself and learned from others, I was oppressed by the thought that the Government was in a most perilous plight, that this must be known to the rebel authorities through the many willing and eager informants who left Washington daily for the South, and that, with the audacity they had so far shown, they would without fail take advantage of this, their great opportunity, and gain possession of the capital by a coup de main. The circumstances were so favorable to an attempt of this kind that I felt sure it would be made, and was prepared to hear at any moment of the appearance of a rebel force in the streets.

I did not understand then, nor could I ever understand, why the rebel hands were not stretched out to seize so easy a prey — a seizure that might have resulted in the immediate triumph of the insurrection. For, notwithstanding the hundreds of resignations from the army, navy, and civil service of the Government and the large migration to the South, Washington was still full of traitors among the residents and remaining officers and officials, who would eagerly have aided an effort to capture the capital for the Confederacy. There were not over two thousand armed and uniformed men available for defence, one-half being a motley of small commands of regulars from different regiments and arms, and the other consisting of the raw recruits of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment. Efforts were making to organize the loyal residents and Government employees as a volunteer corps, but, although nearly two thousand such volunteers had been enrolled, not much reliance could be placed on them. Moreover, in the highest places, treason had broken out, from which the Government was to be protected. Adjutant-General Cooper of the army, Colonel Robert E. Lee, the principal aide and most trusted adviser of General Scott, and Commodore Buchanan, commandant of the navy-yard, had resigned and joined the enemy. These and many other desertions were rapidly demoralizing and paralyzing the several branches of the public service. The President relied on General Scott as the mainstay of the Government, and yet the fact could not be disguised that the Commander-in-chief was too decrepit in body and mind to be equal to the dire emergency. As the official record shows, he rather added to than allayed the fears of the President and his Cabinet by giving credence to the exaggerated and even fictitious and absurd reports of the gathering of rebel forces in the vicinity of Washington. There were but few officers left that could be trusted, and they were of inferior rank, and none of them had ever commanded more than a full company. I clearly perceived the growing helplessness and fright of the Government, and was haunted by the apprehension that the appearance of a thousand determined rebels would seal the fate of Washington without even a serious struggle.

The city bore the marks of a state of siege. Detachments of regulars guarded all the public buildings. Patrols were seen in the streets. All the approaches to the city were guarded. The White House was under the special protection of the "Clay" and "Frontier" Guards, two bodies of select volunteers formed by Cassius M. Clay, the well-known Kentucky Unionist, and by General James H. Lane, later United States Senator from Kansas, who had achieved considerable notoriety as a determined fighter during the border troubles in that Territory. They literally camped for several days on the lower floor of the Executive Mansion. The Potomac was also patrolled by small armed boats. All stores of provisions and forage were seized by the War Department, and other defensive preparations made as diligently as possible. Material was got ready for barricading the Treasury and Interior Departments on short notice, as their massive character and isolated position rendered a strong defence practicable.

Link ... https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Memoirs_of_Henry_Villard/Volume_1/11

 

[Carronade]

Does the book make any hypotheses about North Carolina and Tennessee? Historically those states did not secede until May 20 and June 8; during the 12 days, Virginia and Washington were isolated from the nascent Confederacy.

The Confederacy at this point was seven Deep South states, with a capital at Montgomery and a President from Mississippi. Could they pressure other states into immediate secession? Or to allow passage across their territory? Would the apostles of states' rights try to compel other states to join in their scheme?

On the practical side, organizing troops, trains, and supplies takes time, all the more so for an expedition from the Deep South to Washington. Davis' or Pickens' attack on Washington would have to rely largely on Virginia troops.

 

[Yankeedave]

John B Jones, Pres. Davis' war secretary and others wonder if an attempt could not be made. He reported a huge number of cavalry available and wondered if they could not be used. Davis' response was to send the majority of the calvary home and would only take infantry, artillery etc.

 

[Carronade]

John B Jones, Pres. Davis' war secretary and others wonder if an attempt could not be made. He reported a huge number of cavalry available and wondered if they could not be used. Davis' response was to send the majority of the calvary home and would only take infantry, artillery etc.

Still, the key question is not how many troops were assembling at various points in the southern states, but how many could be transported and supplied for an assault on Washington. As it is often said, "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics."

How widespread was the "On to Washington" sentiment? Even ardent secessionists might feel that they were mobilizing to defend their newly declared independence rather than to invade the North. The few combats to date - Fort Sumter and the skirmishes around Fort Pickens - were about securing what they considered to be their own territory. Even a year later, many of Lee's troops, who were more than willing to fight for the Confederacy, fell out of the ranks when asked to invade Maryland.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

For reference; a map of the existing rail-links of 1861, which also notes the differing gauges of each line.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...1.jpg/1200px-Railroad_of_Confederacy-1861.jpg

 

[Yankeedave]

Still, the key question is not how many troops were assembling at various points in the southern states, but how many could be transported and supplied for an assault on Washington. As it is often said, "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics."

How widespread was the "On to Washington" sentiment? Even ardent secessionists might feel that they were mobilizing to defend their newly declared independence rather than to invade the North. The few combats to date - Fort Sumter and the skirmishes around Fort Pickens - were about securing what they considered to be their own territory. Even a year later, many of Lee's troops, who were more than willing to fight for the Confederacy, fell out of the ranks when asked to invade Maryland.

I tend to agree. Although the idea of a quick dash sounds great, imho the reality of the ride, the route, and other variables would have left man and mount in poor shape.

 

[Saphroneth]

I think the best way to get this to happen - to get Washington taken so early in the war - is to have things get much worse in Baltimore, to the point that Maryland secedes in a surge of public feeling too quickly for the Union to react and stop it. If that happens, not only is it a fundamentally defensive action to head into Maryland (by the CSA) but it's also a mobilizing pro-CS Baltimore across the only reliable rail route in or out.

Not the most plausible what-if, but it'd be an interesting one to game out from there - you might even have Washington DC named as the capital of the CSA, in a bit of a spectacular display of "yoink!"

 

[Yankeedave]

Burn it to the ground and build the new one in Atlanta.