Did the South have a chance to win the Civil War?

historicus

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Oct 12, 2016
In Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War, Shelby Foote said, "The North fought the war with one hand tied behind their back. If there had been more southern victories, and i mean a lot more, i think that the North would have just took that other arm out from behind their back. I don't think that the South had any chance to win that war." I disagree with Shelby Foote on this.

It is simplistic and juvenile to interpret the outcome of the Civil War as strictly preordained due to the imbalance in resources. Resources were a factor in limiting the South's margin of error, rather than a final determinant. There are any number of mistakes that the South made that contributed to their defeat. Strictly brainstorming, here are some of their mistakes:

1# the decision to fire on Fort Sumter instead of using that time productively diplomatically, economically, and militarily. The blockade was not in place before Fort Sumter, and the northern ships were still picking up cotton at southern ports during the time period after the formation of the Confederacy and before Fort Sumter. Before the war, the South should have used that time to trade as much cotton as they could for war materials such as rifled muskets, artillery, battleships, and other war materials. The South needed more war materials, not more cotton. Also, the South should have fortified as much as possible before the war.


2# the decision to build Fort Henry in a flood plain which led to the Confederates having to abandon it due to it flooding

3# the failure to adopt and implement a plan to keep Fort Donelson from being captured by the Federals. Fort Donelson was (foolishly) designed only to protect against an attack by water, not an attack by land. 4# Also, the failure to establish a unified command structure at Fort Donelson, which made it extremely difficult for the Confederates to defend Fort Donelson. These two mistakes at Fort Donelson led not only to the Confederates losing Fort Donelson but also the capture of 10,000 Confederate troops who surrendered there.

4# the failure to adopt and implement a strategy to keep Vicksburg from being captured by the Federals. The Confederacy failed to establish a unified command structure in the Confederate forces both in Vicksburg and in the vicinity of Vicksburg. The South could have kept Vicksburg, but they did not coordinate with each other. The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. The CSA could have sent troops from the Army of Northern Virginia to attack Rosecrans, to draw Federal troops away from Vicksburg. The Federals took Vicksburg by siege by starving the citizens and the troops into surrendering. The Confederates should have stocked Vicksburg with non-perishable foodstuffs before the siege.

5# the failure to adopt and implement a plan to keep New Orleans from being captured by the Federals

6# the failure to adopt and implement a plan to save Atlanta from being captured

7# Pickett's charge at Gettysburg cost the South 6,000 troops that they desperately needed

8# CSA General Hood decision to make the charge at Franklin cost the South troops it desperately needed for little gain

9# the failure of the South to properly fortify the areas that they desperately needed to protect such as the Selma Ironworks, Chattanooga, Richmond, Savannah, New Orleans, and Richmond. Forts can be a great force multiplier. The SOuth could win the war just by not losing. Also, the South was greatly outnumbered. Fortifying the South would have been an effective strategy.

10# the Confederates mistake of leaving Lee's battle plans so that the Federals found them and knew Lee's plans at Antietam

11# the Confederate's picket lines accidentally shooting General Stonewall Jackson after Chancellorsville

12# The failure to immediately open the cotton trade with Europe, rather than embargo it.

13# Confederate General Polk's decision to violate Kentucky neutrality. If General Polk had not violated Kentucky neutrality, Kentucky would have provided an excellent buffer zone for the Confederacy. Kentucky neutrality would have freed up a lot of Confederate troops to defend other areas.


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The South lost the Civil War in the West. There was a substantial peace movement in the North at certain times in the war even with all these huge CSA mistakes. Imagine how strong the peace movement would have been with northern casualties doubled for far less strategic gains. Imagine how strong the peace movement would have been in the North if the South managed to keep Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Vicksburg. I think that the North would not have been willing to take that other hand out from behind their back if they took much heavier casualties for little or no strategic gains.
 
When this thread started up last week, I thought about responding with a post basically about Confederate emancipation and the possible benefits of freeing enslaved men and arming them as Confederate soldiers. In fact, someone did bring that up in this thread a few days ago, and there's a thread going on right now just on Confederate emancipation.

My idea was what you might call ultra-expansive. I thought about writing it up at the time this thread emerged, but I realized it was late at night and I had had half a beer, so I thought I should wait. In the morning, I engaged in some valuable second-guessing and held off commenting.

I know that the Confederate government, desperate at the end, came up with a scheme in late 1864 to recruit slaves into the army with promises of emancipation. That's always seemed to me way-too-little and way-too-late, and in fact it didn't come to much.

But my late-night epiphany was more like this: What if the Confederate government and the southern oligarchy had recognized, right from the get-go at secession, that things had to change in a big way if they wanted to have their own country. So they put out a message to all military-age enslaved men, basically saying, 'Look here, gentlemen. We're trying to form our own country here, and we're going to have to fight for it. But we recognize that this is really your country, too. If you will join up and fight along with us, we will free you and all your family and friends. We will give you the franchise, we will pay you and outfit you, and we will give you right now the means to make a living. We did you wrong, and now we want to make it up. What do you say?"

I know. Like I said, it was late at night, and my imagination was astir. I'm sure Harry Turtledove would do a much better job at making a real story out of this idea.

Of course, there are all kinds of reasons this would never have worked. Aside from getting a lot of stubborn and heavily-invested people to give up the slavery system, I think there would have been an economic challenge. If you use the rule of thumb in the mid-1860s that one-fifth of the population consisted of men of military age (18-45), that would give you the potential to add 780,000 soldiers, approximately doubling the ranks. But then, I'm pretty sure that that same demographic represents the bulk of farm labor at the time, which would reduce the feasibility of the idea. (Population of the United States in 1860: Introduction. United States Census Bureau.)

All the same, these discussions have gotten my curiosity going, so I've ordered Bruce Levine's book, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War, to learn more about this. While waiting for the book to come, I found an article by Levine outlining some of the background and rationale for his book. In that article, "The Riddles of 'Confederate Emancipation,'" I learned that there were, in fact, those among the Confederates who were suggesting an emancipation solution even as early as 1861:

"In July 1861, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, was exulting over the victory of his troops at the first Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) and calling it a sign of eventual triumph in the war as a whole. One of his brigade commanders, Richard S. Ewell, demurred. The South, he reportedly cautioned his president, was only beginning 'a long, and, at best, doubtful struggle.' However there was one measure that would secure Southern independence, he added. When Davis asked what that might be, Ewell replied, 'Emancipating the slaves and arming them.' In the months and years that followed this exchange, the same suggestion arose repeatedly." (This based on Ewell's account of the conversation told to a friend in 1866.)

I'm sure there are others here who have researched the question of Confederate emancipation much more than I have, so I'd be interested to hear whether there was ever really a serious movement in that direction earlier in the war, and how much traction it might have gotten.

Roy B.
If the Confederacy basically outlawed slavery and became a multi racial democracy then the Confederacy would not be the Confederacy.
Southern states with out going to war could of freed their slaves and instituted equal rights and by keeping their senators in Washington DC still have low tarriff's.
The post ACW history of the American South does not indicate white Southeners were eager to live in a democratic multi racial society.
Leftyhunter
 
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When this thread started up last week, I thought about responding with a post basically about Confederate emancipation and the possible benefits of freeing enslaved men and arming them as Confederate soldiers. In fact, someone did bring that up in this thread a few days ago, and there's a thread going on right now just on Confederate emancipation.

My idea was what you might call ultra-expansive. I thought about writing it up at the time this thread emerged, but I realized it was late at night and I had had half a beer, so I thought I should wait. In the morning, I engaged in some valuable second-guessing and held off commenting.

I know that the Confederate government, desperate at the end, came up with a scheme in late 1864 to recruit slaves into the army with promises of emancipation. That's always seemed to me way-too-little and way-too-late, and in fact it didn't come to much.

But my late-night epiphany was more like this: What if the Confederate government and the southern oligarchy had recognized, right from the get-go at secession, that things had to change in a big way if they wanted to have their own country. So they put out a message to all military-age enslaved men, basically saying, 'Look here, gentlemen. We're trying to form our own country here, and we're going to have to fight for it. But we recognize that this is really your country, too. If you will join up and fight along with us, we will free you and all your family and friends. We will give you the franchise, we will pay you and outfit you, and we will give you right now the means to make a living. We did you wrong, and now we want to make it up. What do you say?"

I know. Like I said, it was late at night, and my imagination was astir. I'm sure Harry Turtledove would do a much better job at making a real story out of this idea.

Of course, there are all kinds of reasons this would never have worked. Aside from getting a lot of stubborn and heavily-invested people to give up the slavery system, I think there would have been an economic challenge. If you use the rule of thumb in the mid-1860s that one-fifth of the population consisted of men of military age (18-45), that would give you the potential to add 780,000 soldiers, approximately doubling the ranks. But then, I'm pretty sure that that same demographic represents the bulk of farm labor at the time, which would reduce the feasibility of the idea. (Population of the United States in 1860: Introduction. United States Census Bureau.)

All the same, these discussions have gotten my curiosity going, so I've ordered Bruce Levine's book, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War, to learn more about this. While waiting for the book to come, I found an article by Levine outlining some of the background and rationale for his book. In that article, "The Riddles of 'Confederate Emancipation,'" I learned that there were, in fact, those among the Confederates who were suggesting an emancipation solution even as early as 1861:

"In July 1861, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, was exulting over the victory of his troops at the first Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) and calling it a sign of eventual triumph in the war as a whole. One of his brigade commanders, Richard S. Ewell, demurred. The South, he reportedly cautioned his president, was only beginning 'a long, and, at best, doubtful struggle.' However there was one measure that would secure Southern independence, he added. When Davis asked what that might be, Ewell replied, 'Emancipating the slaves and arming them.' In the months and years that followed this exchange, the same suggestion arose repeatedly." (This based on Ewell's account of the conversation told to a friend in 1866.)

I'm sure there are others here who have researched the question of Confederate emancipation much more than I have, so I'd be interested to hear whether there was ever really a serious movement in that direction earlier in the war, and how much traction it might have gotten.

Roy B.

Good post I enjoyed reading you bring up some really good points.

However Confederate emancipation was never going to happen when you have ****s in your cabinet and leading your armies.

Furthermore the whole point of the War as far as the Confederacy was concerned was about slavery and a minority of wealthy influential Southerners who made a living via the plantation process or other industries where they had no need to pay their slave workforce.

I see a lot of talk about taxation and the myth that the South payed unjustly more than the North I have never believed this was the reason for the South rebelling and never will.

When you include slavery in you newly formed constitution you know for a fact that's what the war was really about imho.

In the Souths eyes the War was going be short maybe a year if that they never dreamed it would go on for 4 years and were never fully prepared it was a miracle they actually got to 1865.
 
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So if the South had been willing to abandon slavery under that kind of duress, and they thought that kind of duress was necessary, they wouldn't have seceded in the first place.

Yes, this occurred to me also. If you're thinking of emancipating your enslaved workers after secession in 1861, you should ask yourself why you didn't do it sooner and avoid the whole mess. Why not just join the trend already in process in the rest of the U.S. and stop treating other humans as property? (Vested interests, ****, and just inertia, I suppose.)

Roy B.
 
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However Confederate emancipation was never going to happen when you have ****s in your cabinet and leading your armies. Furthermore the whole point of the War as far as the Confederacy was concerned was about slavery and a minority of wealthy influential Southerners who made a living via the plantation process or other industries where they had no need to pay their slave workforce.

Yes, perfectly correct. Basically I was considering this idea of Confederate emancipation as a response to the question, Did the South have a chance to win the Civil War? I do think it's interesting that apparently right from the time of secession there were some in the South who believed that some form of emancipation would increase their chances.

Roy B.
 
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The South held off the North past the 1864 presidential election.
What if McClellan beat Lincoln and became president?
He backed down many times as general, maybe he would have had weak nerve as a president.

Another scenario: If the south had recruited an ally. Britain is the most famous ALMOST ally, but what if diplomacy had changed things, and they received foreign help?

What if the North faced escalation of the wars with Native Americans in the west?

That's three scenarios outside the battlefield. Otherwise, the South did the best they could. They fought as hard as they could, as hard as resources allowed.
 
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The South held off the North past the 1864 presidential election.
What if McClellan beat Lincoln and became president?
He backed down many times as general, maybe he would have had weak nerve as a president.
McClellan's whole idea for how to win the war was to have the largest possible army on the James river threatening Richmond. If anything he'd see the Presidency as an opportunity to prove he was right.


Another scenario: If the south had recruited an ally. Britain is the most famous ALMOST ally, but what if diplomacy had changed things, and they received foreign help?
Foreign help is basically the "I win" button for the CSA,the problem is letting them get it. Trent is the best bet.


What if the North faced escalation of the wars with Native Americans in the west?
Not enough Native Americans to have a significant effect.


That's three scenarios outside the battlefield. Otherwise, the South did the best they could. They fought as hard as they could, as hard as resources allowed.
I can think of a couple of possibilities on the battlefield. The South by no means played a "perfect game".
 
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Voted with my head (not my “heart”) with Foote, despite being a fellow southerner. The patriotic fervor was a set up by the plantation aristocracy..rich man’s war..but poor man’s fight. Looking at the numbers the South was doomed; less soldier capacity, less industrial might, no navy, coupled with too much defensible space. Had much better military leadership initially & as Foote would say more “elan/spirit” but eventually the Confederates couldn’t sustain the losses which were irreplaceable (unlike the Union). Tenacity & incredible courage worn down by sheer numbers. If Lee had accepted the command offered by the North in 1861, coupled with Lincoln’s vision and commitment, the War’s length may have cut in half. Another retrospective...what if?
 
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Had much better military leadership initially & as Foote would say more “elan/spirit” but eventually the Confederates couldn’t sustain the losses which were irreplaceable (unlike the Union).
In the first place, you absolutely can win a war as the industrially weaker and less numerous but militarily more capable power - it's basically most of Prussian history for a start... in the second case the Union's losses were not indefinitely replaceable.
 
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Did the advantages possessed by the US make any difference?
The initial mobilization was going to be based largely on railroads.
In the Atlantic coast states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, the Confederacy had enough of a railroad network to quickly mobilize and militia army and then in a regular army.
But there was nothing like that in the west for the Confederacy. In the west, the railroads of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, along with s. Michigan and s. Wisconsin, poured regiments into w Virginia, and Missouri and massed soldiers along the Ohio River counties of Kentucky.
The five border areas, in about 6 months, passed out of being potentially part of the Confederacy, to be loyalist states.
The resulting geography meant that the Confederates almost never invaded the 15 contiguous paid labor states. General Lee's army made it to the southern counties of PA, for a few weeks. John Morgan's cavalry crossed into Indiana and Ohio, before it was broken up and captured.
Confederate raiders damaged local shipping along the east coast with captured vessels, and that was about it other than some covert operations.
The major cities of border states, Baltimore, Louisville and St. Louis, all passed into the US as undamaged industrial centers. The border states were severely impacted by the Civil War outside of those cities. But the Midwest economy was booming and untouched by war.
The imbalance in resources was enormous.
The Confederacy might have existed for awhile, but they would have existed right next to one the emerging industrial nations, like England, France or Russia, or as Germany and Japan eventually became.
The free line would have moved south, even in slavery in Kentucky would have officially tolerated, it would have been under enormous pressures.
But the US advantage in naval forces made even more difference. Port Royal, Roanoke Island, Fort Henry, Island No. 10, New Orleans, and then Memphis all fell to the US. The navy also supported actions to recover Norfolk and Pensacola.
Thus the Confederate secession from Congress had this severe problem, once they were out of the government the Republicans could spend the entire financial power of the US on naval forces.
As far as tactical victories, the Confederacy achieved more than enough tactical victories. But the victories were almost always muted by US artillery. It wasn't the casualties so much as the inability of the Confederates to effectively shoot back at the artillery. I leave the tally to the tacticians.
Thus there never was a Ulm or an Austerlitz. Instead there was a ghastly series of attritional battles, which certainly shook political opinion in NYC, but the Confederates never got into Washington. It was only 90 miles from Richmond. They didn't have to march across Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut to get there.
The idea that the US soldiers and US leaders, were less committed to their cause than were the Confederates, is why so many people had to die.
But the US had one core army that won at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, assisted at Chattanooga, marched across Georgia, to an occupied coast, and then invaded South Carolina and North Carolina.
The US had California battalions that crossed deserts and pushed the Confederates out of Arizona. It also had mountain battalions from Colorado that restored US control over New Mexico.
 
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It seemed like the courageous land armies of the Confederacy could win the war. Afterall in Virginia they were led by a member of the Virginia aristocracy, who represented the era in which Washington, Jefferson, Mason, Madison and Marshall had constructed the US. If a member of that group, with the military reputation, rank, and personal charisma of General Lee supported the Confederacy, it surely was a legitimate and even Napoleonic adventure.
And what was Grant, a son of a Midwest businessman, or no great wealth, who had left the army, like a lot of West Pointers after they saw promotions stagnate under southern influence as Davis and Lee had such authority in the old army.
But Grant, from Ohio, who completed his West Point studies, drew duty in Missouri, Louisiana and Texas, fought in the US/Mexican war, drew additional postings in NY and Detroit, before shipping out to Panama and making it alive to San Francisco and the Columbia River, before returning to Missouri and the Illinois heart of the Midwest expansion, he represented the new United States. And it was that new US, with its links back to Ireland, England, central and northern Europe, that represented a historical force that could not be tactically defeated.
 
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I think that if the South presses the issue after 1st Manassass and takes an all or nothing shot at Washington DC and is able to capture high level government leaders, there would have been a glimmer of negotiating a peace. But I am doubtful that a decisive military victory could have been achieved in Washington at that time.

The only way the South Wins the long drawn out war that became reality was to obtain foreign support from England. It’s my belief that was part of the South’s master plan all along that didn’t come to fruition.

I question if Pemberton was the right leader for Vicksburg.

Lee’s northern trek after Chancellorsville has been discussed in some circles as an attempt to get Grant to disengage at Vicksburg and come to the battle in the North. Lee was not successful in conveying that urgency to Grant.

During the build up to Gettysburg, confederate cavalry was in the vicinity of DC and a timely strike could have be an impetus for the Union to draw troops back to Washington to protect it.

My 2nd Great Grandfather was in the 59th Tennessee Mounted Infantry and was captured at Vicksburg.

I’ve oft thought that putting the Confederacy Capitol in Richmond was a tactical mistake. It was too easy to keep in check and was in close proximity to DC. Defending Richmond kept Lee in Virginia.
 
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I’ve oft thought that putting the Confederacy Capitol in Richmond was a tactical mistake. It was too easy to keep in check and was in close proximity to DC. Defending Richmond kept Lee in Virginia.
I think the thing is that you need to defend Richmond anyway or you lose Virginia, which is a massive chunk of the CSA's military manpower and their only real scope to threaten DC in turn.

During the build up to Gettysburg, confederate cavalry was in the vicinity of DC and a timely strike could have be an impetus for the Union to draw troops back to Washington to protect it.
I think the more interesting possibility is that Stuart's cavalry takes out the Army of the Potomac's wagon trains - Meade cut away from his supply lines to concentrate faster, but if he loses them he's more or less got to retreat into Washington (itself sort of dicey) and go largely static until they can replace his transport.
 
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The British could have intervened and sponsored an independent Confederacy at any time. But how long and at what cost would the British have to maintain that sponsorship?
At the start of the war, Lord Russell said, for God's sake let us(the British) stay out of it.
Lord Palmerston was an old and experienced leader by 1860, and his enthusiasm for war was probably less then his words implied.
And he famously noted the valor of the two Anglo-Saxon belligerents.
Since the monarch had definite links to Germany, and her late husband had been Duke of a Saxon province, getting involved in preferring one side to another, especially taking the side of the side that was dependent on slavery, was always something that the Queen was unlikely to approve of. It was a controversy that Palmerston could avoid and preserve his government to the end of his days.
Which leads to the question of what Lord Lyons and his consulate officers were writing about the US situation. Although Lyons disliked the Yankees, and thought Washington a disagreeable place, I think he figured out that Seward was full of baloney, and that the US was moving slowly, but steadily to abolition.
The EP may have been seen as an inadequate halfway measure in London, but did buy time. And in that time the practical affect of the advance of the US army into the heart of cotton country was observable.
 
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The real risk to the people of the south was that they would achieve independence on a temporary basis. At the rate the US was industrializing, and as early as normal chain immigration was restored to the US, ca 1863, since the US industrial base and naval power was increasing, no diminishing, the war would certainly been renewed at some point.
Although the Confederates could look to France for international support, the US was developing strong ties with Germany and Prussia. The US would have certainly abolished slavery during a period of separation, as the example of West Virginia demonstrates.
Russia probably would have tolerated Germany helping the US and the British would have been in a sticky situation domestically.
The prospect for a more industrialized war, featuring steel armored ships, telephones, long range artillery and rapid advances in mechanical rifle machines, a WWI on American soil, would make the actual US Civil War look like a picnic.
 
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It was not a matter of where the US was in 1861, it was the rate of growth. By 1880, the US was producing 750,000 tons of steel rails per year.
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See page 22: https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1880a_v2-16.pdf#[0,{%22name%22:%22FitH%22},805]

Had the Confederacy remained out of the US until the transnational railroad had been completed, and most major lines were double tracked with steel rails, the war would have been renewed on terms that would have been disastrous for the Confederacy.
 
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The British could have intervened and sponsored an independent Confederacy at any time. But how long and at what cost would the British have to maintain that sponsorship?
At the start of the war, Lord Russell said, for God's sake let us(the British) stay out of it.
Lord Palmerston was an old and experienced leader by 1860, and his enthusiasm for war was probably less then his words implied.
And he famously noted the valor of the two Anglo-Saxon belligerents.
Since the monarch had definite links to Germany, and her late husband had been Duke of a Saxon province, getting involved in preferring one side to another, especially taking the side of the side that was dependent on slavery, was always something that the Queen was unlikely to approve of. It was a controversy that Palmerston could avoid and preserve his government to the end of his days.
Which leads to the question of what Lord Lyons and his consulate officers were writing about the US situation. Although Lyons disliked the Yankees, and thought Washington a disagreeable place, I think he figured out that Seward was full of baloney, and that the US was moving slowly, but steadily to abolition.
The EP may have been seen as an inadequate halfway measure in London, but did buy time. And in that time the practical affect of the advance of the US army into the heart of cotton country was observable.
I think the problem with this whole post is that you're in several cases imputing motives to people when we have no really strong reason to believe those motives. In particular your bit about Palmerston's enthusiasm for war - the reason I mentioned it was to illustrate that when the possibility of war with the US came up Palmerston didn't shrink from it because Fighting White Men Is Not Done.



The real risk to the people of the south was that they would achieve independence on a temporary basis. At the rate the US was industrializing, and as early as normal chain immigration was restored to the US, ca 1863, since the US industrial base and naval power was increasing, no diminishing, the war would certainly been renewed at some point.

I don't really think this is plausible simply for psychological reasons. Once there is an actual international border then the differences between the US and the CS are going to grow very quickly - for the same reason that the differences between Britain and the US (or even Canada and the US) developed very quickly in the 1780s - and before very long, perhaps within only a few years, the populations of both nations will start to consider the separation just more or less natural. And at that point why would the North want to re-annex the South? Everybody there disagrees with them and they've got most of the black men - and in much of the North, slavery was disliked as much because it competed with free farming as because it was morally considered wrong, while prejudice against free black men was seen and witnessed to a much greater degree than in Britain (for example).

Now, this attitude is likely to change as the North redefines itself as different to the South (in much the same way as the US and Britain redefined themselves from one another) but that instead creates the feeling of "we're different to them, do we want them back?"


Although the Confederates could look to France for international support, the US was developing strong ties with Germany and Prussia. The US would have certainly abolished slavery during a period of separation, as the example of West Virginia demonstrates.
The US developing strong ties with German and Prussia? At this time Germany is mostly a geographical term and while there were a lot of German immigrants to the US their source was in a lot of cases people who left Germany because they'd been on the losing side of the wave of unrest in the 1840s - which the Prussian government was decidedly not on the side of.


Russia probably would have tolerated Germany helping the US and the British would have been in a sticky situation domestically.
Actually I'm not sure that makes much sense. What exactly do Germany and the US have to offer one another?

Germany's main concerns on the European continent are enemy armies and specifically the armies of France and Russia; Britain is a distraction and they don't think Britain's army is worth much of anything, so the most any kind of alignment with the US against Britain could do is draw off a little bit of strength from a non-guaranteed enemy they don't care about anyway. Conversely the main concern the US has if it's aligned against Britain is the British army and fleet, and Germany has no way to draw that off.

Instead, it actually makes rather more sense for the British and the US to align to one another. This is because it means the US now has only one front it needs to care about (to the south) rather than two, it means the British don't have to worry about Canada, and it also means that the US doesn't need to worry about foreign support for the CSA. The shared dislike of slavery (once the Union's realignment in values has taken place as per above) provides an extra point of commonality, and - well, consider how long it took between Prussia ripping huge chunks out of the Austrian-aligned bits of the German Federation in 1864 and the Prussian-focused Germany allying with Austria....
 
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"Instead, it actually makes rather more sense for the British and the US to align to one another. This is because it means the US now has only one front it needs to care about (to the south) rather than two, it means the British don't have to worry about Canada, and it also means that the US doesn't need to worry about foreign support for the CSA. The shared dislike of slavery (once the Union's realignment in values has taken place as per above) provides an extra point of commonality, and - well, consider how long it took between Prussia ripping huge chunks out of the Austrian-aligned bits of the German Federation in 1864 and the Prussian-focused Germany allying with Austria...."
I'll let you make the case for British/US alignment. It was a special project of Grant and Fish, and I believe Disraeli on the British end.
The risk for the Confederacy was that Prussia and France would use the US and the Confederacy for a war by proxy.
Also I think you underestimate the amount of intermingling between Prussian/German officers on the one hand, and the US officers on the other hand. Their mutual dislike of Napoleon III was enough to draw them to each other.
There were a lot of issues to be settled about draft dodging and Germans trying to return to Germany, but nonetheless Grant and Sheridan were clearly in favor of Prussia by 1871.
 
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I don't really think this is plausible simply for psychological reasons. Once there is an actual international border then the differences between the US and the CS are going to grow very quickly - for the same reason that the differences between Britain and the US (or even Canada and the US) developed very quickly in the 1780s - and before very long, perhaps within only a few years, the populations of both nations will start to consider the separation just more or less natural. And at that point why would the North want to re-annex the South? Everybody there disagrees with them and they've got most of the black men - and in much of the North, slavery was disliked as much because it competed with free farming as because it was morally considered wrong, while prejudice against free black men was seen and witnessed to a much greater degree than in Britain (for example).
That's way too rational. I see northern politicians making reputations on ginning up a feeling of grievance and Confederate politicians as not being aware of how vulnerable they were to northern aggression.
The big restraining factor on the US was how cheap the Republicans were on military budgets. There could easily have been a lot of threats, but no one willing to pay the bills.
 
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If the Confederacy exists independently for 15 years, the number of free blacks in the US will probably increase. The white population of the US might have seen this as a threat, but it might have seen them as potential allies. The other problem for the Confederacy would have been the question of whether it could retain its white farmers and white labor.
 
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