Never had a chance.

[wausaubob]

Military men knew how fast artillery was improving as was demonstrated in the naval battles of the Russian/Ottoman war. But ordinary southern men had no idea what explosive shells and armored gunboats could do, until they saw them in action. The ordinary southerner had the excuse, he believed what his leadership people told him. Exactly how those tales became transported into history is hard to explain. Foote had the decency not to embrace those fairy tales.

 

[atlantis]

Keeping southern unionists neutral was critical for confederate victory.

 

[leftyhunter]

There was an excellent chance for success on the part of the confederacy. It all depended on self restraint on patience. The confederates needed to focus on making the best use of interior lines to avoid being out flanked and the best use of field works to offset superior numbers of enemy forces. Conscription cost the confederates victory for it made the generals reckless with men's lives and turned many people against the confederacy.

There was no chance of the Confedracy winning without foreiegn military intervention. The Confedracy enslaved forty percent of it's population and twice during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 the British Army and Marines sucessfully recruited freed slaves to fight very well.
The Confedrate economy was highly dependent on agricultural exports either the Confedracy can with out excuses form a competent navy to defend their ports and trade routes or it can't.
Leftyhunter

 

[19thGeorgia]

CSA battlefield victories were consistently without strategic consequences.

Kept Richmond safe for four years. Enabled invasions of Union territory.

 

[uaskme]

Different ways to Win a War.

McClellan and most Northern Democrats wanted some kind of compromise. McClellan pretty much threatened Lincoln with a coup. Refused to Touch Slavery.

War weariness had Lincoln fearful he would lose the 64 Election. Sherman taking ATL probably saved him. If Lincoln had lost the Election, the War would probably ended.

Yankees could borrow Money and had a Large Population of Unfortunates who they could pay to die in the place of Northern Middle and Upper Classes. They were running out of those or the expense of that escalated to the point where the Federal Government enlisted another population of unfortunates, the Negro. Who the Yankee refused to let fight or emancipate early in the War. This is the Primary Reason the North Won. It kept War Weariness from consuming the Broad Northern Population.

Great Discussion, "Never Had A Chance". So, I guess you are agreeing, The Lost Cause was Real?

 

[Rhea Cole]

Kept Richmond safe for four years. Enabled invasions of Union territory.

Actually, the resources expended on the defense of a few counties in Virginia was exactly the definition of victory without strategic benefit. Lee's army suffered almost 3/4 million casualties defending a patch of territory the size of a finger print on a map of the Confederacy. That is more casualties than the army commanded by Grant that captured two entire armies & major strategic cities that the CSA could not live without.

With one exception, Lee suffered almost the same number of killed & wounded that he inflicted on the A of the P in his victories. In every case, win or loose, the two armies withdrew to their previous positions. The strategic balance was not changed. All of that went out the window when Grant took command.

The March to the Sea had the interdiction of Lee's supply line as one of its major goals. Combined with Sheridan's scorched earth raid & the capture of Wilmington Grant was striking strategic hammer blow after hammer blow.

Fixed in place by the obligation to defend of Richmond, Lee had no choice but to dig in & await the inevitable end.

 

[19thGeorgia]

Actually, the resources expended on the defense of a few counties in Virginia was exactly the definition of victory without strategic benefit. Lee's army suffered almost 3/4 million casualties defending a patch of territory the size of a finger print on a map of the Confederacy. That is more casualties than the army commanded by Grant that captured two entire armies & major strategic cities that the CSA could not live without.

"3/4 million casualties" You do know that's 750,000?

 

[19thGeorgia]

In every case, win or loose, the two armies withdrew to their previous positions. The strategic balance was not changed.

The strategic goal of the Confederates was to hold Richmond. They did so for four years while inflicting devastating defeats on the Union army.

 

[wausaubob]

Wars never come singly. The French and Prussians fought in the Napoleonic era, in 1871, 1914 and 1940. They fought until Germany was vanquished and destroyed.
There is no evidence that even if a period of independence had occurred, that the two nations would have refrained from further armed conflict.
And since war, especially naval war, was becoming increasingly industrialized, the Confederacy would not have been able to keep up with the US in terms of naval power. The Confederacy would have become financially and militarily dependent on some foreign power, probably France. But its doubtful that any foreign power would invest heavily on the outcome of a US v Confederacy war. There was one example, and all the European powers refrained from interference, because they were too concerned with each other.
But the illusion existed in 1860, and hundreds of thousands died and were crippled to try to prove the dream true.
Mr. Foote never patronized the myth. But he also knew that thousands of southerners who had no chance to know the true balance of power in 1860 and they died because they were kept in ignorance.

 

[wausaubob]

Nearly all standard histories of the US Civil War are defective because they don't write about the ongoing revolution in rifled and breach loading artillery and the application of those technologies to naval guns mounted on swivals and turrets.
@Rhea Cole highlighted the navy's struggle to mount heavy guns on shore to wreck Fort Pulaski. The events were the basis for General Lee concluding that it was nearly impossible for the Confederates to resist a determined naval assault. General Lee knew that rifled naval guns by 1861 fired on a flatter trajectory, with a higher velocity and had a higher hit rate. And the improvements never stopped.
By 1872, if a second war had ensued, the US would have mounted heavy breach loading guns on its naval vessels. Since the guns did not have to pivot over the deck to be mechanically loaded, the barrel could be of any length that was required. In that era, a naval vessel could sit 3,000 yards off shore and still destroy an onshore target. The navy would never dismount its big guns in that era, there would be no need to do so.

 

[wausaubob]

Actually, the resources expended on the defense of a few counties in Virginia was exactly the definition of victory without strategic benefit. Lee's army suffered almost 3/4 million casualties defending a patch of territory the size of a finger print on a map of the Confederacy. That is more casualties than the army commanded by Grant that captured two entire armies & major strategic cities that the CSA could not live without.

With one exception, Lee suffered almost the same number of killed & wounded that he inflicted on the A of the P in his victories. In every case, win or loose, the two armies withdrew to their previous positions. The strategic balance was not changed. All of that went out the window when Grant took command.

The March to the Sea had the interdiction of Lee's supply line as one of its major goals. Combined with Sheridan's scorched earth raid & the capture of Wilmington Grant was striking strategic hammer blow after hammer blow.

Fixed in place by the obligation to defend of Richmond, Lee had no choice but to dig in & await the inevitable end.

Correct casualties includes those who died of disease or battle wounds. Men who were crippled were casualties. Men who lost functional strength due to hunger or disease and had to sent away, they were casualties. That still leaves out the people who saw the war and walked away into US occupied territory, or escaped to the far west.

 

[atlantis]

Keeping the capital in Alabama would have had a positive effect on military policy. As for foreign intervention it was not needed what was needed was sound monetary policy either by printing less currency or by simply adopting the greenback.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Correct casualties includes those who died of disease or battle wounds. Men who were crippled were casualties. Men who lost functional strength due to hunger or disease and had to sent away, they were casualties. That still leaves out the people who saw the war and walked away into US occupied territory, or escaped to the far west.

Men who died of battle inflicted injuries in hospital were listed as wounded in the battle reports. As a number of recent books have documented, a remarkable number of CSA soldiers deserted from hospitals. The hospital AWOL's could fall into jurisdictional cracks & just disappear. The situation in North Carolina hospitals caused Lee considerable agitation. It also vexes scholars attempting to rationalize muster rolls & army strengths.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Nearly all standard histories of the US Civil War are defective because they don't write about the ongoing revolution in rifled and breach loading artillery and the application of those technologies to naval guns mounted on swivals and turrets.
@Rhea Cole highlighted the navy's struggle to mount heavy guns on shore to wreck Fort Pulaski. The events were the basis for General Lee concluding that it was nearly impossible for the Confederates to resist a determined naval assault. General Lee knew that rifled naval guns by 1861 fired on a flatter trajectory, with a higher velocity and had a higher hit rate. And the improvements never stopped.
By 1872, if a second war had ensued, the US would have mounted heavy breach loading guns on its naval vessels. Since the guns did not have to pivot over the deck to be mechanically loaded, the barrel could be of any length that was required. In that era, a naval vessel could sit 3,000 yards off shore and still destroy an onshore target. The navy would never dismount its big guns in that era, there would be no need to do so.

Today of the Emerging Civil War forum, a report to RE Lee, who commanded the Atlantic Coast, about the gunboats at FT Donelson by Gen Raines is reproduced. He reported that the flat trajectory of FT Henry's 24 pounders did no harm to the ironclads. He correctly noted that the plunging fire from FT Donelson penetrated the roof of the gunboats. Up to that time, Raines had dismissed the threat posed by ironclads. That misconception was corrected by what he saw at FT Donelson. Gen. Lee had a timely accurate early report on the new threat from ironclads.

 

[19thGeorgia]

Actually, the resources expended on the defense of a few counties in Virginia was exactly the definition of victory without strategic benefit.

You need to re-calibrate your strategic thinking cap. Losing Richmond lays open the rest of Virginia for invasion - and then North and South Carolina would follow. Confederate victories in Virginia prevented the invasion of the interiors of those states for four years. The eventual invasion of the Carolinas (Sherman) was caused by failures in other sectors.

That raises a big what-if...the West had a Lee or Stonewall...

 

[Rhea Cole]

You need to re-calibrate your strategic thinking cap. Losing Richmond lays open the rest of Virginia for invasion - and then North and South Carolina would follow. Confederate victories in Virginia prevented the invasion of the interiors of those states for four years. The eventual invasion of the Carolinas (Sherman) was caused by failures in other sectors.

That raises a big what-if...the West had a Lee or Stonewall...

The professional military thinkers do not follow that logic. During the first months of the war, Lee lost 1/2 of Virginia. Freed from the rock hanging around his neck, Lee's Virginia army could have been a potent, mobile force that would have had many options.

The vast flow of men & material that went to the defense of Richmond would have revolutionized the operations in Tennessee. The supply crisis that crippled the Army of Tennessee was directly attributable to the Atlanta depot being dedicated to supply Lee's army. The distortion of CSA strategic thinking & strain on supplying an army on the extreme Northeastern corner of the CSA territory was a major contributor to the defeat.

I realize the century long Virginia-centric Lee was a god narrative & Gettysburg was the only battle that mattered narrative is hard to look beyond. In a hard eyed military analysis, Lee's strategical fruitless victories damned the CSA to defeat. It could live without a few counties in Virginia, it could not survive the loss of Tennessee, The Mississippi River Valley & Georgia.

This is not some hobby horse of mine, it is the conclusion of trained military thinkers. I agree with them, so the inevitable ad homonym fallacy will be misplaced. Perhaps we can stick to the historical record.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The fall of Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah River is a useful way to think about the Southern existential weakness in 1860. Engineered by RE Lee himself, Fort Pulaski was unassailable when it was built. The CSA garrison could do no more than hide as 30 pdr Parrott bolts battered down the fort's wall. They had no choice but surrender without firing an effective shot. Technology had made every masonry fort in the world obsolete. As events would make plain, all those forts that the nascent CSA was so eager to capture were relics of a bygone age.

Jefferson Davis made a point of saying that he was a rebel, not a revolutionary. The SC hotheads went to war secure in the belief that a lifestyle that a First Century Roman would have recognized as normal was divinely ordained. The industrial might symbolized by the rifle bolts that battered down the wall at FT Pulaski was never a factor in their thinking.
It is very hard to see what is coming if you are always looking backwards.

The Emerging Civil War online forum has a posting today that speaks to this topic. Gen. Raines witnessed the ironclad attacks on Forts Henry & Donelson. The flat trajectory fire of the 24 pounders from Henry did not defeat the armor of the gunboats. The plunging fire of Donelson struck the lightly armored roof & inflicted severe damage. Conventional smoothbore cannon had become obsolete. He reported his findings to Lee, who commanded the Atlantic Coast at that time. Raines had dismissed the threat from ironclad gunboats armed with rifled cannon. What he witnessed at Donelson opened his eyes to an entirely unanticipated threat to his powder works in Augusta GA.

 

[19thGeorgia]

The professional military thinkers do not follow that logic. During the first months of the war, Lee lost 1/2 of Virginia. Freed from the rock hanging around his neck, Lee's Virginia army could have been a potent, mobile force that would have had many options.

The vast flow of men & material that went to the defense of Richmond would have revolutionized the operations in Tennessee. The supply crisis that crippled the Army of Tennessee was directly attributable to the Atlanta depot being dedicated to supply Lee's army. The distortion of CSA strategic thinking & strain on supplying an army on the extreme Northeastern corner of the CSA territory was a major contributor to the defeat.

I don't put a lot of stock in what passes as "thinkers" nowadays. The proof is in the results, but they needed one more Lee to close the deal. The loss of Tennessee and the Mississippi was due to those "brilliant" stars- Pemberton, Polk, Bragg, Hood and the like -and not a supply depot.

 

[Rhea Cole]

I don't put a lot of stock in what passes as "thinkers" nowadays. The proof is in the results, but they needed one more Lee to close the deal. The loss of Tennessee and the Mississippi was due to those "brilliant" stars- Pemberton, Polk, Bragg, Hood and the like -and not a supply depot.

If you don't put stock in what professional military historians & officers publish, well, too bad.

 

[atlantis]

After the seven days campaign Lee should have been relieved of command and the capital relocated to Tuscaloosa where the old Alabama statehouse and governors house were available. All but units from north Carolina and Virginia should have been sent to the army of Tennessee. With the lose of Norfolk naval yard Virginia was nothing more than a buffer zone and Tredegar should have directed to relocate ordinance production deeper south.