Never had a chance.

[lurid]

I like to look at war strategy from my own experience and from a technical side before judging things from the textbook definition. The Confederates had a good chance of winning or could have lasted long enough to cause a armistice because they were dug in(fortified) in an era where artillery was suspect and before aviation and bombs. Some of you just don't seem to grasp the importance of those aforementioned advantages and disadvantages that give an army when it is on the offensive or defensive ground war.

The Confederates had the advantage in that era: fortified, knew the terrain and had a spy network tracking the Union's movements. Those advantages alone should have enabled the Confederates to last longer than 4 years. Honestly, I feel the Confederates underperformed, and that's why they folded in four years. From a contemporary viewpoint, there have been armies with same technology and less resources in the 20th century as the Confederates in the 19th century and were bombed into almost oblivion and still lasted way longer than the Confederates. However, I do think Sherman had the right strategy where to bring the war to, and I do think McClellan had the right strategy in the east to hold and wait and fight when he felt like it, and wait for Sherman or someone else to come from the rear and put the squeeze on Lee. Nevertheless, I don't believe for a second that the Confederates never had a chance, they had the advantages and the military prowess in a era that they could of easily brought it to at least an armistice. Just my opinion.

 

[lurid]

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.

Negative on another Lee, he was best at defending fortified positions, and the Confederates needed another raider in the east to disrupt logistics and supply lines, which preferably another Forest was needed. But that doesn't mean the Confederates would have won. With all his shenanigans Forest failed to bog down the Union from cutting off the Mississippi. I think he would have been more valuable to stretch out the war to cause an armistice. Another Lee and the Confederate army would have been wasted in no time. Lee should have stayed in the US army and defended Washington D.C...

 

[Rhea Cole]

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.

What you say is logical. The lack of a rational strategic plan hampered the CSA decision making from the start. Davis had on insoluble challenge. Rationally, the weaker power should trade territory for tactical & strategic advantage. He could not do that because when CSA lost control of an area the local slaves ran off. That is why CSA forces were splintered into pieces defending territory & controlling the local slaves. At the very start of the war, Davis worried that the South did not have the military age population to both fight the war & control the servile population. He was right.

 

[atlantis]

What you say is logical. The lack of a rational strategic plan hampered the CSA decision making from the start. Davis had on insoluble challenge. Rationally, the weaker power should trade territory for tactical & strategic advantage. He could not do that because when CSA lost control of an area the local slaves ran off. That is why CSA forces were splintered into pieces defending territory & controlling the local slaves. At the very start of the war, Davis worried that the South did not have the military age population to both fight the war & control the servile population. He was right.

Yet he allowed the bombardment of Sumter. Davis was not lacking for intellect, he and others should have stopped the folly of secession.

 

[wausaubob]

Perhaps they didn't.

Most all revolutionary efforts face long odds, many do fail. All that is required isn't a guarantee of success, but simply a conviction it's worth risking dying for.

In reality in 1776, if one had impartially stepped back and gave odds for 13 upstart colonies against the greatest colonial empire, they would have looked probably equally as bleak.

I thought this was a powerful comment. In 1861 it was very difficult to see how the telegraph was going to make it so much easier for the US to organize the far west and control the far west. The telegraph was a powerful empire creating instrument and it had never been fully used for that purpose. The advantage existed, and it affected nation building in Europe from 1861 onward, but the effect would not have been visible at the time.
The great age of sailing ships was ending. The age of modern naval gunnery began in 1853 in a battle between the Russians and the Ottomans. This age lasted until the age of naval aviation. A few people knew that wooden ships were becoming obsolete and the power of ship board guns was becoming equal or even more powerful than shore based guns. Again the advantage existed, but few people could detect how that would play out.
More consistent with with Foote's observation, both the internal and international immigrants tended to be Republicans or free soil Democrats. The reasons are complex, but most of the far west viewed the potential Confederacy with skepticism. That was going to make it very hard for the Confederacy to maintain itself relative to an aggressive and expansionist US, even if it could achieve a period of independence.
That's not to say the US Civil War which lasted four years was the only possible outcome or even the most likely outcome.
The personality of Jefferson Davis probably had a lot to do with eliminating any ongoing negotiation. The personal drive of President Lincoln, to eliminate slavery all at once, rather than the US eliminating slavery in smaller less revolutionary pieces affected the total victory outcome of real events.
As war, especially war logistics, became more industrialized, the advantages of the US over the more traditional society in the potential Confederacy, were only going to grow. Sooner rather than later, the robber baron type people were going to gain power in the US and their nationalist agenda was going to be used to justify conquering the Confederacy. The Confederate states were probably lucky that it happened before dynamite and long range naval guns, and much faster and more powerful railroads were available to the US.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Yet he allowed the bombardment of Sumter. Davis was not lacking for intellect, he and others should have stopped the folly of secession.

I have never really understood Davis. He really wanted to be Albert Sydney Johnston & command an army in the field. Unlike Lincoln, he seemed to be impervious to learning from experience. Personally, he was a very decent man. I often wonder if being a slave-holder had not ripped an irreparable hole in his psyche.

 

[wausaubob]

I have never really understood Davis. He really wanted to be Albert Sydney Johnston & command an army in the field. Unlike Lincoln, he seemed to be impervious to learning from experience. Personally, he was a very decent man. I often wonder if being a slave-holder had not ripped an irreparable hole in his psyche.

Slavery in Mississippi was particularly barbaric. The need to justify it had to affect his ability to adjust to reality.

 

[19thGeorgia]

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

...so you're a fan of Bragg. OK.

 

[unionblue]

...so you're a fan of Bragg. OK.

And that is an answer, how?

 

[wausaubob]

The truth was that the modern elements had already invaded the southern areas. It was already a telegraph nation, and had some long lasting and well engineered railroads. The potential Confederacy just was not up to the level of the US or Great Britain. The labor system, of landed aristocrats with strings of horses utilizing unfree labor was still in place. And the Confederate leadership was still able to form mass armies from the poor white population, but the Confederacy was already a modernizing state in which the political power of the corporate farmers was under pressure.
Its not a coincidence that within 11 years of the end of the US Civil War Bell was developing an American version of voice transmission.
Its not a coincidence that within four years of the end of the war, the US completed the transcontinental railroad. Automatic couplers, air breaks, dynamite and steel rails were coming within a few years of 1865.
By 1880 the US would have not just defeated a potential Confederacy, they probably would have obliterated it and truly recolonized it.
If someone like Napoleon had been building a telegraph line and a series of railroad depots back to the Austrian border, its doubtful the Russians could have fended him off, unless they could organize with the same tools. The contrast between the problems faced by the French in trying to invade Russia in 1814, and the solutions available to Grant and Sherman to invade the south in 1864 are striking.
And the Confederacy was incredibly vulnerable to naval power. Nearly every major city was on the coast or adjacent to a navigable river.
That was the problem that the late Mr. Foote was talking about. Modernization was invading every aspect of US, and the process was accelerated by the amount of work compressed into four years. War sort out what works and who works very quickly.
We like to write about Grant and Lee, Thomas and Longstreet, but the US had systems managers like Daniel McCallum and Andrew Carnegie. It had people like Isherwood, a trained engineer familiar with the French literature, and practical engineers like Eads.
The Confederates had some good people, just not enough them. The US railroads companies and their vendors were bigger and could pay more. They could hire the best talent from all over the country and even from Europe.

 

[wausaubob]

I appreciate everyone's participation and the civility demonstrated. We may disagree with our friends who are Confederate advocates, but they are still our countrymen/women and our friends.

 

[Rhea Cole]

...so you're a fan of Bragg. OK.

Thanks for the good laugh, the straw man fallacy was predicted.

 

[atlantis]

The state gov'ts in the confederacy could have helped the war effort by making it 1 easier to free slaves 2 allowing freed slaves to stay in the state. This would have helped stabilize the labor supply. The loss of labor was a serious blow to the confederate economy and war effort therefore making it easier for slave owners to switch to wage labor would have been a cost effective measure on the part of the states. Tax revenue on slave property was going to be lost but stabilizing the labor supply and maintaining law and order were higher priorities .

 

[Rhea Cole]

The state gov'ts in the confederacy could have helped the war effort by making it 1 easier to free slaves 2 allowing freed slaves to stay in the state. This would have helped stabilize the labor supply. The loss of labor was a serious blow to the confederate economy and war effort therefore making it easier for slave owners to switch to wage labor would have been a cost effective measure on the part of the states. Tax revenue on slave property was going to be lost but stabilizing the labor supply and maintaining law and order were higher priorities .

There was no point in seceding in order to pursue a policy of emancipation. You would have been in danger of your life had you make this assertion in South Carolina... literally.

 

[Pete Longstreet]

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.

This may be true. The men and material could have changed the course of the war in the west, and thus gave the Army of Tennessee a greater chance for victory. But there was still one major problem... Bragg. Davis failed those men by not recognizing the serious leadership problem which infected his western army.

There seams to be numerous arguments on Lee in Virginia. He appeared to be concerned with the welfare of Virginia over that of the Confederacy. Some blame Lee for not seeing the "bigger picture". Others praise him for protecting Richmond in the way he did and for as long as he did. In regards to the Petersburg campaign, Shelby Foote said Richmond survived as long as it did because of the "genius of Robert E. Lee."

 

[leftyhunter]

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

That's not winning. The only thing that counts in a fight is winning.
Leftyhunter

 

[wausaubob]

As I refresh my reading of Foote, his narrative for the period after the fall of Atlanta is consistent with his views expressed in the Burns documentary.
After September 1864, the modern world was advancing on the Confederates with overwhelming strength. The Confederate leadership was retreating into resignation and magical thinking.
The bulk of the Confederacy was surrounded by the Atlantic coast, the Gulf coast and the Mississippi. Unlike Russia trying to fend off Napoleon, the Confederates had no real chance to trade space for time. And unlike the Russians, who had support from the British and the British navy, the Confederates had no friends willing to provide naval power.

 

[wausaubob]

That's not winning. The only thing that counts in a fight is winning.
Leftyhunter

Right. The five Atlantic states and Alabama could have held out for some time. The US could have decided to consolidate the west first and then turn to the Confederacy.
But railroad engineering and communication based on electricity were advancing so fast, that the war would have been renewed on disastrous terms for the Confederacy.

 

[lurid]

That's not winning. The only thing that counts in a fight is winning.
Leftyhunter

Correct, but some of our friends on here think losing is admirable.

 

[lurid]

Right. The five Atlantic states and Alabama could have held out for some time. The US could have decided to consolidate the west first and then turn to the Confederacy.
But railroad engineering and communication based on electricity were advancing so fast, that the war would have been renewed on disastrous terms for the Confederacy.

When was dynamite invented? I think it was a little after the CW? If the Union had dynamite that war would have been so bad for the Confederates? Blow those fortifications, then Katy bar the door.