Path to victory

[atlantis]

Was taking the fight to northern territory the only path to victory for the confederacy?

 

[OpnCoronet]

Was taking the fight to northern territory the only path to victory for the confederacy?

There are always options, somne good, some bad, some indifferent and there be no good options at all.

I think military text books would say it would depend upon many variable, including means.

There is much to commend keeping your opponent fighting in his own territory rather than your own, If you can maintain your position for a sufficient time.

I have always been of the opinion that the advantages in almost all the aspects required for fighting a nation wide war of all out conquest , requiring mass armies and an overwhelming technical and industrial base for success and I cannot see that the confederacy had any of the advantages sufficient in those areas normally accepted as bein required for success, i.e., Potential and real the Union had nearly all the required advantages to win the war, not only by just a little, but overwhelmingly.

P..S. There is of course, Luck or it companion an Act of God, both of which I sometimes tend to think was the plan of most Confederates at the time, including unfortunately , their government.

 

[danny]

It is just about their only choice when the enemy has destroyed so much of what maintains an army in the field.

 

[leftyhunter]

Was taking the fight to northern territory the only path to victory for the confederacy?

At a minimum the Confederate military had to at least keep Union troops out of its territory and maintain protected maritime trade lanes to European colonial ports in Mexico and the Caribbean. Of course that was a bridge to far.
Leftyhunter

 

[major bill]

Was taking the fight to northern territory the only path to victory for the confederacy?

When the Confedery took the fight to Union territory it did not often work out well. Not in the East and not in the far west.

 

[leftyhunter]

When the Confedery took the fight to Union territory it did not often work out well. Not in the East and not in the far west.

That's called loosing because the Confederacy lost territory as early as 1861 in West Virginia. An army that can't win the offensive is called the army that lost.
Leftyhunter

 

[atlantis]

A Napoleonic solution of destroying the northern army was not realistic but capturing supply depots, cutting rail and telegraphic lines to isolate cities does seem doable.
When were defensive works around Washington completed?

 

[rpkennedy]

The only realistic victory for the Confederacy was to break the Union's will to continue to fight. Taking the fight to Northern territory and winning decisively there was the most expedient way to achieve that goal. Unfortunately for the Southern armies, going into the North was never a winning bet.

Ryan

 

[major bill]

The only realistic victory for the Confederacy was to break the Union's will to continue to fight. Taking the fight to Northern territory and winning decisively there was the most expedient way to achieve that goal. Unfortunately for the Southern armies, going into the North was never a winning bet.

Ryan

A second path would be for European intervention. The problem with both is the Confederacy could not too greatly impact when the Union will to fight would collapse or when Europe might see fit to intervene.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Step one is to define what a Southern victory would have been. Going into the Industrial Revolution with a government dedicated to the God given right to hold other human beings as property was a formula for abject poverty followed by a murderous revolt.

 

[leftyhunter]

A Napoleonic solution of destroying the northern army was not realistic but capturing supply depots, cutting rail and telegraphic lines to isolate cities does seem doable.
When were defensive works around Washington completed?

Not really. Railroads are surprisingly resilient even in modern warfare .The Confederacy used quite a bit of deep cavalry raids but the Union could shrug them off and do some of their own. Telegraph lines can also be quickly repaired. The way to win a conventional war is to seize and hold enemy territory not some half measure.
Leftyhunter

 

[major bill]

I took three economics class in college. While a couple discussed slave based labor systems, none predicted how slave based labor system in the 20th and 21st Centuries would work. Slave based labor systems were seen as obsolete by the start of the 20th Century. This leaves me with a lack of knowledge of how slave based labor systems would have function the the 20th and 21st Century. I predict that by the 21at Century, many nations using labor bested economic systems would have sanctioned nations who relied on slave based labor systems. To be blunt, slave labor based products in 1960 would not sell well in free labor nations. Then again I might be mistaken and products from slave labor systems may well have be acceptable well into the 21st Century and beyond. Who knows?

 

[Old Soldier]

Before Gettysburg, 85 miles to the North of the capital, Lee was ready to 'turn right' and descend on Washington in his second attempt. The major problem was lack of supplies, hence Gettysburg. IF he had, and captured Lincoln and the seat of government ... (one of the great 'what ifs'!'') It is noticeable how little territory was gained by the North Forces (AoP). The great landgrabber for the Union was from the West and Sherman's March to the Sea splitting the Confederacy in two.

In answer to the question - the best form of defense is attack.
Who said that? Sun Tzu's 'Art of war' ( "Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack"(5th century BC), as well as Carl von Clausewitz's 'Vom Kriege' (About War) ("The best form of defense is attack; Every means of defense leads to a means of attack.." (1833).

 

[Pat Answer]

I took three economics class in college. While a couple discussed slave based labor systems, none predicted how slave based labor system in the 20th and 21st Centuries would work. Slave based labor systems were seen as obsolete by the start of the 20th Century. This leaves me with a lack of knowledge of how slave based labor systems would have function the the 20th and 21st Century. I predict that by the 21at Century, many nations using labor bested economic systems would have sanctioned nations who relied on slave based labor systems. To be blunt, slave labor based products in 1960 would not sell well in free labor nations. Then again I might be mistaken and products from slave labor systems may well have be acceptable well into the 21st Century and beyond. Who knows?

(Side note: Unfortunately, it seems "forced labor" is still involved, though hidden to various degrees, in the production of many of our modern commodities…)

 

[Rhea Cole]

In June 1863 the Armies of Northern Virginia & the Army of the Cumberland advanced into enemy territory.

The armies had (+/-) the same strength of infantry, artillery & cavalry. The support element of Lee's army was effectively nonexistent. The 240,000 man Department of the Cumberland supported the army with all important equine rations, remounts & evacuation / replacement of motive animals, rations, medical / casualty evacuation, rail road construction engineering / bridge building / steamboat construction, pontoon bridging & logistical support to the army group that captured & held strategic Chattanooga & the Sequachie Valley.

Southern independence was a military impossibility. Only the grossest incompetence imaginable by Union political & military leaders could have created conditions leading to a successful secession.

To put it in period terms, Lincoln would had to have been the ape-like incompetent as he was depicted. The U.S. volunteers would have had to be the untermensch & Southern manhood the ubermensch that predicated the secessionist narrative. "African blood" had to have been ordained by God as a race fit only for servitude. These were false premises.

False premises lead to false conclusions. The 19th Century racist twaddle that permeated Southern society & decision making fore doomed secession. There is no definition of victory that encompasses perpetuation of a society built on such corrupt sand into the 20th Century.

 

[leftyhunter]

I took three economics class in college. While a couple discussed slave based labor systems, none predicted how slave based labor system in the 20th and 21st Centuries would work. Slave based labor systems were seen as obsolete by the start of the 20th Century. This leaves me with a lack of knowledge of how slave based labor systems would have function the the 20th and 21st Century. I predict that by the 21at Century, many nations using labor bested economic systems would have sanctioned nations who relied on slave based labor systems. To be blunt, slave labor based products in 1960 would not sell well in free labor nations. Then again I might be mistaken and products from slave labor systems may well have be acceptable well into the 21st Century and beyond. Who knows?

Actually we do know because slavery never ended in the world and until at least the 1940s the American South has quasi slavery known as convict leasing.
Leftyhunter

 

[damYankee]

Any form of victory would have to happen early in the conflict before the Union had time to assemble a large force with the logistical ability to carry out operations in the Deep South.
IMO, that would require taking DC and the president along with as many senators, congressmen and members of the supreme court as possible.

 

[Rhea Cole]

In June 1863 the Armies of Northern Virginia & the Army of the Cumberland advanced into enemy territory.

The armies had (+/-) the same strength of infantry, artillery & cavalry. The support element of Lee's army was effectively nonexistent. The 240,000 man Department of the Cumberland supported the army with all important equine rations, remounts & evacuation / replacement of motive animals, rations, medical / casualty evacuation, rail road construction engineering / bridge building / steamboat construction, pontoon bridging & logistical support to the army group that captured & held strategic Chattanooga & the Sequachie Valley.

Southern independence was a military impossibility. Only the grossest incompetence imaginable by Union political & military leaders could have created conditions leading to a successful secession.

To put it in period terms, Lincoln would had to have been the ape-like incompetent as he was depicted. The U.S. volunteers would have had to be the untermensch

 

[CowCavalry]

I took three economics class in college. While a couple discussed slave based labor systems, none predicted how slave based labor system in the 20th and 21st Centuries would work. Slave based labor systems were seen as obsolete by the start of the 20th Century.

Being as it was replaced by the share crop system that lasted well into the 1950's, I find this, unfortunately, hard to believe.

 

[damYankee]

Southern independence was a military impossibility. Only the grossest incompetence imaginable by Union political & military leaders could have created conditions leading to a successful secession.

There was plenty of gross incompetence to go around, but it wasn't isolated to Union political and military leaders.
Davis's economic policies doomed any possibility of financing a war. He singlehandedly sabotaged foreign relations with European nations with his 1861 cotton embargo, Davis believed that by cutting off cotton supplies he could compel European nations to support the Confederacy militarily and politically.
That has to be the dumbest idea anyone could have proposed. At a time when your fledgling "nation" is facing war with a force that is three times your size and has the economic might that the Union possessed, threatening the only trade partners you have is economically suicidal.
So I agree, gross incompetence played a major role.