When was the war lost?

[damYankee]

I asked this question in another thread and thought it would be a good question for it's own OP.

When did the situation facing the South come to that point when surrender and the salvage of as much of it's national treasure, private property and blood of it's youth outweighed any hopes of defeating the North?

 

[DaveBrt]

If you mean when did the Confederates understand the war was lost, I think there are two answers:
1. Those with open minds knew it when Sherman captured Savannah after his raid through eastern Georgia AND when Fort Fisher was captured and Wilmington rendered essentially useless.
2. If you mean the True Believers, they gave up after Lee (and in some cases Johnston) surrendered.

 

[G Low]

If you mean when did the Confederates understand the war was lost, I think there are two answers:
1. Those with open minds knew it when Sherman captured Savannah after his raid through eastern Georgia AND when Fort Fisher was captured and Wilmington rendered essentially useless.
2. If you mean the True Believers, they gave up after Lee (and in some cases Johnston) surrendered.

Maybe after Vicksburg fell?
Lee surrendered when he realized he could not protect Virginia from being burnt down like Georgia if he continued this fight..

 

[DaveBrt]

Maybe after Vicksburg fell?

I think Longstreet's train ride and the simi-victory of Chickamauga keep hope alive for many people.

 

[G Low]

I think Longstreet's train ride and the simi-victory of Chickamauga keep hope alive for many people.

You are correct, Chickamauga was a glimmer of hope that turned into a Yankee freight train burning its way through Georgia.

 

[JeffBrooks]

When Atlanta fell.

 

[leftyhunter]

I asked this question in another thread and thought it would be a good question for it's own OP.

When did the situation facing the South come to that point when surrender and the salvage of as much of it's national treasure, private property and blood of it's youth outweighed any hopes of defeating the North?

I would argue when the only two major military powers of the mid 19th Century France and the UK said its a hard no on recognition of the Confederacy. The Colonial Rebels didn't win the war against the British by themselves and Davis really hoped for foreign help.
By the time the Confederacy lost New Orleans and the battle of Perryville it was obvious the Confederacy wasn't going to win the war.
Yes a few other nations had small blue water navies such has Spain, the Netherlands and Russia but neither of these countries bad any interest in getting involved in the ACW.
Leftyhunter

 

[JackADriscoll]

I bet there was also a big regional component too

 

[Bruce Vail]

The night when Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as president. Lincoln had demonstrated over three years his willingness to do anything within his power to subdue the Confederacy, so the South's only hope was that he would be defeated by McClellan at the polls. The election of McClellan was the Confederacy's last hope that some kind of compromise deal could be reached.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Mary Chestnut, who was in position to know a thing or two, said that members of the elite society in which she mixed began shifting their assets in 1863. Children were sent through the lines to live in New York or Europe. Really savvy individuals got their cotton out via New Orleans. Adilecia Atkins of Nashville entrusted her cotton to Baron von Rothschild. He converted it into gold that he held for her until the war was over. In the late 1860's she was the richest woman in America.

Patrick Cleburne said that the slave population that had not run off were only waiting for the inevitable CSA defeat to gain their freedom. Likewise, Jefferson Davis stated that 3/4ths of the Confederate army was AWOL.

On July 4th 1863 the Army of the Cumberland completed the Tullahoma Campaign having driven the Army of Tennessee out of that state. Pemberton surrendered to Grant. Lee ordered what was left of his army to retreat hundreds of miles back to its base. In short order, a significant percentage of the enslaved people self-liberated.

It was obvious to high & low that the jig was up.

 

[G Low]

I bet there was also a big regional component too

Like in your house being burned down?

 

[Georgia Sixth]

I would argue when the only two major military powers of the mid 19th Century France and the UK said its a hard no on recognition of the Confederacy. The Colonial Rebels didn't win the war against the British by themselves and Davis really hoped for foreign help.
By the time the Confederacy lost New Orleans and the battle of Perryville it was obvious the Confederacy wasn't going to win the war.
Yes a few other nations had small blue water navies such has Spain, the Netherlands and Russia but neither of these countries bad any interest in getting involved in the ACW.
Leftyhunter

Complete agreement, Lefty. In order to actually defeat the North, the South had to have water borne weapons. The fall of New Orleans was devastating; it was the only port that was close enough to a European presence (Mexico) where the blockade could be ended and supplies could flow in. The second loss, at least as important as New Orleans, was Johnston's evacuation of Norfolk and the resulting scuttling of what warships the CSA had plus the loss of the shipbuilding and repair operations there. After this, the South could only hope to outlast the the North's will and popular support, which would be a win but not by actually defeating their opponent. It was never going to happen without those two ports.

 

[RedRover]

When did the situation facing the South come to that point when surrender and the salvage of as much of it's national treasure, private property and blood of it's youth outweighed any hopes of defeating the North?

"Any hopes?" Many stated later they could see the end coming at various points from 1861 on, but there was always some hope among large numbers. Until Appomattox, April 9, 1865. It seems to have been the point at which surrender was the only means of salvaging something in the eyes of the general public and the soldiers combined...

An artillery officer at Appomattox suggested Lee saw the situation the same way... paraphrasing the General's conversation like so...

 

[leftyhunter]

The night when Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as president. Lincoln had demonstrated over three years his willingness to do anything within his power to subdue the Confederacy, so the South's only hope was that he would be defeated by McClellan at the polls. The election of McClellan was the Confederacy's last hope that some kind of compromise deal could be reached.

McCellan never agreed to an independent Confederate nation and made that very explicit when he accepted the Democratic nomination for president. McCellan would of been inaugurated in March 1865 so far to late for the Confederacy to win the war. In a conventional war the smaller side needs to win quickly because time is not in their side.
Leftyhunter

 

[major bill]

To me the War was ending starting in June to July of 1864. June 14 Grant crosses the James River and locks the Army of Northern Virginia around Richmond. After Hood takes over he fails at the July 20 Battle of Peachtree Creek. This locks the Confederate army in Atlanta and it is probably only time until it falls.

 

[atlantis]

The president stating in public 2/3 of the army is awol could not have buoyed hopes for victory.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

It's an interesting question pitched when couched in those terms and one needs to remove the extremist views held ('die-hards' and 'eternal defeatists') considering any shifting Southern attitudes in the CW.

Thought it would be relatively late in the war, say by late '64, when the costs of conflict (destruction, deprivations and losses) were directly experienced by extensive areas of the Southern populace and the war really hit home. By this time, Sherman was practising his 'scorched earth' policy across the deep South in his 'march to the sea', and Sheridan had already destroyed the agricultural resources in the Shenandoah Valley while Lee's army was bogged down in a siege stalemate at Petersburg. In this same period, the South's two main fighting forces, the AoNV and the AoT, had suffered substantial losses of irredeemable manpower and were worn down by attrition. Additionally, the Confederacy's two remaining eastern seaports of Charleston and Wilmington, as sources of foreign supplies through blockade running for Confederate armies in the field were being strangled, and near capitulation.

Certainly by the start of '65, it's difficult to see in this dire situation how the vast general Southern civilian population (except for a tiny few dogmatic and stubborn politicians and military leaders) could have had any serious belief/hope of defeating the North or had any reason (or desire) to continue their suffering by prolonging the struggle.

(Perhaps a useful indicative exercise might be to examine a cross-section of Southern newspapers through the chronological period of the war and determine whether and when any of the bold headlines/captions viewed noticeably began to wane in hawkishness text/tones).

 

[JackADriscoll]

I see this question as micro and macro. Micro as my man g low said when they burnt your house down well... There it is. Macro has to be when New Orleans fell.

 

[atlantis]

Lee, Bragg, Hood contributed a great deal to the decline in faith in victory with their costly and unsuccessful assaults.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Thought 'out of sight, out of mind' applied here. It was only when the war became experienced at homes, that extensive public attitudes really significantly shifted.