"Why the South Lost the Civil War" Topic

"The war was lost by the Confederates in the West and won by the Federals in the West. I don't see how you could even question that. In the crucial theater of the war, the Confederacy did not have a competent commanding general."

The above quote by Richard McMurry, to me sums up the reason the South lost IMHO

Thanks for the link.

Some interesting write-ups. Thanks for sharing.

How about weak political leadership ? No focus at the
top, as there was in the Lincoln administration.

And all the economic reasons, of course.

I like William C Davis's take on it

The tombstone of the Confederacy is engraved with the words "Died of Democracy".

You may cite this or that issue, this or that theory, this or that battle, but in the end, it all comes down to that one thing: 13 individual states unable and/or unwilling to invest in a central government the power to do those things which the individual states themselves either could not, or would not, do.

Well, when you secede from Union because you want a really weak central government…

Why do we always ask how the south lost but never how the north won it?

But it was a couple of Ohioans Who came up with a machine to take to the air.

"The South" didn't lose -- the Confederacy did, though.

"I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."

Damned Yankees, we LET you win.
And what do you mean there were no competent Confederate generals in the West. What about Bragg? Oh, wait….nevermind. I thought that you said incompetent.

They are all wrong. :-)

At 4-1 in man power it was always the North's war to win or lose. The North did not lose. They did not get beaten bad enough to quit. So, eventually the south would lose.

There is a book entitled Why the North Won by the same authors of Why the South Lost.

The south won some battles but not the ones that controlled the movement of the war. They could not keep the northern forces out.

The real surprise is not that the south lost, it is that it took so long. If the south had lost the first battle of Bull Run it would have all been over right then, and it was not a stretch of the imagination for that result to occur.

I could see in the end -- each southern state beginning their own individual "wars of succession" and then after that they would start all over again with the counties.
"the turning point of the American civil war was the firing on fort Sumter"

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Scarlett: But you are a blockade runner.
Rhett Butler: For profit, and profit only.
Scarlett: Are you tryin' to tell me you don't believe in the cause?
Rhett Butler: I believe in Rhett Butler, he's the only cause I know.

Humbly suggest that today marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of this argument.

Back in the old days, the veterans would get together and discuss the issue.

One Southerner is reputed to have dismissed all his opponents arguments, until his opponent finally said, "Well, did beat you."
"Nope, we just wore ourselves out whuppin' you."

Another, more thoughtful Southern officer is reported to have said, "We'd have won if we'd had your songs."

Grelber

In addition to the comments above, the Union won because they had:
-a huge advantage in manpower,
-blockaded the South, and
-overwhelming manufacturing and economic superiority.

In 61 & 62 high casualties bled the South of many of their best soldiers and officers. At the same time, improved training in the north along with the most capable officers working their way up the ranks meant that by 1863, the advantages in skill and leadership that the south enjoyed earlier in the war had pretty much evaporated.

There was a book that listed five reasons the south lost but the best reason of the lot was that Jefferson Davis was president of the south and Abraham Lincoln was president of the north. Abraham Lincoln knew he wasn't a general and tried different commanders till he found the ones that could win. Jefferson Davis having graduated from West Point was too close to the officers and made judgement based on friendship / antagonisms.

Cause they didnt succeed in 1850.

Delusions of Grandeur.

I've often speculated what the earlier threat of secession
(New England states) might have brought had the states
involved actually left (or tried to leave) the Union.

Too small, too little industry.
-Kle.

I prefer the opinion of General Pickett who, years after the war was asked by one woman at a ball he was attending this question.

His answer was "I rather think the Yankees had something to do with it."

Leave it at that.

The South fought hard. The North fought hard. Maybe they were overmatched. Maybe they didn't want to win. We can never know.

Honor and praise the brave men who died in good causes or bad.

Let us leave it at that and bind up the wounds of the country and not seek to pick at the scars and open them again.

In one of my Grad courses we looked at the role of Nationalism. One main factor being that the Confederacy never created a sense of nationalism that would carry them through a hard war. Secessionists had tried to push the myth that the North and South were two different people thus the need for independence. But this idea could not be sustained during the war.

Three words……Stonewall Jackson Died!

or…

George H. Thomas existed!

I thought it was the old northern saying:

"We have the Irish and they have not".

The south gave up. Plenty of wars even within that period where other countries or societies fought longer, suffered worse casualties by far, etc.

The percentage of deserters in the last year or two of the war tell the story.

Fans of the Confederacy don't like to admit it, but the population had decided that they no longer thought the war was worth fighting. The Union controlled very little of the south in terms of territory at the end, but the folks in the south had decided that they wanted the war to end.

It was not just that the North was willing to continue fighting, the south had decided that it would not.

Dan

What Dan said.

Dan,

Exactly the point I was making. They did not create a nationalism that kept them fighting and resisting. They gave up.

In many ways the South lost the War but won the peace.

Also to add onto what Dan has said a lot of white southerners fought for the Union, looking at my copy of Fox's "Regimental Losses in the Civil War" he gives the number at 54,137. With an additional 99,337 black southerners fighting for the Union.

It's a D20 roll, higher score wins. The North managed to get more modifiers, each small but they added up.

Southern writers of the time always seemed amazed that 1) the North would fight to prevent them leaving and that 2) that the North would be willing to pay the price (that the south was not willing to pay) to win.

It was not just that the south was beat into submission, but rather an disinclination by the majority of southerns to pay the price for the original reason for starting the war: slavery. Once enough poor and lower class whites figured out that there was no gain in fighting, they voted with their feet and the war was over.

The Confederacy died not with a bang, but with a drawn out whimper.

Only later did the myth grow that hid the reality and shame felt by some. It is easier to blame being outnumbered or out produced, rather than to accept that fighting for a bad reason is stupid. Once folks started to realize how little they had to gain by "winning" the war and at what a price, common sense forced the majority of the population to decide to stop fighting.

The Union never landed a knock out punch. The southern forces never ran out of weapons or ammo, even if extremely poor logistics caused food shortages for the armies. It was the rapidly thinning ranks that slapped the military leaders to face reality. When no one is willing to put their lives on the line for a cause, the cause no longer exists to fight.

100,000 plus white southerns fought for the Union, but that is quietly not talked about either (the Boers in SA have the same issue when discussing the Boer War).

Dan

> that the North would be willing to pay the price (that the south was not willing to pay) to win.

Just how much more of a beating did the south have to take in order to be considered "willing to pay the price". The south did not lose due to lack of will.

Well said Dan.

Amen Dan, nailed it!

The percentage of deserters in the last year or two of the war tell the story.

Interesting you bring that up Dan. The south had higher desertion rates than the North in every year of the war except 1861. It wasn't because they lost interest. It was more of a "Well. We whooped them good. Lets go home and live our lives" attitude. Later in the war, as you point out, moral was low. They were just giving up and going home.

I read in the past that if you were a soldier in a blue jacket you had a 1/16 chance of dying by some cause.

If you were in a gray jacket that number jumps to 1/4. I'm not sure that with a 25 percent death rate that not wanting to fight for the "cause" was the only reason Southern armies ran out of men.

The percentage of deserters in the last year or two of the war tell the story.

Interesting you bring that up Dan. The south had higher desertion rates than the North in every year of the war except 1861. It wasn't because they lost interest. It was more of a "Well. We whooped them good. Lets go home and live our lives" attitude. Later in the war, as you point out, moral was low. They were just giving up and going home.

Instituting the draft in 1862 probably had something to do with that.

Yep, the irony of the Confederacy instituting a national draft in 1862 to keep their armies from withering on the vine (e.g. Jackson was worried that the vaunted Valley Army would cease to be an effective force due to desertions and lack of volunteers) is something that is usually blithely ignored in discussions of "Southern Spirit".

To continue in that vein:

The instituting of the draft included requiring all soldiers currently serving to serve "for the duration" instead of the term of service they orginally signed up for.

"Desertions" were often nothing more then men going home after their term of service was done.

Also, whites that owned forty or more slaves were exempt from service.

Anyone interested in scholarly discourse on the issue
should read Gregory P. Downs' latest book on the subject

'"The Ends of the War: Fighting the Civil War after
Appomattox," Harvard University Press, April 2015.'

While the work primarily deals with Reconstruction and
it's aftermath, the foundation info is much on point.

To those who ask how much more would the Confeds have had to fight to show their commitment to the cause, one word.Paraguay.

I for one am glad they chose life over ideals in the end.It could had been a lot worse. Still defeat but extermination.