"After the first four days of July 1863, c'était plié." Topic

Hello everyone,
Passion helping, I wonder if the Confederates could have won the war?

I have the impression that before the first four days of July 1863, the majority of the rebels believed in it, but that after the fall of Vicksburg, c'était plié, except for the fanatics.

^ YES!!!

Longstreet's opinion was that there was no hope of a southern military victory after that, but until Lincoln won re-election in 1864 there was some hope of the United States tiring of the struggle.

Agree with Robert. After Gettysburg and Vicksburg, their only hope was a George Brett McClellan victory. But I think that became an impossibility due directly to the invasion of the north and the irreplaceable losses sustained by Lee. In addition the changes made to the Union army command as a direct result of that invasion.

No invasion: potentially Hooker stays in command for another campaign in the south. The movement of Grant East is delayed or does not happen. The total change in the Union high command does not take place. With those not killed, wounded and missing at Gettysburg, Lee defeats the Army of the Potomac again under either Meade or Hooker in Virginia. Another loss in the East, the war looks like it will drag on and on to the population of the North and a potential McClellan victory. A negotiated piece by McClellan.

About the only way I see it after those 2 battles.

There has been a strong case that it was after the campaigns of 1862 that the South no longer had a chance to win. After that Great Britain and France were not going to enter the war. All three Confederate offensives failed. I tend to agree with this. Gettysburg is the most over hyped battle of the war. Lee had very little chance of eliminating the Army of the Potomac or capture Washington. Major battle yes, but a game changing battle no. Even if Lee had won on the third day his army was too badly banged up and had too heavy losses to continue. Plus the Army of the Potomac would still have existed. Washington was also fortified by this time. Just would have been captured at a drop of the hat.

It all boiled down to the North's will to keep fighting. If they kept fighting, eventually the South was going to lose. If the North lost the will to sustain the war, then the South wins by default.

The opera isn't over until the fat lady sings. In July of 1864 Confederate forces were fighting within the boundaries of the District of Columbia, with an expedition underway to attempt the release captured Confederate troops being held at Point Lookout Maryland. A few days earlier Johnston had defeated Sherman at Kennesaw Mountain. Lincoln was facing political opposition not only from the Democrats but also from the abolitionist Radical Democracy Party.

What Scott said. The Confederacy could not win it, but the U.S. could lose it.

@mahdi1ray
But Lincoln's electoral defeat by Democratic candidate and former Union Army commander George B. McClellan seemed likely during the summer.

Such an event would have led to a Confederate victory, because the Democratic Party was calling at the time for peace negotiations based on the Confederacy's independence.

For these reasons, Sherman's capture of Atlanta is arguably the Union's most important victory.

@robert piepenbrink
At Gettysburg, it is therefore the myth of Lee's invincibility that is shattered, morale has taken a definitive hit…

@35thOVI
Vicksburg is more serious than Gettysburg, because it gives the Union back control of a vital artery for its economy by cutting the Confederacy in two, thus isolating the rebel forces operating on the Trans-Mississippi theater until the end of the conflict.

@Grattan54
Yes Lee had very little chance of eliminating the Army of the Potomac or capturing Washington.

He should have saved his army as much as possible.

@ScottWashburn
Only political opposition to Lincoln could have allowed the South to win.

Or an assassination of Lincoln at the beginning of the war could have also changed things, right?

@Bill N
Yes because the rebels had little chance of winning militarily.

@donlowry
The Confederacy could not win it militarily, but the United States could lose it politically.

Well, the Southerners certainly thought they could win, even after Gettysburg. If you look at letters, diaries, journals, and newspapers there is no doubt that most Southerners thought they could win even after Gettysburg.

Gettysburg was not universally looked upon as a defeat—a turning point. At the time many consider it a Confederate victory. Today we look back on it and see it as a great defeat. But not so at the time. Some saw it as a great accomplishment. As they saw it, Lee invaded Northern soil and taught those Yankees a thing or two. Look at all the supplies we captured. They will think twice before they invade us again.

After Gettysburg, it would be ten months before the next major battle in the East. Despite any setbacks in the West, as long as Lee's Army was in the field, Southerners felt confident as to their ultimate victory.

The Confederacy could not win it militarily, but the United States could lose it politically.

That's what I said … or meant.

Even if McClellan had won in 1864 I doubt the war would have ended. McClellan found it hard to support the Democrats end the war now approach. He was a soldier's general who did not want the suffering and death the men had gone through for 4 years to be for nothing. Even if he did want to end the war by the time he became president the South was on it's last legs. Sherman had captured Savannah and was heading north, the Confederacy was cut into thirds, slavery was collapsing, the Army of Tennessee had been destroyed, the army was seeing large scale desertions, the economy was in shambles and Grant had basically surrounded Richmond. McClellan being elected president as not going to save the South.

@Old Contemptible
If the Southerners certainly thought they could win, even after Gettysburg and there is no doubt that most Southerners thought they could win even after Gettysburg it is baffling…

Wasn't Gettysburg universally considered a defeat, a turning point and the era, many consider it a Confederate victory?

But not Lee and his generals present at Gettysburg I suppose…

@donlowry
Me too…

@Grattan54
Yes in fact even before Gettysburg and even before the war broke out it was over but the old South did not want to die without a fight…

The CSA was better on the defense. The CSA failed on both offenses of 1862 and 1863, cost the South valuable resources in supplies and manpower.
An army on the offense needs much more in supplies. Even smile items like shoes are easier to manage when on defense.

A friend of mine has letters from a great uncle who fought for a Georgia brigade at Gettysburg. His comments on the battle in a letter home was: we were in a great fit (fight) yesterday. I still need shoes.

Defense would not win a war but arbitration for a settled agreement.

YouTube link

@TimePortal
Yes I read that somewhere also for the great war.

It seems that the best way to win WWI was to deliver it as it was with offensives as bloody as useless.

However, the more soldiers you have alive, the more you can negotiate, the Confederates had to save their troops especially those of the Army of Northern Virginia.

General Scott's Anaconda strategy was working. Too much is focused on Virginia. The war was being lost in the West. Key battles that slashed apart the South were fought there. Just my opinion.

Totally agree with you TimePortal. The war for the South was lost in the West. We spend way to much time worshipping at the alter of Lee.

A McClellan victory in the election might not have saved the Confederacy. After all, in those days the new president wasn't inaugurated until March so with that deadline looming Lincoln and Grant might have decided to begin the final offensive before then--even if they had to deal with winter weather. If Grant broke the lines at Petersburg and took Richmond I can't see McClellan calling a halt to things when they were on the verge of a victory he could claim credit for.

I tend to agree with Scott. Given how things were in March of 1865, it would have been hard even for McClellan not to have won--though I can easily see "Little Mac" undercutting abolition as much as possible. His memoirs are really depressing reading.

But Lincoln won the election because of those "facts on the ground." A better Confederate military performance in 1864 might also have gotten them a better election result and the combination let the Confederacy eke out a win, even though a persistent Union would eventually have triumphed.

But if you told me to hop into a time machine and ensure a Confederate win, I'd go much earlier--the Seven Days, Shiloh, or possibly the run-up to Champion's Hill. A real Confederate military victory required the equivalent of Saratoga, Yorktown or Dien Bien Phu--an entire Union army removed from the board, and that required a Union army with its back to a river or the sea.

TimePortal and Gratten. Yes we agree the war was won in the West (West of the allegheny mountains).

But don't forget where most of the "important" press of the time was located, where most of the most wealthy resided and where most politicians were located. The East. For them the West was a side show and the East was the important war. The East got the press, the money and the newest equipment.

Pretty much the same in the South. It was Bobby Lee and Richmond.

Even then, the Midwest and the Western Confederacy, were flyover country.

Things haven't changed much since then, except you can add the West Coast in with the East. Think not? Where is the majority of the media headquartered still today? This may change in the not to distant future with the influx of people and businesses fleeing those areas and flocking to States in the South.

@TimePortal
What strategy should the rebels have implemented then?

@Grattan54
In people's imagination, the ACW took place where Lee was.

@ScottWashburn
Yes, we always come back to Lincoln.

@robert piepenbrink
What strategy should the rebels have implemented after July 4, 1863?

@35thOVI
Yes, yes, in people's imagination, the ACW took place where Lee was.

@All

It should be noted that seceding was completely legal since it was in the Declaration of Rights and in the Constitution of the United States of 1788, but Lincoln ignored all that, he even abolished habeas corpus.

He ignored the Declaration of Rights and had a new constitution drawn up to favor the federal centralizing state and not the confederal state, which is why many states decided to join the confederation.

For example, there were states like Maryland and Missouri that wanted to declare themselves neutral, but the North immediately set its sights militarily on these states.

So Maryland and Delaware have regiments in both camps as well as Kansas which became the 34th state of the Union on January 29, 1861.

Lincoln raised an army, so people rose up en masse to defend themselves because in the end who can accept that an army, whatever it is, can invade their territory.

Please show us the clause in the US Constitution giving states the right to secede, hi EEE ya. The "Declaration of Rights" is not known to me as such. Do you mean the Declaration of Independence? Possibly the Bill of Rights? (Note that the Declaration of Independence is not constitutional law. The Bill of Rights is.)

And may I see this new Constitution Lincoln drew up? All I have is the original as amended and even the three "Civil War amendments" postdate the bulk of the fighting.

I'd also be interested in the Confederate Delaware and Kansas regiments, which are new to me.

You might find reading a history of Missouri in 1861 an enlightening experience, and it might help you to explain how Washington's policy toward the border states differed from that of Richmond.

Note that Lincoln did not call for volunteers until after southern forces had fired on a Union garrison and repeatedly seized US property.

Is this actually how US history is taught in France? I had thought better.

Yes, the South did take the first overt acts by seizing Federal property in the South and then firing on Fort Sumter. It is often overlooked that the act of secession on the part of Southern states did not un-make the United States. That country still existed and it still owned those forts and arsenals in the South. If the South had gained its independence peacefully then obviously the fate of those properties would have been an issue for diplomats. But the South was unwilling to wait and set the war in motion.

As an aside, it is also overlooked that all of the western territories that the South hoped to extend slavery into would also still be the property of the United States and by seceding the South legally voided any and all claims they might have had to that territory. But it's doubtful the South would have seen it that way. So even if the North had "let the South go" there were already the seeds of future conflict planted and ready to grow.

Scott was the taking of Sumpter a Southern venture or a local South Carolina decision?

I believe it was a Confederate States venture. On April 12, 1861 a large portion of the South had yet to secede.

Davis ordered Beauregard to fire on Fort Sumter. It was not a South Carolina decision although leaders from SC were putting heavy pressure on Davis to do something about Fort Sumter.

Davis wanted to force the 8 remaining (un-seceded) slave states to choose sides, assuming that all or most would secede once Lincoln called for troops. Four did (Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee) and 4 didn't (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware). (And sizable parts of Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina didn't want to.)

A side note here., since some of our foreign friends may not know. The first capital was in Montgomery Alabama. It was regarded as safer. I attended an ACW forum in the 1970s which discussed how much sooner would Union attacks would have focused on Alabama. The focus would not on Virginia.

But making Richmond the Confederate capital was part of the deal to get Virginia to join the Confederacy.

@All
In fact the war was lost before it started, well before July 4, 1863, but the Southerners still rose up en masse to defend themselves, because in the end, they could not accept that an army, whatever it was, could invade their territory.

Again, if you do not care to be invaded, it's a good idea not to commit an act of war against what you insist is a foreign government. And for a people rising up en masse, they adopt conscription quite rapidly. Are you perhaps confusing "the Southerners" with the people of Western Virginia and Eastern Tennessee rising up against secession, or ethnic Germans fleeing Confederate Texas? Certainly you don't appear to be thinking of Kentucky and Maryland as southern states. I could introduce you to a few people who could enlighten you.

@robert piepenbrink
Yes, that's true Piepenbrink, but the Yankees had troops ready to intervene and now for the brave Confederates, the Yankees were foreigners.

They adopted conscription quite rapidly to defend themselves, because they did not have armies ready.

The Southerners were the eleven Southern states that had seceded, the Yankees were all the abolitionist states and five "border" slave states, does that suit you?

No it doesn't. The northern sates were NOT abolitionist. True abolitionists were in the minority. Not until well in the war did the North turn to favoring ending slavery.
Also, the South did not rise up en masse. Some 400,000 Southerners fought for the Union and are largely forgotten.
Plus, four slave states stayed in the Union.

One more time. The Union did NOT have "troops ready to intervene," nor had 11 states seceded when the Confederacy fired on a United States outpost and garrison. Still waiting for how you determined that Alabamians and Carolinians were braver than Hoosiers and Pennsylvanians.

As a person from Alabama, that is Houma to consider one group is braver than another.

People need to do what they do not have time or gumption to do, research primary material. At least secondary material one level below primary. Graduates students often take special courses on how to find and review primary sources. Also what all they can be.

Alabama was not as solid succession as South Carolina. The promise to put the capital in Alabama was a carrot to get the state to succeed. It still took multiple votes for the bill to pass. Already talked about the Free State of Winston county.