American Civil War devolves into guerrilla warfare

Hi!

I saw a WI somewhere which mentioned that one of Lee's generals recommended that the Confederate army disperse and wage guerrilla warfare when it became obvious that the Confederacy was going to lose. Lee refused this suggestion, saying that the Confederacy had failed and he wanted everyone to just go home.

What would have happened had the Civil War devolved into guerrilla warfare? The WI only discusses Lee's final army at Appomattox, a group small enough that it wouldn't have made much of a difference (10,000 men, supposedly). But what if this decision was made earlier on and more soldiers went guerrilla, ostensibly to tire the North out from putting out fires and get them to leave?

I would expect the Confederate high command remembered that guerrilla warfare was to use some extent during the Revolutionary War when the Americans had to fight a larger and better equipped army.

I also wondered about the ability of terrorism (much as we see today) but I figure that's a more modern development.

A diaster for the South

In my opinion, it would have been a disaster for the South. The terms that Grant offered was very generous. Very few of the Southerns were really punished for treason.

A guerrilla war would have gone on forever with both sides eventually committing war crimes against each other. Retaliation would have become common place and the South would be a land of burnt villages and dead people.

My opinion is based on my observations that war start out with both sides normally following some rules of conduct. As the war progressives, these rules often fall to the way side. One sides acts of resistance is the other sides act of terror.

Stubear1012

acgoldis said:

Hi!

I saw a WI somewhere which mentioned that one of Lee's generals recommended that the Confederate army disperse and wage guerrilla warfare when it became obvious that the Confederacy was going to lose. Lee refused this suggestion, saying that the Confederacy had failed and he wanted everyone to just go home.

What would have happened had the Civil War devolved into guerrilla warfare? The WI only discusses Lee's final army at Appomattox, a group small enough that it wouldn't have made much of a difference (10,000 men, supposedly). But what if this decision was made earlier on and more soldiers went guerrilla, ostensibly to tire the North out from putting out fires and get them to leave?

I would expect the Confederate high command remembered that guerrilla warfare was to use some extent during the Revolutionary War when the Americans had to fight a larger and better equipped army.

I also wondered about the ability of terrorism (much as we see today) but I figure that's a more modern development.

Click to expand...

In Arkansas there had been a pretty bad Reconstruction era Civil War war after the actual Civil War.

It goes poorly for the South. In order to sustain a guerrilla campaign, you need an outside benefactor to provide you with arms and materiel (the French for the Americans during the Revolution, the USSR/Chinese for the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, etc). Who's going to provide the Confederate guerrillas with supplies? The CS navy is either sunk or turned over to the Union, so the possibility of France or the UK (for some reason) shipping supplies in is DOA. This means that, as the guerrilla campaign progresses, the Confederates are going to have to raid the surrounding countryside more and more, which is an absolute death sentence for any resistance movement (you need the local populace to be, at worst, neutral).

Any Confederate guerrilla campaign would be nasty, brutish, and short. They wouldn't be able to sustain a long, drawn out campaign, and the longer they fight, the more they're going to both a) piss off the Union, which will crack down even harder on any suspected partisans, and b) piss off the general Southern populace, either through raiding/friendly fire, or by them recognizing that the reason the Union is acting like an asshole is because the rebels won't give up the fight.

What would have been a confederate guerrilla? no need for imagination, just google for James Younger Band: a dozen men who, with the help of a supportive population, roamed for almost a decade the middle west.

Instead of a dozen guerrillas, count e.g. 10000 of them (i.e. a thousand times JY band force ) spread around the whole former confederacy. Add a liberal dose of atrocities and reprisals, mix and serve hot (like burning buildings).

The Union probably would have started concentration camps like the British did for the Boers. Everything outside of a camp in a non pacified zone gets destroyed. Lasting resentment, and a long military administration. Probably would result in earlier civil rights for black people though.

Arming blacks...

The United States Colored Troops likely would have been kept in uniform, or returned to the colors, soon enough. A program of widespread arming and training of former slaves in guerrilla infested areas would be a logical response. Another possibility: An announcement that, if there is any treasonous activity within area X, the US army WILL arm and train all willing black men. A large number of armed and trained former slaves is simply a nightmare beyond anything else.

Also, guerillas would, IMVHO, be treated as criminals and traitors, not soldiers after things had gotten bad.

It would be a disaster for the South, it was destroyed military and economically by April 1865, any more conflict would result in more destruction and harsher terms for the former Confederacy.

for the after-effects of this, one could consider Jesse James: he was a Confederate bushwhacker during the war and, because of that, was never accepted back into society and became an outlaw (iirc). for if and when this guerrilla war ends, you could extrapolate James' life for what happens to other Confederates as a best-case scenario--worst and most likely/common case is that they'd be killed in the field or captured and executed

If you want it to be successful to some degree at least it has to start early. Perhaps Union wins crushing victory early and war is over before it has begun.

Union investment in the war is low(few dead), confederates also have not lost masses of young men. I think if Union won in 1861 then guerilla war is likely.

All you need is to keep killing federal officials soldiers etc. response will be nasty, but it will not last if the country has not suffered the casualties it did to get to this point. In fact brutal response early would probably fan flames of multi generational slow burning insurgency.

Which class of Southern society would they recruit guerrillas from?
The wealthy "planter" class?
The small middle class?
"White trash?"
Hillbillies?

Where would guerrillas be most effective: harbours, tide-water plantations, Appalachian Mountains, Mississippi Valley, etc. ?

Remember that the outcome of a war determines whether fighters were: freedom fighters, liberators of the oppressed, smugglers, bank robbers, child-molesters or cattle-rustlers.

riggerrob said:

Which class of Southern society would they recruit guerrillas from?
The wealthy "planter" class?
The small middle class?
"White trash?"
Hillbillies?

Click to expand...

tbph, i think membership of the KKK would be a good place to start for who would be contributing to a hypothetical Confederate guerrilla/terrorist movement, since that's pretty much what the KKK was/is

acgoldis said:

Hi!

I saw a WI somewhere which mentioned that one of Lee's generals recommended that the Confederate army disperse and wage guerrilla warfare when it became obvious that the Confederacy was going to lose. Lee refused this suggestion, saying that the Confederacy had failed and he wanted everyone to just go home.

What would have happened had the Civil War devolved into guerrilla warfare? The WI only discusses Lee's final army at Appomattox, a group small enough that it wouldn't have made much of a difference (10,000 men, supposedly). But what if this decision was made earlier on and more soldiers went guerrilla, ostensibly to tire the North out from putting out fires and get them to leave?

I would expect the Confederate high command remembered that guerrilla warfare was to use some extent during the Revolutionary War when the Americans had to fight a larger and better equipped army.

I also wondered about the ability of terrorism (much as we see today) but I figure that's a more modern development.

Click to expand...

The big question here is - do you always know a guerrilla war is happening when it's all around you? I ask this because, well, they seldom have a neat declaration, either measured by their own statements, or with the neat 20th Century bookends of when the US/Russians entered and when they left. Often, a guerrilla war ends when the state targeted bends, and accommodates the guerillas.

I'm saying this because, well, you can make a very good argument that there was a guerrilla war. That the organization and loose nature of the Klan and other Redeemer groups is very much in the mode of the Maoist fish swimming in the sea of ordinary people. The lynch mobs that could be rapidly rallied to support the hardcore add to this impression.

The fact remains that in 1865 you have a Federal Government that is committed to the Freedmen's bureaus, to enfranchising the African-American population, and keeping the planter aristocracy that started the war out of power. Within a few years of Reconstruction's end in 1880, the aristocracy that started the war is back in power, the African-American population are largely disenfranchised debt serfs to that aristocracy, and the Federal Government doesn't care. Even more than that, for the next century, Reconstruction will be taught as the rapacious effort of the grasping North upon the innocent South. The South was shattered on the field in 1865, and close to the status quo ante bellum in all but name fifteen years latter.

My point being, something very freaking dramatic happened in that decade and a half. And while the proponents of the Lost Cause in general and on AH.com in particular tend to be wedded to the legend of martial valour as something always on the battlefield and never sly or sneaking, well, we have that huge change fifteen years wrought. We have that change, in company with organized, violent, groups that relied on the sympathies of large segments of the white population. And all Hollywood aside, guerrilla wars are rarely valorous combats by square jawed irregulars against the evil uniformed foes. They are often strikes against soft target. Hanging black farmers in the middle of the night certainly fits. Lynch mobs in support of the Klan certainly fit. And there were certainly 10,000 odd armed Redeemers/Klansman willing to kill in that period.

My answer then is that the proposed ATL is OTL: but it's OTL stripped of certain cherished myths, about what Americans are incapable of. The South in 1865 - 1880 had cadres of armed guerrillas, many of them veterans of the Confederate forces. They swam in the sea of the white yeomanry. They used violence to pursue in a political program. By 1880, they had that program in hand. The state and society in question had accommodated them, and allowed them to run a two tiered legal system for the next century.

If that isn't a guerrilla war, what the hell is one?

How nasty will the Federal response be to guerrilla activity?

Concentration camps were mentioned I believe;

Would Federal troops take hostages?

TheYoungPretender said:

The big question here is - do you always know a guerrilla war is happening when it's all around you? I ask this because, well, they seldom have a neat declaration, either measured by their own statements, or with the neat 20th Century bookends of when the US/Russians entered and when they left. Often, a guerrilla war ends when the state targeted bends, and accommodates the guerillas.

I'm saying this because, well, you can make a very good argument that there was a guerrilla war. That the organization and loose nature of the Klan and other Redeemer groups is very much in the mode of the Maoist fish swimming in the sea of ordinary people. The lynch mobs that could be rapidly rallied to support the hardcore add to this impression.

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A "guerrilla war" implies something directed primarily against the armed forces of the other side. The KKK etc didn't take on the Union Army, so they weren't really guerrillas.

The fact remains that in 1865 you have a Federal Government that is committed to the Freedmen's bureaus, to enfranchising the African-American population, and keeping the planter aristocracy that started the war out of power.

Click to expand...

No you don't.

Congress made no attempt to enfranchise Blacks until 1867, and then only because it seemed the only was of keeping former Confederate leaders from immediately resuming power in the South. Thus the 14th Amendment did not require Black suffrage.

Even this concern didn't last. It soon became obvious that the ex-Rebs had accepted defeat, and were not looking toward any further attempt at secession. That being so, there was no pressing need to keep former secessionists from power (since they no longer were secessionists) and the effort was soon abandoned. Black suffrage became "surplus to requirements" and not worth the effort which would have been needed to enforce it.

TheYoungPretender said:

My answer then is that the proposed ATL is OTL: but it's OTL stripped of certain cherished myths, about what Americans are incapable of. The South in 1865 - 1880 had cadres of armed guerrillas, many of them veterans of the Confederate forces. They swam in the sea of the white yeomanry. They used violence to pursue in a political program. By 1880, they had that program in hand. The state and society in question had accommodated them, and allowed them to run a two tiered legal system for the next century.

If that isn't a guerrilla war, what the hell is one?

Click to expand...

A conflict where guerrillas attack the forces of the government.

At no time during or after Reconstruction did the Klan or any other "Redeemers" challenged the authority of the Federal government or attack Federal troops.

acgoldis said:

What would have happened had the Civil War devolved into guerrilla warfare? The WI only discusses Lee's final army at Appomattox, a group small enough that it wouldn't have made much of a difference (10,000 men, supposedly). But what if this decision was made earlier on and more soldiers went guerrilla, ostensibly to tire the North out from putting out fires and get them to leave?

Click to expand...

Not a serious idea at all.

In the heart of the Confederacy, the majority of the population were black slaves. Once liberated, they could never be re-enslaved, and it would be impossible to carry on a guerrilla war in their presence.

In some other areas of the Confederacy, the white population had been Union-loyal, and regarded the Confederacy as oppressors and the Union army as liberators. For instance, east Tennessee. There is a Congressional district in east Tennessee that has elected a Republican in every election since 1870. Western North Carolina, western Virginia (not just West Virginia), northern Alabama, south Texas, all had such areas.

In still other areas, most of the white population had become disaffected from the Confederacy, and were tired of being taxed and conscripted for a war to defend rich men's slave property. Parts of Mississippi were in near-rebellion, for instance.

In short, there was almost nowhere in the South where the conditions for guerrilla warfare were present. A few Confederate guerrillas in Missouri turned outlaw, and ran loose for a while, but that had less to do with the South than the West - it didn't happen anywhere east of the Mississippi.

Mikestone8 said:

No you don't.

Congress made no attempt to enfranchise Blacks until 1867, and then only because it seemed the only was of keeping former Confederate leaders from immediately resuming power in the South. Thus the 14th Amendment did not require Black suffrage.

Even this concern didn't last. It soon became obvious that the ex-Rebs had accepted defeat, and were not looking toward any further attempt at secession. That being so, there was no pressing need to keep former secessionists from power (since they no longer were secessionists) and the effort was soon abandoned. Black suffrage became "surplus to requirements" and not worth the effort which would have been needed to enforce it.

Click to expand...

Okay, so how does the 15th being passed in the first five years of this period shoe that Congress didn't care about enfranchising freedmen? Did it spring, like Athena form the head of Zeus, fully formed in 1870, or was it perhaps indicative of the majority of the Congress that passed it? Something about Congress impeaching a President who didn't move fast enough on Reconstruction? Is this ringing any bells?

Yes, yes I will list the 14th and 15th Amendments as indicative of the politics of the people who passed them. And trying to implement the equivalent of the end of Reconstruction in the immediate post-war got Andrew Johnson impeached. These cannot be hand waved away.

Anarch said:

A conflict where guerrillas attack the forces of the government.

At no time during or after Reconstruction did the Klan or any other "Redeemers" challenged the authority of the Federal government or attack Federal troops.

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This is a frankly precious description of guerrilla warfare or irregular conflict. What's more, it's ahistorical. Redeemers were perfectly willing to kill judges, magistrates, and anyone they had deputized to enforce the law. How on Earth is this not challenging Federal authority?

Again, if you look at any irregular conflict, whether it be the resistance movements against the Germans, or various post-WWII struggles in the European colonies, you'll see that getting the civilian population on their side, is most of what guerrillas do. This involves a certain amount of persuasion, yes but also a shit load of coercion. You will not find a single example of guerrillas who only strike against the uniformed forces of their opposition. They need to keep the population in line, and they usually do.

So by these arguments, even though the Klan was willing to kill for its ends, and even though they were willing to make enforcing Federal law hard or impossible and even though they would shoot, bomb, or lynch representatives of state authority, because it's not the Sir Walter Scott with railroads and revolvers in chivalrous combat against Federal troops - it's not a guerrilla war. Oh, it may have been decade plus campaign of violence for political ends, but don't you dare besmirch our Southern name by calling it "war."

There's also the minor point that in a federal system,

There's also the minor point that in a federal system, constitutional authority by definition devolves to the states to a considerable degree, especially in the Nineteenth Century, and it is beyond dispute that white southern resistance to Reconstruction fits the insurrection model when one considers situations like what led to Gov. Brownlow's establishment of the Tennessee State Guard in the 1860s, or the Jackson Square and Colfax incidents in Louisiana in the 1870s.

Best,

TheYoungPretender said:

Yes, yes I will list the 14th and 15th Amendments as indicative of the politics of the people who passed them. And trying to implement the equivalent of the end of Reconstruction in the immediate post-war got Andrew Johnson impeached. These cannot be hand waved away.

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As previously noted, the 14th Amendment did not require Black suffrage. Congress only took that on board when it was clear that the 14th Amendment couldn't be ratified any other way. There is no evidence that a majority in Congress was committed to Black suffrage in 1865.


Within a few years, however, it became clear that the former sesesh were so no longer, and that their return to power posed no danger to the Union. So Black suffrage wasn't really needed, and that the North could safely turn a blind eye to its overthrow,