Stephens Coulda Won The War
Likely ways in which the South could've won long seemed more like fantasy to me, because the North had the numbers and talent on its side. But, in fact, the Civil War happened at the start of an era where the defensive ruled. It would, in fact, have been quite feasible for the South to have ended the war still in existence.
POD: Jfferson Davis' 'man' at the rebel choosing convention falls from his horse a week before the big meet and Davis is veep instead of prexy. Alexander Stephens is President. There was nothing inevitable about either Davis' or Lincoln's selections, so there must be tons of ways that the Confederate choice could be as good as the Union choice. Some reading has convinced me that Stephens had the kind of strategic vision that Lincoln had. If nothing else, his speeches weren't half as awful as Davis' were....
Civil War military facts on the ground favored defense over aggression. The WWI-style trench was first used in Lee's army, invented in "Stonewall" Jackson's part of it. Having even sketchy entrenchments laid out gave a huge boost to defenders. Even in OTL, voters were impatient with progress.
During the war, both sides started off with poor to mediocre top generalship. But Lincoln fired alot more top generals than Davis did, made better choices to replace them, and gave political cover to generals who were winning. Lincoln had the bad habit of adding politicians to the pool of generals, who unsurprisingly, were mediocre, but fortunately, he favored generals who were winning even over his buddies.
Though Davis didn't appoint politicians as generals, he kept lots of mediocre generals he was buddies with, a much worse habit, as it turned out. The winningest Confederate general, N.B. Forrest, never was given more than 2500 men or so to command until it was way too late. There were other generals that IMHO could've made differences if given top commands, like Jackson and Longstreet (though Jackson died early). Nor do I believe that the South's genius was limited to that that made it to the history books. But it never occurred to Davis to upset the order of seniority. Thanks, Davis!
I dunno if Stephens would've upset hierarchy as much as Lincoln did - mebbe Forrest wouldn't've made it big. But he would've made better choices than Davis did - at keast Bragg and Polk would've done much less damage, Longstreet would've seen high command, and Lee wouldn't've been allowed his last Northern invasion, to a place named Gettysburg.