AH Challenge: ACW ends in Union Victory between January 1st 1863 and March 4 1865

I'm not sure how plausible this is, but I was wondering if there were any way to have the Union win the war, or create a situation where victory is all but assured, between the time the emancipation proclamation goes into effect and the official start of Lincoln's second term, March 4th 1965. Again, this may be unworkable, but I'd be interested to see how this could be pulled off and what the potential consequences would be. I apologize if this is just utterly impossible given the tactics and logistics of the war.
 
Unionist assassins manage to kill Lee, and subsequently major portions of the Confederate government, through an enormous plot of immense intricacy.

That would've been pretty cool. Plausibly though, maybe just a major defeat for one (or some) of the leading Confederate generals resulting in their capture and heavy destruction of their armies. Get rid of Lee and the Army of Virginia and you are on the road to Richmond, which would be a major victory strategically and psychologically and would seriously boost Union morale and simultaneously open up the eastern Confederacy to easier invasions.

Now, HOW to do such a thing is the problem, and I don't know what time in those years the Union would have ever had a chance to lead such a continuous string of successive battles.
 

The Sandman

Banned
Peninsula Campaign, maybe? Although if that succeeds, it might win the war too early to meet the conditions of this challenge.

Grant at Gettysburg was a timeline that seemed likely to produce a Union victory in mid-1863, but it's been abandoned for over a year now at the start of the critical battles around Hagerstown.
 
At the time of Gettysburg, were there any troops around Washington or elsewhere who could have been sent upriver (on the south bank) to prevent Lee from recrossing into Virginia?
 
Oh come on, this is easy!

1) (Derek Jackson said this first, I'll just flesh it out): Grant doesn't defer to Meade at the Battle of the Crater. Ferrero's division goes forward as planned, *around* the crater, breaks the already-shattered Confederate line before Mahone can plug the hole. The rest of the IX corps pushes forward towards Richmond. If Lee takes troops out of line to stop them, Meade pushes forward with the rest of the army as planned.

Richmond falls that evening. Lee retreats west and south. Morale plunges throughout the south. Details from here can vary - what I'm thinking is that Confed. reinforcements are sent from Georgia to try to retake Richmond (because it is a major symbolic city and Davis was all about holding onto it) - obviously it fails. But Sherman smashes Johnson's and/or Hood's (doesn't matter) weakened army earlier than September 2nd, takes Atlanta earlier, and starts his destruction across Georgia earlier. With a smaller presence, there's no way for the Confederates can counterthrust into Tennessee. The last Confederate holdout is the remnants of Lee's AoNV, now retreating south and west through North Carolina, pursued by a massively reinforced and reinvigorated Army of the Potomac. The war ends near the end of 1864.

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OR:

2) Any one of a number of things happen differently at Chancellorsville (Howard listens to Hooker and refuses his flank, or the telegraph works right and Reynolds and the I corps are in position on the flank, or the balloon reconnaissance works, or Sickles goes forward earlier, or Early doesn't misunderstand his orders creating the illusion of a retreat, or....) and Jackson's flank attack hits a strong Union line and for the most part, fails. May 3rd is spent renewing the attack, trying to reunite Jackson's and Lee's wings. The fighting is severe, and the casualties on both sides are heavy, but Hooker has elements of 5 corps fighting entirely on the defensive, and the well-positioned Union artillery only helps. By nightfall, the AotP is exhausted and suffered easily 15,000 casualties, but the AoNV is *wrecked*, and suffered at least 20,000 casualties including several high commanders (starting with Jackson and then however many division commanders you want to get away with...).

Hooker begins to pursue Lee southward across Virginia. Lee defends stubbornly, now with Hood and Pickett returned to the army, but after Chancellorsville his forces number barely 60,000 men and Longstreet is his only experienced corps commander - while Hooker still has 100,000 men even after the 2-years enlistments expire, virtually all battle-tested (and not yet battle-exhausted), and is beginning to find good corps commanders (Reynolds lives, Couch still retires so Hancock gets the II, Meade has V, Sedgewick VI, and Howard and Slocum are greatly underrated for XI and XII). Think of what happens in Virginia as a much slower Overland Campaign with more set-piece battles.

Meanwhile, Grant still takes Vicksburg on (or near, with butterflies) July 4. Rosecrans still takes Chattanooga early in September. Without Longstreet reinforcing Bragg's army, Rosecrans fights his campaign of maneuvre to near the end, and a big battle takes place late in September a few miles south of OTL Chickamauga. The fighting is again extremely fierce, but Rosecrans is fighting on the defensive, and Bragg has 10,000 fewer men. It is a narrow Union victory, inasmuch as their exhausted army holds the field, but more important is the near-20,000 more men Bragg loses. He may or may not be removed from command, likewise Rosecrans may or may not be replaced by Thomas or Grant, but the point is that the Union is still advancing in Georgia, and the Confederacy cannot prevent Atlanta falling by either late 1863 or early 1864 (Rosecrans was all about maneuvre, and plenty smart enough to command a large-scale flanking campaign like OTL Sherman's - with the complete support of Thomas, as well as even fewer Kennessaw Mountain affairs).

Depending on whether Atlanta falls in, say, November 1863, or April 1864, the war ends either in Spring or Fall, 1864. Lee defends Richmond to the last and Hooker cannot break through, but he contains Lee there, allowing Rosecrans or Grant to do what Sherman did in OTL and win in the west, ultimately marching again to Savannah and then through the Carolinas.
 
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