Best Possible Confederate Victory?

[M79]

1) Neither Lincoln or Palmerston was a fool or hothead. Unless you give a personalty transplant to one or both you won't have a war. It was in no one's interest.
2) Selling what??? Cotton or tobacco? Big deal!
3) Whatever the fantasies of the governors or the CSA the Mexican people would not be willing to be sold out to slave owning Gringos.
4) Which is a good reason for them to stay in. Why rock the boat with Lincoln by seceding as you got it as good as you ever will get?
5) The US would be TOTALLY uninterested in CSA claims. The CSA will get what their army controls, nothing more.

a. Again, we're talking "best possible scenario", and both sides took the idea seriously enough to look into planning.

b. Food, fuel, supplies, etc. It might also be interesting to see if the UK or France get bases in the CSA?

c. Refer to previous posts. Norther Mexico at this point is still semi-feudal and I think the locals are not going to be as irate as you think. We can agree to disagree on this.

d. Small problem: If the CSA breaks loose then these concessions to Utah during the war might look like concessions to prevent independence - why takes crumbs when the cake might be available?

e. If the UK is brokering the peace they *will* hear the CSA claims out. Besides if the CSA keeps what they occupy in very early 1862, they might be able to claim most of what I've stated. USA has minimal army at that point and KY/MD/MO would be open to plebsicite, most of West Virginia would still be under CSA control as well (though Wheeling and Harper's Ferry would probably be shifted in peace negotiations). CSA likely takes KY, probably loses MD, and MO *could* end up divided at the Missouri River (with St Louis and environs as a Union enclave) or stay entirely within the Union.

 

[Johnrankins]

a. Again, we're talking "best possible scenario", and both sides took the idea seriously enough to look into planning.

b. Food, fuel, supplies, etc. It might also be interesting to see if the UK or France get bases in the CSA?

c. Refer to previous posts. Norther Mexico at this point is still semi-feudal and I think the locals are not going to be as irate as you think. We can agree to disagree on this.

d. Small problem: If the CSA breaks loose then these concessions to Utah during the war might look like concessions to prevent independence - why takes crumbs when the cake might be available?

e. If the UK is brokering the peace they *will* hear the CSA claims out. Besides if the CSA keeps what they occupy in very early 1862, they might be able to claim most of what I've stated. USA has minimal army at that point and KY/MD/MO would be open to plebsicite, most of West Virginia would still be under CSA control as well (though Wheeling and Harper's Ferry would probably be shifted in peace negotiations). CSA likely takes KY, probably loses MD, and MO *could* end up divided at the Missouri River (with St Louis and environs as a Union enclave) or stay entirely within the Union.

a. You ALWAYS plan for the worst case scenario if you are intelligent. If GB DOES intervene it will not send troops but merely break the blockade.
b. What food? What fuel? The CSA had food riots EVERY winter even 1861 so where is the food coming from? At this point in history almost all of the known fuel sources are in the north including both coal and oil. They weren't developed in the South until later.
c. Semi-fuedal does NOT mean "willing to be sold out"! Mexico and the US had very different cultures and many Mexicans were still upset about the Mexican-American war. Read about how well they welcomed the French when THEY tried to take over. It will be as bad for the CSA .
d. Because they aren't crumbs and you have too much to lose. What do they gain by independence except risking the wrath of the US?
e. The Brits WON'T do any favors for the CSA as the Brits were STRONGLY anti-slavery. Their ONLY interest is cotton in this scenario. They might break the blockade but they won't FORCE the US to do anything. Lincoln would NOT agree to a plebesite under ANY conditions. They will have a vote on secession over Lincoln's dead body! The CSA would get the parts of West Virginia it controls when the war ends nothing more. The US has troops sitting on top of all three states by the Trent Affair and will lose them in no realistic scenario.

 

[SPJ]

a. You ALWAYS plan for the worst case scenario if you are intelligent. If GB DOES intervene it will not send troops but merely break the blockade.
b. What food? What fuel? The CSA had food riots EVERY winter even 1861 so where is the food coming from? At this point in history almost all of the known fuel sources are in the north including both coal and oil. They weren't developed in the South until later.
c. Semi-fuedal does NOT mean "willing to be sold out"! Mexico and the US had very different cultures and many Mexicans were still upset about the Mexican-American war. Read about how well they welcomed the French when THEY tried to take over. It will be as bad for the CSA .
d. Because they aren't crumbs and you have too much to lose. What do they gain by independence except risking the wrath of the US?
e. The Brits WON'T do any favors for the CSA as the Brits were STRONGLY anti-slavery. Their ONLY interest is cotton in this scenario. They might break the blockade but they won't FORCE the US to do anything. Lincoln would NOT agree to a plebesite under ANY conditions. They will have a vote on secession over Lincoln's dead body! The CSA would get the parts of West Virginia it controls when the war ends nothing more. The US has troops sitting on top of all three states by the Trent Affair and will lose them in no realistic scenario.

Question, why would Britain only break the union blockade and nothing else? Also what would it take to have them do that and what does that mean for British relations with the USA and CSA if the war ends in a CSA victory or still in a US one?

 

[Johnrankins]

Question, why would Britain only break the union blockade and nothing else? Also what would it take to have them do that and what does that mean for British relations with the USA and CSA if the war ends in a CSA victory or still in a US one?

COST of both lives and treasure. The only thing that the UK would be interested in is in the cotton trade. Doing that merely requires breaking the blockade. Sending ground troops would be fantastically expensive and very bloody. The most they could realistically send is about 50,000 troops. The US military potential is such that 50,000 troops would be chewed up and spit out. The US was the #2 industrial economy in the world at the time. Taking on the #2 industrial power on the planet on its home turf when you have to transport supplies thousands of miles is the height of stupidity.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Is this real? I don't know!

http://azrebel.tripod.com/page11.html

 

[Johnrankins]

Is this real? I don't know!

http://azrebel.tripod.com/page11.html

Yes and no. They was some talk of it but even if they got the agreement the Mexicans would never have stood still for being sold out to slave holding Gringos. They would have revolted and the CSA simply didn't have the manpower to stop a rebelion.

 

[Fiver]

1. Pride causing politicians to refuse a compromise? Would not be the first time.

2. If France has a role in supporting the CSA against the Union in negotiations what would stop the CSA from selling supplies to the French after the armistice/treaty?

3. I'm not ignoring anything, two of their states looked like they were interested in joining the CSA and at least one more was entertaining CSA representatives.

4. Lincoln gave Young all but written permission to ignore much of the anti-bigamy and other contra-Mormon legislation passed in the days following the Utah War and 1860 elections. Utah was under a military occupation for a while prior to the Civil War and I find it likely that they will at least inquire about taking the Utah Territory independent if the CSA breaks free.

5. Or they might use Maryland as a reason to solidify claims elsewhere. The CSA claims MD and holds at least some of KY, IT, NM, AZ, and MO while holding tacit legal rights to the lowermost Delmarva peninsula. The Union claims every part of the CSA but does not hold the region and most of West Virginia is still in CSA hands. Negotiations will commence, and I think that MO, AZ/NM, and KY will be offered plebiscites, IT goes Confederate while Delmarva and MD stay in the Union.

*Again, we're talking about a subjective "best possible", and while Tunguska wiping out the Union leadership would make for a dark/interesting timeline, I think a Trent intervention is the best chance the CSA has as it stops the fighting before the industrial might of the USA can be brought to bear.

1) Are you completely unfamiliar with the character of Lincoln? His interactions with Congress, the Press, his Cabinet, and his generals repeatedly show Lincoln as a man who did not let pride get in the way of the good of the country.

2) The CSA does not have a surplus of grain, vegetables, livestock, clothing, boots, blankets, tents, horses, saddles, tack, wagons, arms, shot, powder, medicine, or tools. In many cases, the CSA don’t have enough for their own people and will have to import. The only ‘supplies’ the CSA has to sell to France are tobacco and cotton.

3) You are flatly and repeatedly ignoring the actual actions of the actual people in the actual Mexican states, who violently resisted foreign control by a non-slaveholding Catholic country. Only one Mexican suggested joining the Confederacy. That’s it. One man compared to the thousands of Mexicans you repeatedly ignore.

Two more Mexican governors did meet with Confederate diplomats, but joining the Confederacy was never discussed. One governor rejected all Confederate proposals. The other rejected every proposal except trading with the Confederacy, even then he refused to take Confederate currency.

4) Who is this mysterious ‘they’? Give me one man, any man in Utah, who advocated Utah seceding from the Union.

5) The Confederacy has no chance of obtaining Maryland, Kentucky, West Virginia, or Arizona on the battlefield. If they’re extremely lucky, they might successfully seize southern Missouri, but they’ll be lucky to keep all of Tennessee and Arkansas.

The Confederacy will only gain land at the negotiating table if they cede something they control. The CSA cannot offer enough to get Kentucky, or Maryland. The CSA might be able to get the rest of Arkansas if they cede the rest of Tennessee, or vice versa.

There will be no plebiscites. In a fair plebiscite Kentucky and Missouri will stay Union, but after Bleeding Kansas, Union negotiators be idiots to trust the Confederacy in a plebiscite. For that matter most CSA states never held a plebiscite on secession, even though many of them were supposed to, so Confederate negotiators probably won’t want to bring the subject up.

I could understand your thinking a Trent intervention would produce the best victory for the CSA, but that’s not what you’re suggesting. You persist in giving the CSA states that they had no chance of persuading to join them, guaranteeing decades of internal unrest from Union and Mexican nationalists, totally indefensible borders, and two large hostile neighbors with every reason to ally against the Confederacy.