Challenge: Earliest Possible Confederate Defeat

I was rereading What If? and it has a short essay on a Confederate defeat following the collapse of the Virginia armies at 1st Manassas.
Is this or any other scenario for a Confederate defeat before 1865 plausable?
This challaenge has a POD of the firing on Fort Sumter, so just having no war at all dosen't count.
 
Virginia doesn't secede. That takes a huge chunk out of the South, as Virginia was probably the most industrialized state in the Confederacy, takes a gigantic chunk of manpower out, and also probably keeps Robert E. Lee in the US Army. With this all taken out, and the threat of Washington D.C being attacked vanishing, the war starts a couple miles further south, and it should be over within a year or so. Davis would see the writing on the wall eventually.
 
I was rereading What If? and it has a short essay on a Confederate defeat following the collapse of the Virginia armies at 1st Manassas.
Is this or any other scenario for a Confederate defeat before 1865 plausable?
This challaenge has a POD of the firing on Fort Sumter, so just having no war at all dosen't count.

I know the scenario that you are talking about, and it actually does have some potential. I don't think that a Union army can engage in a successful pursuit after 1st Bull Run, for more or less the same reasons that the Confederates didn't IOTL, but his fresh reserves combined with the lack of a good fallback position will make things difficult for the confederates. However, such a victory is going to be a huge blow for the CSA, and once McDowell gets his forces organized, he will push on into Virginia. Can Johnson and Beauregard reform and hold the state? Possibly, but at this stage in the conflict, I doubt it. Now, this may not end the war in and of itself, but it will be pretty difficult to salvage a victory in the medium-long term for the CSA.

Aside from that? Better results in the east in 1862 will probably be enough. Maybe a decisive victory in the Penninsula, resulting in the capture of Richmond, or Lee's army is crushed on union soil in an Antietam analogue. Either of these cripples the ANV, and possibly causes the loss of virginia. throw in the Union's success out west, and at this point the south is living on borrowed time.
 
Three things - Virginia does not secede, Lee accepts command of all union armies offered by Scott / Lincoln. With Virginia manpower and leadership, the Union Army marches to Richmond, Raleigh and Charleston. 1861 ends with the east coast largely occupied or cut off. That's where most of the industry is. If the CSA does not surrender in 1861, the march on Atlanta from the coast and the landings at Mobile ends the war in 1862 with the occupation of Montgomery Alabama capital of the CSA. If Virginia secedes, the war lasts till 1863. There's just too much land to take and the CSA has enough men to fight on for two years+.

You can always say they give up after First Manassas but let's get real ... They'd keep fighting.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Three things - Virginia does not secede, Lee accepts command of all union armies offered by Scott / Lincoln.

He was never offered any such. He was offered the position eventually occupied by McDowell (defences of Washington). He was being offered the no. 4 slot in the Union command structure.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
I was rereading What If? and it has a short essay on a Confederate defeat following the collapse of the Virginia armies at 1st Manassas.
Is this or any other scenario for a Confederate defeat before 1865 plausable?
This challaenge has a POD of the firing on Fort Sumter, so just having no war at all dosen't count.

Wadsworth's jealousy of McClellan is ignored by Stanton etc. and the first 4 Corps of the Army of the Potomac are available to McClellan. McClellan can launch his planned turning movements and Richmond falls late June.
 
In the event Virginia doesn't secede it is very likely North Carolina also stays in the Union so that's two of eleven down.

However, it isn't certain Lee serves the Union as he was quite the hypocrite on the issue of secession, stating that he would fight to put down New England if it attempted to secede, try to stay out if southern states left without Virginia and fight for secession if Virginia was also leaving.
 
I was rereading What If? and it has a short essay on a Confederate defeat following the collapse of the Virginia armies at 1st Manassas.
Is this or any other scenario for a Confederate defeat before 1865 plausable?
This challaenge has a POD of the firing on Fort Sumter, so just having no war at all dosen't count.

First Manasas, if the Union has a commander has who knows what they are doing.
 
He was never offered any such. He was offered the position eventually occupied by McDowell (defences of Washington). He was being offered the no. 4 slot in the Union command structure.

Really? thats not the way taught us in history class. its taught like Winfield Scott says, "here Robert take my job and preserve the union because I am old love Maderia, Brandy, and good food" were'd you learn that honestly?:)
 
Mclellan siezes the initiative and pursues the Confederates at Fairoaks or after Antietam. Or better still Mclellan isn't given a command
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Really? thats not the way taught us in history class. its taught like Winfield Scott says, "here Robert take my job and preserve the union because I am old love Maderia, Brandy, and good food" were'd you learn that honestly?:)

Scott intended to command the army himself. In February 1861 he decided to create three departments and his first three choices were (in order of seniority on the Army List) Fremont, McClellan and Lee, all of whom were offered the rank of Major General of Regulars, placing them respectively at 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the Army List. Lee provisionally accepted, on the proviso Virginia didn't secede.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Mclellan siezes the initiative and pursues the Confederates at Fairoaks or after Antietam. Or better still Mclellan isn't given a command

Neither of which is physically possible. At Seven Pines they simply fell back on their heavy entrenchments and at Antietam McClellan's army had more or less fallen apart, and their transport had gone down with foot and mouth and the Confederate Army was defending a defile.
 
If Virginia declared itself neutral, as Kentucky did, the Union can't do much of anything unless the Confederacy attacks one or both of the neutral states.

I suppose there might be a campaign west of the Mississippi to secure Missouri and press into Arkansas and Louisiana but...
 
I'm trying to come up with something even earlier, like a militia of Southern unionists storming the secession convention in South Carolina and lynching the ringleaders. So far, it feels kinda ASB.
 
I'm trying to come up with something even earlier, like a militia of Southern unionists storming the secession convention in South Carolina and lynching the ringleaders. So far, it feels kinda ASB.

Some kind of violence is inevitable in my humble opinion. there wasn't a lot of union sympathy in the south except on a very individual basis. we have a family story of 3 brothers fighting on 3 sides of the ACW. figure out what the 3rd side is for bonus points
 
Three things - Virginia does not secede, Lee accepts command of all union armies offered by Scott / Lincoln. With Virginia manpower and leadership, the Union Army marches to Richmond, Raleigh and Charleston. 1861 ends with the east coast largely occupied or cut off.

As has been pointed out, Lee was offered command, but not command of all Union armies. And Lee's track record on offense is less than stellar. His only successful offensive campaign was Seven Days against McClellan, and that was costly. He failed in West Virginia, at Antietam, and again at Gettysburg.
 
In the event Virginia doesn't secede it is very likely North Carolina also stays in the Union so that's two of eleven down.
If this happens, you can count on Tennessee staying also, or at least an East Tennesse staying/ West Tennesssee leaving scenario, somewhat like the OTL situation with Virginia.
 
Lincoln doesn't call for volunteers instead issues proclamation of naval blockade. Upper South doesn't secede. 1862 Union launches amphibious attacks on Charleston and New Orleans, both fall.
 
Virginia doesn't secede. That takes a huge chunk out of the South, as Virginia was probably the most industrialized state in the Confederacy, takes a gigantic chunk of manpower out, and also probably keeps Robert E. Lee in the US Army.

Virginia was definitely the most industrialized CSA state. Total value of manufactured goods in the 1860 census was almost 3 times that of any other southern state, almost 1/3 of all CSA manufacturing. They also had about 1/6 of the CSA's total manpower.

Actual direct influence on the war is slightly less than that implies, since the population and production of West Virginia stayed with the Union anyway in OTL. Indirect influence could be much higher, if this butterflies the other border states into not seceeding.

The CSA also loses more than just Lee if Virginia stays in the Union - Armistead, Cooper (OTL's highest ranked CSA general), Early, Ewell, Garnett, AP Hill, Jackson, Joe Johnston, Kemper, Fitzhugh Lee, Magruder, Mosby, and Stuart
 
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