That must be why the Duke of Wellington did so poorly in the Peninsular War, and finally was crushed at Waterloo. And why Andrew Jackson lost at New Orleans. Defensive generals were decidedly at the disadvantage.
That is why Napoleon got to Moscow, where neither Kaiser Wilhelm nor Adolf Hitler's armies proved able to get beyond sight of it, and that was only Hitler's armies what did that. Jackson benefited from the British commander deciding on headlong charges, a tactic that in no era of war tends to work very well.
Assuming the Southern leadership plays Scott's game and accepts battle on Scott's terms, that may be, albeit not anywhere near as certain as you make it out to be.
But the lack of a significant railroad network actually frees the Confederacy to use George Washington's strategy from the Revolutionary War. Not being tied down to defend vital railroad networks, the Southern forces can refuse battle when it is disadvantageous, drawing the Union army ever deeper into the South and away from its own supply lines while getting closer to their own. Much of the South, even in 1861, was still virtually in a wilderness state. Much more of it will be that way in 1850. You might well see Scott taken down in a "Battle of Saratoga" type campaign where the Southerners lure him in and nip at his supply lines until he's worn down and forced to surrender.
Well, IOTL they decided to gamble on offensive war when they didn't need to and lost because of it. Where ITTL, against Scott, it's vanishingly unlikely they could win a Chancellorsville, and a Fredericksburg is their best-case scenario. And you mean the South that IOTL was just as hopped up on the Napoleon cult will decide to adopt a strategy proposed IOTL and with a much better chance of success will adopt it at that point after Winfield Scott had conquered Mexico
two years earlier? One word: Bullshit.
And a lot of good it did Napoleon, too. He lost his army and barely escaped with his life.
As for Alexander, if Napoleon had had the strategic depth that the South would have had in 1850, Alexander would have ended up as bad off as Nappy was after the Russian debacle. But France was too small an arena for that type of campaign.
The strategic depth that Jefferson Davis wanted IOTL to exploit for a defensive campaign but which was squandered IOTL *after* the Crimean War on wasteful offensive battles against the much more numerous North? Why is the South so intent on a defensive war that doesn't work well ITTL more than they were when it would have IOTL?
Yes, the South adopts a strategy that would require them to have Maxim Guns and their leaders to have personality transplants, while the Northern armies are entirely incapable of counting to 21 without dropping their drawers.
Which makes secession and war more likely, not less.
Which means that ITTL the North will also be winning much more decisive victories earlier on, leading to a vastly different political scenario than IOTL.
In the scenario I proposed, the Compromise of 1850 was defeated. The Fugitive Slave Act was part of that compromise. And the South was not demanding a Fugitive Slave Act at that time. They were demanding access to the Territories. The Fugitive Slave Act was something Clay and Webster offered and the South accepted accepted as a substitute for what they really wanted.
Er......actually they *were* demanding Fugitive Slave Laws before that time and they didn't discover overnight objections to the Liberty Laws of the North.
