Well, yeah, but it also defines whether:
Getting back to the OP, the big difference that comes to my mind is how the institution of slavery is affected: in the first scenario, the Emancipation Proclamation is prevented and if an armistice is soon achieved (late 62 or early 63, which I incidentally think is plausible) then the new nation will be less war ravaged than OTL, giving the Confederate maneuverability to preserve their institution their way of life depends upon.
Conversely, if our PoD is in 1864 and the war doesn't end until late that year at the very earliest, than not only is the CSA achieving its recognition under greater, more general strains of war, but their they've got all kinds of unrest from their enslaved population, particularly those colored troops (and possibly sympathetic white unionists) with combat experience, in their land, who are not looking to give up so easily; in short, I would expect months or even years of racial violence TTL with casualties in the hundreds of thousands, combined with yet more unrest in the North and West. As the young nation struggles to keep order in its fresh borders, the general crisis might force the CSA to further weaken their cherished institution (at least in terms of long term viability), if only similar to OTL panicked attempts (e.g. Cleburne's idea).
Thoughts here?
Well it's certainly a valid point that a later PoD means the Union forces will control more land at the time of the armistice, which will play important role in the peace negotiations in not only the size, but the stability of the CSA at the start. (That said, I think that's all the detail I'll give here for now -- the more we get into on "how" the CSA wins, the more the thread becomes derailed debating said "how"s. )
Well, yeah, but it also defines whether:
a) the CSA is split in (at least) two pieces or not;
b) has lost two of its three largest cities or not;
c) has lost control of the largest inland waterway or not;
d) the largest port (Norfolk) in the state where at least one of its capitals is located is under its control or not;
e) etc etc etc etc or nit; to
z) is even remotely viable in economic and demographic terms;
I mean, I understand your goal in trying to get at a "postwar" confederacy, but the reality is you have to provide some sort of description of what they might want to have, how that would impact the reality of any armistice, etc - otherwise, it's like Ireland with all the counties, or not, in 1922...
Or India as in the Raj, not India, Pakistan, Bangladesh...
What you really run into in trying to posit an independent confederacy is the question of will on both sides, and given that the historical reality is once the guns fired, the US
never lost the will to put down the rebellion, and the rebels quite obviously lost the will to fight it out to the end, the historical reality of the correlation of forces is such that - absent Buchanan saying something ahistorical, like "so long and good riddance" - it just was not going to happen...
So you can posit a velvet divorce, I suppose (but you really still should offer some sort of reason why, other than handwavium), but independence
after war breaks out? The US has the economic, demographic, political,
and military edge, and to expect that not to come into play is sort of like expecting water to (naturally) run uphill.
Good luck with that...
Best,