Confederate Guerrilla

How long could a Confederate guerrilla war last against the USA if Lee had been killed in battle? Would Jefferson Davis be turned over to the USA i he was captured in another government?
 
Other people than Lee were against it.

And I dare say, other people than Lee would be able to make it stick.
 
Any Confederate guerilla war - especially after Appomatox or its equivalent - will quickly degenerate into mere banditry and will be handled as such except that the cops will have the support of the Union army. The lack of any kind of logistical support for a long term war dooms it. The area most beneficial to a guerilla war - the Appalachias - is actually a hotbed of unionism.

Any large sized guerilla bands will probably be defeated before end of 1866, breaking up the units into smaller and smaller bands. I say after a few years of increasingly futile and ineffective banditry, the guerillas simply give up and go home. Because of the ongoing fight, Andrew Johnson won't even argue with the Radical Republicans and impose a more comprehensive reconstruction.
 
The main problem is that the South knew it was whipped in 1865. This is not a very good environment to conduct a guerrilla war.
 
And if caught fighting after the official cessation of hostilities, don't any holdouts stand the chance of being summarily executed upon capture?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Lee was only one of the men who prevented a widespread guerrilla conflict. I would say that John Breckinridge played a greater role than Lee in preventing such a catastrophe.

In any case, any guerrilla war would not have lasted long. There was neither the logistical support in place nor sufficient popular support in those regions most amenable to guerrilla warfare.
 
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I thought pretty much all of the male population that wanted to fight had already done so, and had their fill of conflict.
 
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