The sarcasm is odd, given Lee invaded Maryland twice, the Confederacy retained large portions of West Virginia, invaded Kentucky twice and fought in Missouri throughout 1861. It's also extremely telling you had to resort to sarcasm instead of giving a proper retort; play the ball.
Yes, Lee failed to invade the north twice. Both times losing badly. And yes they were driven out of Kentucky repeatedly with no shot at holding it. Neither of those point to any way of holding them.
It's very telling you have to distort what I said, which was that the Confederate population could be from 30 Million to 40 Million, not definitely double as you're claiming and its obvious why you're doing that. First and foremost, the 11 States of the Confederacy was essentially 20 Million people in 1900. Adding the border states along with the 1.3 Million Southern Whites who left the South by 1900 brings that population to just shy of 30 Million. Average fertility rates for Whites in the United States was around 5 to 4 children from what I can tell, so by 1900 you've added 2-4 million more Southerners. This isn't touching upon the Great Migration and other demographic factors.
You said 30-40 million, meaning so far as you are concerned 40 million is a legitimate possibility. Which means that so far as you are concerned its possible for the CSA to have half the population of the OTL 1900 United States DESPITE other areas of the country always being more heavily populated. And the Great MIgration started in 1916. Why are you even brining it up. If you wanted to think it comes early it involved people LEAVING the south. Meaning the population would logically be smaller is something similiar occurred.
And we saw how well that worked out for both sides in 1846-1848.
Irrelevant. The US in the Mexican American War had a lot of difficulty invading northern Mexico. It was the landing at Vera Cruz which sealed American victory. And again, the US didn't have to worry about any hostile neighbors intervening back home.
It's amusing to claim it has nothing to do with Birmingham when you concede its in the title and gets repeatedly mentioned; quite clearly he talks about multiple things in the same timeframe. I'm also confused by your claim the second source doesn't back up my claims at all when it notes exploration of resources and railway building to access them was underway after the Civil War. Quite frankly, you're not debating at all but using strawman.
The link you posted talks a whole lot about a single ironworks in Bibb County. In fact every single paragraph after the first one is related to that. It mentions Birmingham twice, both in the initial paragraph. First it says: “No place on earth, other than the Birmingham District,” writes historian W. David Lewis, “contained within a thirty-mile radius all three raw materials required for iron production.” Then a couple sentences later it says this: They brashly named the state’s emerging industrial center Birmingham, after Britain’s main industrial hub."
That's it. That is all the mention that Birmingham gets. If the text was about Birmingham it would have TALKED about Birmingham. It didn't.
No information whatsoever is given that backs up your 1867 claim. 1867 meanwhile appears exactly once in the text, specifically here: In an 1867 letter to a colleague, he writes “there is a disposition to use our iron at St. Louis and also at New Orleans,” but that “this will be checked by the very high rates of freight charged from here to Selma.” That is the only mention of that year in the text whatsoever.
Your second source meanwhile says the following about Birmingham's origins: "Recognizing the area's potential, a group of investors and promoters of the North and South Railroad (which later became the Louisville & Nashville Railroad) met with banker Josiah Morris in
Montgomery on December 18, 1870, and organized the Elyton Land Company for the purpose of building a new city in Jefferson County. The company met again in January 1871, and chose as its president James R. Powell, who had recently returned from Birmingham, England's iron and steel center, and suggested that the new Alabama industrial center be given the same name."
Huh, again no mention whatsoever backing up your claims about Birmingham development in 1867, and certainly not any mention of the 1850s. These sources don't back up your claims at all, which let's remember was:
No support for this in either source. And going back farther:
It would, as OTL trends advocated. Planters were moving to industrialize Birmingham as early as 1850, and were stopped by the efforts of the Yeomen farmers; this would become a much reduced issue in the aftermath of the Civil War and it shows in that Birmingham began to develop in earnest in 1867/1868.
Again, no support in either source.