Different Union strategy

[HistIdiot]

I know I will get killed for this, but I read in a book a while back that early in the war the Union, due to a superior navy, ahd the chance to capture a number of coastal Confederate cities. Assuming they had done so, would the Union have been able to launch several campaigns from these locations? How do you think it would have turned out?

If they had been able to take and hold places like Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, etc., I don't think the CSA would have been in a great position to resist at the outset. Of course, this depends on how effective the Union army can be, given distance from the Union proper.

 

[Umbric Man]

To be kinda devil's advocate, New Orleans was captured in '62 and was pretty much the reason the Anaconda Plan and moving down the Mississippi was viable in the first place.

 

[lothaw]

The Union kinda did do that. Keep in mind keeping a large force supplied by sea was pretty dang hard back then.

They spent half the war trying to take Chareston, captured some chunks of North Carolina pretty early on, and as mentioned earlier New Orleans was the lynchpin of the Anaconda plan. Galveston was pretty much the only port open to the Confederacy during the war, and it kept getting traded back and forth.

 

[usertron2020]

You are moving thru a land of both shadow and substance...

*sigh* Prepare to be curbstomped. I mean by people very, Very, VERY knowledgeable about the ACW. They will swarm you with data proving not merely that your discussion (TL?) is untenable, not only that it simply wasn't possible for the Union to win one day sooner than IOTL, but in fact, the South DID win the Civil War. We are simply living our existence in a shadowy parallel universe where the "impossible" happened. Just sarcasm about the legions of NeoConfedWanks out there folks, no need to declare jihad.

 

[jkay]

The Union war plan, Anaconda, did plan on blockading and capturing port cities to starve the rebs out as a high priority. But, because rivers are harder to blockade than ocean ports, the Union made a priority of cutting off the Mississipi first. Hence the early capture of New Orleans.

The plan worked out grimly well. The CSA needed to import everything not grown on farms, so they grew quite short on...well, everything. By the end of the war, most of the CSA was starving because they couldn't even transport those farmgoods internally.

 

[robertp6165]

*sigh* Prepare to be curbstomped. I mean by people very, Very, VERY knowledgeable about the ACW. They will swarm you with data proving not merely that your discussion (TL?) is untenable, not only that it simply wasn't possible for the Union to win one day sooner than IOTL, but in fact, the South DID win the Civil War. We are simply living our existence in a shadowy parallel universe where the "impossible" happened. Just sarcasm about the legions of NeoConfedWanks out there folks, no need to declare jihad.

You know, if you really look at the history of ACW timelines posted on this board, Confederwanks get the crap kicked out of them, too. The challenge is to write a PLAUSIBLE timeline instead of a wank. A wank, by definition, is both exaggerated and completely implausible.

Now if someone writes a plausible timeline regarding a different Union strategy which leads to an earlier Union victory, I am sure such a timeline will be accepted on the board...as indeed a Union-victory timeline I myself wrote...ANSWERING THE CALL OF LAFAYETTE...was accepted. But if you are going to wank, expect to get your hands slapped, because we don't like that kind of disgusting behavior in here.

 

[usertron2020]

Good Luck!

You know, if you really look at the history of ACW timelines posted on this board, Confederwanks get the crap kicked out of them, too. The challenge is to write a PLAUSIBLE timeline instead of a wank. A wank, by definition, is both exaggerated and completely implausible.

Now if someone writes a plausible timeline regarding a different Union strategy which leads to an earlier Union victory, I am sure such a timeline will be accepted on the board...as indeed a Union-victory timeline I myself wrote...ANSWERING THE CALL OF LAFAYETTE...was accepted. But if you are going to wank, expect to get your hands slapped, because we don't like that kind of disgusting behavior in here.

Thank you robertp6165! It's nice to know there ARE well written Unionist Victory TLs out there. The key phrase is well written. I promise to check out your TLs ASAP. I'll be particularly interested in the nature of the replies your TLs have generated. I guess my own frustration is that writers of your caliber willing to do a Union Victorious TL are so rare. It's easy to rip apart poor writing and scholarship when the writer is positively "wanking", but you can get into some pretty nasty fights in AH when the ACW is involved. Be brave. Be very brave.