Earliest Southern defeat.

Skallagrim

Banned
You are partly right about the motivation of the North. The South seceded and fought for the continuation of Slavery, that can't be denied. Any denial is part of the lost cause myth. The North initialy motivated it's fight as a fight against secession, but as the South fought for slavery, it is inevitable that this issue becomes part of the war goals of the North. One major factor here is the runaway slaves in occupied country. Grant f.i. got so many of those in his camp when he pushed South, that he wrote several requests to the president and the Capitol to solve this issue. This certainly influenced the politicians to come to a quick answer to this question. My point is, any occupation of southern territory leads to more slave refugees. This will lead to an urge to solve the problem. And the only acceptable solution for the North here is abolition. That will come quicker if more territory is occupied.

Regarding motivation of both sides, I am quite convinced that "maintain the Union" was paramount to the North to rouhly the same overwhelming degree as "preserve slavery" was for the South. And on the flip-side, that "end slavery" was (at least initially) as central to the North as "defend states' rights (other than slavery)" was to the South-- that is, it was mostly an appealing bit of side-dressing that did not feature into the real decision-making in any important way.

That said, ending slavery did become more important to the North during the war. For the reason you mention (practical reality on the ground) but also because -- even though it wasn't initially of true importance to the political decision-makers -- most Northerners would rather see it end. (Exactly the same goes regarding "states' rights" in the South, incidentally: the slavocrats ultimately gave zero damns about it as long as they could keep their slaves, but lots of common soldiers -- in war-time letters etc. -- genuinely express the belief that they are fighting for their states' liberties.) In any event, as the war dragged on, and abolition became a an increasingly realistic perspective, increasingly more Northerners were willing to commit to actually doing it.

The problem here is that this second reason, which I have stressed, takes time. The motivation you stress relies on an OTL-like situation of Southern collapse as the Union marches through CSA territory. I'll grant that this may happen in a shorter war, but I think it's unlikely. If the Confederates lose repeatedly, and they start collapsing (militarily) sooner, then that's the end. Their experiment failed, and there is no hope. No glorious early successes to boast about, just failure. Under such circumstances, I see them informing much earlier about a clean surrender on the basis of "We fully admit we were wrong, secession is forever off the table, and you let us keep our slaves". Simply going by Lincoln's position in OTL (as late as the end of 1863), we may safely assume he'd go for that. In fact, he repeatedly stated that this was his actual goal. (Everything else, he quite explicitly considered a 'bonus'.)

Naturally, the sooner the war ends (meaning: the sooner the CSA turns out to be an undeniable failure), the more likely this kind of outcome is. But going by how lenient Lincoln was even in the E.P. (every secessionist state can return to the Union individidually, no questions asked and no retribution exacted), my general time-frame remains the same. A quick war just isn't going to be able to terminate slavery, because the North will automatically prioritise ending the war over ending slavery. (We may conclude that Lincoln was a very lenient man, and the Slavocrat cabal was the most self-defeating gaggle of incompetents that could conceivably have been gathered in their day and age.)
 
How do you see a scenario that allows for a decisive victory as early as 1862? Even the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia and the occupation of Richmond while would quickly accelerate the Confederacy's collapse it would still take some time for deep South states to fall apart. And as I noted earlier, the greatest problem that the South would have is even sans formal abolishing of slavery, that institution from their perspective is going to be crippled. The economic impact would be severe (although less so than more years of fighting), and the social consequences would be emotionally devastating.

Vicksburg could've been taken in June of 1862, bisecting the Confederacy a year in advance while Burnside's expedition could've cut the railways into Virginia, forcing Lee to abandon it and all it's industry and manpower while seriously threatening to take NC itself and surround Lee's Army.
 
Two scenarios to consider:

1) First Manassas is a decisive Union victory, with the Rebels fleeing in rout and thousands of prisoners marched through Washington. This will not lead to Union occupation of Richmond; the Union army was incapable of such an overland march at this time. But it will be a huge blow to secessionist morale, at a moment when the CSA has yet to establish itself as a credible enterprise, and physical and psychological investment is still minimal.

It's possible - though not probable, IMO - that the rebellion collapses. Now at this point there is no general feeling in the North for emancipation. But IMO the feeling that slavery was the cause of the attempted secession was widespread, and slavery-restrictive measures will be popular.

The slavocrats wil be boxed in. Secession has been tried and failed; the Fire-Easters re discredited. Lincoln has two seats on the Supreme Court to fill: the late Justice Daniel's, and resigned Justice Campbell's. I don't think will be more than a decade before cultural pressure forces the South to convert chattel slavery into indentured servitude and eventually sharecropping.

2) The CSA collapses in 1862, before the Emancipation Proclamation tales effect. I'm too tired to specaulte on this.
 

Marc

Donor
Vicksburg could've been taken in June of 1862, bisecting the Confederacy a year in advance while Burnside's expedition could've cut the railways into Virginia, forcing Lee to abandon it and all it's industry and manpower while seriously threatening to take NC itself and surround Lee's Army.

I had occasion these holidays to talk with one of my brother-in-laws, his knowledge of the Southern Rebellion is far greater than mine (he came to it from a dispassionate interest in the basis of the greatest cultural event in American history).
At any rate, his take is that if Van Dorn’s legendary "Wild Ride" that resulted in the destruction of Grant’s supplies for the Vicksburg attack in late 1862 never happens, Vicksburg falls by the end of the year; 6-7 months earlier than it did.
But not before then. However, that does, very likely, mean that the South's Western theater is going to crumble like rotted wood.
 
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