Economy of an Independent Confederacy:

Yes. It will care in a "it will force them back into the ranks if it can" sort of way.

The CSA government that passed a draft act in the second year of the war is not the kind of government which will regard desertion as a reason to get realistic, its the kind that will regard desertion as a reason to get tough.

They had problem OTL with desertion. What kind of problems will they have when they find out that they could go home if the government wouldn't do staggeringly stupid things?
 
They had problem OTL with desertion. What kind of problems will they have when they find out that they could go home if the government wouldn't do staggeringly stupid things?

About the same as OTL, because the government continuing the war after it was a vain effort was a "staggeringly stupid thing". Maybe less, because its not as if they're going to know the (rejected) peace terms very well, but that the Yankees keep coming and pushing them back is more obvious.

Also, I'm not sure how many Georgians are going to want Tennessee in Union hands.

I don't know if it'll make much difference, but I'm mentioning in the hopes someone else reading this has an idea.
 
Jeff Davis is not the only irrational hotheaded extremist. He's not even the worst.

This is why I regard the Confederacy's leadership as too dysfunctional to win, or build a nation.

Jefferson Davis was considered to be a moderate in the South.
 
Jefferson Davis was considered to be a moderate in the South.


Yikes! I must admit I know the battles and the generals more than the politicians so you might well be right. If JEFF DAVIS was considered a moderate the South is even more doomed then I thought and that is saying something. I don't think the CSA is viable in the long term either. However, if someone as mind-meltingly stupid as Davis was considered a moderate I don't even want to think about how dumb a fire-eater would be.
 
Also, I'm not sure how many Georgians are going to want Tennessee in Union hands.

Based on Confederate political and military leadership during the war, they appeared to consider all slave-holding states (save perhaps Delaware) as rightfully theirs. They also felt they deserved a "fair share" of the territories, by which they mean Arizona (for a future transcontinental railroad), Colorado (for its mineral wealth) and California (for both).

Of course, they aren't going to get any of that at the peace treaty. They aren't getting West Virginia, either. The likely border will probably be similar to this map.
 
Based on Confederate political and military leadership during the war, they appeared to consider all slave-holding states (save perhaps Delaware) as rightfully theirs. They also felt they deserved a "fair share" of the territories, by which they mean Arizona (for a future transcontinental railroad), Colorado (for its mineral wealth) and California (for both).

Of course, they aren't going to get any of that at the peace treaty. They aren't getting West Virginia, either. The likely border will probably be similar to this map.

Is that all of Tennessee (in blue)?
 
However, if someone as mind-meltingly stupid as Davis was considered a moderate I don't even want to think about how dumb a fire-eater would be.

Wigfall or Yancey might have lacked Davis' ability to make enemies, micromanaging, favoritism, and blindness to inconvenient truths. Of course, Yancey died in 1863, so it would depend on who his vice-president was. (Perhaps even Jefferson Davis.)
 
Is that all of Tennessee (in blue)?

Yep. And half of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. IMO, this line is a best-case win-by-Union exhaustion in 1866 or so. I'd expect the Union to keep most everything in blue except Jacksonville and perhaps coastal North Carolina.
 
Jefferson Davis was considered to be a moderate in the South.

Sadly, he *was* a moderate and before the war one of the most progressive and influential Secretaries of War in US history. That he was a moderate IMHO indicates how badly positioned the CSA was to survive as a democracy (and this is where my Forrest as Ali Jinnah idea comes in, Lee and the Virginia officers would be tarred by being linked to Davis and the great planter aristocrats because most of them *were* aristocrats).
 
Yep. And half of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. IMO, this line is a best-case win-by-Union exhaustion in 1866 or so. I'd expect the Union to keep most everything in blue except Jacksonville and perhaps coastal North Carolina.


Sounds about right, why would the Union give up any territory that it is already sitting on? It isn't like the South could take it back.
 
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