How Long Can the Civil War Last?

How long could the American Civil War go on, and what would be the repercussions and results for America, its politics, reunification, race relations, etc of a longer Civil War?
 
Probably no longer than late 1865 or early 1866. A few breaks here and there might help the South to extend it that long but not much longer. It was going downhill economically since at least late 1862. The US would be deeper in debt, the South would be even more of a wreck and reconstruction would last longer.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It's a question of how long the South can maintain its military ability and how long the North can maintain its political will. The South's political will to continue fighting will remain intact as long as its military ability (i.e. prevent things like Sherman marching from Atlanta to Savannah), but in the long run it cannot win a war of attrition with the North. On the other hand, the North cannot maintain its political will to continue fighting if the Northern public sees little prospect of bringing the war to a successful conclusion by the late summer of 1864, for they will not be willing to continue paying the price in blood.

IOTL, it was the trio of Union victories in the summer of 1864 (Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and the Shenandoah) that persuaded the Northern public that the end of the war was in sight. Had they not won those victories, it's quite possible that the North would have thrown in the towel.

Supposing that the North did maintain its political will beyond 1864, it will obviously win the contest against the South's undermanned and underfinanced military power. In that situation, even in the best circumstances, the South can't really last beyond 1865.

In other words, I don't really think the war could have lasted much longer than it did. The North would either give up in 1864 or the South would be crushed in 1865.
 
How long could the American Civil War go on, and what would be the repercussions and results for America, its politics, reunification, race relations, etc of a longer Civil War?

I'd suggested a 12 year scenario here.

I disagree with a lot of the Dixie Fans here; the South is either going to get a Carthaginian Peace Deal or its going to get a revanchist North.

The South can hold out until 1864. But if it does, why would the Union give back to it all sorts of things it's taken? Why return the Mississippi River to being an international waterway? Why return New Orleans, or make any concessions at all?

And if the Union doesn't give those back, how exactly is the Confederacy going to keep going? Every last scenario I've seen is a Rainbow Village outcome where magic Southerners are able to not only win the Civil War, they get all the stuff the Union took from them AND often things like Kentucky. It's like we deleted the actual war, imagined Washington DC and Baltimore Falling, and putting Philadelphia under siege.

And then the Confederacy will have incredible turmoil inside its own borders. They are committed to at best re-enslaving thousands of liberated slaves; they might very well try to kill them. And it's not like the Northern Abolitionists that are satisfied that the problem has been Gerrymandered out of the Union. The Civil War will rage on because Slavery = A positive good = We can't get rid of it was superglued into the Confederate Constitution.

I think the Civil War will last until the Confederates are crushed on the battlefield, crushed by their hopeless economic situation, or quite possibly crushed by a neverending war that the Unionists and Abolitionists will quite enthusiastically fan.

One of the Professors of my College, Roger Ransom, wrote This work, which is one of my first great reads of Alternative History. His scenario proposes a 50 year timeframe in which the Confederates are beaten and reannexed in WWI. Optimistic and relying a bit too much on replay bias, it's still not outright ASB.

Anyhow, the Civil War can definitely run hot and cold for longer than just being a hot war.
 
Unless the Confederates manage to pull off a quick victory in the first year, they are screwed. Even if you assume that Northern political will collapses and McClellan wins in 1864 (Atlanta etc comes later than the election perhaps) the Union has more population, way more industry/industrial potential, and does not have to worry about diverting some effort that could go in to war fighting in to keeping a large slave population under control. Given where the Union forces were in fall, 1864 - even if you assume some of the campaigns did not go as well - the CSA will be lucky to get back the whole of the states that seceded, let alone anything in the border states. West Virginia will stay in the Union. Eastern Tennessee may very well be detached as there was heavy pro-Union sentiment there, perhaps joining with Western North Carolina to form a new state.

Unless the CSA could march to Washington after first Bull Run (which it could not) there is no way the CSA dictates terms - if they "win" it will be due to the Union letting them go, on Union terms. Many ATLs have the CSA winning due to major foreign (British/French) intervention. If that happened, and lets assume they get their original states in toto not border states or West Virginia, you have a set up for serious enmity and Northern revanchism because here "foreigners" have sundered the Union (as opposed to the north "letting the wayward sisters go").

IMO the actual CW could not have lasted much beyond when it ended OTL - if foreigners came in to help the CSA it would have to be 1862 or 8163 the latest. After that, the CSA is just treading water at best.
 
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