In Your Opinion: What was the biggest mistake of the American Civil War?

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In the vision of hindsight there were only two major blunders.
1) SC seceding from the Union in December 1860.
2) SC firing on Ft. Sumter in April 1861.

If SC had done nothing, it is likely some 700,000 lives would not have been lost, and slavery would have died out in a generation or two from foreign and economic pressures. OK, maybe 3 generations.

We sometimes forget the lives of people lost to this war. In no way can the loss of life be justified by the outcome. That would be like the U.S. today losing 8 million people!

But this is all hindsight. At the time secession, and then a few months later attacking Ft. Sumter, seemed to South Carolineans as entirely justified and the right thing to do. No one could envision (including Lincoln) the horrific consequences.

The last post was made in 2013. You're new, so you probably don't know, but reviving threads with no new posts in several months isn't allowed.
 
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