The only place the CSA could go to within US territory would be Southern Florida. If Britain intervened on the side of the Confederacy and the Union won anyway, but lost naval supremacy (Maybe France supports them in exchange for help with invading Mexico?), then there would be no conceivable way for the Union to go to Florida south of the Panhandle. In this case, they'd set up shop in Tampa and try to use their slaves to grow sugarcane. The rump state gets rich off sugar in the late 19th century but eventually its lack of heavy industry and materials relegates it to a banana republic. South Florida is wholly dependent on Britain for their independence, and that support wavers more and more as international backlash grows against their use of slave labor. Slavery is "abolished" in South Florida in the 1920s, but is replaced by something only marginally better.

On second thought, Britain is too strong in North America to let the CSA lose if they were committed to the CSA's victory, as the Union would be forced to fight a two-front war. Maybe Britain stays neutral but France is able to shut down the Union Navy.
 
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What if the Navy sides with the CSA? I'm not sure how you'd do this realistically, but what if the vast Majority of the US Navy joins the CSA? In a world where Cuba was part of the US and then succeeded maybe they could hold out there if the CSA instead of the union had Naval superiority.

"Vast majority" would be hard given the number of officers from the North. I'd imagine a lot more sailors were from the North in any case too, so the CSA would need to find sailors for all those ships.

And then consider that the majority of shipbuilding is in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, as is the ability to make new guns and other equipment for the navy, and all you have is a beefed-up CSA Navy which will eventually be defeated, maybe with commanders like Farragut or something.
 
One rather nasty possibility is that Davis and the other top Confederates or some faction there-of escapes with the remnants of the Confederate treasury and the Richmond bank's gold reserves or hides it in the custody of someone who doesn't steal it for personal use as apparently happened to some of it historically.

With money under their control, a government in exile in say Brazil could finance neo-Confederate activities in the south, at least for a while, though the most likely result of that financing would be a more forceful Union response to those activities.

BTW: actually escaping with that gold or successfully hiding it with someone who wouldn't steal it is not very likely. The gold was a magnet for union troops chasing Davis and company, as well as freelancers who wanted it for themselves. Much of it was, historically, stolen, though among the treasure-hunting community there are wide-spread rumors that a lot of it is still hidden somewhere.

https://www.history.com/news/confederate-gold-jefferson-davis
 
The Southern leadership up to that point just about always based their power on land, slaves, gerrymandering, and maaaybe convincing those eligible to vote that they too might someday have slaves and plantations of their own. The Confederacy didn't even last long enough to really get any gold reserve going, so you can't even have people embezzling the funds and setting up offices for themselves where they got to wear eppallutes.
 
I was going to write a more far-fetched response where the Trent affair heats up and Britain joins the war but is unwilling to commit land forces, only sending the RN to help. As a Union army advances South along the Mississippi, the defenders of New Orleans breach levees in strategic places to turn the Mississippi Delta into an island, unassailable by land. As Richmond, Atlanta, and Mongomery fall, the Confederate government flees to New Orleans. The Confederate government becomes a British puppet defended by the RN that exists only to collect tolls on Mississippi trade and pass them on to the Brits. A little implausible: I like Skallagrim's answer better.
Did the Unoin control the Delta since the first year in the war anyways?
 
What if the Navy sides with the CSA? I'm not sure how you'd do this realistically, but what if the vast Majority of the US Navy joins the CSA? In a world where Cuba was part of the US and then succeeded maybe they could hold out there if the CSA instead of the union had Naval superiority.

"From December to the end of April, 222 officers whose loyalty apparently lay with the Confederacy, had resigned (see Table II). These officers represented almost two thirds of the total who would eventually resign on these grounds.26 The sum of officer departures during 1861 was 373, representing approximately 24 per cent of the 1,554 officers who were serving in the U.S. Navy as of December 1860." https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...s-dismissals-on-the-eve-of-the-civil-war.html It's pretty hard to get from 24% to a "vast majority."
 
"From December to the end of April, 222 officers whose loyalty apparently lay with the Confederacy, had resigned (see Table II). These officers represented almost two thirds of the total who would eventually resign on these grounds.26 The sum of officer departures during 1861 was 373, representing approximately 24 per cent of the 1,554 officers who were serving in the U.S. Navy as of December 1860." https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...s-dismissals-on-the-eve-of-the-civil-war.html It's pretty hard to get from 24% to a "vast majority."

Frankly, I'm a little surprised the OTL number was as high as that. Excellent find, as always @David T .
 
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