The rational Confederate leader--when should he surrender?

The Confederacy’s overall strategy required that, eventually, the North be willing to let the rebelling states go. Clearly, this didn’t happen, and I’m not proposing yet another “South wins the Civil War” scenario.

Instead, I’m assuming the war goes as historical. At what point should a rational Confederate conclude that surrender negotiations should be started? After all, the place occupied and slaves set free is better than the place occupied, slaves set free, crops and homes burned to the ground, and more men killed in battle for a cause that is lost on the battlefield?

And—if you settle early enough, perhaps you can negotiate something other than uncompensated emancipation?

The only rule is that you can’t start negotiations for surrender until the war is almost inevitably going to be lost…and others might well agree.

For that matter, would it make sense for any one state to start negotiations before the Confederacy collapses? And if so, what state, and what could that state gain by negotiating a separate peace?
 
Assuming 'rational Confederate leader" isn't a contradiction in terms. . .

After the fall of Atlanta.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Assuming 'rational Confederate leader" isn't a contradiction in terms. . .

After the fall of Atlanta.

Agreed. Until the fall of Atlanta the South had at least a chance for a negotiated settlement with a peace party. Afterwards, there was nothing whatsoever to hope for.
 
Atlanta?

A "Rational Confederate Leader," for my purposes, is soeone who believes in the cause of the South, and when the war began, seeks to do as well as possible for the rebel states. I'm wondering if defeat seems likely enough before the fall of Atlanta that seeking terms might be plausible. If so, what might the South get at the peace table? What might the Union be willing to give them in exchange for an end to the rebellion?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
A "Rational Confederate Leader," for my purposes, is soeone who believes in the cause of the South, and when the war began, seeks to do as well as possible for the rebel states. I'm wondering if defeat seems likely enough before the fall of Atlanta that seeking terms might be plausible. If so, what might the South get at the peace table? What might the Union be willing to give them in exchange for an end to the rebellion?

Well, the goal of the Confederacy was to become an independent state. Negotiations that did not include independence were meaningless unless the situation had become so bad that defeat was inevitable. That means the fall of Atlanta, if you ask me.

As for what the Union might have been willing to give them in exchange for surrender, which they did not get IOTL, I suppose there could have been financial compensation for the freed slaves and immediate reinstitution to the Union (representation in Congress, Electoral College, and so forth).
 
I agree that Atlanta would make the most sense.At the absolute latest the re-election of Lincoln as the CSA didn't have a prayer of lasting another four years.
 
The start of the Siege of Petersburg, when the CSA's strongest, best-led army was a flat irrelevancy at a strategic level. After that point the question was how long Lee would keep up a battle he knew was lost before it had even started.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The start of the Siege of Petersburg, when the CSA's strongest, best-led army was a flat irrelevancy at a strategic level. After that point the question was how long Lee would keep up a battle he knew was lost before it had even started.

Not quite THAT irrelevant. A month after the start of the Siege of Petersburg, troops dispatched from Lee's army were throwing shells into Washington itself, raiding the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and burning towns in Pennsylvania.

But the deeper point is this. The South never had a chance to win the war from a military point of view, and after the fall of 1862 (maybe, just maybe, the summer of 1863) any chance of foreign intervention was gone. However, they could still win if their resistance was sufficient to bring about a collapse of political will in the North that would result in the election of a peace party. And that was still achievable for a few months even after the commencement of Petersburg.
 
Would the South not have been better off if they had not attacked Fort Sumter?

I mean not attacking the fort but allow the garrison to slowly starve instead of taking it could grant the South the time needed to set up better defences?



Another thing could be to attack and take Washington. If either of such things had happened could the South have prolonged the war to even avoid surrender, but broker a peace treaty?
 
Not quite THAT irrelevant. A month after the start of the Siege of Petersburg, troops dispatched from Lee's army were throwing shells into Washington itself, raiding the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and burning towns in Pennsylvania.

But the deeper point is this. The South never had a chance to win the war from a military point of view, and after the fall of 1862 (maybe, just maybe, the summer of 1863) any chance of foreign intervention was gone. However, they could still win if their resistance was sufficient to bring about a collapse of political will in the North that would result in the election of a peace party. And that was still achievable for a few months even after the commencement of Petersburg.

Which Grant rightly knew was just a diversion and never had a serious chance to take Washington.
 
Would the South not have been better off if they had not attacked Fort Sumter?

I mean not attacking the fort but allow the garrison to slowly starve instead of taking it could grant the South the time needed to set up better defences?



Another thing could be to attack and take Washington. If either of such things had happened could the South have prolonged the war to even avoid surrender, but broker a peace treaty?

No, as the Union would proceed to ignore the existence of the Confederacy altogether, which sooner or later necessitates the CSA has to shoot first to show its theoretical sovereignty actually means something.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Which Grant rightly knew was just a diversion and never had a serious chance to take Washington.

Militarily, sure. But wars are not decided purely by military factors, and what Grant thought was not nearly as important as what the voters of the Northern states thought. From their perspective, Early's raid demonstrated that Grant had gotten no closer to Richmond than McClellan had in 1862 and suffered sixty thousand casualties while doing it, while the rebels were free to raid into the North at will and even approach the outskirts of Washington.

You are correct that it was not important from a military point of view, but it was a disaster to the Union from a political point of view. And this is what really mattered, especially in the summer of 1864.
 
Militarily, sure. But wars are not decided purely by military factors, and what Grant thought was not nearly as important as what the voters of the Northern states thought. From their perspective, Early's raid demonstrated that Grant had gotten no closer to Richmond than McClellan had in 1862 and suffered sixty thousand casualties while doing it, while the rebels were free to raid into the North at will and even approach the outskirts of Washington.

You are correct that it was not important from a military point of view, but it was a disaster to the Union from a political point of view. And this is what really mattered, especially in the summer of 1864.

And yet, Lincoln was re-elected, so politically it also ultimately amounted to squat.
 
Militarily, sure. But wars are not decided purely by military factors, and what Grant thought was not nearly as important as what the voters of the Northern states thought. From their perspective, Early's raid demonstrated that Grant had gotten no closer to Richmond than McClellan had in 1862 and suffered sixty thousand casualties while doing it, while the rebels were free to raid into the North at will and even approach the outskirts of Washington.

You are correct that it was not important from a military point of view, but it was a disaster to the Union from a political point of view. And this is what really mattered, especially in the summer of 1864.

Politically it didn't amount to a hill of beans. What was more decisive was the actual siege of Petersburg and the seemingly interminable campaign in Georgia in this regard. The Battle of the Crater in particular would have been more damaging than Early's joyride.
 

Grimbald

Monthly Donor
The fall of Atlanta reelected Lincoln and sealed the South's fate.

I have long felt that either the Richmond government or the individual states should have opened discussions at that point with a goal of compensated emancipation, immediate withdrawal of Union troops, and immediate reentry into the Union with pardons for all Confederates.

The nation could have avoided 150,000 deaths (my estimate), the loss of millions of property and much ill feelings. The South would have avoided the occuption.

Would Lincoln have done it? He put everything except separtion on the table at Hampton Roads. The compensated emancipation would have been a sticking point but a deal would have been done.

There probably would have been no XIV and XV amendments or if passed they would have been watered down.

Fewer slaves/freed slaves would have starved to death late in the war and the immediate aftermath. More would probably have sought to leave the south. The pressure to set up an African homeland in the US would have been higher.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Politically it didn't amount to a hill of beans.

I've learned not to try to persuade you of things you don't wish to believe, but the fact is that Early's raid did cause the Lincoln administration acute embarrassment and was a serious political hit. The newspaper accounts in the North were hysterical furious and the entire episode made the Lincoln administration appear incompetent (especially when Early escaped with such ease). The Democrats hammered Lincoln relentlessly about Early's raid for some time.
 
I've learned not to try to persuade you of things you don't wish to believe, but the fact is that Early's raid did cause the Lincoln administration acute embarrassment and was a serious political hit. The newspaper accounts in the North were hysterical furious and the entire episode made the Lincoln administration appear incompetent (especially when Early escaped with such ease). The Democrats hammered Lincoln relentlessly about Early's raid for some time.

It was a serious political hit, yes, I'm not denying that. What was more serious than it were Pearl Harbor and the Crater, respectively, both of which created great disillusionment and put a dent in Grant's reputation he never recovered from. The Union public had quite a bit of faith in Grant in 1864, the realization that even a brilliant general can't do everything by himself had quite a bit of impact. Early also did not escape with ease, and in a practical sense his raid ended with the Battle of the Monocacy.

There is a lot of mythology surrounding 1864, much of which needs to be hit with the historical equivalent of a tire iron to the temple.
 
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