The rational Confederate leader--when should he surrender?

These two statements are mutually exclusive. Was is a political hit or wasn't it?

It being a political hit does not mean that it didn't amount to a hill of beans. The Emancipation Proclamation was deeply unpopular in 1862, it was a major political hit, and it meant just as much in terms of undermining Northern will to crush the Confederacy as Early's raid did.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It being a political hit does not mean that it didn't amount to a hill of beans.

Actually, it does. The strategic objective of the Confederates in 1864 was to maintain their strategic position and inflict so much damage on the Union armies as to discredit the Lincoln administration and bring about a collapse of political will in the North. Therefore, anything that represented a "political hit" on Lincoln was a strategic success for the Confederacy. Early's raid certainly did, and also represented that Lee's forces remained strategically relevant.
 
Actually, it does. The strategic objective of the Confederates in 1864 was to maintain their strategic position and inflict so much damage on the Union armies as to discredit the Lincoln administration and bring about a collapse of political will in the North. Therefore, anything that represented a "political hit" on Lincoln was a strategic success for the Confederacy. Early's raid certainly did, and also represented that Lee's forces remained strategically relevant.

Something that they vastly overestimated the ease and the simplicity of, especially when their approach consisted of genius actions like trying to stir up terrorism in Northern territory together with the Copperheads, presenting Lincoln with enough fire for any smokescreen of "anti-war = treason." :rolleyes:
 
But wasn't it for all intents and purposes over after New Orleans fell and Confederacy was basically cut in two?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Pretty much, yes, along with the blockade. After that it was just a question of when they were going to surrender.

Unless they could make the war so costly for the enemy in terms of blood and treasure that Union political will collapsed. And this remained a possibility until the fall of Atlanta.
 
Unless they could make the war so costly for the enemy in terms of blood and treasure that Union political will collapsed. And this remained a possibility until the fall of Atlanta.

Well that is true if Union wanted to bring the war to conclusion ASAP. They could have just let them stew in their own sauce for a couple of years and that's it. Nothing too bloody about it.
 
Well that is true if Union wanted to bring the war to conclusion ASAP. They could have just let them stew in their own sauce for a couple of years and that's it. Nothing too bloody about it.

Not sure how that would bring the CSA back to the Union - if the Union just stops in mid stride after taking New Orleans, the CSA can and probably will focus on taking it back.
 
Would a rational Confederate leader even fight the war in the same way that the Confederate leaders actually did. Waging a conventional war against a state with vastly superior resources to you in the areas that count for war seems like a foolhardy and quixotic endeavor. In this case, the course of the war itself would be completely different than what actually happened.
 
Not sure how that would bring the CSA back to the Union - if the Union just stops in mid stride after taking New Orleans, the CSA can and probably will focus on taking it back.

Or they would succumb to the 'call of glory' and fight on Eastern theater, attempting to draw Union into decisive battle? But yeah, passive strategy would be a hard sell up North, either way.
 
But wasn't it for all intents and purposes over after New Orleans fell and Confederacy was basically cut in two?

Yes, but it was led by a man who didn't understand the concept of surrender and wanted to fight the war with the Trans-Mississippi Department after Lee and Joe Johnston both had already surrendered.
 
Was the Confederacy really cut in two with the fall of New Orleans? I was under the belief that the Confederacy was still able to move supplies, resources, and soldiers across the Mississippi until the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863.
 
Yes, but it was led by a man who didn't understand the concept of surrender and wanted to fight the war with the Trans-Mississippi Department after Lee and Joe Johnston both had already surrendered.

Oh, the folly. And they would place their Alpine fortress where?!? I mean Southern slave owners clearly were far from the sharpest pencils in the drawer, but even for them this is beyond foolish.
 
To be fair, it's understandable that the guy might have been a little off his rocker given the massive stress he must have been under seeing what he must have felt was his way of life imploding all around him as his homeland, who choose him to save it, was being obliterated and burned. That isn't very conductive for rational thought.
 
Was the Confederacy really cut in two with the fall of New Orleans? I was under the belief that the Confederacy was still able to move supplies, resources, and soldiers across the Mississippi until the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863.

Technically it was reduced to Vicksburg and Port Hudson, in a matter of months.

Oh, the folly. And they would place their Alpine fortress where?!? I mean Southern slave owners clearly were far from the sharpest pencils in the drawer, but even for them this is beyond foolish.

In Hammerspace next to the Mask of Loki. :p But yes, it does have more than a little shade of the Bohemian Corporal in 1945 Berlin about it. A sane man would at least have accepted the fall of Richmond was the end of the war.

To be fair, it's understandable that the guy might have been a little off his rocker given the massive stress he must have been under seeing what he must have felt was his way of life imploding all around him as his homeland, who choose him to save it, was being obliterated and burned. That isn't very conductive for rational thought.

His home state had already fallen for months at that point, and he was by all means actually rather sane when he was captured. He did, however, object to Joe Johnston's surrender and felt Johnston should have fought to the last man and the last bullet.
 
His home state had already fallen for months at that point, and he was by all means actually rather sane when he was captured. He did, however, object to Joe Johnston's surrender and felt Johnston should have fought to the last man and the last bullet.

Can you really call someone sane when they are giving their commanders "Victory of Valhalla!" orders? He might have seemed sane, but there are plenty of people who can appear sane but aren't really all there under the surface. But I admit at this point this is just me armchair psychoanalyzing a man who has been dead for over a hundred years.
 
Can you really call someone sane when they are giving their commanders "Victory of Valhalla!" orders? He might have seemed sane, but there are plenty of people who can appear sane but aren't really all there under the surface. But I admit at this point this is just me armchair psychoanalyzing a man who has been dead for over a hundred years.

Yes, they're just evil and stubborn at that point. They led a side too weak to win a war and are too stupid to realize that at some point perhaps people should not fight a war when their society is reduced to whatever ground their armies are occupying and their capital.
 
This is why I pointed out that a rational Confederate leader would not even have fought the war in a remotely similar way, and make much of the same strategic decisions, as the actual Confederate leaders did, so to ask at what point a rational Confederate leader would make peace, while assuming the war goes the exact same way, is a silly exercise.
 
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