Was Confederate success in the ACW at all possible?

With a POD after Lincoln's election

  • The Confederacy was doomed to lose the ACW

    Votes: 21 29.2%
  • The Confederacy could have won independence but would have been reconquered at a later date

    Votes: 28 38.9%
  • The Confederacy could have won independence and could remain a sovereign state to the present day

    Votes: 23 31.9%

  • Total voters
    72
Was the Confederacy was doomed to be defeated in the ACW with a POD following Lincolns election? And if not was the Confederacy doomed to be reintegrated into the US at some later point in history? All comments and questions welcome!

Edit: This is in the wrong forum, my apologizes ill ask a mod to move it...
 
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Had the Confederates been better organized and pushed it and taken Washington D.C. during the battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas), it's possible. Afterwards, I think the U.S. capital was too heavily defended to have been taken. Once things move beyond this point, foreign support of the CSA would be needed for them to win and this was unlikely as long as they had slavery. From a standpoint of both economics and manpower, the south could not compete with the north.
 
If they didn't fire on fort Sumter and bide their time, they could have provoked the north into being the aggressor, which in itself is a political victory. From then on, they would have to have the propaganda machine running full force, magnifying every little inhumane thing the north is doing, to make them look like heartless monsters.

Once they get a little bit of outside support, the war becomes winnable. I don't think that the confederates could win the war as so much as the union could lose the war. Just have the command of the union be totally inept and let Lee get a few lucky victories. This would have the momentum run in favor of the confederates.
 
Outside support was not going to come so long as the CSA had slavery, at least not from anywhere that would matter.
 
Outside support was not going to come so long as the CSA had slavery, at least not from anywhere that would matter.

If the British gave them diplomatic recognition that would probably open up the door for French intervention on some level, otherwise you're correct in saying it would come from nowhere that mattered.
 
General questions like this are difficult, history has the potential to be a game of inches and random chance. Suppose Sherman had been killed at Shiloh, he came very close OTL. Suppose Grant had been killed when his horse fell on him just before Shiloh? Suppose Jackson had survived his wounds? Suppose the Monitor foundered and sank on the way to Hampton Roads, it was not a seaworthy vessel.
With a thousand random inches and chances, yes the CSA could have won the war. It also could have been crushed in a couple of years if the inches and random chances went against them.
 
General questions like this are difficult, history has the potential to be a game of inches and random chance. Suppose Sherman had been killed at Shiloh, he came very close OTL. Suppose Grant had been killed when his horse fell on him just before Shiloh? Suppose Jackson had survived his wounds? Suppose the Monitor foundered and sank on the way to Hampton Roads, it was not a seaworthy vessel.
With a thousand random inches and chances, yes the CSA could have won the war. It also could have been crushed in a couple of years if the inches and random chances went against them.

Considering the odds against them they need a LOT of lucky breaks. Grant dying would be a good start but not enough IMO.
 

Dialga

Banned
Possible, but remote. And the odds only got worse as time went by. By the end of 1863, the best the CSA could hope for was a draw.

And the aftermath? The CSA probably would have broken up under the strain - not to mention the concept of States' Rights itself might have led to dissension and thus breakup.
 
I voted for the last alternative but only because the Confederacy COULD have won Independence and COULD have survived. It certainly was not doomed in 1861, but it retrospect it had only a slight chance of survival since the only way it could win Independence would be if the government and the population of the North allowed it, either willingly without a war or through losing the will to continue a war to suppress the Confederacy. The stark fact facing the Confederacy was that nothing short of death, capture, or total demoralization of his supporters would ever destroy the will of Abraham Lincoln to restore the Union. When the overwhelming material strength of the North was combined with Lincoln's iron will and sound strategy, Confederate independence was possible only through superior military and political leadership, of which the CSA was lacking, or through random events that would remove one or more of the pillars of Union strength. Notably, remove Lincoln from the scene either by capturing him in a mad rush on Washington after 1st Manasses or through Lincoln's death by natural causes (say Typhoid Fever, always a threat in DC). Or with the right sequence of events and some timely deaths (this means you, Braxton Bragg, and you, Bishop Polk, among others) the CSA could have won sufficient victories when they held the strategic iniative for the only time in fall 1862 to have broken Northern morale and/or win recognition (not intervention). So the Confederacy could have won its Independence even if unlikely. Granted that, however, an Independent Confederacy would probably have survived as a separate nation to the present. Once forged as a nation and recognized internationally as a soverign state, the CSA would most likely have neither fallen victim to a war of reconquest, nor fallen apart, nor voluntarily rejoined the Union. Even weak nations can survive for a long time on a combination of inertia and balance of power politics.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The Confederacy could only have won the war if Britain and/or France had intervened on its behalf OR public opinion in the North had become so demoralized that it elected a peace administration in 1864. Either of these were possible. Indeed, both nearly happened IOTL.
 
The Confederacy could only have won the war if Britain and/or France had intervened on its behalf OR public opinion in the North had become so demoralized that it elected a peace administration in 1864. Either of these were possible. Indeed, both nearly happened IOTL.

Intervention did NOT nearly happen, recognition perhaps, but not intervention. Recognition gives the CSA squat as the CSA would still be blockaded. The fact that one country recognizes another doesn't mean they are willing to go to war on its behalf. We recognize the country of Bolivia, does that mean we are willing to go to war to help Bolivia? There may be scenarios where we are but they are far outnumbered by those that aren't.
 
There was one TL I remember which described how the Confederate government fell apart and eventually got reconquered by the US... Does anyone remember what it was called or have a link to it?
 
The only way, in my mind, the CSA could have left the Union, would be if they 'didn't try to win, but rather didn't lose'. There only hope was to harass and wear the USA to the point they could bear it no longer, however this doesn't mean the CSA isn't going to explode out its own arse later.
 
There's a chance they could win the war and very slim chance they could survive to the modern day but probably only if the CSA is a sufficient mess economically that the USA doesn't want to take on the costs of reconstruction. More likely is an East German style collapse and reabsorbtion or disintegration and the individual states either returning to the USA or being treated as client states.
 
The Confederacy can't win a war against the Union by itself. The Union could however choose to give up if the Confederates cause enough problems.

Likewise, foreign intervention could tip the balance in the Confederates direction.

As far as the Confederacy rejoining the Union, it seems unlikely. If the Confederate Economy stagnates, the Union wouldn't want them. If the Confederate economy flourishes, then the Confederacy would be a difficult opponent that could still only be beat through attrition, and the Confederates would fight tooth and nail to remain independent.
 
Agree that foreign intervention could have saved the CSA. However, I think that eventually the United States re-absorbs the Confederacy; even if the South was able to develop some semblance of an industrial base, the North was so far ahead in terms of industrialization that it would always be bound to be more powerful militarily. All it would take was some European allies for the U.S. to tie up the allies of the Confederates, and I think we see the United States re-taking its southern states.
 
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