What if the Confederacy had the states of Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Delaware’s major slave owner had about less than 20 slaves, and half of Maryland’s population was made up by free blacks, so I don’t see how they could ever join the Confederacy. Kentucky didn’t formally join, but practically half the state did, and Missouri had to fight its own war with Confederacy sympathizers. As for West Virginia, it seceded from Virginia to not join the Confederacy, so the right question would be, what if it didn’t and stayed within Virginia? And I guess things wouldn’t change that much.
 
West Virginia would be a drain on Virginia's resources. It was very heavily wooded and still is the local population wasn't to fond of the rest of Virginia,that's why West Virginia split from Virginia in 1860.
Robert E Lee would have to divert a good portion of his State's scarce resources to the occupation of Western Virginia with bad results.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
For this to even happen, you'd need a POD more fundamental than "they just decide to". At the very least, you need a different situation in 1860-- one in which the Federal government is (perceived as) so anti-Southern, that it becomes the logical decision for any Southern state to split off. You'd basically need someone more radical than Lincoln to get elected with clear support in the North, and that's not easy. In fact, that itself would require tensions to be much worse in the preceding years...

More realistically, you can say that the earlier a conflict erupts, the more solidly "Southern" that part of the USA will feel. If you can somehow worsen tensions between North and South as of the 1840s (or at least the early 1850s) and get (the equivalent of) a Radical Republican elected with overwhelming support in 1856, I'd say the chances of all Southern states deciding to split are much greater than in 1860. If you move that time-table even further back, so that the tensions arise earlier and the candidate-the-South-will-never-accept gets elected in 1852 or even 1848, the chances of a "whole South" secession become correspondingly greater.

(Also, the further back you take it, the stronger the South will relatively be, compated to the North. If the whole South seceded in '48, over reasons that compell most every Southerner to feel that this is the right decision, I'm fairly sure that secession would succeed. With the matter of Oregon still fresh in the memory, Britain may also be more inclined to back the South in such a case-- although I still think it would be limited to offering to mediate, maybe sending a few ships to stop the USA from interfering in any Anglo-Confederate trade, and eventually recognising the alt-CSA when they and if look to be winning. Don't expect British soldiers marching through North America.)

And that's pretty much it. No matter what, you'll need something to worsen tensions between North and South, to make staying with the north unacceptable to any proud Southerner. Escalating tensions could be done: getting a president elected who's radical enough to be utterly unacceptable to any Southern state is far more tricky...
 

BlondieBC

Banned
For this to even happen, you'd need a POD more fundamental than "they just decide to". At the very least, you need a different situation in 1860-- one in which the Federal government is (perceived as) so anti-Southern, that it becomes the logical decision for any Southern state to split off. You'd basically need someone more radical than Lincoln to get elected with clear support in the North, and that's not easy. In fact, that itself would require tensions to be much worse in the preceding years...

..

A lot of these votes were pretty close, so I think you can get a closer to the fact POD. You need the north to make a mistake. The thing that jumps to mind would be the Union forces firing first at Fort Sumter as the south is assembling its forces. Or maybe just some outrages by Northern troops. A few rapes might be enough. Or maybe something like burning some important white men's houses before the war starts. Something to fire up passions.

While I agree Delaware is hard, Kentucky and Missouri could be flipped to the CSA fairly easily. Maryland could also go with a butterfly delaying union interference in the vote.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
What would happen if the Confederacy had these 5 states could they of possibly won the civil war?

CSA still lose the war, but it takes longer. West Virginia and Delaware with have little impact. Changing the votes does not have a huge impact on how the locals act in these two states. Even if we assume Delaware sends 75% fewer regiments to the war, how many men are we talking about.

The other three states are interesting. In both states, we see people fighting on both sides but flipping it will change the ratio. And it will mean there is more land to be taken by the USA. So for example in Maryland, we might see 35% of OTL union forces raised in Maryland fight for the South. And the opening battles of the east are probably in Maryland not Virginia. Same type of pattern in Missouri where we may have to see a series of CSA defeats to get to OTL opening lines. So we probably just add a few months to maybe a year to the war. All depends on the butterflies.
 
Delaware is essentially impossible and Maryland can only be gained by military conquest. West Virginia and Kentucky are pretty easy, while Missouri is more difficult but not as difficult as the aforementioned Maryland and Delaware. Without Kentucky, the Federals have just been deprived of a major source of gunpowder, which is rather critical as 1861-1862 saw critical shortages of such within the Union. Also of note is that if the war is in Kentucky, the iron mines of Tennessee are safe which means much greater Confederate military production of higher quality too, as well as a stable and expanding rail system during the war.
 
"On the 2d of January, 1861, the Legislature assembled at Dover, and on the next day the commissioner from Mississippi, Henry Dickinson, appeared before the House, and made an address. In the name of the State of Mississippi, he invited Delaware to join the Southern Confederacy, which was about to be formed. He claimed the right of the State to secede from the Federal Union, and said, if it was not admitted, war would be inevitable. After his speech, the House resolved unanimously, and the Senate concurred by a majority, that, “having extended to the Hon. H. Dickinson, the commissioner of Mississippi, the courtesy due him, as the representative of a sovereign State of the Confederacy, as well as to the State he represents, we deem it proper and due to ourselves and the people of Delaware to express our unqualified disapproval of the remedy for existing difficulties suggested by the resolutions of the Legislature of Mississippi."" https://books.google.com/books?id=X0Y4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA331

Repeat: The Delaware House of Representatives in January 1861 unanimously rejected secession. That alone shows how unlikely it was that Delaware would secede. (Remember that Lincoln had gotten 24 percent of the vote there, that the overwhelming majority of African American in the state were free, etc. And above all that Delaware--unlike Kentucky, Missouri or Maryland--didn't border on any state that seceded. You may ask, "well, If Maryland had seceded, would Delaware follow suit?" The answer is that the federal government would simply not allow Maryland to secede and to--with Virginia--cut Washington DC off from the Union. Whatever force it took, securing Maryland and thus the District would have to be the first priority.)
 
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