What was the final moment that the CSA could've won the Civil War?

I doubt that after 4 years trying to take the south and the Emancipation Proclamation they would just say "this is too hard, let´s go home!", in any case how many people would even support this and with what resources(the CSA was broken by the end of the war).
Have you any idea how tired the average person especially in the Great Lakes area was getting of the war. Its all a matter of Will and frankly the desire to drive brutal invaders from hearth and home tends to trump the fervor of conscripts for a political abstraction.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
IIRC the "hand behind it's back" comment was an observation Foote made in the context of the annual Harvard-Yale boat race taking place for the first time during the war in July of 1864, a week after the battle of Atlanta - the point being that if the Union could afford to allow several dozen fit young men to mess about in boats without worrying about conscription then it wasn't anywhere close to maxing out its manpower resources and yet was overwhelming the Confederacy even in its heartland.
But that's a ridiculous argument - that's like saying that you can't possibly be losing the war because you won a small skirmish, or because not every single military age man is currently in uniform.
You could buy substitutes to get out of conscription, and many of those young men probably did.

It's also 1864, which is a time when the Union's well past the crisis point. It certainly doesn't mean anything for 1862.

It's easy to talk about something happening differently producing a slightly different outcome and maybe the Confederacy lasting longer as a result, but the Confederacy really had no chance after it failed to get foreign intervention, it was always going to be ground into the sand one way or the other. The ACW really was one of those wars were God was on the side of the big battalions.
The reason why "lasting longer" is key is because Lincoln himself believed the 1864 election was close up until it happened (and with Atlanta as the "October Surprise" then there's some reason to believe he was right) and because the better the CSA's doing the worse Lincoln's election prospects are.
 
"The reason why "lasting longer" is key is because Lincoln himself believed the 1864 election was close up until it happened (and with Atlanta as the "October Surprise" then there's some reason to believe he was right) and because the better the CSA's doing the worse Lincoln's election prospects are."

Atlanta fell in September, and way too much is made of Lincoln's opinion about this. He was wrong about a lot of things. The Democrats, or least the non-Copperhead ones, thought that the Copperhead plank and Fremont withdrawing as a result pretty much sealed the election for Lincoln.
 

jahenders

Banned
At which point did it become impossible for the Confederacy to win the ACW? Maybe the taking of Mobile? Earlier? Somehow later? The Confederacy never had a great chance of victory, but there has to have been a specific point in the ACW when it became impossible for them.

As many noted, it depends on one's definition of 'winning' and it wasn't likely in any case.

I'll answer two ways:
1) I think they could have won (in the sense of the US giving up and letting some of the CSA go) if they had done much better in 1863. Won Gettysburg, held Vicksburg, and maybe won a few others. Together, that might have kept Lincoln from re-election and weakened overall US resolve.

2) They were clearly doomed in 1864 and the March to Sea certainly sealed that doom.
 
You could say that there were seven major campaigns in the Eastern theatre before Lincoln's reelection; Seven Days, 2nd Bull Run, Maryland, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Overland campaign. Lee was able to win two in a row, which brought the Army of the Potomac's morale to an all time low before McClellan took command, and brought Copperhead-ism to its height before the good news of July 4. I think if Lee won three in a row, he might get a kind of 'critical mass' where he can win all seven campaigns before Lincoln's election. He might not be able to crack Washington open, but he would be able to cut it off from Baltimore and take Harrisburg almost at will; with Lee ravaging everything touching the Susquehanna, it would be impossible to argue to the public that the war was being won. He could also transfer men and generals to the Western theatre to keep Atlanta shielded once the Army of the Potomac had been cowed.
 
What are your conditions for victory? If you mean a surviving Confederacy with any amount of land, it can come quite late. If you mean a Confederacy composing of all the seceded states, it can't happen. Any Confederate "victory" after 1863 ends with a divided Confederacy as Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee probably end up as part of the Union at minimum.
 
An analysis from the Washington Post about Atlanta and Lincoln's reelection: It is not totally contingent on Atlanta being taken....

The fall of Atlanta and Lincoln’s reelection: ‘Game-changer’ or campaign myth?

If Lincoln was in trouble before Atlanta, Republican vote share before September 1864 should appear lower than after. But if we see little change in Republican votes over time, it may suggest that Lincoln was on his way to reelection without Atlanta.


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The solid horizontal line shows that Lincoln’s 1864 popular vote share of 55 percent He also dominated the Electoral College vote 212 to 21. But a 5 percent popular shift from Lincoln to his opponent, George McClellan, would have created a tie , indicated by the dashed line. If the Lincoln lost 5 percent in every state, McClellan would have won the Electoral College vote and the presidency.

Early in 1862, Republicans performed well but clearly lost vote share in elections held late in 1862. This could be interpreted as dissatisfaction with the war, but these late-1862 elections occurred after the Union victory at Antietam, when the public’s mood about the war should have been improving.

Another explanation for the shift in 1862 could be the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, which created considerable controversy. But this also doesn’t quite fit the facts: Abolitionist Massachusetts had the biggest Republican loss while slave state Delaware showed Republican gains.

Thus, the midterm dip in 1862 looks more like a pattern quite familiar to us today: the tendency of the president’s party to suffer losses in the midterm.

Notably, even at this lowest level of support, Republicans averaged only 3 percent worse than Lincoln’s 1864 vote share, short of the 5 percent threshold needed for Lincoln to lose in 1864. And by the fall 1863, Republicans fared substantially better, equaling or exceeding Lincoln’s 1864 vote share. The early 1864 elections also went well for Republicans. This suggests that Republican fortunes before Sherman reclaimed Atlanta were not actually that bad.

Most important is the continuity between the elections before and after the fall of Atlanta. Republican vote shares in House and gubernatorial elections did not change that much. The Atlanta thesis should show Republican gains after the victory. The evidence shows otherwise.

I also compared the 11 states that voted both before and after the capture of Atlanta. There were only four states where Republican votes actually increased after Atlanta fell. There were seven where Republican votes actually declined, although by mostly insubstantial amounts. This evidence also counters the notion that the capture of Atlanta was a game-changer.

At no point does Lincoln appear in danger of losing badly, as he worried. Even the grimmest interpretation of tough 1862 midterms shows only a tossup. And that dip in Republican fortunes evaporated in 1863, which should have restored Republican confidence. Public partisan mood was not apparently against Lincoln before Atlanta, and his chances did not substantially improve after.

With only four states holding contested partisan elections in 1864 before Atlanta, it is possible that public mood dipped precariously in the summer between elections. But it is not likely given the stability of partisan voting during the war, in both victory and defeat. Of course, we can’t rerun history to see what would have happened if had Atlanta remained in Confederate hands. But the electoral trends we can observe show Lincoln on track for reelection by late 1863, if not sooner.

To be fair, it’s easy to imagine how, with relatively few states holding elections in early 1864, fears could multiply during a terrible season of fighting. And although periodic midterm losses by the president’s party may be familiar to us now, this pattern may not have been clear in 1864.

All told, Lincoln’s pre-Atlanta pessimism about his reelection prospects appears unfounded, and the predominant “game-changer” narrative surrounding the 1864 election looks mythical in this light. Saying so does not diminish the monumental significance of Lincoln’s reelection and Union victory, which still shape our politics today. But it does inform our understanding of how Lincoln won.

Although it is interesting that you could have given McClellan a tie with a 5% swing vote...
 
From what I've looked at, McClellan might have been able to get an electoral college win with a minority popular vote; I think the largest voter percentage he had to turn would have been Ohio, at 6%. New York and Pennsylvania were very close, and I don't think it's implausible that an unchecked winning streak on Lee's part could have turned a single percentage point there.
 
Another thing to consider is that although Atlanta is definitely the icing on the cake, you also had massive/decently sized union victories at Mobile Bay in August, and also with Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in October. For better or worse it is a combination of all three, and you could substitute any of the other two for Atlanta.

From what I've looked at, McClellan might have been able to get an electoral college win with a minority popular vote; I think the largest voter percentage he had to turn would have been Ohio, at 6%. New York and Pennsylvania were very close, and I don't think it's implausible that an unchecked winning streak on Lee's part could have turned a single percentage point there.

Not going to deny that either, but you still have some other places where you had Union victories in the run up to the election, you would literally have to change them as well to get a McClellan victory and an attempt at a lasting USA.

And even besides that, until march of 1865 the war is going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent that Lincoln can in his remaining time in office.
 
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I think if the Confederates can hold Chattanooga until fall/winter, Atlanta will be safe for the rest of the war; lots of high ground to fortify, and the frozen soil and absence of forage would make it very difficult to besiege.
 
Logistically? The moment Vicksburg fell and the west was split from the east. That guarantees that Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana outside of New Orleans cannot assist in the east. From there, it is just up to the slow, methodical grind; ports were taken one by one, and the rest were blockaded. Blockade runners and others could only continue for so long until their supplies dried up and the Confederacy began to want more and more for arms. And, in the end, the more they are separated, the more the Confederacy can be defeated in detail. By the time that Lincoln would be defeated in office, there would barely be a Confederacy left to safe (unless we are assuming complete incompetence on the Union's part)

The Union can afford to replace destroyed engines, damaged track, ruined ships, and depleted regiments. The Confederacy cannot. And how much more can the Confederacy bleed until they are also run dry?

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Disagree. McClellan's platform was not to give in to the south. He ran in opposition to how Lincoln was running the war, but even if Lincoln had lost in November of 1864 by March of 1865 (when McClellan would be sworn in) the war is just a little over a month from being basically over. The CSA is already finished, and no sane person is going to throw the war away.
My point isn't that the Confederacy could still win the war on November 7, 1864, so much as that after the election, their cause went from being in the difficult to impossible range to simply being delusional. There were still opportunities as late as that summer though for them to get McClellan elected as a Peace Democrat, and to be in a position where the truce called by McClellan would allow them to assert independence; even then, their victory wouldn't necessarily be assured with Lincoln's defeat, since he would have a few more months to prosecute the war, so they'd need to make good use of the PoD.
 
Really? Its really hard to fathom how Johnson could really have been considering that he died in his first battle of his first campaign. He is an intriguing what if, the man who served "three separate republics" (USA, Texas and CSA) but last I checked I have not actually seen anything really worthwhile to say about his military career other than he was a good soldier who loved the army. Yes, Davis thought he was the best soldier ever, but frankly Davis also thought highly of Bragg in comparison.

Freom most of the works I have read, and even the opinion of some other members of the board, he is just a capable officer who is there....



About this though, on January 1 1863 for the most part sidelines any chance of foreign intervention because the war them absolutely became about the internal strugghle to destroy slavery, and the UK and France were not going to hop on board when that was released. That said though, if say Chancellorsville and even Gettysburg were greater confederate victories than in OTL, and also somehow butterflying away Vickburg, they may actually offer to mediate an armistice at best.

With respect to ASJ, he is mostly unknown. But we do know that he came closer than anyone else to delivering US Grant a decisive defeat. I suspect he was the real deal.
 
With respect to ASJ, he is mostly unknown. But we do know that he came closer than anyone else to delivering US Grant a decisive defeat. I suspect he was the real deal.

To actually measure if he was the real deal or not, it would be good to actually have something from his Texas or US army days to show how good of a commander he was...
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Disagree. McClellan's platform was not to give in to the south. He ran in opposition to how Lincoln was running the war, but even if Lincoln had lost in November of 1864 by March of 1865 (when McClellan would be sworn in) the war is just a little over a month from being basically over. The CSA is already finished, and no sane person is going to throw the war away.

McClellan did not publicly repudiate the Democratic "peace plank" until after Atlanta had been captured. Before then, when it looked the Confederates might have a successful 1864 campaign and still be strongly resisting the Union by the time the new President would be inaugurated, McClellan had been hedging his bets and building bridges to the Peace Democrats. Indeed, he had been privately assuring Peace Democrats like Manton Marble, editor of the New York World, that would be agree to a ceasefire when he took office. So if the military situation had been different in the summer of 1864 (which it would have to have been if we are postulating a McClellan victory at the polls), it is entirely possible that McClellan would have agreed to the ceasefire.
 
I was tempted to be a smartass and say "April 12, 1861", but if you want a serious answer I'd say Lincoln's re-election. By that point the Confederacy's only chance was foreign intervention or an anti-war US president, and neither was going to happen. They never really had a terribly likely military opportunity, but however unlikely at least before that date things were possible. The concept of crushing your opponent's will to fight is a thing, after all- and the North had a number of scorching draft riots at the very least. But the election is when the situation becomes utterly unwinnable for them, even with ASBs dropping crates of M14s into Southern strongholds.

So, the smartassery about Fort Sumter was the Confederacy's best chance, but not their last chance.
 
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While I don't think it was a war-winning opportunity, I think the Fort Sumter episode could have been handled better. If they kept planters from destroying their cotton and took advantage of the window before the declaration of blockade, they might have gotten an influx of cash, which if used to keep soldiers' pay from going into arrears or aid their families struggling in their absence, would help combat desertion, which just ate away at their armies.
 
According to this board, Never.
It makes them uncomfortable thinking about the Effect of CSA victory on the world and history.
and so it clouds their jugment, you can see the same things with nazis.
True historician must however see facts above morals.

Impossible no. Very, very unllikely. I would say the South had, at best, a 1:1000 shot. The fight might not always go to the strongest nor the race to the swiftest but that is the way to bet! Betting on the South would be like betting on a 2md-3rd tier professional boxer against the heavyweight champ. There is some chance he might win but the odds are very, very long.
 
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It won't surprise people that, IMHO, it was the moment that Jefferson Davis decided to replace Joseph Johnston with John Bell Hood.

Quite possibly, it is the POD in my Southern victory TL. What very slim chance the CSA had was gone once Davis gave command to that idiot. One way of boosting the South's chances is getting rid of Jeff Davis. The man was worth an entire corps to the Union.
 
I would agree with this on a divisional and brigade level. The North had a harder time finding division commanders of the caliber to match, say, Robert Rodes, to which one can attribute the more militaristic culture of the antebellum South and the existence of many more private military colleges in the South. Northerners and Southerners graduated from West Point, but the South also had the Virginia Military Institute, the Citadel, and other such schools, which the North did not. (IIRC, the South had seven such academies, while the North only had one.)

On the army level, though, I would disagree. Yes, they had Robert E. Lee, the best general of the war, but they also had walking disasters like Pemberton, Bragg, and Hood placed in command of their armies.

Grant was better than Lee. Grant won at least 6 campaigns Donnelson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Wilderness, Petersburg and Appamattox and lost zero while Lee lost at 6 campaigns West Virginia, Antitheim, Gettysburg, Wilderness , Petersburg and Appamattox.
 
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