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

Jeff Davis made a lot of mistakes (and, let's be fair, so did Lincoln), but I think Kate Edmondston was right when she said that where Davis made one, anyone else would have made a thousand. It's hard to sign off on any one person in the south who would have been a better president. We can point to decisions that could have gone different (making Lee General-in-Chief while it still mattered, not giving Hood an army), but if Davis's decisions were worth a corps to the Union, Alexander Stephens would have been worth an army or two.
 
Jeff Davis made a lot of mistakes (and, let's be fair, so did Lincoln), but I think Kate Edmondston was right when she said that where Davis made one, anyone else would have made a thousand. It's hard to sign off on any one person in the south who would have been a better president. We can point to decisions that could have gone different (making Lee General-in-Chief while it still mattered, not giving Hood an army), but if Davis's decisions were worth a corps to the Union, Alexander Stephens would have been worth an army or two.
When the realistic alternatives are Toombs or Cobb or Stephens I'd agree Davis is by far the better choice.
 
When the realistic alternatives are Toombs or Cobb or Stephens I'd agree Davis is by far the better choice.

Davis was the only choice unless you can magically make Sam Houston President of the CSA, and not the Unionist he was.

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.

Foreign intervention is not happening after 1863 at best. Before then, yes, it can happen. Before Trent it is extremely likely, after Trent the Union were wary of pissing off the UK and by extension France and any other foreign power. But even the UK recognised that with the drafting of the Emancipation Proclamation and that it was a moral, yet bloody crusade to end slavery, they were not really willing to support a country that exists for slavery.

France though, France requires a POD in mexico where they win earlier and centralize control the country, then support the Confederacy.
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
But even the UK recognised that with the drafting of the Emancipation Proclamation and that it was a moral, yet bloody crusade to end slavery, they were not really willing to support a country that exists for slavery.
Simply because I'm a bit of a pedant about this, I'll note that the UK's view of the Emancipation Proclamation was that it was nowhere near far enough - they themselves took similar measures in the 1780s and in the War of 1812, for example.

"The principle asserted is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States" (Spectator, 11 October 1862).
The proclamation was created "as a weapon against the foes of the United States' Government, rather than a frank but tardy exposition of what is just between man and man" (Illustrated London News, 11 October 1862).
 
Simply because I'm a bit of a pedant about this, I'll note that the UK's view of the Emancipation Proclamation was that it was nowhere near far enough - they themselves took similar measures in the 1780s and in the War of 1812, for example.

"The principle asserted is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States" (Spectator, 11 October 1862).
The proclamation was created "as a weapon against the foes of the United States' Government, rather than a frank but tardy exposition of what is just between man and man" (Illustrated London News, 11 October 1862).

Even so they knew full well if the CSA won those who were emancipated due to the EP would be returned to chains if caught if not executed but would remain free if the US won. The wiser figured out the EP put slavery on the path of destruction if the US won. In the long run it would be difficult for slavery to survive in the border states if it is illegal in the North and the Middle and Deep South. They would be literally surrounded by Free States.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
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.

If you count the Overland Campaign and the Petersburg Campaign as two separate campaigns (which most historians do), then the question of whether Grant or Lee won is an open question. And I did not mean to diminish Grant's military abilities in the slightest, by the way. I consider the Vicksburg Campaign not only to be the greatest success of any general in the American Civil War, but quite possibly the greatest military success of any American general in all of history.
 
If you count the Overland Campaign and the Petersburg Campaign as two separate campaigns (which most historians do), then the question of whether Grant or Lee won is an open question. And I did not mean to diminish Grant's military abilities in the slightest, by the way. I consider the Vicksburg Campaign not only to be the greatest success of any general in the American Civil War, but quite possibly the greatest military success of any American general in all of history.

Not really, at the end of the Overland Campaign not only did Grant wind up where he wanted to be by crossing the James he also inflicted proportionately more casualties to Lee then Lee did to him.
 
That's the argument American officers made during Vietnam, killing ten Vietnamese for every American. Thing is, the American people don't care about the ten, they just care about the one. I don't consider the Overland Campaign one of Grant's greatest successes (it's stiff competition there). He fought Lee mostly after his best subordinates were killed or wounded. Lee had to personally command the army (half the size of Grant's), the cavalry, and I Corps after Stuart and Longstreet were shot, but every time Grant tried to maneuver around Lee's flank, Lee got there first and entrenched. At the North Anna, the army was divided and vulnerable, but with Longstreet wounded, Stuart and Jackson dead, Hill sick, and Ewell suffering a mental breakdown, and Lee himself ill, the opportunity to inflict a defeat in detail eluded him. Grant spent 60,000 men getting to where McClellan started two years ago, and didn't understand the evolution of entrenchments in the Eastern Theater. He considered an entrenched army half beaten already, since that had been his experience in the west, when in the east it served as an economy of force measure, leading to bloodbaths like Cold Harbor and the first assaults at Petersburg. In an election year, this sort of casualty intensive method is perhaps inappropriate.

I don't really hold the Overland campaign as a whole against Grant's technical skill; he wanted to land in North Carolina and launch a long range raid against the railways there, but Lincoln vetoed that plan. Lee held possession of the capital until after a hypothetical Democrat president would have taken office, and only failed after having prolonged the war for three years, after both the other key Confederate armies (Mississippi and Tennessee) were destroyed. I think Lee played the poor hand he was dealt extremely well; Grant also played his hand well, but I think if anyone got to pick between what the two were dealt, they would take Grant's hand.

I think it's possible to imagine an 1864 campaign in which Lee keeps the Union on the north side of the Rappahannock, depending on how last year's campaign shakes out and on his best subordinates not getting shot. That in and of itself isn't enough to win the war, but it does give the Confederacy some breathing room. If he drives them from the field, he can maintain a force to observe the Rappahannock while sending reinforcements to the Army of Tennessee, and let expired enlistments eat up the demoralized Army of the Potomac.
 
That's the argument American officers made during Vietnam, killing ten Vietnamese for every American. Thing is, the American people don't care about the ten, they just care about the one. I don't consider the Overland Campaign one of Grant's greatest successes (it's stiff competition there). He fought Lee mostly after his best subordinates were killed or wounded. Lee had to personally command the army (half the size of Grant's), the cavalry, and I Corps after Stuart and Longstreet were shot, but every time Grant tried to maneuver around Lee's flank, Lee got there first and entrenched. At the North Anna, the army was divided and vulnerable, but with Longstreet wounded, Stuart and Jackson dead, Hill sick, and Ewell suffering a mental breakdown, and Lee himself ill, the opportunity to inflict a defeat in detail eluded him. Grant spent 60,000 men getting to where McClellan started two years ago, and didn't understand the evolution of entrenchments in the Eastern Theater. He considered an entrenched army half beaten already, since that had been his experience in the west, when in the east it served as an economy of force measure, leading to bloodbaths like Cold Harbor and the first assaults at Petersburg. In an election year, this sort of casualty intensive method is perhaps inappropriate.

I don't really hold the Overland campaign as a whole against Grant's technical skill; he wanted to land in North Carolina and launch a long range raid against the railways there, but Lincoln vetoed that plan. Lee held possession of the capital until after a hypothetical Democrat president would have taken office, and only failed after having prolonged the war for three years, after both the other key Confederate armies (Mississippi and Tennessee) were destroyed. I think Lee played the poor hand he was dealt extremely well; Grant also played his hand well, but I think if anyone got to pick between what the two were dealt, they would take Grant's hand.

I think it's possible to imagine an 1864 campaign in which Lee keeps the Union on the north side of the Rappahannock, depending on how last year's campaign shakes out and on his best subordinates not getting shot. That in and of itself isn't enough to win the war, but it does give the Confederacy some breathing room. If he drives them from the field, he can maintain a force to observe the Rappahannock while sending reinforcements to the Army of Tennessee, and let expired enlistments eat up the demoralized Army of the Potomac.

Vietnam <> ACW if it did the South would have won the war before Wilderness even happened. You also make it sound like the people of the South weren't demoralized by their own casualties. That was very much untrue.

The fact is Lee spent men like he was Zhukov but without Zhukov's numbers to back it up. Lee bled the CSA white. He lost six campaigns and the battles he did win were mostly Pyrrhic victories. You can't win a total war when you constantly lose a bigger percentage of your men then your enemy does. Sooner or later you whittle your forces down to almost nothing.

How exactly does Lee keep Grant north of the Rappahannock? Grant was across the JAMES in six weeks! How in God's name is he going to keep Grant north of the Rappahannock almost six months when he couldn't keep him north of the James for six weeks? Black magic?
 
The people of the South didn't have a presidential election that served as a referendum on the war Davis stood to lose, and just from the sources I've looked at, public morale in the Shenendoah remained high even after two devastations at Sheridan's hands. Their government was also more despotic than Lincoln's, so the impact of battlefield losses was not as pressing as in the North. Even Lee's failed campaigns didn't affect his reputation among the public; going into the Overland campaign, he was lauded as 'the Invincible Lee' who 'has never been known to suffer defeat, and probably never will.' He's identified as the Confederacy's most successful national institution, equal only to that great Virginian George Washington.

Lee did not expend more men than were necessary to complete the objective, and not without good chance of success. Even in campaigns that did not achieve their primary objective, he was able to achieve secondary objectives of great importance, again despite being dealt hands that left much to be desired. The alternative to his aggressive, battle seeking strategy was to submit to the remorseless logic of a siege, which is an obvious strategic dead end. The way for the South to win the war was by demoralizing the Northern public, and the way to do that was through what Lee called 'heavy victories'.

OTL, while the Union army was defeated in the Wilderness by conventional terms, Grant had disengaged to maneuver elsewhere; they were not driven from the field. If the Gettysburg campaign resulted in a heavy defeat for the Union, not only would many more of the 1864 AotP's best troops be dead, but the survivors' morale would be that much lower, inheriting a legacy of defeat. If Lee had all his most able commanders with him against such an army, it's possible that Grant's force would be driven from the field, and in such a state would it not be fit to resume the offensive for some time, during which time men's enlistments will expire.
 
I know Lee's propaganda machine was in working order. It is working today, seemingly with you. However, propaganda or not Lee lost 4 campaigns by then and it was taking a toll. There were food riots every winter and a number of draft riots. Southern counties seceded from their states to rejoin the Union. There were a number of counties, most famously Jones Country, where it was not safe for either taxmen nor draft officers to go.

He spent men like water. He had the WORST casualty rate of any Army Commander , North or South. Again and again he sent men into the meat grinder. He is famous for a number of frontal assaults which he did as late as Petersburg even though it should have been obvious that frontal assaults were suicidal.

OTL Grant moved south after Wilderness which was the strategic purpose of it. Lee was unable to stop Grant from heading towards the James which was Grant's main objective. The best the South could achieve at Gettysburg would be a minor victory on the First Day. After that it was hopeless, particularly on the Third. There was no real chance of a heavy defeat for the Union at Gettysburg. Fighting it at all was idiotic after the First Day. The Union held the high ground with solid interior lines on its home turf. The South would have had to have near divine intervention to win that battle after the First Day.
 
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I think the argument here is that with near divine attention, and an incredible streak of luck, and magical reinforcement and reserves of manpower, Lee could have won seven in a row. Which wouldn't have won the war. But then if the Union decides to give up, that would work.
 
I know Lee's propaganda machine was in working order. It is working today, seemingly with you. However, propaganda or not Lee lost 4 campaigns by then and it was taking a toll. There were food riots every winter and a number of draft riots. Southern counties seceded from their states to rejoin the Union. There were a number of counties, most famously Jones Country, where it was not safe for either taxmen nor draft officers to go.

He spent men like water. He had the WORST casualty rate of any Army Commander , North or South. Again and again he sent men into the meat grinder. He is famous for a number of frontal assaults which he did as late as Petersburg even though it should have been obvious that frontal assaults were suicidal.

OTL Grant moved south after Wilderness which was the strategic purpose of it. Lee was unable to stop Grant from heading towards the James which was Grant's main objective. The best the South could achieve at Gettysburg would be a minor victory on the First Day. After that it was hopeless, particularly on the Third. There was no real chance of a heavy defeat for the Union at Gettysburg. Fighting it at all was idiotic after the First Day. The Union held the high ground with solid interior lines on its home turf. The South would have had to have near divine intervention to win that battle after the First Day.
Okay, that is some laughable tactical analysis. I guess someone should have phoned Lee and told him that frontal assaults against entrenchments weren't ideal, as if he didn't already know that. What he did know, and apparently you don't, is that sometimes commanders have to chose between bad options and terrible, guaranteed to fail options, because in war all combatants possess an independent will. Standing on the defensive south of the Rappahannock only works so long as you have an inexhaustible supply of Ambrose Burnsides; Lee would be a fool if he was to rely on the Union attacking up Mayre's Heights all day one brigade at a time on December 12 1862 as his war winning strategy. All the generals had gone to West Point; they studied under the Mahans, they knew how great field fortifications were (Lee didn't earn the nickname 'The Ace of Spades' for nothing), but war is an interaction of opposites. Just because you'd prefer not to attack an entrenched enemy doesn't mean it's not the best option you have sometimes, because the enemy gets a vote. You only get to defend your strong positions if they attack you (at the time and in the strength they decide), and if they decide to defend, you have to attack (when and how you want).

When Lee takes the offensive, he does it skillfully and with good reason, in which the possible gains are proportionate with the possible costs. The defensive strength of the Gettysburg heights is readily apparent, but most people don't recognize its vulnerabilities. As Meade deployed his corps, there were only two roads that could supply his army in that position; loss of either would have compelled his retreat. The line further ceded the key artillery platform of the Peach Orchard to the Confederates until Sickles occupied it. Lastly, the key position in the line, Cemetery Hill, was held by the worst men in the army, XI Corps, which had known nothing but shameful defeat, and had been largely destroyed the day before. Attacking en echelon from the south, the Confederates achieved decisive superiority around Cemetery Hill, but the attack stalled when Posey and Mahone failed to attack, and Pender, commanding the Light Division, was mortally wounded. With Rodes as a reserve, and Early having taken East Cemetery Hill without having put in all his men, the Union line was in serious danger of being rolled up. Damn nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I think the argument here is that with near divine attention, and an incredible streak of luck, and magical reinforcement and reserves of manpower, Lee could have won seven in a row. Which wouldn't have won the war. But then if the Union decides to give up, that would work.
It took two in a row to do serious morale damage to the AotP. Three in a row would be worse - remember, each victory actually increases the chances of the next battle also being a victory as it alters the scales of morale and of relative abundance of trained/experienced personnel.
 
You probably mean before Grant took command.
Nah, I mean in the aftermath of Second Bull Run, you had soldiers writing that they pray they have the courage to desert if it met another such reverse. The men would fight, but they'd fight expecting to lose, and to be driven from the field. A brigade commander remarked that there was a general feeling that the Confederacy would soon be recognized, and that they deserve recognition. McClellan did a great job restoring the army's morale, and he fought a remarkably good positional campaign despite the sorry state of the army Pope had handed him.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Nah, I mean in the aftermath of Second Bull Run, you had soldiers writing that they pray they have the courage to desert if it met another such reverse. The men would fight, but they'd fight expecting to lose, and to be driven from the field. A brigade commander remarked that there was a general feeling that the Confederacy would soon be recognized, and that they deserve recognition. McClellan did a great job restoring the army's morale, and he fought a remarkably good positional campaign despite the sorry state of the army Pope had handed him.
Ah, I see. Sorry, I must have got mixed up about Seven Days or alternatively about whether they were in chronological order - I know McClellan was driven back from Richmond in the Seven Days (and incidentally that there's two versions of which seven days the seven days were).
And yes, morale is critically important in wars, especially civil wars as they are literally a battle for legitimacy.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Not really, at the end of the Overland Campaign not only did Grant wind up where he wanted to be by crossing the James he also inflicted proportionately more casualties to Lee then Lee did to him.

Grant wanted to be standing inside the city limits of Richmond, having utterly destroyed Lee's army. He had accomplished neither.

But this is getting a bit off-topic.
 
It took two in a row to do serious morale damage to the AotP. Three in a row would be worse - remember, each victory actually increases the chances of the next battle also being a victory as it alters the scales of morale and of relative abundance of trained/experienced personnel.

I don't see it. The Confederacy was tapped out for manpower. Every battle was going to prune that away. Lee spent lives, as the term is used here. Winning several battles in a row was going to whittle his forces down something fierce. Further, the confederate economy simply could not produce to a war effort. The longer things went on, the more difficult or impossible resupply was. And like it or not, the Union's manpower was essentially unlimited, as were union supplies.
The Confederacy is not going to win a war of attrition.

As for the 'POWER OF WILL' that's great for inspirational TV movies and Saturday morning cartoons, but physics is a harsh mistress. Will does not substitute for numbers of soldiers, or for guns, or ammunition, provisions, mules, horses, shoes. Napolean had an incredible string of victories, but his enemies just kept getting up after each drubbing and eventually he lost, for good. In WWII the Germans inflicted defeat and damage on the Red Army, but they still lost.

In 1864 the Emancipation Proclamation is already out, and like it or not, that's a powerful declaration considering the tensions over slavery, and the international approbation. The other powers England, France, Russia, Mexico, no one is coming to the aid of the Confederacy. The Confederacy is thoroughly beaten at sea, strangled by a Confederate blockade. It's economy has basically fallen apart, and its bisected. Every day the Union recruits more men, produces more guns, more shoes, ships and rails more product. Every day the Union gets stronger, and the Confederacy gets weaker.

Arguments for an 1864 military victory tend to miss the point that the Confederate economy and society was essentially collapsing by that time. The Confederacy was becoming an army without a country to hold it up.

To win in 1864 you need either divine intervention, an incredible and astonishing string of luck, or the Union to display hitherto incomprehensible levels of irrationality and incompetence - essentially throwing away all their advantages and then calling it quits. There's no chance.

1862 or 1863? Maybe. A long shot.
 
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