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

Saphroneth

Banned
I don't see it. The Confederacy was tapped out for manpower. Every battle was going to prune that away.
When does it become tapped out for manpower? 1862? 1863? 1864?

And like it or not, the Union's manpower was essentially unlimited, as were union supplies.
No, it wasn't. Desertion was a ferocious problem for both sides OTL.

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.
And what about the Franco-Prussian War? The Franco-Austrian War? The Austro-Prussian War?
Morale is incredibly important in warfare and you're just dismissing it completely.

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.
Oh, I see, you're saying that 1864 is when we start counting. The two-in-a-row argument is based on the idea that Gettysburg is late in the sequence - the Confederacy's ability to win a series of successive battles is predicated on the sequence starting in 1861/2/3, not /4.
When I suggest 1864 is possible, it's because of something like a McClellan Win (which is not impossible, though it is unlikely and may require more than one departure.)
 
When does it become tapped out for manpower? 1862? 1863? 1864?

It's definitely tapped out in 1864.


No, it wasn't. Desertion was a ferocious problem for both sides OTL.

Irrelevant, given that the North's actual manpower was so much greater.


And what about the Franco-Prussian War? The Franco-Austrian War? The Austro-Prussian War?
Morale is incredibly important in warfare and you're just dismissing it completely.

As I recall, the French went into the Franco-Prussian war with high morale and boundless confidence. These things did not stop bullets.

In Liberia, teenage soldiers would rush into battle wearing prom dresses and wigs. The thinking was that gender bending and identity flux would confuse the bullets and make them invincible. I imagine they had terrific morale. But that didn't stop bullets.

Morale is very important, yes. It's also incredibly overrated, and victory plans which are contingent on wrecking the morale of the enemy are usually failures.

Oh, I see, you're saying that 1864 is when we start counting.

No, I'm saying that in 1864 the Confederacy is fucked and has no way to win, short of some racist God descending from heaven and going 'slavery is peachy, here's my staff of righteousness to give em what for.'

The Confederacy might have had a small chance in 1863. A better chance in 1862. And a best chance if they left their guns at home and sent an army of lawyers to the supreme court right at the start. But 1864? Nada.
 
How are they supposed to win in 1863? There's no presidential election that year, so unless Lincoln just abdicates, there's no way to force the issue unless you think the Confederacy can just conquer the North outright. They have to make it to Spring 1865 without a major Union army in the Confederate interior, whereupon the Union will be running out of money, most of their best men's enlistments will have expired, and there could be an armistice that makes mediation possible.

Furthermore, victories in years prior to 1864 will affect the resources they have in 1864. For example, if Vicksburg doesn't fall, they can still buy supplies in Mexico and ship them by rail to where they're needed. If the Kentucky campaign was managed better, they'll be able to recruit out of Nashville and during forays into the bluegrass. If Lee smashed the Army of the Potomac in the Pennsylvania campaign, he wouldn't have to surrender all of Virginia north of the Rappahannock to the Union.

If Lee was facing a smaller, less experienced, less well led, less enthusiastic Army of the Potomac (all qualities associated with a record of defeat) with a beefier army led by his best lieutenants, keeping them off the Rappahannock is a possibility. If Chattanooga is still in Confederate hands in fall of 1864, the Georgia agricultural industrial heartland is safe until McClellan takes office, especially if Lee bloodies his opponent to the point he can send men or commanders west.
 
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.

He didn't have to count on the Union Army being fools that would keep repeating Marie's Heights. It wasn't a choice of that or frontal assaults. At Gettysburg he could have seen the Union held all the cards and left. Move the army east and get between the AOTP and Washington leaving a line of retreat south in case you need it. If Meade takes the bait and assaults you on the ground of your own choosing good, if not retreat south and declare the campaign a succees, which it would be. You conducted a successful raid on Yankee soil and gathered needed supplies. Militarily speaking Gettysburg was a giant raid. The AONV could not conquer and hold Union territory that far north.

He didn't need to attack Fort Steadman, he merely needed to retreat in the night evacuating Richmond. Fort Steadman did nothing but send a bunch of Southern boys to their graves without disturbing the AOTP the slightest.

Gettysburg vulnerabilities were far exceeded by its strengths. You have to jump through hoops to justify an attack there. He was attacking a foe that outnumbered him , that held the high ground and had very good interior lines. That is a recipe for disaster. Unless Meade panics he is pretty much guaranteed to win.

Of course Yankee troops had nothing to do with Posey and Mahone failing to attack or for Pendar's death. They couldn't possibly be the reason that they didn't attack. It was because Posey and Mahone were clearly incompetent cowards . Gettysburg pretty much works only if the Yankees scatter the moment they hear the rebel yell. If not they win.
 
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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.

Because the South would naturally take little or no casualties themselves in victory despite Lee's tendencies of having Pyricc ones when he won at all.
 
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.

He wanted to eventually do that and would have taken it at the time if he got it but he didn't expect to get Richmond in one big gulp. In football a team doesn't fail if it doesn't make a touchdown on 1st and 10, 5 or 6 yards is a success. Getting Richmond was his ultimate goal and he would have taken it if he could but any progress towards that goal was a success. He progressed towards his goal so it was a success. For him the bigger long term goal was to destroy Lee's army and he accomplished part of that as well. Lee lost poportionately more men than Grant.
 
How are they supposed to win in 1863?

Maybe they can't. But they're not going to have a chance in 1864.

There's no presidential election that year, so unless Lincoln just abdicates, there's no way to force the issue

It's hard to imagine any new President taking office with the intention of going down in history as "The President Who Lost the Civil War." That seems to be against human nature. What would he do for an encore? Publicly castrate himself? Assuming McLellan wins, he's got minimum two, maybe three years, before he would be willing to throw in the towel and accept history's humiliation and national disgrace. The Confederacy has no chance to last that long.


unless you think the Confederacy can just conquer the North outright.

Nope.

They have to make it to Spring 1865 without a major Union army in the Confederate interior,

I'm not going to say ASB.

But....


whereupon the Union will be running out of money, most of their best men's enlistments will have expired, and there could be an armistice that makes mediation possible.

Unfortunately, the Confederacy has already run out of money, of men, of guns and bullets, firepower, shoes and food and just about everything else. There was just no Confederacy left to speak of.

Comparatively, the Union is in no danger of running out of money. The command staff, officer and NCO corps were stable and had refined, their logistics were excellent and their potential manpower reserves are immense.

The Confederacy is not going to win a war of attrition. Period.

You have this romantic notion of a splendid sequence of military victories, but you recognize that these, in themselves just are not enough. So you keep trying to artificially bolt on a mediated resolution or peace settlement dependent on a degree of Union goodwill/incompetence/submission which is irrational.

Furthermore, victories in years prior to 1864 will affect the resources they have in 1864. For example, if Vicksburg doesn't fall, they can still buy supplies in Mexico

With what? The Confederacy was awash in hyperinflation. They had no international credit, and the French weren't going to bankroll them.

and ship them by rail to where they're needed.

Setting aside the problem that the Confederacy did not have a unified or organized rail network, but rather a mismatched series of small independent rail lines which were oriented around serving ports.

If the Kentucky campaign was managed better, they'll be able to recruit out of Nashville and during forays into the bluegrass. If Lee smashed the Army of the Potomac in the Pennsylvania campaign, he wouldn't have to surrender all of Virginia north of the Rappahannock to the Union.

So basically, an entirely different civil war in which the Confederacy, already the recipient of an incredible string of luck in OTL, gets even more incredibly lucky in every possible way.

Okay.

I don't discount the possibility that a man could flip a quarter and have it come up heads 1000 times in a row.

If Lee was facing a smaller (flip-heads), less experienced (flip-heads), less well led (flip-heads), less enthusiastic (flip-heads) Army of the Potomac (all qualities associated with a record of defeat) with a beefier army (flip-heads) led by his best lieutenants (flip-heads), keeping them off the Rappahannock is a possibility.

Each of these individual things would require several hundred or thousand individual decisions to get there. So Lee would need to flip his quarter and have it come up heads about 10,000 times in a row.

Okay.

If Chattanooga is still in Confederate hands in fall of 1864,

flipflipflipflipflip

the Georgia agricultural industrial heartland is safe

What industrial heartland? It's still a tiny fraction of Northern production, and its resource starved.


until McClellan takes office,

In order to promptly go down in history as the man who threw it all away? He's just not going to do it.


especially if Lee bloodies his opponent to the point he can send men or commanders west.

flipflipflipflip

This all seems contingent on an astonishing run of luck which seems improbable, given that the Confederacy was already the beneficiary of an astonishing run of luck to get as far as they did.
 
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... You do get that the battles are linked, right? That winning one increases your chances of winning another, because by defeating an enemy army, you've changed the nature of that army? The results of a series of coin flips are independent of one another, and are frankly a poor metaphor for military campaigns. If an army is defeated, it will be smaller, because more men are dead. It will be less experienced, because the men brought in won't have the experience of the men who were killed. It will be less well led, because it's commander being replaced will disrupt procedure. The men will be less enthusiastic, because they're the ones who didn't sign up earlier.

The Union may have greater resources, but it's also less despotic than Confederate government, and has a party in power TTL opposed to the measures necessary to carry on the war (conscription, large scale taxation, emancipation), so it doesn't have quite the commitment of the South, where one in five men served in the war.

He didn't have to count on the Union Army being fools that would keep repeating Marie's Heights. It wasn't a choice of that or frontal assaults. At Gettysburg he could have seen the Union held all the cards and left. Move the army east and get between the AOTP and Washington leaving a line of retreat south in case you need it. If Meade takes the bait and assaults you on the ground of your own choosing good, if not retreat south and declare the campaign a succees, which it would be. You conducted a successful raid on Yankee soil and gathered needed supplies. Militarily speaking Gettysburg was a giant raid. The AONV could not conquer and hold Union territory that far north.

He didn't need to attack Fort Steadman, he merely needed to retreat in the night evacuating Richmond. Fort Steadman did nothing but send a bunch of Southern boys to their graves without disturbing the AOTP the slightest.

Gettysburg vulnerabilities were far exceeded by its strengths. You have to jump through hoops to justify an attack there. He was attacking a foe that outnumbered him , that held the high ground and had very good interior lines. That is a recipe for disaster. Unless Meade panics he is pretty much guaranteed to win.

Of course Yankee troops had nothing to do with Posey and Mahone failing to attack or for Pendar's death. They couldn't possibly be the reason that they didn't attack. It was because Posey and Mahone were clearly incompetent cowards . Gettysburg pretty much works only if the Yankees scatter the moment they hear the rebel yell. If not they win.

The Longstreet shift between Washington and the Army of the Potomac was a pipe dream. The Emmitsburg road isn't safe to travel down, since Union guns on the heights command it, and on an exterior line, Lee would have a much longer way to move his force if he was going to try it. It relies on Meade being an idiot, not realizing his flank is being turned, and Lee didn't have his cavalry to tell him if VI Corps, the largest formation in the Union army, was.

As it happened, Meade did play into Lee's hands on the second day (where Lee's initial plan was not a frontal assault, but enveloping their left), committing his reserves towards the Round Tops and the Wheatfield, leaving Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill underdefended. Confederates got all the way up to the copse of trees, and they outnumbered the defenders of Cemetery Hill two to one. Hill and Anderson failed to get their men into action, and wounding Pender was a stroke of luck. Mahone straight up refused to move even after a courier directly ordered him to attack, and Early wasn't going to put in the rest of his division without support from Pender or Rodes. With Posey and Mahone attacking II and I Corps from the front, Pender's division assaulting XI Corps, followed up by Rodes's and Early's divisions rolling them up from the right, a heavy defeat for the Army of the Potomac seems very possible.

And it's important to remember that this is how the battle plays out without JEB Stuart having done his job screening the army; Lee only found out the AotP had crossed the Potomac through a spy, not through his cavalry. Actually having timely intelligence would have let him concentrate his army faster against the corps of the AotP while they're strung out on forced marches. Defeating the Army of the Potomac on Northern soil was a distinct possibility, and would have had powerful strategic implications well worth the risk.
 
With what? The Confederacy was awash in hyperinflation. They had no international credit, and the French weren't going to bankroll them.

I remember reading that by the late war in Richmond, it cost five dollars to buy a piece of firewood. Like, one log. Yeah, they were screwed.
 
... You do get that the battles are linked, right? That winning one increases your chances of winning another, because by defeating an enemy army, you've changed the nature of that army? The results of a series of coin flips are independent of one another, and are frankly a poor metaphor for military campaigns. If an army is defeated, it will be smaller, because more men are dead. It will be less experienced, because the men brought in won't have the experience of the men who were killed. It will be less well led, because it's commander being replaced will disrupt procedure. The men will be less enthusiastic, because they're the ones who didn't sign up earlier.

The Union may have greater resources, but it's also less despotic than Confederate government, and has a party in power TTL opposed to the measures necessary to carry on the war (conscription, large scale taxation, emancipation), so it doesn't have quite the commitment of the South, where one in five men served in the war.
I also get the fact that Lee rarely won battles without heavy losses and can only have so many "victories" before he is out of troops, something you seem not to get.

The Longstreet shift between Washington and the Army of the Potomac was a pipe dream. The Emmitsburg road isn't safe to travel down, since Union guns on the heights command it, and on an exterior line, Lee would have a much longer way to move his force if he was going to try it. It relies on Meade being an idiot, not realizing his flank is being turned, and Lee didn't have his cavalry to tell him if VI Corps, the largest formation in the Union army, was.
In which case you declare the campaign a victory and go back to Richmond.
As it happened, Meade did play into Lee's hands on the second day (where Lee's initial plan was not a frontal assault, but enveloping their left), committing his reserves towards the Round Tops and the Wheatfield, leaving Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill underdefended. Confederates got all the way up to the copse of trees, and they outnumbered the defenders of Cemetery Hill two to one. Hill and Anderson failed to get their men into action, and wounding Pender was a stroke of luck. Mahone straight up refused to move even after a courier directly ordered him to attack, and Early wasn't going to put in the rest of his division without support from Pender or Rodes. With Posey and Mahone attacking II and I Corps from the front, Pender's division assaulting XI Corps, followed up by Rodes's and Early's divisions rolling them up from the right, a heavy defeat for the Army of the Potomac seems very possible.
Or more likely get shot to pieces trying to get up there while Meade sends reinforcements. Attacking uphill isn't easy even when you outnumber the enemy two to one. Mahone probably had a good reason to refuse to move, most likely because his troops were blocked by Yankee infantry. I don't think you realize how big a disadvantage you are at when you have to assault uphill. Two to one is not likely to be enough, 3:1 or more is what you want for even odds.

And it's important to remember that this is how the battle plays out without JEB Stuart having done his job screening the army; Lee only found out the AotP had crossed the Potomac through a spy, not through his cavalry. Actually having timely intelligence would have let him concentrate his army faster against the corps of the AotP while they're strung out on forced marches. Defeating the Army of the Potomac on Northern soil was a distinct possibility, and would have had powerful strategic implications well worth the risk.

Possibly but unlikely. The never, during the entire war, won a campaign on Union soil.
 
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?

Exactly. You can handwave it away once or twice, but it wasn't once or twice with Lee. He just didn't get it.
 
I also get the fact that Lee rarely won battles without heavy losses and can only have so many "victories" before he is out of troops, something you seem not to get.
It's the same number of campaigns, and you're arguing that Lee was better off losing them. That strikes me as odd.

In which case you declare the campaign a victory and go back to Richmond.
And do what with that 17 mile supply train that stretches back to Cashtown? The objective is Meade's army anyway. It's in a position where taking commanding positions on either Taneytown Road or the Baltimore Pike would force it to retreat down the other, probably with great losses of equipment. In terms of odds, they're much closer than at Chancellorsville just two months prior, thanks to battle casualties and expired enlistments. Meade still doesn't have VI corps on the battlefield.

Or more likely get shot to pieces trying to get up there while Meade sends reinforcements. Attacking uphill isn't easy even when you outnumber the enemy two to one. Mahone probably had a good reason to refuse to move, most likely because his troops were blocked by Yankee infantry. I don't think you realize how big a disadvantage you are at when you have to assault uphill. Two to one is not likely to be enough, 3:1 or more is what you want for even odds.
What reinforcements? Meade already committed his main reserve, V Corps, to the wrong end of the line. Furthermore, when Early assaulted East Cemetery Hill with equal numbers to the entrenched defenders, they were driven from their positions. Not only that, but XI Corps had been beaten to a bloody pulp the day before, and never exactly covered their name in glory before that.

Possibly but unlikely. The never, during the entire war, won a campaign on Union soil.
The details and the aftermath suggest that the concept of operations was sound. The Army of the Potomac had to spend ten months licking its wounds (I, XI, and III corps were hobbled, and II, V, and XII corps had also gotten a bloody nose), Lee had cleared the Union from the Shenandoah Valley, resupplied his army in the area of operations, then sent two divisions and his best lieutenant west to win the Army of Tennessee's only victory. That seems to me to be a better alternative than rolling the dice on making Chancellorsville happen twice. A successful Gettysburg campaign would have put two Union state capitals under the Confederate flag and confined what remained of the Army of the Potomac to the fortifications of Washington City. Getting the army into a state for offensive operations in 1864 would require large transfers from the west, risking the loss of Chattanooga.
 

jahenders

Banned
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.

True, but Lee still took a greater proportion of casualties overall than Grant even though he could afford it far less. He sometimes attacked when he should have defended.
 
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.

Not that I do not disagree, but even if the Confederates had won 2 in a row, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, even that is going to have a effect on them being overconfident in battle, and that is even if the Union army is under-confidant in themselves. That overconfidence is part of the reason they lost at Gettysburg.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Not that I do not disagree, but even if the Confederates had won 2 in a row, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, even that is going to have a effect on them being overconfident in battle, and that is even if the Union army is under-confidant in themselves. That overconfidence is part of the reason they lost at Gettysburg.
High morale versus low morale is always a net benefit, surely?
Your argument implies it's better for an army to lose battles than to win them.
 
High morale versus low morale is always a net benefit, surely?
Your argument implies it's better for an army to lose battles than to win them.

Actually, I am not even sure what I am implying, so you are wrong there.:p I will try and clear it up though.

I do not think that the Union commanders were under-confidant, or had a low estimation in their own abilities and the abilities of their soldiers, but more or less that after considerable losses, yes they would feel uncertain of a victory, yet they were stubborn enough, professional enough to fight for a victory.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I do not think that the Union commanders were under-confidant, or had a low estimation in their own abilities and the abilities of their soldiers, but more or less that after considerable losses, yes they would feel uncertain of a victory, yet they were stubborn enough, professional enough to fight for a victory.
It's not the commanders who matter in this. It's the men.

The difference between high morale and low morale, especially in the Civil War, is the difference between experienced troops and green ones. It's morale which means that men stand under fire, it's the lack of morale which means men break under it.

And if the Army of the Potomac has fought the Army of Northern Virginia three times and has been defeated each time, if the AoNV which Harper's Weekly insists is smaller and less well equipped wins three times in a row, if the men are expecting to be beaten - then they're half beaten already. It's the same reason Virginia cavalry could break Union lines - not because they had a solution to the infantry square, but because the Union did the thing which destroys infantry squares or any infantry defence against cavalry. They expected to lose, so they panicked - and lost.
 
High morale versus low morale is always a net benefit, surely?
Your argument implies it's better for an army to lose battles than to win them.

All other things being equal, sure, it's an advantage. But things are rarely equal. To use a WWI example, when war broke out, morale was tremendous. The allies figured that the war would be over in a few weeks. The French based their entire strategy on 'elan' on morale and confidence. Well, bravely charging forward with absolute confidence and high morale into machine guns.... not really a decisive factor.

And morale is far from simple. A simplistic view is that a defeat equals lowered morale and less confidence. But is that really true? Did the morale of the British drop because of bombings during the battle of Britain? Did the morale of the Texans collapse as a result of the Alamo? Bombing campaigns were intended to destroy the morale of the British, the Germans, the Japanese and the Vietnamese and failed to do so.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
All other things being equal, sure, it's an advantage. But things are rarely equal. To use a WWI example, when war broke out, morale was tremendous. The allies figured that the war would be over in a few weeks. The French based their entire strategy on 'elan' on morale and confidence. Well, bravely charging forward with absolute confidence and high morale into machine guns.... not really a decisive factor.
But the French approach was based on a theory of infantry attack which would have applied just about anywhere else but the highly dense machine-gun-equipped Western Front. (Zulu infantry with high morale got through the killing zone of the British at Isandlwhana, Japanese troops with high morale got through the killing zone of the Russians in the Far East in 1905, and a 1914-style French-style charge against the Union at Gettysburg would have won the battle in an incredible hurry, as the rate of fire of a Mauser-equipped German rifleman is about thirty times that of a Union rifleman even before allowing for relative range and accuracy - and that's not counting the change between machine guns and no machine guns).

And morale is far from simple. A simplistic view is that a defeat equals lowered morale and less confidence. But is that really true? Did the morale of the British drop because of bombings during the battle of Britain? Did the morale of the Texans collapse as a result of the Alamo? Bombing campaigns were intended to destroy the morale of the British, the Germans, the Japanese and the Vietnamese and failed to do so.
And the French morale collapsed completely in 1940 and didn't recover. While it's not always the case that a defeat leads to lowered morale, it's also not never the case and confidence and morale go a long way to explaining why the consistently outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia was fighting a major battle sixty miles north of Washington two years into the war.
 
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