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

it could also have gone better for the Union...If Reynolds is not killed (or even wounded) his direction probably would have made a serious difference with the deployment of Howards corps. He was essentially commanding 3 corps at that point as Meades designated commander on the scene.

Sickles obeying orders on day 2 and staying were he was supposed to stay (making Devils Den even more of a nightmare)

Not sure how much worse Picketts Charge could have been, although Tsouras in his book on Gettysburg makes a reasonable case for that worst case for the Confederate side
Reynolds didn't really have anything on his resume that would indicate he'd be a very good wing commander, and Sickles staying put would have conceded a powerful artillery platform to the Confederates, who had used a similar position to great effect against his men at Chancellorsville. Furthermore, even if Longstreet's attack on the left wing doesn't destroy III corps as hard as OTL, Meade still likely would have put in V Corps, thus giving Pender, Rodes, and Early a window to attack Cemetery Hill.
 
Reynolds didn't really have anything on his resume that would indicate he'd be a very good wing commander, and Sickles staying put would have conceded a powerful artillery platform to the Confederates, who had used a similar position to great effect against his men at Chancellorsville. Furthermore, even if Longstreet's attack on the left wing doesn't destroy III corps as hard as OTL, Meade still likely would have put in V Corps, thus giving Pender, Rodes, and Early a window to attack Cemetery Hill.
Sickles ended up giving up that "great artillery position" to the Rebels anyway. The reality is that the benefits of the slightly increased elevation of his new position were offset by the fact that his men were stretched out over twice the distance, as well as being in a salient. Sickles was better off staying in his original spot. That's where he ended up anyway.
 
The fight over the Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, and Devil's Den were bloody for Longstreet's corps as well, but the bottom line of the engagement remains unchanged even if Sickles remained in place. Meade commits V Corps to the left, leaving his center weak, Pender assaults Cemetery Hill, and pressed from the front by Anderson's Division and from the right by Rodes and Early, Hancock gets rolled up like a wet blanket
 
The fight over the Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, and Devil's Den were bloody for Longstreet's corps as well, but the bottom line of the engagement remains unchanged even if Sickles remained in place. Meade commits V Corps to the left, leaving his center weak, Pender assaults Cemetery Hill, and pressed from the front by Anderson's Division and from the right by Rodes and Early, Hancock gets rolled up like a wet blanket
Unlikely. First, some background info.


gettysburg-peach-orchard.jpg

This is what happened OTL. Sickles advanced beyond the Union line, taking a position that, while on slightly higher ground, was twice the distance, in a salient, and left both flanks in the air. In spite of these tremendous handicaps, the men put up substantial resistance. However, the position was clearly doomed to a well-coordinated attack, which is exactly what happened. Meade had to use no less than 4 divisions to save the Left as a result. Now, compare this to the position that Sickles should have ended up taking.
Gettysburg-Day-2-400-PM.png

In this position, III Corps links up its right with II Corp's left. On its left, it can anchor itself on Little Round Top. It is compact, anchored on both flanks, and all around better. III Corps has an excellent chance to fight off Longstreet with little to no aid from other Corps. Even if aid is needed, I would say that it is safe to say that far less would be needed than the 4 divisions sent in OTL.
 
Sickles' wing on the left would have been subject to artillery bombardment analogous to what he suffered at Chancellorsville from Hazel Grove, which when combined with a concentric infantry assault, stood a good chance of unraveling his position on the Second Day. If Meade thinks the focus of Lee's assault is on his left wing, that's where the reinforcements go, especially if Sickles thinks Chancellorsville is happening again and starts bombarding Meade with messages about the bad position he's in.
 
Sickles' wing on the left would have been subject to artillery bombardment analogous to what he suffered at Chancellorsville from Hazel Grove, which when combined with a concentric infantry assault, stood a good chance of unraveling his position on the Second Day. If Meade thinks the focus of Lee's assault is on his left wing, that's where the reinforcements go, especially if Sickles thinks Chancellorsville is happening again and starts bombarding Meade with messages about the bad position he's in.
The Peach Orchard's utility as an offensive gun platform is greatly overestimated. It was used for the bombardment prior to Pickett's Charge to no great effect. My previous points still stand. III Corps has a much better chance of beating off Longstreet with minimal help if it remained in its original position. As you can see in the maps I posted, his chosen position was much too exposed, as Longstreet proved. At the very least, Sickles does better than OTL, and doesn't need as many troops to help him out.
 
I have always wondered what would have happened if Hood had been given his way and allowed to charge on to the Round Tops instead of attacking Sickles flank. There were delays to set that attack on Sickles up, while for a brief moment there was little in front of him if Hood slipped by Sickles. At that point some of those Union reserves were simply not available yet.

However, my favorite alternate history, the Forchen/Gingrich Gettysburg trilogy does an excellent job looking at the best case situation for Lee in 1863 and I agree strongly with their conclusions (and I hate Gingrich politically but he is a good historian)

Really as long as the Union doesn't lose in the East in 1863 it is going to win in the West. The loss of the entire Mississippi River system plus ports one by one is going to do in the Confederacy even if Lee is parked in Maryland. He can't be in two places at once, and the Confederacy does not have the forces to deal with the Union offensive in the West AND come up with defend Virginia at the same time.

Have you read William Forstchen's Short Story A Hard Day For Mother ?

The more implausible part is Joshua Chamberlain taking a job at the VMI, and becoming Stonewall Jackson's best friend and later Chief of Staff.

The more reasonable part is that after Jackson's death Chamberlain is promoted to brigade commander, and leads it against the Round Tops.
Due to someone less competent leading the 20th Maine, and Chamberlain simply maintaining a reserve and delaying his attack so his men can refill their canteens history is changed.
 
Have you read William Forstchen's Short Story A Hard Day For Mother ?

The more implausible part is Joshua Chamberlain taking a job at the VMI, and becoming Stonewall Jackson's best friend and later Chief of Staff.

The more reasonable part is that after Jackson's death Chamberlain is promoted to brigade commander, and leads it against the Round Tops.
Due to someone less competent leading the 20th Maine, and Chamberlain simply maintaining a reserve and delaying his attack so his men can refill their canteens history is changed.
Hate to say this, but a successful attack on Little Round Top, in of itself, would have had little effect on the battle. The men would have been so exhausted and depleted that additional reinforcements would have been necessary to make anything out of it. Reinforcements that Lee would not have on hand until the arrival of Pickett late that evening in another part of the field. Meanwhile, Meade had VI Corps coming in just East of Little Round Top. It could have been easily retaken by VI Corps. The approach from the wooded Eastern side is far more difficult to defend than the bare, steep, and rocky Western side. It should also be said that the contributions of Warren, Strong Vincent and Paddy O'Rorke were probably greater than Chamberlain's. It's just that Chamberlain lived to become a powerful politician and writer. Of the others, Vincent and O'Rorke were mortally wounded/or killed, while Warren's career ended in controversy.
 
Meade is still likely to commit most of V Corps to the fighting on the left; Hancock might keep the division sent to shore up III Corps, but it wouldn't be available to help Howard on Cemetery Hill if Posey and Mahone attacked with their brigades, and Pender, Rodes, and Early with their divisions. If Sickles' change of position is the worst turn of Union luck, then I don't think it outweighs JEB Stuart's ride, the failure to take Culp's Hill when it was held only by the 7th Indiana, the delay in getting Longstreet's corps in the fight, the failure of Posey and Mahone, and the wounding of Pender and Hood.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Hate to say this, but a successful attack on Little Round Top, in of itself, would have had little effect on the battle.

I tend to agree with this. I think Joshua Chamberlain is a mighty impressive fellow and a good man, and his defense of Little Round Top was courageous and skillful. But if one really gets down to it, old George Greene on the other end of the Union line at Culp's Hill was defending a more important position, against heavier odds, and with just as much skill and courage. He doesn't get near enough credit, if you ask me.
 
I tend to agree with this. I think Joshua Chamberlain is a mighty impressive fellow and a good man, and his defense of Little Round Top was courageous and skillful. But if one really gets down to it, old George Greene on the other end of the Union line at Culp's Hill was defending a more important position, against heavier odds, and with just as much skill and courage. He doesn't get near enough credit, if you ask me.
One hundred percent agree. It's just too bad that Greene didn't go on to a super successful political and writing career, then have a popular movie and book written about him. Oh well.
 
Have you read William Forstchen's Short Story A Hard Day For Mother ?

The more implausible part is Joshua Chamberlain taking a job at the VMI, and becoming Stonewall Jackson's best friend and later Chief of Staff.

The more reasonable part is that after Jackson's death Chamberlain is promoted to brigade commander, and leads it against the Round Tops.
Due to someone less competent leading the 20th Maine, and Chamberlain simply maintaining a reserve and delaying his attack so his men can refill their canteens history is changed.

I have that one .. its in "Alternate Generals" (an anthology, which has several good ones in it). There is a good one whose name escapes me where Edgar Allen Poe commands a brigade although I forget the battle
 
Reynolds didn't really have anything on his resume that would indicate he'd be a very good wing commander, and Sickles staying put would have conceded a powerful artillery platform to the Confederates, who had used a similar position to great effect against his men at Chancellorsville. Furthermore, even if Longstreet's attack on the left wing doesn't destroy III corps as hard as OTL, Meade still likely would have put in V Corps, thus giving Pender, Rodes, and Early a window to attack Cemetery Hill.

sadly Reynolds got killed pretty early in the fight, so we don't know if he would have risen to the occasion but Meade had a lot of faith in him
 
Guy didn't really do anything at Chancellorsville, failed to reinforce Meade's progress at Fredericksburg, and was doing PA militia stuff during Antietam. The only thing he really had to his name was a division rearguard action at 2nd Bull Run; as Hood proved, even the most heroic division commander isn't necessarily cut out for army command.
 
Guy didn't really do anything at Chancellorsville, failed to reinforce Meade's progress at Fredericksburg, and was doing PA militia stuff during Antietam. The only thing he really had to his name was a division rearguard action at 2nd Bull Run; as Hood proved, even the most heroic division commander isn't necessarily cut out for army command.
I think a big part of it is the attraction of what might have been. He might have risen to the occasion and won it a year early...or he might have been just another Meade who still needed Grant's backing to do what needed to be done. We'll never know. He had a solid record, but no better than Meade's. Meade was the right man for the job at the time, and he did as good a job as anyone who had only been in command for 3 days or so.
 
Minor point, but the French were typically on the tactical defensive in the Franco-Prussian War; it's the Germans who launch direct infantry assaults against rifle fire, not the French as you imply. If infantry has three capabilities (long range fire, bayonet assault, and volume fire), and you can do two, and your opponent can only do one, you're going to have a huge advantage every infantry fight.

The best case scenario for Lee in 1863 is to 1) Clear the Shenandoah, 2) Capture Harrisburg, 3) Inflict a defeat that leaves the remnants of the army of the Potomac confined to Washington, 4) Capture Baltimore (like Harrisburg, mostly for prestige) and 5), transfer men and generals west to shore up the Army of Tennessee, while keeping sufficient forces to observe Washington. The end state would leave the Confederacy with Chattanooga as a shield for the Deep South, while ensuring the Army of the Potomac would be weak enough to drive from the field in the 1864 summer campaign season.

Which would take divine intervention for the CSA to pull off.
 
Gettysburg sort of time I think, so 1863.

- BNC

A myth that. The only way the Rebels win at Gettysburg is on Day 1, in which we are talking the mangling of the AotP's I & XI Corps. Winning on Day 2 requires Unspeakable Seamammal levels of incompetence by the North and equal levels of luck and derring-do by the South.

Besides, in the end defeat the AotP and they simply fall back on their interior lines to the Pipe Creek Line, which in terms of defensibility makes Fredricksburg look like an open door. Unflankable, and forcing Lee to frontally assault the AotP with his entire army. IOW, Pickett's Charge x3. War ends in 1863 with a Northern Victory. George Meade becomes the next President!

When they opened fire on Fort Sumpter.

Same then, you ever read Shelby Foote? The great Southern War historian? Guy who is buried next to N.B. Forrest? He said the South lost and had no chance of winning because the North fought the war with one hand tied behind it's back. That the North could have raised and equipped army after army. The North lost 5% if it's white population the South 18%!

I suppose in fairness to your question, the moment they lost any chance of losing reelection. Even then he would have been in office until March of 1865. Even McClellan finishes it. Lincoln was never going to quit.

You don't need to be Bruce Catton to understand all this. Being good at 1st grade arithmetic is good enough. McClellan was a War Democrat. (1) The thought of being POTUS when the South is overrun would be a dream scenario for him. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments would be stillborn, yes. The Emancipation Proclamation, no. Slavery was dead in too many areas of the Occupied South by this time, plus the flood of runaways to Union lines had become a torrent.

1) Too much is made by people who seem to not understand the differences between the American republican system and European parliamentarian systems. If the US were a parliamentarian system, it is POSSIBLE that the Copperheads might force a "Vote of No Confidence" on any given day against the "McClellan Government". But that's not how it works here. No matter how well the Copperheads do, the "McClellan Administration" (2) can still get a working congressional majority of War Democrats, Whig Republicans, and Radical Republicans to at least get Congress to pay the bills to keep the war going.

2) McClellan will still remain President until March 1869, and unless he goes full bore Andrew Johnson doesn't face the threat of Impeachment. Even less so with a Democratic Congress.

Sherman yes, I agree. If Atlanta had not been Lincoln's Christmas (3) gift then you have a problem.

3) Election Day gift. Sherman's Christmas Day gift to Lincoln was completing his March to the Sea and taking Savannah, cutting the Confederacy into thirds.

But Lincoln was going no where before March of 65. How was the South doing at that point? You think Sherman was going to sit outside Atlanta forever?

Sherman was not the greatest of tacticians. It is not ASB that continuing and inexplicable failures outside Atlanta might have forced his removal or larger forces to be sent to him (canceling the Mobile Campaign, perhaps?). In the end, the chances for the South to stop the North stone cold outside Atlanta are small. Johnston MIGHT have done it, but its not just that he was replaced by Hood. You needed Davis to make that mistake. Davis' sole measuring rod for talent was their level of loyalty/ability to suck up. And the Army of the Tennessee was low on talent. The only first rate commander they had left other than the cavalryman Forrest was the abolitionist P.R. Cleburne!

Or Lee could hold Petersburg? What changes by March of 1865? Lincoln was NEVER going to quit, ever.

Lee could and did hold out by March. The Spring Muds insured that.

Early had as about the chance of taking DC as Hitler does London. Not going to happen, ever. At best Early's raid causes a Corps or two to reboard and sail North. But, Lee's mean old man was taking nothing.

The Union XXII Corps may have been a collection of clerks, but behind those works they were like the Rebel Militia at Bunker Hill with vastly more training, artillery and fortifications up the yin-yang, and most importantly ammunition reserves that the farmers at Bunker Hill could only have dreamed of. Give the Rebels at Bunker Hill unlimited ammo, and instead of merely suffering the worst percentile loss of forces engaged in a victorious battle in the history of British arms the British would have lost outright!

Not really. A CSA victory is one of the GIGANTIC clichés of alternate history. It goes beyond cliché, it was a regular go to.

It's also massively improbable, simply considering the differential in resources. This is unpleasant to hear, but typically, any fight where one side has a three to one weight advantage over the other side.... the big guy wins, 99.9% of the time.

Actually, its not 3:1. Minus 4 million slaves from 9 million Southerners. Now its 27 million Yankees against 5 million Southern Whites. Now deduct 1 million Southern White Unionists. Now its 27 million Yankees against 4 million Southern White Rebels. Now add 4 million slaves (whether as a hostile internal force or runaways/liberated slaves) to the Yankee pool of manpower. Now you have 31 million Unionists to 4 million Southern White Rebels. Finally, you add 1 million White Southern Unionist to the party, and you have 32 million Unionists facing 4 million Southern White Rebels.

8:1 odds.:eek:

Now THOSE are some impressive numbers. Both for what the Rebels faced and for how long they held out regardless of the odds.

And yes, its true that the Confederacy was pretty morally repugnant. That makes it harder to sing Dixie.

Impossible to sing if you Google the second verse of Dixie.

But the reality is simply the reality. The Confederacy can't win, unless it is impossibly lucky, and the north is impossibly incompetent.

The North was plenty incompetent enough as it was before Fort Donelson. And continued to be incompetent in the Eastern Theater of Operations until Meade's appointment. McClellan's original appointment left a malignant influence of vicious rivalry almost as bad as the Confederate Army of Tennessee! There WERE other AotP corps commanders besides Meade who could have done a respectable job. But Washington politics kept incompetents in their place and better men down in the lower ranks.

It won't surprise people that, IMHO, it was the moment that Jefferson Davis decided to replace Joseph Johnston with John Bell Hood.

IMHO it was when the Confederacy picked Jefferson Davis as its President. I'm hard pressed to think of any US President as bad a national leader as he was.
 
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