Did the CSA really have any hope in hell of beating the Union in the civil war?
>>501740
No.
It wasn't quite as bad as a rabbit pissing off a bear, but it was close to it.
>>501740
Thy had pretty good generals so I would assume yeah
>>501740
>>501750
It rides on more than general-ship and Lee is vastly over-rated.
You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
William Tecumseh Sherman's Comments to Prof. David F. Boyd at the Louisiana State Seminary (24 December 1860), as quoted in The Civil War : A Book of Quotations (2004) by Robert Blaisdell. Also quoted in The Civil War: A Narrative (1986) by
>>501740
they had a chance for sure
Beating them as in destroying the Union's capability to fight and occupying the Northern States? No.
Beating them as in forcing them into a position where they are obliged to make peace and acknowledge Southern independence? Unlikely, but maybe.
>>501740
Some people think Special Order 191 was the linchpin in securing their defeat.
Lincoln believed Maryland and Kentucky were the keys to everything.
It's also thought that the South was seeking one stunning victory on the battlefield to impress to France and Britain that it was capable of winning and get them to intervene, just as France and Spain intervened in the American Revolution 90 years earlier.
>>501740
I'd say not. The material difference was too steep. The only way they could've won is if the North refused to fight in the first place; once the war had started, the longer it went on, the stronger the resolve to win became in the North (negating the initial morale advantage of the South) and the more the material advantage of the North began to grind the South apart. The fight they put up was better than what they could have realistically hoped for, due to logistical difficulties and occasional staggering incompetence of the opposition.
>>501809
Yeah, they wouldn't have though. France was more interested in taking advantage of this opportunity to mess about in Mexico. Britain would've helped on the seas maybe but would never have been able to provide sufficient overland assistance to bring the USA to its knees due to logistics. And knew it. And was afraid of losing Canada and wasting a lot of money on a war that, to boot, wouldn't play well with the significant moralist contingent of the population.
>>501852
Not the guy you're replying to, but I agree with this.
The CSA banking on European powers coming to their aid was a huge miscalculation.
France and Britain already had enough shit to worry about in the 1860s. France was quite vocal about not wanting to get into a conflict with the U.S. unless they had strong allies. France (or Britain) wasn't about to throw themselves into a long and costly war with the U.S. because of a lack of cotton.
>>501905
France would have followed the UK into a war at that point.
Two thing went against the CSA when it comes to foreign intervention. Firstly there was a problem with the grain harvest in many places of Europe and the Union was a major grain producer. This ment much more to Europe than the cotton of the CSA because the UK could get cotton from India.
Secondly after the Emancipation Proclamation made the abolition of slavery a war goal the UK simply couldnt get involved. We had already abolished slavery at home and in the Empire, we had also went to war with other nations to END thier slave trades. So to defend a slave state against someone else who was attempting to abolish it would have ment public oppinion would never support it.
>>501922
So you're saying the reason the Eternal Anglo couldn't involve himself in the defense of a slave state was that he was making enough money as it was enslaving the people who invented zero?
>>501845
>the stronger the resolve to win became in the North
False. The Midwest was dangerously close to seceding at a few points.
>>501933
This isnt /pol/ lets keep /his/ free of these "dank memes"
>>501948
Sorry, I'm still used to the majority of my /his/ discussion being smug off-topic shitposting on other boards.
Honestly I don't understand why there was any expectation of European aid at all though. The French and British of 1860 really had nothing to gain from an intervention and plenty to lose. The focus should have been entirely on securing the borders and modernizing and consolidating the military. Beyond the minimum needed trade for munitions and supplies, heavy diplomacy could wait until after a ceasefire.
>>501977
>Honestly I don't understand why there was any expectation of European aid at all though.
The plantation owners really thought they were hot shit like that, that the European powers would come to the aid of the last noble aristocracy in the Americas, and the cotton truly was king.
>>501977
Well at the start of the war the CSA tried to send a diplomat to the UK on board a British ship. The Union found out about this and boarded the ship taking the diplomat prisoner. Two points here, First does t hat not remind you of a cause for another war? (1812) Secondly the UK was supreme on the waves and that was a huge insult so there was a call from the public for war at first.
Secondly the UK and USA hasnt been on the good terms we are now, there were a few issues with the borders between the USA and Canada and some animosity due to the previous wars.
>>501983
Oh i forgot. I maye be wrong here im not up on my American history but for a long time the UK wanted to create a state for the natives. This had seemed like a war goal in 1812 but we were too busy in the end to push for it.
That may have still been on the table.
>>501983
I don't see how taking an third-party (to the US and UK) asset prisoner is equivalent to impressing the UK crew into service on a US ship.
>>501995
It was UK crew on American ships ( or assumed UK citizens) being pressed onto UK ships in 1812.
Its due to the boarding without permission.
>>501740
Gettysburg
>>501981
>>501983
I find the whole Europeanism of America up until the end of the 19th century pretty interesting. It's as if nobody had fully realized yet the ramifications of creating a large nation of Europeans on a faraway continent. Despite political independence it feels like a still very colonial mindset, like we were trying to be better Englishmen than the ones we broke away from.
>>502003
You have a point there. Nobody could have known the potential America had to become such a world power, nobody would have dreamed of a colony surpassing its motherland.
It seems to me that the American mindset was often about one upping the UK while still sharing very similar cultures. America took influences from all over Europe but there was always something special about the old master.
They could if they broke the norths will to fight further.
>>502051
Other than European help which has been covered, the only way the CSA coul dhave survived was if the north just gave up and let them go.
>>502003
That's not that far from the truth. One of our first major political parties named itself the Whigs for a reason. We just hadn't had the time to grow away from our roots yet.
>>501933
google "lancashire cotton famine"
>>502016
Well it helped that everybody else spoke those funny-sounding continental languages instead of English and that Britain had been the most forward place in the world for a hundred years at that point. If I remember correctly a lot of the revolutionary literature tried to appeal to people's pride as Englishmen and how they weren't being treated as subjects of such a modern and civilized kingdom ought to be.
The sentiment seems to have lasted longer and more stubbornly in the South, probably due to its less cosmopolitan nature. I wonder if external immigration and internal movement had favored the South more than it did if the war might have been avoided by a growing constituency of postcolonial white voters. Even if wasn't as vital to the economy the North was still very pro-slavery in 1790 after all.
>>501740
Not really. Their whole plan was based on the logic of
>Colonial America was able to outlast Great Britain.
>CSA is much stronger vis a vis the Union than Colonial America was vis a vis Great Britain.
>Therefore, we can outlast the Union.
While the first two premises were correct, it left out two fundamental factors.
>It is far easier for the Union to strike at the CSA than it is for the UK to ship troops across the atlantic
>There is a differing balance of commitment; to the UK, the colonies are a faraway province, nice to have, but hardly essential to the integrity of the nation. To Washington, the South was half the damn country, and vital to have.
The second, especially, implies a far greater level of commitment in their enemy, which is a very bad miscalculation to make when your strategy focuses not on destroying them directly, but on being too expensive and too bloody to be worth taking apart.
The best case scenario for the CSA is that things go a little better than they did historically, McClellan wins the 1864 election, manages to push through a peace treaty, which will probably only last until the north has built up again and feels they can take the south, and in 10-12 years you have the second civil war.
