>"THE CONFEDERACY NEVER HAD A CHANCE"
But wasn't the civil war years long and the bloodiest in American history, to this day? I don't understand how the Confederacy is at once able to cause so much death and destruction for years, but also "never had a chance". Like, I can understand saying their chances of losing were greater than their chances of winning, but I don't think a nation that lasted years under a strained war situation could be said to have "no" chance.
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Its a meme started by confederate generals post war who wanted to obscure the fact that they'd fought the war without anything approaching a coherent grand strategy and to claim that they'd never been "defeated".
All the grand strategy in the world wasn't going to overcome the North's industrial/manpower advantage
>Yeah but if that was me acting with 100+ years of hindsight and perfect knowledge of where the Union's forces were distributed at the onset of the war I...
Maybe a proper strategy would have helped them avoid some of the bigger frickups though. Like maybe yeeting the ANV into the north on poorly conceived offensives wouldn't have happened twice. Sure it probably doesn't change much, but not giving Lincoln things like something like Gettysburg might have weakened his support.
The Northward strikes were probably the best strategic moves of the war to be honest.
A victory in Northern territory would have been devastating to Union morale, a nation already trying to justify participating.
Not everyone in the Union wanted to be a singular country and the Union wasnt dependent on The South for anything. A large movement of Northerners just wanted to cut them loose and leave them be.
Honestly theyd be re-annexed anyway.
Its possible, just very slim.
If Second Manassas had gone better, as in full encirclement, Washington is take.
Lets assume the Union fights on as usual. Stones River happens and at the moment of Truth the CSA has one more brigade for the final push down the hill toward the Union rally point, they bag another army.
The two major armies being knocked out for virtually no change in Confederate losses (only change to make this possible is the Confederates just walking slightly faster) would be a game changer.
>But wasn't the Civil War years long and the bloodiest in American history, to this day?
It's because the Civil War is yet the only real war America has ever fought in its history.
define "real war"
no
>without getting Great Britain (Pig War) and France (Mexico standoff) on your side
>can’t won
The same fate.
The Confederacy put up the best fight that it was possible for them to put up and still lost. It's hard to imagine how they could have done any better than they did.
Obviously there's always a 1% chance of a miracle.
>best fight
Not even close. It would've been an even longer war if the Confederacy had actually tried, but I'm not so sure they'd wouldn't have still lost.
>It's hard to imagine how they could have done any better than they did.
It's actually really fricking easy. Create a professional chief of general staff position, so there is a layer of command between the army level and Jeff Davis which responsible for coordinating grand strategy and shifting forces between fronts to meet the needs of that strategy. Boom, I have just massively improved the confederacy's war effort.
I guess Lee could have been that guy but they needed him in the field. Shifting forces between theaters became difficult as their rail system fell apart. Moving Longstreet’s corps to Chickamauga was an impressive feat of logistics but that was their last hurrah as their railroads wore out and they couldn’t manufacture new rails or locomotives.
was Davis led politics a mistake?
the confederacy leadership knew they could not win through military means, the ultimate goal was to make the union sue for peace and end hostilities
and since the union did not seek peace with the confederates it was only a matter of time before the manpower of the south dried up into nothing, it doesnt help the north could always outproduce material leagues ahead
really though the south had the critical flaws of their entire economy being trade based (what happens when you blockade all their ports?) as well as mississippi river being cutoff would ensure the demise of the confederacy
The standard text on the Civil War, "Guns of the South" by Turtledove, clearly tells us the Confederates were so deadly because of their rifles. And the hand grenades played a feature role in breaking the earthworks during the Siege of Washington.
highly underrated post
Because most of the death and destruction happened to the Confederacy themselves
There were more Union dead and wounded at all points during the war.
Leftists try really hard to create a scenario where the bad guys were incompetent but also never had a chance, it makes no sense but they still push this narrative.
>the bad guys were incompetent but also never had a chance,
That statement isn't contradictory. Nice English Paco.
>That statement isn't contradictory.
It's not inherently but in this scenario it definitely is.