runsforcelery wrote:I won't say the odds weren't heavily stacked in the North's favor, because they were. I strongly suspect, however, that the inevitability of the North's victory because of its industrial and manpower advantages has been substantially overstated and that to a very large extent this is, indeed, the product of historical hindsight.
Fortunately then that, AFAIK, i never said anything about inevitable.
The only realistic way for the south to win however would be by a short, sharp campaign that went "carpe jugulum", go for the throat right away, no sitting around and waiting for the north to exploit its massive advantages.
As one of the few advantages the south did have was that early recruitment provided them with more people already with the right skills, especially for cavalry.
runsforcelery wrote:(1) The South's decision to essentially embargo its own cotton in the first year of the war, hoping to ratchet up pressure on Great Britain (and other European textile producers) for recognition of and aid to the Confederacy. The South would have done far better to dump all of the current cotton crop on the market in Europe and bank the resulting cash to use to buy weapons and additional commerce raiders in Europe . . . in hindsight.
It was wishful thinking and they should have realised it. They didn´t want to realise it however so it kept on going. Setting the trend for many parts of the south´s defeat.
runsforcelery wrote:(3) The South's decision to locate its capital in Richmond, although almost inevitable [see? there's that word again] because of the political stature and importance of Virginia, played an enormous role in locking the war in the East into a relatively tiny geographic theatre. Admittedly, it did the same thing for the Army of the Potomac, but over all, it benefited the North substantially more than the South, in my opinion, if only be forcing Lee to stand and fight where and when he did.
Sure, but was there really a realistic alternative to this? Setting up a capital isn´t just a matter of "pick and choose", especially when you don´t have the time to make sure it can work. Yes there were options, but those options had their own problems.
runsforcelery wrote:(5) The South's decision to fight what amounted to a purely defensive war. This was partly a result of their own internalized war aims and also a deliberate foreign policy decision as part of their effort to portray themselves to Europeans (truthfully, in their view) as the victims of aggression rather than the aggressors.
BIG mistake.
runsforcelery wrote:Had the South recognized (or at least admitted) the trend lines sooner than that, and especially if that recognition had been accompanied by a relocation of the capital to the Deep South to provide it with a defense in depth, an earlier "On to Washington!" strategy could have materially changed the balance and outcome of the war in the East.
Definitely possible yes. Not entirely likely as it would still be hard to overcome the hurdles, but it would have made some sort of "victory" at least possible.
runsforcelery wrote:(6) Had Lee not suffered the most cataclysmic "off day" of his entire life at a place called Gettysburg [and had Stuart not been off doing Stuart things instead of providing the screen and scouts the main army needed], the complexion of the war between July 1863 and April 1865 would have been very different, and possibly decisively so. Lee should have cut his losses after the second day and reverted to the defensive, which at the very least would have let him get out of Pennsylvania with his army essentially intact, but he'd envisioned the entire campaign from the beginning as a "peace offensive" [Ludendorff in 1918, anyone?], he had enormous faith in his army, and he asked his men to do more than any mortal men could have done when he sent Pickett up the slopes.
Well, Lee´s orders were to AVOID battle until the army was concentrated.
General Hill blatantly disregarded this.
And that was after general Heth potentially already disregarded those orders the day before.
And Stuart neatly compounded the error.
Well what about that, already we have 3 southern generals that we can lament about their dreadful lack of skill...
One thing that could be added about the ACW overall though, is that the troops and basic doctrines were often highly inadequate.
Something that Gettysburg showed off was that intentionally or not, soldiers on boths sides were not actually using their weapons, after the battle, many recovered weapons were found to have been reloaded multiple times without firing, at least one musket had 8 shots loaded.
Meaning that a fair portion of the troops were either too poorly trained to properly use their guns, or were intentionally "opting out" of the fighting in their own way.
Secondly, something that influenced early failures in WWI, was that despite the very powerful muskets generally used, casualties were more in line with what might be expected from 15th or 16th century muskets, because they were poorly employed, with troops commonly lining up at the edge of(or even beyond!) musket range and ineffectively taking potshots at each other.
Had either side effectively made use of the training and doctrines developed by Dutch and Swedish troops in the 17th century and then refined by the French in the Napoleonic wars, they could quickly have broken the opposition.
Again, both sides were hesitant, and that favoured the north.
runsforcelery wrote:(7) Had Joe Johnston been left in command of the Army of Tennessee instead of being replaced by Hood in the Atlanta Campaign the ultimate result would most probably have been the same, at least where Atlanta was concerned, except that it would have taken one hell of a lot longer and Johnston would not have thrown away his army in a series of frontal assaults which did exactly what Sherman wanted. An intact Army of Tennessee in Georgia, with 50-60,000 men instead of less than 30,000 and prepared to contest Sherman's advance to Savannah rather than launching fruitless attacks on Sherman's supply lines between Atlanta and Chattanooga, would have done an enormous amount to inhibit Sherman's advance through Georgia and the Carolinas. Johnston might not have stopped Sherman if he hadn't been replaced by Hood, but he would have fought a lot smarter, and if he'd simply succeeded in delaying the fall of Atlanta for another 2 or 3 months --- until after the 1864 presidential elections --- the political consequences might well have been enormous.
Disagree. While Hood was probably not a good idea for a replacement, Johnstons poor defensive campaign does not make him look any more good now than he did then.
He set up excellent defensive positions repeatedly, only to soon retreat from them, whenever Sherman sent forces to go around him.
His action at predicting the battle at New Hope church showed some quality, but he failed to actually do something useful of it.
It doesn´t matter if Sherman doesn´t win the battles, if he can still keep Johnston retreating, Johnston is loosing.
Sherman was almost completely in charge of the campaign, Johnston defended a little here and a little there, but rarely accomplished anything really useful.
The fall of Atlanta would NOT have been delayed with Johnston in charge however, that is a faerytale. If he couldn´t defend against Sherman in
advantageous terrain, he most certainly isn´t very likely to be more successful in flat open terrain.
And he was just 5 measly km from Atlanta when he was replaced!
Once Sherman was across the river, it only took him 2 days to fight the so called battle of Atlanta, SOUTH of the city.
At that point it was a matter of time before Atlanta fell.
Johnston didn´t do terribly bad, but too cautious is NOT good.
runsforcelery wrote:(9) Had Jefferson Davis been willing to accept Patrick Cleburne's proposal to raise regiments of slaves who would win manumission by their service when it was made in January 1864 rather than fighting it tooth and nail until finally accepting a watered-down version if it without provision for manumission far too late in February 1865, it is entirely possible that substantial numbers of slaves might have ended up in Confederate uniform. It is traditional today to pooh-pooh that possibility and point to the 200,000 backs who served in the Union Army, but Cleburne was far from the only Confederate office in 1864 who believed it would have provided a significant source of reliable manpower, and there have certainly been other historical examples of slaves fighting for their owners. The reward of manumission would have had a powerful appeal in 1864, when there was still a lot of doubt that the North was going to win in the end, and while I'm far from certain it would have worked as well as Cleburne and the others hoped, it's clearly one of the great "what if?" points of the ACW.
Was there really that much doubt by 1864? I would say no.
However the suggestion could certainly have made a big difference. There would definitely have been thousands of slaves willing to fight, however, here enters once again the weakness of the south, could they procure the weapons, ammunition and supplies needed for these troops?
In 1864, the Confederate war economy was strained to say it nicely. It couldn´t reliably supply the troops they already had.
runsforcelery wrote:Yes, the North won, and we can go back and trace the factors which led to that victory. If the South had won, we'd be able to go back and trace the same sorts of factors for it, and there would probably be people who would argue that:
Yes, but if the south won, we would have considered them winning against the odds.
And like i said, at least i never considered it inevitable. If facing steep odds made victory inevitable, my own country would have been curbstomped half a dozen times since the 16th century.
