[Nuc 1.1]

IMHO no one could have saved the south much less Atlanta. The south did not have the combat power to succeed. Especially in the west. To think otherwise is a romantic delusion. As a southerner I once suffered from the delusion but not any more.

[BroJoeK]

Nuc 1.1: "The south did not have the combat power to succeed. Especially in the west.
To think otherwise is a romantic delusion."

Southern politicians like Senator Jefferson Davis were accustomed to dealing with "Dough-faced northerners" like Democrat President James Buchanan, who were themselves pro-slavery, and willing to do most anything to keep their slave-holding political allies happy.
So Confederate President Davis did not, in early 1861, think it would take much show of southern force to get such weaklings to give up any thought of preventing secession.

So Davis quickly called up 100,000 Confederate troops, at a time when the entire US Army was just 16,000 -- two-thirds scattered in small forts out west.
That would give the Confederacy a 10 to one advantage over any Federal force likely to soon appear.
And then, to demonstrate how deadly serious he was, Davis ordered the assault on and seizure of Fort Sumter.

That ought to show them Yankees, right?

Well, it didn't, and turns out that superior Southern motivation, courage and tenacity were not enough to overcome superior Northern numbers & logistics.
Still, the cause was not yet lost, since there were two major wild-cards which could turn the tide:

1. International recognition and aid, especially from Britain & France.
   This was pursued with some vigor, albeit clumsily and unsuccessfully, despite huge sympathy for the Southern cause, especially in Britain.
   I think the reason -- let's be honest about it -- some slave-holders were just not accustomed to being nice to people, and somehow they believed the best way to win over British allegiance was to smack the Brits upside the head -- and so they imposed an export embargo on cotton!

   Talk about winning friends and influencing people.

2. Northern war-weariness, leading to a negotiated settlement.
   This was the far more probable scenario -- especially with the likes of General George McClellan first in charge of the Army of the Potomac, then Democrat candidate for President.
   Had Sherman in Georgia & Sheridan in the Shenandoah not drawn voters' attention away from Grant's stalemated trench-warfare at Petersburg, McClellan might easily have won, and the Confederacy achieved independence.

   Point is: the Confederacy could not, by itself, win the war, but the Union might easily have lost it.

   So the real romance & delusion of our lost-causers was: that their Democrat northern allies were stronger politically and weaker morally than proved to be the case.

   Sheridan's ride at the Battle of Cedar Creek, near Strasburg, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, October 19, 1864:
   

[Texas Mulerider]

That was my point. The South could only win the war politically, a prospect that evaporated with the fall of Atlanta.