[Wallace T.]

You have to wonder what would have happened had Lincoln stood down at Fort Sumter and withdrew the Federal forces. Would the Upper South have seceded? Would the Confederacy have been viable without Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas? There were pro-secession elements in those states but it was Lincoln's response to the Fort Sumter crisis plus his calling for 75,000 troops from the state militias that pushed the four states into the Confederacy. Virginia and Tennessee had strong Unionist elements in the mountainous regions where the plantation economy was nonexistent. There was less pro-Union sentiment in North Carolina and Arkansas.

[higgmeister]

Your scenario might have been possible if level heads had prevailed.

I just reread "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove a few weeks ago.   What if...