No, not really. German submarine encounters, including some very near the coast of the United States, occured almost immediately. The air force was not the only means America used to fight the Germans, you know.
Yeah, I said that.
First large scale U.S. contact with German ground elements came in February, 1943. That's fourteen months after Pearl harbor.
Let's see...December 6, 1860 -- SC publishes secesh docs -- January 9, 1861, SC militia fires on U.S. flag on board the Star. Rebel gov't calls for troops in February, 1861, I think. Lincoln calls up the militia in April, first large battle at Manassas (forgetting fighting in what is now W. Virginia and elsewhere) in July. December -- July, call that 8 months.
I'd say the war was on from December 6 -- at least at the pace it was in WWII.
In fact, it was over 2 1/2 years before U.S. ground forces were in a real grapple with the Germans -- that came June 6, 1944. And also the 8th Air Force dropped in one WEEK in February, 1944 as many bombs over occupied Europe/Germany as it did in ALL of 1943.
The ACW was on from December, 1860, and as the timeline shows, at a pretty high tempo.
In fact, compare that tempo in 1861 to our war on Al Qaeda. We're dragging our feet compared to the secesh.
Walt
Your comparison is false. The existence of a state of warfare exists after the occurrence of several generally recognized actions and the events that -immediately- precipitate them. Among the most common examples are a formal declaration of war by a country or an equivalent act of declaration, such as a blockade. Others include a major sanctioned military encounter, the sanctioned invasion of one country by the military of another, or an event that immediately precipitates any of these. In the case of the civil war, the first such event is Fort Sumter and those events immediately involved with it. Sumter itself was the first major military encounter of sanctioned troops. It also precipitated the first declarations of formal war in the blockade, and was used by The Lincoln as an excuse to launch his invasion of the south. No event prior to the immediate vicinity of the battle at Sumter can be said to have had any such consequence or implication. Therefore the war started with Fort Sumter and the first shot fired in it came from a yankee ship.