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Could the South Have Won the War?
NY Times Disunion ^ | March 16, 2015 | Terry L. Jones

Posted on 03/17/2015 8:14:26 AM PDT by iowamark

By March 1865, it was obvious to all but the most die-hard Confederates that the South was going to lose the war. Whether that loss was inevitable is an unanswerable question, but considering various “what if” scenarios has long been a popular exercise among historians, novelists and Civil War buffs...

Perhaps the most common scenario centers on the actions of Gen. Robert E. Lee...

What many fail to recognize is that Northerners were just as committed to winning as the Southerners. Some saw it as a war to free the slaves, while others fought to ensure that their republican form of government survived. Northerners believed that America was the world’s last great hope for democracy, and if the South destroyed the Union by force, that light of liberty might be extinguished forever. Lincoln once said the North must prove “that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.”

The South may have been fighting to preserve a way of life and to protect its perceived constitutional rights, but so was the North. If the Southern people kept fighting even after the devastating defeats at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga, why should we not believe the North would have kept on fighting even if the Confederates had won Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga? The fact is that both sides were equally brave and equally dedicated to their cause. Commitment and morale being the same, the stronger side prevailed.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: chattanooga; civilwar; gettysburg; greatestpresident; poormansfight; proslavery; revisionism; revisionist; revisionists; richmanswar; vicksburg
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To: baltimorepoet

Much like the plantation system.


101 posted on 03/17/2015 9:39:02 AM PDT by Regal
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To: cuban leaf
The wild card is the population of the north losing its will.

I think a bigger wild card is the population of the South losing its will. Privations were greater down south. The Union armies were down south. The political leadership was more fractuous and less competent down south. Absent an immediate collapse of U.S. morale, and there is no reason to think that yet another battlefield defeat would do that especially with the victory at Vicksburg, the U.S. would have continued and the Confederacy would have been defeated.

Have you ever read “Guns of the South” by Harry Turtledove. Fascinating read and the only book of his I REALLY like.

I've read a bunch of his stuff, but not that one. I'll have to look it up.

102 posted on 03/17/2015 9:39:45 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: baltimorepoet; Cen-Tejas
What "consent to govern" and "social contract" really means is that "I only govern with your granting consent for me to govern you, and if you don't consent I will murder you."

You missed an important point:

What "consent to govern" and "social contract" really means is that "I only govern with your granting consent for me to govern you, and if you don't consent I will murder you."

And I'll pin medals on my gunthugs for murdering you.


103 posted on 03/17/2015 9:40:56 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: Regal

About 6% of white southerners owned slaves. Sounds like most whites were NOT the equivalent of the Communist Party leaders.

Now, examining the working conditions of early factories in the North...


104 posted on 03/17/2015 9:43:56 AM PDT by baltimorepoet
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To: Kartographer
Great Britain would never ally itself with a country with the institution of slavery

They would if it meant preventing the collapse of their domestic textile industry, whose plants were fed with Southern cotton. However, since they had developed alternative sources and an alliance with the Confederacy probably meant war with France (among others), they wisely thought they'd wait it out to see a winner emerge. When Meade stopped Lee at Gettysburg and Lincoln announced Emancipation, the decision was made for them. Now they could hide their commercial reluctance behind a moral mask and remain above the fray.

105 posted on 03/17/2015 9:44:36 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: citizen352
The institution of slavery was becoming economically unfeasible.

What was the alternative?

Lincoln could have negotiated with the Southern States to return to the Union and purchase every slave in the south for much less than human and economic cost of the American Civil War.

What it the South didn't want to sell their slaves? Which they didn't. And if they did, what would prevent them from buying more?

106 posted on 03/17/2015 9:45:39 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: Regal; central_va
Slavery is communism. Your forefathers were communists and we stopped you in your commie tracks.

Don't forget to pay for your REQUIRED health insurance, peasant slave.

Or your property taxes. Otherwise, Massa will garnish your tax refunds/Social Security checks, and take back his property which he so magnanimously allows you to rent, maintain, and pay insurance on... LOL! :)

107 posted on 03/17/2015 9:46:08 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: IronJack

The most likely reason for any British alliance with the confeds would be so that they could stage their troops more conveniently for their next conquest.


108 posted on 03/17/2015 9:46:50 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: central_va
I agree with you that the Southern states had every right to secede.

The slaves also had a God-given right to overthrow their "masters", by force if necessary. No human being has a right to own another regardless of what any constitution may say and I hope that had I lived at that time I would have helped the slaves to revolt.

109 posted on 03/17/2015 9:47:27 AM PDT by Eric Pode of Croydon (I wish someone would tell me what "diddy wah diddy" means.....)
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To: cripplecreek
I have my great grandfathers civil war discharge hanging on the wall, 103rd West Pa vol inf, Company C. A few local movers & shakers raised over 1500 local plow boys; mostly 16 & 17 year olds into units. After 3 years of battles in Virginia; they were captured and sent to Andersonville for a year and a half. William was one of 28 members of company C (out of 140) to be discharged at end of the war. My aunt knew him in 1920's when she was young. She told me he blamed everything on the politicians & government; felt he was fighting to save the union, not free any slaves, or anything else. Detested the government until he died in 1926; blamed his war disabilities on Washington.

JUst another side to it all.

110 posted on 03/17/2015 9:48:38 AM PDT by Eska
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To: DoodleDawg

Most of his others annoyed me because they were stringing me along. That one is different. A bunch of German South African racists from the year 2013 (IIRC) supply Lee with 100,000 AK47’s - and training to use them - shortly after Gettysburg. The results and details are very interesting


111 posted on 03/17/2015 9:48:52 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

“In WWII the Germans also had better generals”

I keep hearing that. Likely true in 39 or 40. By 1943, not even close to the ones we had.


112 posted on 03/17/2015 9:50:09 AM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: taxcontrol
Not just winning battles, but the willful and deliberate pursuit and killing of retreating forces.

Civil war battles often left the winning side just as beat-up and battered as the losing side. The fact is that often the winner couldn't pursue. Or if he did pursue, as Meade did do after Gettysburg, it was with only part of his force. Lee fought a very skillful rear guard campaign all the way back to Virginia. Meade didn't pursue as well as he could have, but he was putting his army back together.

113 posted on 03/17/2015 9:50:52 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: central_va

If the South had used the tactics of total war and destroyed the means for the North to pursue war manufacturing and transportation, The South would have won.


114 posted on 03/17/2015 9:51:59 AM PDT by WhirlwindAttack (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: tumblindice
But for that there would have been nothing standing between Lee’s army—Lee admittedly bled but never timid like a string of dismissed federal brass hats—nothing between him and Washington DC but routed Yankee troops.

And the forts and garrison of Washington, which was probably larger than his army at that point.

115 posted on 03/17/2015 9:52:24 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: IronJack
You answered the question: "However, since they had developed alternative sources.."

Developing alternative sources would in the long run be much cheaper than helping in a war to protect something that they had already spent treasure and blood in fighting against.
116 posted on 03/17/2015 9:53:39 AM PDT by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: kiryandil
...which doesn't like words like "Republic", and that which it implies.

What is it that you think the word Republic implies?

117 posted on 03/17/2015 9:53:41 AM PDT by Ditto
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To: DoodleDawg
And the forts and garrison of Washington, which was probably larger than his army at that point.

The fort were empty, but the retreating troops of Meade's Army would have filled them.

118 posted on 03/17/2015 9:54:51 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: FreeperinRATcage
It’s a great alternate history series, which continues on I other series to explore the results of a Confederate victory all through the Civil, Spanish American, and Great war, among others.

I think he went too far with the Nazi parallels. Feathersone as Hitler. Blacks instead of Jews going to death camps. There was a lot he could have done without going down those roads.

119 posted on 03/17/2015 9:54:57 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: NoncompliantOne
I often think the answer would be yes.

There was no way the South could win the war. None.

Slavery would have died out eventually for economic as well as moral reasons.

The South saw nothing morally wrong with slavery. As for economic reasons, what would have replaced it? The fact is that slavery would have died out eventually, decades later. And that would have been pretty hard on the continuing generations of people in bondage, wouldn't it?

Oh well. Just half a million dead people. Who cares Mr. Lincoln?

Thank Jeff Davis. It was his war.

120 posted on 03/17/2015 9:57:56 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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