[Dixie Yooper]

Since I am only a 4th generation American who’s great grandparents immigrated here in the 1880’s, I have taken no sides in the war of attrition. From what I learned in my history lessons in Michigan back in the 60’s was that the main suffering the South was experiencing back before the war from the high tariff’s and trade barriers with certain European countries enforced by the increasingly powerful federal government, which was not the idea of the founding fathers. Looking at the amount of suffering experienced after the war compared to before, I am not so sure the South made the right decision. The only hope for victory you ever had was McClellan defeating Lincoln in the presidential election halfway through the war, which would have brought a peace treaty and would have resulted in the southern states independence. Ya’all were too independent from each other to create a real nation that would have held together, so who knows what that result would have brought.

[billbears]

Ya’all were too independent from each other to create a real nation that would have held together, so who knows what that result would have brought.

Most likely we would have ended up a looser based union with two nations. I like to think, unlike Harry Turtledove who takes some major leaps IMO, that we would have stayed out of WWI and much of what came from that (Mideast, communism, nazism, etc) would not have been the problem that it was.

Probably the CSA would have started much as these original USA did, and then morphed into a lesser centralized USA over time. As for line, I'm 8th generation North Carolina for the most part (well except for 10 years where an ancestor must have got lost and stayed in PA at the start) and part Cherokee.

Looking at the amount of suffering experienced after the war compared to before, I am not so sure the South made the right decision.

Well some of that suffering can be blamed on decisions by the Radical Republicans

[TalonDJ]

The only hope for victory you ever had was

The first hope of 'victory' they had was if the Union had never invaded them in the first place. The CSA did not start the war. They were fighting in self defense.