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I always thought it silly that the Confederacy moved it to Richmond so close to DC.

My point exactly, they assumed it would be an easy war, or even that there would be no war at all. After all nobody died at Fort Sumter and there was no immediate counter attack. There was a general assumption in the South that the Northern threats were all just posturing. Much as the liberals now assume that conservative anger today will not manifest itself in a will to fight.

It never occurred to Southern leaders that they would have to trade territory for time. They had the better generals, and at least in the beginning better troops. But the choice of such a constrained battlefield caused a war of attrition rather than maneuver. The exact sort of war the Confederacy could never hope to win.

I think the North came to their senses first. After Bull Run, and certainly after the Shilo they realized that this was going to be a very long bloody war. Even to the end the leaders of the Confederacy believed that if they just hit the Union "one more blow" they would give up. Lee had a letter demanding the end of the war to be presented if he had won the battle of Gettysburg. This of course ignores the fact that the Union troops manning the forts around Washington DC were almost as numerous as Lee's entire army and that the Union had several other armies in the West that they could move by rail to make good any losses. Because the North controlled transport and had greater numbers, they could always recover from a disaster. In the Civil War the Confederacy had to win every battle, the Union just had to find the will to keep fighting.

This same attitude is evident today when Nancy Pelosi says that she can kick down the door and the opposition will collapse. Yet it is the conservative areas that are producing the food and resources. They transportation networks move almost exclusively through conservative areas. While the cities produce a lot of taxes, they consume them at almost the same rate. The old progressive canard that the blue stats produce more net tax revenue than the red stats falls apart when you examine it at the county level. The progressives would need to count on using terror to quickly neutralize all conservative resistance. With control of the countryside, the conservatives would just need to find the will to keep blocking the roads until the cities starved. The conservatives are going to suffer a lot of massacres. The progressives are going to suffer a lot of starvation. Neither side should be looking forward to this. As best I can tell both sides are.

I like your analysis, because it is verhy similar to my thoughts. This would be a city vs. country thing and it would be a mess. However, I would much rather be in the country on this one.