Replies

If Confederate rebels had resorted to guerrilla warfare they would have been slaughtered in no time by the U.S. Army, and they knew it.

Oh, goody! Now we're down to hypotheticals. Wrong, again. General Lee, unlike some Generals from the other side, did not believe in the concept of total war nor did he believe in putting the South through more suffering. However, he did discuss just that option with one of his Captains (Porter, I believe) and he knew that if he could make it to the Blue Ridge mountains, they could hold out damn near forever. Fortunately for everyone, as the New York Times pointed out, he chose the honorable solution; which, BTW, alludes to the man's charcter which was the original point of my original post and a point which you still can't refute with any substance. As far as "slaughtered in no time", why don't you ask some of our SPEC WAR guys how easy it is to get rid of irregulars in the mountains of Afghanistan? I have and it takes considerably more than "no time".

By 1865, the southern economy was no longer able to support an insurgency.

These were men who were used to making do without enough of anything and who were also battle hardned veterans who learned to live off the land at an early age. They didn't need money or manufacturing from the Southern States, they would have raided Federal outposts and supply convoys and taken what they needed.

The mountainous areas of Appalachia and the Ozarks, where guerrillas would presumably run around, were predominately Unionist.

No they weren't and I think I can safely presume, as with most of your counterpoints, you have absolutely nothing to back that up.

Guerrillas would have had no way to keep control over slaves, which was the reason they went to war in the first place.

They wouldn't have needed slaves and you should know better than to try and put that "it was all about slavery" crap by me.

Faced with white guerrillas, the U.S. Army would have turned the 200,000 blacks and 100,000 southern whites in the U.S. Army into a very effective counterinsurgency force, which backed by the rest of the U. S. Army, would have slaughtered any guerrrilla wannabes.

Ooohhh, goody! Another hypothetical backed with no substance. You may want to try and read some actual history about Confederate guerilla warfare and how effective it was. Start with Mosby, Quantrill, Nancy Hart, and good ol' Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield. These were very effective irregulars and, guess what, the Federals couldn't catch them or stop them.

Why don't you try and do some actual research before you post? Can you try and at least make this a little bit more fun?