Thanks, coming from you that means a lot!
Sherman Logan: "I’d suggest, however, that from election to Sumter, Lincoln and Davis were engaged in a contest by war of nerves for allegiance of the Upper South and Border States."
Of course, but who was the aggressor here?
The Upper South and Border States all refused to secede absent some really good reason.
Without them, the Confederacy had no real long term prospects, and yet Upper & Border states remained loyal to Union -- especially the low-slave-owning areas of Western Maryland, Virginia & North Carolina, plus Eastern Tennessee & Kentucky, Northern Arkansas & Missouri.
All of those states had large areas which first opposed secession, then remained loyal throughout the war.
So Davis' task was how to flip those people: the key to them being Virginia, and the key to Virginia being it's Constitution ratification statement saying it would "resume" its powers for serious material causes, such as "injury" or "oppression".
Davis had to act to create those causes, and he did: at Fort Sumter.
Sherman Logan: "As you say, Davis expected to win.
He believed the South’s propaganda that northerners couldn’t/wouldn’t fight."
It's important to remember that in 1860, Lincoln and the more "radical Republicans" were a totally new political phenomenon.
What Southern politicians like Jefferson Davis were accustomed to was two or three generations of "Dough-faced Northern" pols -- Democrats & Whigs alike, who would bend over backwards to kiss the Slave-Power's... ahem.
The notion that behind those "Dough-faces" were others -- men with backbones of steel -- was not part of secessionists' calculations.
And they weren't so terribly wrong, when you consider such Northern generals as McClellan and (come to find out) Mead.
Such generals would have been totally satisfied with a negotiated settlement which let the Confederacy "go in peace".
Had only a few key events gone differently, the history of the world since would be quite changed.
Sherman Logan: "He expected to win, as most European military and political leaders expected.
That they didn’t was quite largely due to the enormously improved logistics made possible by the railroad net."
Yes, but it was far more than that, since both Grant and Sherman demonstrated how their large armies could, on occasion, "live off the land".
All told, the North had every advantage save one: an initial burning passion for victory.
That took years, and Lincoln's leadership, to develop.
True enough.
However, it must be noted that in both cases the "living off the land" period was brief, and the armies were moving. A large army would "eat out" the territory for 10/20 miles in all direction in just a day or two. If it didn't keep moving, it would start to starve quite quickly.
This was a truly ancient limitation on campaign strategy, going back literally thousands of years. Armies could be adequately supplied using oceans or river transportation, if the logistic services were well organized. But without them, they ran into trouble very quickly indeed.
Of all pre-railroad armies, only the Romans and perhaps the Chinese seemed to be able to keep large armies supplied consistently overland. And I don't think we're clear on how they did it, though it was obviously a major reason the Romans built their famous roads.
In the Vicksburg Campaign, Grant rampaged around Mississippi, living off the land, but as quickly as he could he re-established his railroad and river supply routes. He absolutely, positively could not have besieged Vicksburg by living off the land.
After taking Atlanta, Sherman eventually cut loose and headed for Savannah, but he was heading for the coast where supplies would be available. He also kept moving. If he'd had to besiege August, for example, for more than a couple of days, he'd quickly have been in trouble.
One Union army did get cut off in Chattanooga after Chickamauga, and darn near starved before Grant reopened an adequate supply line.
I agree with you about the aggressor in the prewar period being the CSA. It is entirely obvious that Davis needed to change the equation in order to move the CSA forward. Lincoln only needed to maintain the status quo, and it is probable the untenable long-term position of the CSA would have become obvious and the CSA would have eventually probably collapsed, extorting constitutional protections for slavery to return to the Union.
To prevent that, Davis had to gamble on war bringing all the slave states into the CSA. He gambled and won half.
BTW, I think Meade doesn't get enough credit. He actually managed to outright defeat Lee in open battle, when the Army of Northern VA was at the height of its power. Nobody had done that before, and even Grant did not succeed in doing so, though very largely because Lee would not come out and fight him.
I do think Grant would have not allowed Lee to escape across the Potomac after Gettysburg without a fight, but the outcome of that fight might not have necessarily been a victory for the Union. The Army of the Potomac was pretty darn beat up, too.
Meade's low profile then and since has very largely been because he really, really pissed off the press corps, who made a pact never to mention him except dismissively. There's no particular reason we should honor their pact.