[central_va]

For the South is was a war to get away form the North. There was never at any time a threat of Northern conquest. The thought is preposterous both then and now. So the Southerner relished going toe to toe with the Yanks but only if they kept coming "down here". Face it Lincoln's war was optional and he could have both prevented and stopped it at any time. He didn't want to.

You can pretend the North was in a death struggle for its very life during the Civil War but that is both silly and false. The South didn't have the desire or the resources to conquer the North. It isn't why it seceded in the first place.

[HandyDandy]

Why was Lee at Gettysburg? Was he just touring the monuments up North?

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "For the South is was a war to get away form the North.
There was never at any time a threat of Northern conquest.
The thought is preposterous both then and now. "

Here's why that's not true:

1. The Confederacy challenged the Union militarily in every slave-state & territory (except Delaware), whether it had voted to secede or not.
   There were seven: Union Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico & Arizona.

2. Every Confederate, by nature & education believed (and still does) the best defense was a good offense, so Confederate forces fought in every Union state & territory they could reach, in addition to the above, seven more: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas and even guerilla forces in Colorado, California and Vermont.

So sure, you can say "Confederates didn't want Northern conquest", but the Confederacy officially claimed three Union states (Kentucky, Missouri & West Virginia) three Union territories (Oklahoma, New Mexico & Arizona) and sent military forces into eight others.

That helped make the Confederacy an existential threat to the United States.

central_va: " Face it Lincoln's war was optional and he could have both prevented and stopped it at any time.
He didn't want to."

And Jefferson Davis could have ended his war on any day before April 9,1865 with much better peace terms than he fought on & on & on to achieve: Unconditional Surrender.

But, as you said, he didn't want to.

[x]

You can pretend the North was in a death struggle for its very life during the Civil War but that is both silly and false. The South didn't have the desire or the resources to conquer the North.

If Davis & Co. had their way, they'd take the national capital and everything up to 30 miles from Philadelphia.

They'd be at the Ohio River and 100 miles from Lake Erie -- a convenient point to choke off east-west transportation.

They'd find a way to detach the West Coast and New York City and work mischief in other parts of the country.

What would happen to Kansas, New Mexico, and other western territories would be anybody's guess.

Not to mention Confederate expansion southward into the Caribbean.

Lincoln had to take a stand to prevent the country from falling apart. That didn't have to mean war -- but war was what Davis wanted.