If the South had won......

[JakeStarkey]

I wondered where you were, KK.

 

[manu1959]

Not at all. The South did not have the military strength to garrison the North and dictate terms other than that of independence. If the South had tried that, the war would have continued until every southerner in arms was dead.

we know that is why the south lost.....if the had won and the north surrendered the south would dictate terms.....

the question is.... would they have split the country.....united it under southern rule....or chopped it up into nation states.....

 

[JakeStarkey]

The South would have told the North, "Leave us alone. We are independent."

 

[Baruch Menachem]

The best the South managed to do was in June of 64 when they got within sight of the Capital. It was a small raid, and they were beaten back by invalids and postal clerks.

Most of the war was fought in the south. The exceptions were Antitiem, Gettysburg, and some place in MO I am having a senior moment about.

Their entire goal was to stave off defeat until the North got sick of it.

 

[manu1959]

The South would have told the North, "Leave us alone. We are independent."

some how i doubt that....having mostly southern relatives.....

 

[JakeStarkey]

The South would have told the North, "Leave us alone. We are independent."

some how i doubt that....having mostly southern relatives.....

I don't, having lived in the South for more than thirty years. Lot of talk, but no real walk.

 

[AkronGuy]

CSA : Confederate States of America, an interesting and entertaining mockumentary about if the South would've won.

 

[Brubricker]

It was the Confederates who fought for the right of the people to govern themselves.

It was the Confederates who fought for the right of WHITE people to govern themselves.

 

[Bezukhov]

A Confederate victory? After a few years the slaves would have revolted, with or without clandestine help from the North, and sliced every redneck cracker throat they could find.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Georgia and Arkansas refused to get along with the central Government of the CSA. They would have caused either a war or broken away. In fairly short order. Kentucky never JOINED the CSA.

Texas had little in common with the rest of the South and probably would have left as well. If a war occurred because those States chose to leave it would of shattered the rest of the Confederacy since their entire claim to independence was the right to leave the Union.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Not at all. The South did not have the military strength to garrison the North and dictate terms other than that of independence. If the South had tried that, the war would have continued until every southerner in arms was dead.

we know that is why the south lost.....if the had won and the north surrendered the south would dictate terms.....

the question is.... would they have split the country.....united it under southern rule....or chopped it up into nation states.....

The South had no chance to "win" all they could hope for was that in the 64 election Mc Clellen won and STOPPED the war. The only way the South survived was if the North stopped fighting. And that would have been on the Norths terms.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

Not at all. The South did not have the military strength to garrison the North and dictate terms other than that of independence. If the South had tried that, the war would have continued until every southerner in arms was dead.

we know that is why the south lost.....if the had won and the north surrendered the south would dictate terms.....

the question is.... would they have split the country.....united it under southern rule....or chopped it up into nation states.....

The South had no chance to "win" all they could hope for was that in the 64 election Mc Clellen won and STOPPED the war. The only way the South survived was if the North stopped fighting. And that would have been on the Norths terms.

That's the thing most folks don't realize.

If you sit down and just look at the numbers, the South could NOT win against the North in a 1 on 1 protracted conflict. The South had to either pull in the Europeans or demoralize the North. That was the only option.

As long as the South embraced slavery though, neither would happen. They lost the war out of the gate. If they'd renounced slavery and then broken away though...

 

[JakeStarkey]

Not at all. The South did not have the military strength to garrison the North and dictate terms other than that of independence. If the South had tried that, the war would have continued until every southerner in arms was dead.

we know that is why the south lost.....if the had won and the north surrendered the south would dictate terms.....

the question is.... would they have split the country.....united it under southern rule....or chopped it up into nation states.....

The South had no chance to "win" all they could hope for was that in the 64 election Mc Clellen won and STOPPED the war. The only way the South survived was if the North stopped fighting. And that would have been on the Norths terms.

Oh, the South could have "won" in the sense that several scenarios existed in which they could have achieved an armed truce that would have removed Union troops from southern soil. The fact that CSA always fell short kind of reveals that "victory" and a Southern validation of the Constitution was not in the cards.

 

[Old Rocks]

Georgia and Arkansas refused to get along with the central Government of the CSA. They would have caused either a war or broken away. In fairly short order. Kentucky never JOINED the CSA.

Texas had little in common with the rest of the South and probably would have left as well. If a war occurred because those States chose to leave it would of shattered the rest of the Confederacy since their entire claim to independence was the right to leave the Union.

Glad to see someone else recognize that Texas would have succeeded from the CSA almost as soon as the papers were signed on the Northern defeat.

The only thing uniting the Southern States was slavery.

 

[geauxtohell]

Would both nations eventually have been conquered? Was "united we stand, divided we fall" just hyperbole?

I think we would have had two nations for only a short period. The North would have prospered and the South would have wilted until there was a peaceful re-unification.

Eventually the rest of the would would have shunned the practice of slavery, and the south would have had to abandon it anyways.

 

[geauxtohell]

The best the South managed to do was in June of 64 when they got within sight of the Capital. It was a small raid, and they were beaten back by invalids and postal clerks.

Most of the war was fought in the south. The exceptions were Antitiem, Gettysburg, and some place in MO I am having a senior moment about.

Their entire goal was to stave off defeat until the North got sick of it.

Wilson's Creek. I don't know if you can count that as a battle in the North though, since it was in Southern Missouri and really it wasn't terribly important to the whole war.

Gettysburg was the South's high water mark. That's as close as they got to victory. Once Chamberlain stopped the South from flanking the union line, Lee's desperate gamble with Pickett's Charge failed.

After that, and after Sherman marched to the sea, it was a mop-up operation.

 

[geauxtohell]

Not at all. The South did not have the military strength to garrison the North and dictate terms other than that of independence. If the South had tried that, the war would have continued until every southerner in arms was dead.

we know that is why the south lost.....if the had won and the north surrendered the south would dictate terms.....

the question is.... would they have split the country.....united it under southern rule....or chopped it up into nation states.....

The South had no chance to "win" all they could hope for was that in the 64 election Mc Clellen won and STOPPED the war. The only way the South survived was if the North stopped fighting. And that would have been on the Norths terms.

I don't know if they had "no chance", but the deck was stacked against them.

If a few factors had favored Lee at Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia would have made it's way to Washington and Lincoln would have been in a pickle.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

we know that is why the south lost.....if the had won and the north surrendered the south would dictate terms.....

the question is.... would they have split the country.....united it under southern rule....or chopped it up into nation states.....

The South had no chance to "win" all they could hope for was that in the 64 election Mc Clellen won and STOPPED the war. The only way the South survived was if the North stopped fighting. And that would have been on the Norths terms.

I don't know if they had "no chance", but the deck was stacked against them.

If a few factors had favored Lee at Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia would have made it's way to Washington and Lincoln would have been in a pickle.

Doubtful. NOT a single battle in the Civil War resulted in a decimation of the enemy army. After each battle the Armies just regrouped and fought somewhere else. If Lee had won at Gettysburg he would still have not been able to do much with it as he would still have suffered those heavy casualties with no way to replace them while not shattering or even demoralizing the Northern Armies.

The Army of the Potomac or what ever it was called at Gettysburg would simply have blocked any move on DC. Not to mention the several other Armies not involved at all that were able to be placed between Lee and DC.

 

[JWBooth]

Would both nations eventually have been conquered? Was "united we stand, divided we fall" just hyperbole?

if the south had won she would have occupied the north and dictated terms...so we would have been united under southern rule not northern rule......

or we would have divided up into a bunch of nation states and all hell would have broken loose and we would have been overrun by the french....

Thats funny, the French...By 1861 the French couldn't effectively control Mexico, arguing for their ability to control anything north of the Rio Bravo is just plain silly.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The South had no chance to "win" all they could hope for was that in the 64 election Mc Clellen won and STOPPED the war. The only way the South survived was if the North stopped fighting. And that would have been on the Norths terms.

I don't know if they had "no chance", but the deck was stacked against them.

If a few factors had favored Lee at Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia would have made it's way to Washington and Lincoln would have been in a pickle.

Doubtful. NOT a single battle in the Civil War resulted in a decimation of the enemy army. After each battle the Armies just regrouped and fought somewhere else. If Lee had won at Gettysburg he would still have not been able to do much with it as he would still have suffered those heavy casualties with no way to replace them while not shattering or even demoralizing the Northern Armies.

The Army of the Potomac or what ever it was called at Gettysburg would simply have blocked any move on DC. Not to mention the several other Armies not involved at all that were able to be placed between Lee and DC.

That's correct. But if Lee had followed Longstreet's advice to "side slip" to the right, interpose itself between the Federals and Washington DC, the feds would have had to fight the rebels on a ground of their choosing. Longstreet called this the "offensive defensive", keeping in mind the terrible casualties inflicted by the Confederates on the North at Fredericksburg the previous December.