Was it possible for the South to win the Civil War?

Raw materials to fight the industrialized north would have been difficult steel & lead

No. For all the reasons you mentioned. They would've needed a strong alliance with a foreign power to send troops and such.

They almost did. The North was losing their taste for the war due to decisive wins by the South. A major win in the North would have been a huge blow to the American public's morale and support for the war.

To beat America you have to destroy the public support of the war. Has always been the case.

The North had major leadership issues that delayed things. If they had their shite together earlier in the war it probably wouldn't have lasted more than 2 or 3 years. The Confederates had a major disadvantage in population and resources, no doubt; but they were damn near flawless at taking advantage of the North's leadership issues at the beginning.

No, Lincoln was committed and in his mind it was a holy war. Even a big win at Gettysburg and the Union still has nearly a 2-1 ratio in personnel. Not in the cards.

Yes it was possible but only if the North decided the price was to steep and a long bloody war was not worth it.


When Lincoln decided he would fight and win no matter the number of lives lost it was just a matter of time.

One out of every four union soilders were immigrants. Cut them out and everyone would still be whistling Dixie.

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Remember, General George McClellan ran again Lincoln in the election of 1864 as the anti-war candidate.

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The Union victory at Atlanta basically doomed McClellan's anti-war platform. It showed that the war's end was in sight and that the Confederacy had nothing left.

I think there were really only two avenues for a Southern victory:

1. Recognition by and alliance with either Great Britain or France

2. A win by McClellan in the 1864 election

Number 1 was never really a possibility. Neither Great Britain nor France were much interested in allying with a nation that still permitted slavery. The South was in a Catch-22 situation here: to win the war they needed foreign assistance, but to convince either of those two countries to help them, they would basically have had to win the war by themselves to prove their viability.

Number 2 was certainly possible, and in fact might have happened if Atlanta had not fallen just prior to the election. But, for the South to still be in the war and seem a threat by that late date required them to more or less pitch a perfect game for the first three years of the war. At least in the East, they came as close as they could to doing so, and it still wasn't enough. I don't think it's realistic to say they could have done better than they historically did.

When reading about the Civil War, I wonder what have happened if the Confederates would have succeeded at the Battle of Shiloh. Grant's and Sherman's careers may have been over in disgrace, and the war in that area may have gone a bit better for the South.

But without the quick capture of Washington in the early days of the war, a loss in the end for the South was inevitable.