re: Did the South ever really have a chance (Civil War)?

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Why did the Emancipation Proclamation only apply to confederate states, and not all states?

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No idea, has no relation to this topic though.

But the South did not SUCCEED! The North did

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Why did the Emancipation Proclamation only apply to confederate states, and not all states?

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For several reasons:

1. The allegiance of the border states, particularly Maryland, were tenuous at best and Lincoln needed those states to stand with the Union for the duration of the conflict.

2. It was a thinly disguised ultimatum to the South. Lincoln was offering them one last chance to come back into the fold before the gloves finally came off, thus making sure that all bets would be off.

3. It was a clever way to keep Europe out of the conflict. The vast majority of the major European powers had abolished slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War. The practice was highly unpopular in those countries and it would be difficult to muster up popular support for a war in support of a country whose economy depended on slavery.

The fantasy of Great Britain or France is the things bullshite is made of. Great Britain had just outlawed slavery 25 years before and France was invading Mexico to collect debts owed.

If I were Davis after April of 1862 with Shiloh and New Orleans taken by the Union and Tennessee firmly in Union control, I would have turned myself in. The war was unwinnable from that point on.

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There was absolutely no way in hell the Confederate army could have successfully regrouped to make an assault on Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of First Bull Run. This alternative history also ignores the fact that there was another Union army of about 12,000 men within marching distance of the capital to defend against just such an attack.

People also seem to forget that Washington, D.C. sits on the opposite side of the Potomac River from Virginia and is an imposing natural barrier to any potential assaulting force.

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IMO the Potomac was a much more significant issue than the "reserve" of 12000 men... the force at Bull Run had already been routed and my thinking here is that if the Southern army under Lee's command immediately began to march in DC's direction I think further panic ensues with the general populace thereby creating much more havoc all of which would have worked in the South's favor..

There are never any guarantees and I am not saying the South's victory would be assured under these circumstances... However there is no question that this was the prime moment when if the initiative had been taken the likely-hood of the South's victory was at its highest...

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I think the CSA organizers were hoping the US would let them go.

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Which they were right to believe that. But unfortunately, there was a tyrant in the White House at the time.

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Lee didn't command Manassas. Beauregard did.

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Thx for the correction...

Lee an the Army of Northern Virginia was a sideshow. The South was getting chewed up out West with Grant and also what had happened in Tennessee in the first part of the war. The integrated rail system that the North had allowed it to easily outflank the South overall.

The Union could get men and material deployed faster to the western theater to cut off the agricultural heart. Plus the North had a navy that could strangle coastal activity. Once NOLA was taken trade possibilities became non existent the navy becomes the other part of the vice along with Grant and Sherman taking and wrecking things from the Mississippi all the way to Georgia.

Really, after Sherman invades Georgia it's gratuitous for the North. As it applies to Gettysburg, Lee had about 1 hour of opportunity.....that was it.

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The fantasy of Great Britain or France is the things bullshite is made of. Great Britain had just outlawed slavery 25 years before and France was invading Mexico to collect debts owed.

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Britain was pretty busy at the time, globally, also. The Crimean War had just ended not too long before our Civil War started. And, the Sepoy Mutiny was in the late 1850s, which resulted in the British government taking direct control over India. Not to mention, in Britain, military intervention against the United States would not have been a widely popular move.