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

You may already know this but channel 104 in BR (use to be Military Channel and is now something else) is running a series of shows about the Civil War.

They had a show about Antietam, and yes it was up close and personal. It featured the battle at the cornfield and the first Texas.

It was excellent.

Yes, but not by force of arms alone. If they had fought a purely defensive, protracted war that tested the North's will to fight they could forced the North into a negotiated settlement, most likely.

However, as noted historians like Gary Gallagher have explained, that would have been very unlikely, given the cultural mindset of the white South and their notions of honor and combat, as well as the prevailing American military strategy of the time, which emphasized swift attacks and decisive victories intended to win the support of allies abroad. In other words, the South needed a Saratoga-like victory to get the assistance of the British, French, Prussians, whoever and failed to accomplish that at Manassas, Shiloh, Perryville, or Antietam; after which Lincoln issued the EP, essentially redefining the war as slavery v. freedom and ending any possibility of European intervention.

great thread

their initial strategy was to fight and draw France in to help. This was similar to the strategy the colonists used during the American revolutionary war. The reason for this was because population to population the south was completely overmanned and knew their ability to feed, fund, and draft an army would run out much sooner than the North's. Basically, they knew they it would be very difficult, and maybe not even possible to win it on their own.

The north knew this so the first thing they did was create blockades between North America and Europe.

However, as some people here have already noted, had they fought a guerrilla war they could have worn on the North's desire to continue and eventually signed a favorable treaty to end the war. As we know, this isn;t what happened though.

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Yes, the North would have accepted Southern independence if Lee could have captured Washington either time he tried to invade

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Maybe. The North would have moved the capital to New York. Lincoln would have kept fighting. It depends on whether losing DC would have killed the North's appetite for war.

Surprisingly the Mexican holiday cinco de mayo played a huge part in the civil war. France planned on backing the south and help win the war had they won the battle of Pueblo. Had the French won I could see the south winning the civil war with the aid of the French.

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The problem was that the South's military leaders were West Point men who were schooled in gentleman's warfare.

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Agreed if by "leaders" you're referring strictly to Lee.

Stonewall, God Bless him, would have made a difference in that regard as he was far more open to the idea of adopting Nathan Bedford Forrest's tactics ... within reason.

I don't know but the south winning would have been disastrous for this country.

The western theater holds? Holds what? The South was roundly trounced in that theater from beginning to end. Only one major battle there can be clearly claimed as a Southern victory (Chickamauga), with another (Murfreesboro) that was a tactical draw, although a Southern strategic defeat. Pretty much everything else was a clear cut loss. The war in the East made the papers. The war in the West was decisive.

There also was a little battle in Missouri over control of the Mississippi and goods traveling vertically through the south.

The south could move via railroad lines east and west as there were enough to sustain the fight. There were not enough vertical north and south.

The Mississippi River served that function. the south won that battle but due to a logistical oversight they did not bring up the supply wagons (ammo) and ran out and had to give up and fall back. The loss of the thisbpoint and the Mississippi River doomed the South. If they hold this ting for sure would have gone into overtime and with the war in the north very unpopular and long in the tooth might have seen a very different outcome.