# If Time travelers gave General Lee drones and Sat feeds and advice, could he have won? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374 "2013-08-16T00:34:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/1 "2013-08-16T00:34:32Z")
Hypothetically, if time travelers had given General Lee and other major confederate generals intel on exactly what their opponents were doing, could the South have plausibly won the war? The time travelers are forbidden from granting any direct material support : no weapons, fire support, supplies, etc. They may only give Intel. Assume they are insubstantial ghosts that only the general can see. I’m aware that there must have been past threads on this on this website. I’d appreciate a link if this has already been throughly hashed. What I am really asking is if the defeat of the Confederacy was so certain that even perfect decisions made by the Southern generals could not overcome the material advantages of the Union, why did they even bother fighting? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/2 "2013-08-16T00:43:34Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > What I am really asking is if the defeat of the Confederacy was so certain that even perfect decisions made by the Southern generals could not overcome the material advantages of the Union, why did they even bother fighting? Because lots of Southerners were delusional about the relative strength the two halves of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/3 "2013-08-16T01:14:33Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > What I am really asking is if the defeat of the Confederacy was so certain that even perfect decisions made by the Southern generals could not overcome the material advantages of the Union, why did they even bother fighting? Are you kidding? The vast majority of posters today on the Dope don’t understand this, with all the benefits of hindsight. It was certainly not obvious in 1861. And many Southerners - plus a smaller percentage of Northerners - never really believed that the Union would fight to the end for slaves. For that matter, why are the protestors fighting in Egypt right as I type, even though they will be cut down with far greater assurance? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/4 "2013-08-16T01:19:55Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Because lots of Southerners were delusional about the relative strength the two halves of the country. Both sides, to a large extent, expected the war to end quickly and in their favor. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/5 "2013-08-16T01:22:25Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Because lots of Southerners were delusional about the relative strength the two halves of the country. Were? ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/6 "2013-08-16T01:27:32Z")
With perfect knowledge of how the war played out in our timeline, yeah, I’d say the South could have won. Although the first time the South wins instead of losing that throws you into an alternate timeline. Do we get new, updated future history data? Easier than winning the war would be to have not fought it, if the time travelers could go back a bit. Gradual emancipation, subsidized by the federal government, with freed slaves moving West might just have been viable in a less hostile climate. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/7 "2013-08-16T01:28:06Z")
Information support would have made the war longer, but that doesn’t help the South: The longer the war went, the worse it was for them. EDIT: > [@](#): > > Easier than winning the war would have not fought it, if the time travelers could go back a bit. > Gradual emancipation, subsidized by the federal government, with freed slaves moving West might just have been viable in a less hostile climate. That would have been absolutely unacceptable to the South. The reason that they succeeded, and the reason why they attacked the North, was to preserve slavery against just such proposals. Note that I did not say “one of the reasons”. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/8 "2013-08-16T01:35:47Z")
That “freed slaves moving West” bit wouldn’t have flown for a lot of the racist abolitionists. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/9 "2013-08-16T01:38:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The reason that they succeeded, and the reason why they attacked the North, was to preserve slavery against just such proposals. > > Note that I did not say “one of the reasons”. Because it was uneconomical- they could have been bought out for the right price. Maybe. With knowledge of how it actually played out for them in the end. > [@](#): > > That “freed slaves moving West” bit wouldn’t have flown for a lot of the racist abolitionists. Can’t afford to send them all to Africa- but if we send them out to the western frontier, they’ll be far away and most will die quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/10 "2013-08-16T01:40:46Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > . . .Easier than winning the war would be to have not fought it, if the time travelers could go back a bit. . . . Or go back a little further, and convince them that it would really, really be in their best interests to pick their own cotton. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/11 "2013-08-16T01:42:13Z")
“You can use some of them as buffalo soldiers, but when it comes time for _settlement_, we want that land to be worked by _white_ hands.” ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/12 "2013-08-16T01:54:39Z")
Yeah, some would say that. Most weren’t so hardcore, not until the last few years as tension grew. Go back 20, 30 years, you could totally change the situation. Greed trumps hate every time. > [@](#): > > Or go back a little further, and convince them that it would really, really be in their best interests to pick their own cotton. Or just invent the damn cotton gin. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/13 "2013-08-16T01:58:09Z")
Came in to post Shelby Foote’s quote from Ken Burns’ _The Civil War_, but in looking for it I found [this argument](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/gallagher-confederate.html) made by Gary W. Gallagher, a professor of American history at Pennsylvania State University, that the South wasn’t doomed from the start, and that the North’s advantage in resources could have been overcome through enough tactical successes. > [@](#): > > More often than their academic counterparts, popular writers have veered toward a romantic conclusion that the Confederacy fought gallantly against hopeless odds. In the pictorial history of the Civil War that accompanied Ken Burns’s film documentary, for example, Shelby Foote pronounced the Confederate bid for independence doomed from the start. “I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back,” observed Foote. If the Confederacy ever had come close to winning on the battlefield, “the North simply would have brought that other arm out from behind its back. I don’t think the South ever had a chance to win that war.” From a [review](http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/reviews/971102.02suthert.html) of Professor Gallagher’s book > [@](#): > > War-weariness, lack of will and ambivalence toward the cause of independence, they say, doomed the South. Gallagher sees a more obvious – and more traditional – reason. ‘‘The Confederate military,’’ he writes, ‘‘ultimately proved unable to win enough victories at crucial times to carry their nation to independence.’’ …As long as Lee’s army continued to outwit, outmaneuver and outfight the Federals, rebel losses elsewhere could be absorbed. Lee’s offensive-minded strategy was the only one possible for the Confederacy, Gallagher says. A less aggressive posture, or a resort to guerrilla warfare – which some historians insist would have been the best way for the South to win – did not suit the inclinations of either the leaders or the people. In the end, Northern resources and manpower overwhelmed Lee, but only with his surrender did most Southerners concede defeat. ---
**Author:** ![NotDeadYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NotDeadYet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotDeadYet)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/14 "2013-08-16T02:02:46Z")
The South had some very good generals and with better communications could certainly made the war so costly to the North that many of them might have undermined the war effort to he point where some sort of “accommodation” might have been reached. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/15 "2013-08-16T02:04:39Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Yeah, some would say that. Most weren’t so hardcore, not until the last few years as tension grew. > Go back 20, 30 years, you could totally change the situation. Greed trumps hate every time. Oh, I agree. Compensated emancipation would have saved _everyone_ a lot of heartache–and been cheaper, too. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/16 "2013-08-16T02:33:35Z")
> [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](#): > > Came in to post Shelby Foote’s quote from Ken Burns’ _The Civil War_, but in looking for it I found [this argument](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/gallagher-confederate.html) made by Gary W. Gallagher, a professor of American history at Pennsylvania State University, that the South wasn’t doomed from the start, and that the North’s advantage in resources could have been overcome through enough tactical successes. Foote is correct. Gallagher is dead wrong. Except about Northern resources and manpower overwhelming Lee - which is Foote’s _ **entire point** _! The war was not about the military or tactics or bravery. Battles were, certainly. But the war was about economics and industry, neither or which Gallagher mentions on his page, partly because he’s examining why they fought not why they lost. The longer the war went, the less chance the South had. Everything depended on the North giving up as quickly as possible, not in prolonging the fighting. The North could lose only by surrendering. Which wasn’t an option under Lincoln. Now if the time traveler has suggested an earlier assassination, who knows? But I hate silly counterfactuals. You can say anything you want that doesn’t contradict the laws of physics and there is no comeback, except another counterfactual. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/17 "2013-08-16T02:34:04Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > With perfect knowledge of how the war played out in our timeline, yeah, I’d say the South could have won. > Although the first time the South wins instead of losing that throws you into an alternate timeline. Do we get new, updated future history data? . . . Agreed. They could have. I think, in addition to perfect recon, if they also had 20/20 hindsight as to the overall strategic set-up – if they had a better grip on what it would take for the North to lose heart – they could more effectively fight the kind of war directly aimed at Northern morale. The OP posits satellite or drone recon, as opposed to, say, taking a history book back in time. But either violation of history could be remarkably effective, if it is taken seriously by the right people. If, on the other hand, it is presented to the usual collection of dolts, hell, they’d probably just wave it off. “We don’t need this; we’ve got it well in hand, thank you!” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/18 "2013-08-16T03:40:15Z")
It’s hard to outwit, outmaneuver, and outfight the North when you don’t have bullets, sufficient rations, or transportation infrastructure. > [@](#): > > Quoth **aNewLeaf** : > > Go back 20, 30 years, you could totally change the situation. Greed trumps hate every time. If greed trumped hate, they’d never have developed the Peculiar Institution in the first place. Slavery just doesn’t make economic sense. At the very least, the alliance of hate and ignorance managed to trump greed. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/19 "2013-08-16T03:49:38Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Or just invent the damn cotton gin. 😃 I assume you mean the cotton harvester since the cotton gin was invented on the 1790s and was the main reason why slavery exploded in the first place. Before the gin, it was a pain in the ass to separate cotton fibers from the seeds so there wasn’t much incentive to plant it. After the gin, there were large plantations full of cotton that had to be picked by hand and taken to the gin for processing. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374/20 "2013-08-16T04:10:45Z")
Give 'em [AK-47s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_the_South) and dessicated meals. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-time-travelers-gave-general-lee-drones-and-sat-feeds-and-advice-could-he-have-won/666374.md?page=2)