# What battle could have saved the Confederates?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 17, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280 "2016-03-17T17:12:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/21 "2016-03-17T21:04:39Z")
Have Grant die early in the war. Lincoln keeps picking bad commanders, the South wins at Shiloh and Vicksburg, Union generals aren’t willing to take the number of casualties Grant would have, and eventually the war ends as a stalemate.
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### Author:  [@HopefulCynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HopefulCynic)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/22 "2016-03-17T21:11:34Z")
Vicksburg, Gettysburg are obvious good choices but Shiloh may also be a good one to consider. If Albert Sidney Johnston not been killed that first day, the Confederates may have been able to really push their advantage instead of letting the Union regroup and get the reinforcements into the fight the next day. They had them pinned into a corner and let them get away. Just a thought…
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/23 "2016-03-17T21:18:39Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> Might I gently suggest that you not attempt to write a story about a subject that you are ignorant of? . . .
Why? Seriously, this is one darn good way to learn. He’s doing his research. That’s great.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/24 "2016-03-17T21:22:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Why? Seriously, this is one darn good way to learn. He’s doing his research. That’s great.
We are a pretty good source.
I agree, why be snarky?
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/25 "2016-03-17T21:38:38Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> as said much later “Awaken a Sleeping Giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Said by a movie scriptwriter, FTR. Not Yamamoto.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/26 "2016-03-17T21:42:34Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Said by a movie scriptwriter, FTR. Not Yamamoto.
Maybe.
wiki:
\*Randall Wallace, the screenwriter of the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, readily admitted that he copied the line from Tora! Tora! Tora! The director of Tora! Tora! Tora!, Richard Fleischer, stated that while Yamamoto may never have said those words, the film’s producer, Elmo Williams, had found the line written in Yamamoto’s diary. Williams, in turn, has stated that Larry Forrester, the screenwriter, found a 1943 letter from Yamamoto to the Admiralty in Tokyo containing the quotation. However, Forrester cannot produce the letter, nor can anyone else, American or Japanese, recall or find it.
Regardless of the provenance of the quote, Yamamoto believed that Japan could not win a protracted war with the US. Moreover, he seems to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had become a blunder—even though he was the person who came up with the idea of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It is recorded that “Yamamoto alone” (while all his staff members were celebrating) spent the day after Pearl Harbor “sunk in apparent depression”.[3] He is also known to have been upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were technically at peace, thus making the incident an unprovoked sneak attack that would certainly enrage the Americans.[4]\*
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/27 "2016-03-17T22:30:47Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Why? Seriously, this is one darn good way to learn. He’s doing his research. That’s great.
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> We are a pretty good source.
> I agree, why be snarky?
Well, if you guys want to type out a History of the Civil War for him, detailing all the important battles, generals, and so on, well, it’s been done. Feel free, though!
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/28 "2016-03-17T23:23:47Z")
If a single battle was going to do it, Bull Run, but you need the Confederates to not just win (they did), but pursue the Union army all the way back to DC and beat them again to occupy the capital. Even then, I only see a victorious end if they can then offer some kind of reasonable terms for a reconciliation. Such a show of force could have delayed federal military legislation, and perhaps caused enough shock and confusion so that the North’s politicians might have chosen the expediency of a treaty rather than rely on their long-term superiority to win.
I present this as a possibility, but honestly the North never doubted that they would win. Bull Run just convinced them it would take longer than they hoped, and I’m not sure any degree of Confederate victory would have changed that.
The South might have won long-term if a major European power was willing to commit everything to helping out, but I really don’t see that happening. That wouldn’t be as simple as a single battle, though.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/29 "2016-03-18T00:25:21Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> Well, if you guys want to type out a History of the Civil War for him, detailing all the important battles, generals, and so on, well, it’s been done. Feel free, though!
I am glad that everyone has your permission.
I see no need to criticize the direction the thread takes.
[/Moderating]
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/30 "2016-03-18T01:04:09Z")
I think a series of about five Chickmauga-type defeats – big and nasty and very, very bloody – right before the elections of 1864, could have led to Lincoln’s ouster, and to the new President making some sort of terms.
Toss in another couple of New York draft riots, and some sort of demonstration by the British – not a full-scale involvement, but, maybe the shelling of Ft. Monroe. Heavy-handed gunboat diplomacy. (Yes, technically an act of war…but what is the U.S. going to do about it? Declare war? Last thing we want!)
The war could conceivably have become too expensive for the North to wage. California gold was a big part of what kept the U.S. from insolvency. If our war bonds collapsed, where does the war go then? So, for the hypothetical, let California become supporters of the Confederates. Not actually joining them, but smuggling large amounts of gold to the south, not shipping it openly to the north.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/31 "2016-03-18T01:59:51Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> I think a series of about five Chickmauga-type defeats – big and nasty and very, very bloody – right before the elections of 1864, could have led to Lincoln’s ouster, and to the new President making some sort of terms.
Or do like the Russians in Afghanistan, declare victory and leave.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/32 "2016-03-18T02:27:55Z")
[One of Bill Mauldin’s most classic cartoons.](http://www.paperbackswap.com/Lets-Declare-Ourselves-Bill-Mauldin/book/0891411151/)
Willy and Joe, shove aside; this foxhole’s barely big enough as it is!
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### Author:  [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/33 "2016-03-18T03:57:17Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#):
>
> I don’t see any one battle doing it.It would take a sustained pattern of holding on long enough for the Union to get sufficiently war-weary to elect McClellan in 1864, which would be very difficult if not impossible for basic logistical/economic reasons.
So what you’re saying the only way the south could win the civil war is the way that ISIS did… Get a democrat in the Whitehouse. 😃
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### Author:  [@txst16](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txst16)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/34 "2016-03-18T04:25:13Z")
> [@Leonard33](#):
>
> I am writing a creative story including a general from the civil war (I haven’t decided which) and I wanted to twist history. What battle could have saved the Confederate cause? I was thinking Vicksburg would have been a good battle, but I wanted to know if there was a more important battle that would have give the Confederates more of a chance. Thanks for the help. 😃
Probable wouldn’t help, but the lack of a battle would be the win.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/35 "2016-03-18T05:07:17Z")
Vicksburg certainly could have gone wrong, in several different ways.
The troop transports might have gotten shot up trying to run the river. There were several points along Grant’s advance from Jackson where a battle might have gone against him. It’s even possible a relief army could have come up to break the siege.
This would slow things down in the west, and postpone the advance into the heart of Georgia. But even Chickamauga didn’t delay things too very much. Just about the worst setback to occur, but the Union was in such a powerful position, it didn’t really change the balance.
One possible game-changer: Grant and Sherman get killed (at Shiloh, perhaps) and the band of incompetents is back in charge. But the Union was so strong, even sub-mediocrity was enough to keep winning!
Unless Britain gets heavily involved – i.e., lands an army in Canada and lands on the U.S. side of Lake Erie, threatening Pittsburgh and/or Columbus – the South goes ker-plop.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/36 "2016-03-18T05:08:45Z")
I just don’t see Gettysburg as a possibility. The problem was the campaign was a strategic dead end.
Let’s say Lee won a decisive victory at Gettysburg. How was he going to exploit it? The Army of Northern Virginia was pretty much at the end of its supply lines. Lee was in no position to march north towards Philadelphia or New York unless he was planning on a one-way suicide march. Lee might have made it to Washington but Washington was well fortified and had a strong garrison; Lee would have had to encircle the city and start a siege. And pinning down the Confederate army in one place inside American territory was a disaster waiting to happen. The only city Lee had a decent chance of burning was Baltimore and that city was fairly pro-Confederate. What’s the strategic point of attacking your own sympathizers?
Realistically, Lee’s only option following a major victory would have been the same one he had following a major defeat: he turned around and went back to Virginia. Obviously, the Confederates would have been a lot happier to have won the Battle of Gettysburg but it wouldn’t have changed the strategic direction of the war. The Pennsylvania campaign was basically a raid.
The Battle of Vicksburg was being fought the same week and that battle had strategic importance. It captured the last stretch of the Mississippi and opened the entire river to American troop and supply movement as well as dividing the western half of the CSA from its eastern half. And unlike the Confederates, the American troops at Vicksburg had every intention of staying and then advancing further.
So a defeat at Gettysburg would have been a morale blow to the United States. But we had lost other battles and kept fighting. The Lincoln administration would have pointed out, quite accurately, that the victory at Vicksburg was much more important than the defeat at Gettysburg.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/37 "2016-03-18T05:26:17Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Unless Britain gets heavily involved – i.e., lands an army in Canada and lands on the U.S. side of Lake Erie, threatening Pittsburgh and/or Columbus – the South goes ker-plop.
British intervention on a decisive scale was never a possibility. That was one reason why Britain and France kept delaying on recognition. They knew there was a good chance they might lose a fight against the United States.
Britain and France certainly had naval superiority and they could have easily broken the American blockade and began providing supplies to the Confederates. But supplies alone wouldn’t haven’t changed the ratio of manpower; there were 22,000,000 people in the United States and 9,000,000 in the Confederate States (and 3,000,000 of those were slaves and you have to question if their hearts were really behind the Confederate cause).
Neither Britain or France was going to send a significant amount of troops into the land war. Both countries were still recovering from the Crimean War and faced major commitments throughout their empires. It would have taken a miracle for Britain to have found 100,000 troops it could send to America and that wouldn’t have been a deciding factor in a war which already had three million soldiers in it. The likeliest outcome of an Anglo-American war in the 1860’s would have been the American occupation of Canada.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/38 "2016-03-18T05:58:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> British intervention on a decisive scale was never a possibility. That was one reason why Britain and France kept delaying on recognition. They knew there was a good chance they might lose a fight against the United States.
>
> Britain and France certainly had naval superiority and they could have easily broken the American blockade and began providing supplies to the Confederates. But supplies alone wouldn’t haven’t changed the ratio of manpower; there were 22,000,000 people in the United States and 9,000,000 in the Confederate States (and 3,000,000 of those were slaves and you have to question if their hearts were really behind the Confederate cause).
>
> Neither Britain or France was going to send a significant amount of troops into the land war. Both countries were still recovering from the Crimean War and faced major commitments throughout their empires. It would have taken a miracle for Britain to have found 100,000 troops it could send to America and that wouldn’t have been a deciding factor in a war which already had three million soldiers in it. The likeliest outcome of an Anglo-American war in the 1860’s would have been the American occupation of Canada.
Britain has always been swayed by popular opinion. The US Navy sinking the Trent \*could \*do it.
Strangely, altho the RN _thought_ it had naval superiority , as of 25 February 1862, all it’s vaunted navy was so much scrap wood and iron.
The gun on the Monitor would blow the RN ironclads out of the water:
[http://www.marinersmuseum.org/blogs/civilwar/?p=1155](http://www.marinersmuseum.org/blogs/civilwar/?p=1155)
_The HMS Warrior had around 4.5 inches of iron armor backed by around 18 inches of wood dampener, and when combined with its oceangoing capabilities, its top speed of 14.5 knots under steam power, and its staggeringly large compliment of heavy cannons, it was arguably the most powerful ship afloat. So when experiments in Washington DC with different cannon shells and the new Dahlgren rifled guns yielded shots that not only penetrated the HMS Warrior’s armor, but went clean through the iron and wood and into the earthen bank behind the target, (article HERE,) attention was most certainly pai_d.
(During the famous battle of Hampton Roads, the USS Monitor only fired it’s guns at half charge, since they were a new design).
The RN’s best gun, the Armstrong gun could only penetrate 4.5", the Monitor had 8".
But of course the RN would hardly accept that.
However, at the end of the Civil War, it was generally regarded that the US Navy was more powerful than all the other navies of the world put together. That didnt last, of course.
> **[USS Miantonomoh (1863)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miantonomoh_%281863%29)**
>
> The first USS Miantonomoh was the lead ship of her class of four ironclad monitors built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Completed after the war ended in May 1865, the ship made one cruise off the East Coast before she began a voyage across the North Atlantic in May 1866 to conduct a lengthy showing the flag mission in Europe. Miantonomoh was decommissioned upon her return in 1867, but was reactivated two years later and assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron before d...
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/39 "2016-03-18T06:09:29Z")
Monitor vs Merrimac.
No seriously the Monitor class ships were great at stopping Confederate ironclads. If the 1rst one though had been easily beaten though?
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-battle-could-have-saved-the-confederates/749280/40 "2016-03-18T10:44:20Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> I think a series of about five Chickmauga-type defeats – big and nasty and very, very bloody – right before the elections of 1864, could have led to Lincoln’s ouster, and to the new President making some sort of terms.
What happens in the event of Operation John Wilkes Booth?
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