timmeister37 said:
If the Confederacy had not fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War might not have started until the summer or fall of 1861. If war was delayed until July or August 1861, the South could have traded that cotton the cotton of the harvest of 1861 for an enormous amount of war supplies.
But they almost certainly wouldn't have traded for enormous amounts of war supplies even if the start of the war was delayed. Just look at the thinking of both sides leading up to First Bull Run. None of the major leaders on either side seriously expected the war would reach the scale it did. How could they? I mean, the battle of Shiloh itself saw more casualties than ALL american military battles up to that point combined! The pre-war experiences by both sides simply didn't match the 'modern' style of war that would follow, and this was exacerbated by the idea that the other side would simply fold up and give in once a single major battle was won.
Besides, all this cotton was privately owned. Many of the leaders of the CSA were HEAVILY against the government digging its fingers into such things (conscription is another example) and only capitulated under the pressures of an
active war. I see no reason that the government would have confiscated huge amounts of cotton to trade for war supplies.
timmeister37 said:
If the South never fired on Fort Sumter, and Lincoln started the Civil War anyway, Lincoln would be reneging on this word and this would likely alienate the majority of people in the border states such as MO, KY, and MD.
You're assuming that Lincoln would have started the war in such a way as to alienate the border states. There's no telling how the shooting war would have started had Sumter not been fired on.
timmeister37 said:
Why don't you tell me how I am wrong in my assertion...
It's not really that you're
wrong, it's that you've missed the point that all of these things happened for reasons, and it's very naive to simply say that "They should've done X instead". You're looking backwards with the benefit of hindsight and you're discounting the fact that constrictions in resources and time, failure to understand modern warfare, and, often, sheer incompetence played major roles in how the war turned out.
timmeister37 said:
Davis had virtually no troops at all to defend New Orleans, the South biggest city and perhaps most important sea port. How can that not be a mistake?
New Orleans was only vulnerable by naval attack, not by land forces. But the CSA accounted for this by manning Forts Jackson and St. Phillip and having a small naval force in the river to oppose the Union fleet. Losses in Kentucky and Tennessee forced them to strip troops and equipment from the area to send to more critical areas. No one could have foreseen that the Union fleet would run the batteries, survive the run, and then take the city and forts afterwards.
Much of this is the result of new technologies, like the steam engine, that rendered previous naval theories and tactics obsolete and were critical in allowing the Union forces to run the batteries. This is yet another example of how the change in technology outran the change in ideas, tactics, and strategy. Prior to this time land fortifications were
far more effective vs fleets, as sailing ships were not as fast or as maneuverable as steam vessels were, especially when sailing up-river.
The decision to strip New Orleans of most of its defenses was, in my opinion, an entirely reasonable action given contemporary military thinking and the needs of the war. In fact, one could argue that this wasn't a mistake at all, just a natural result of the intrinsic imbalance of men and materials between the North and the South. If the CSA had 100,000 or more extra troops they never would have needed to strip New Orleans in the first place. But they didn't have them, and their decisions reflect this fact.
If you're going to criticize any decision, then the first and most important decision to criticize is the one that led to succession in the first place by a 'nation' that was outnumbered, outgunned, and outproduced several times over. Every other decision of the war, good or bad, follows directly from this one and the implications it contains therein.
timmeister37 said:
Everyone is criticizing my list of Confederate mistakes. It's very easy to sit on your high horse and criticize someone else's list. I defy you to make a better list.
The problem is that there is no list you can make that will guarantee a southern victory. Every single thing you change has far-reaching repercussions that can't be known because they didn't happen. The CSA doesn't fire on Fort Sumter. Okay. How does the shooting war start then? Where does it start? What are the political and military contexts surrounding the event? How does the public on both sides react?
What would Grant have done had Forts Donelson and Henry been designed better? What actions would he have taken? How would his opponents have reacted? You can't even begin to speculate on victory or defeat in this instance until all of these questions (and more) are answered.
This is the problem with alternate history. Every action has an uncountable number of consequences and it is simply impossible to say with any real certainty what would have happened if X had happened instead of Y.