If this battle had ended in an unequivocal Confederate victory, would it have made any actual difference?
Let's say the Confederates maintain the initiative and seize Cemetery Ridge on the first day. Or the 20th Maine is overrun and annihilated, ruling in the entire Southern end of the Union line collapsing on the second day. Or the ANV's artillery somehow has Ukrainian-tier precision accuracy and completely demolishes the Union frontline at Cemetery Ridge on the third day and the entire Army of the Potomac breaks and flees when Pickett's Charge follows.
Would we be really be living in the pregnant Anne Frank timeline? Or would it be merely delaying the inevitable?
The British already changed their minds about intervening with all the new Indian cotton they were getting and France was too commited to Mexico to do anything.
There was nothing the Confederates realistically could have done. Lincoln wasn't up for reelection for two more years and the likelyhood the Confederates could have kept up the victories during that time to make the North lose all faith in his leadership was very unlikely.
If I could I'd abandon the pitched battle doctrine and focus on insurgent warfare and mounted hit and run attacks to take advantage of the South's huge surplus of horses. But that would require leaving the plantations to the enemy and would probably never get any support so really the South's position was just inherently flawed.
>Lincoln wasn't up for reelection for two more years
One year actually.
It could have weakened Lincoln to the point he lost reelection and the North was willing to let the south go.
Yeah or riots and mutinies could get out of hand. Probably wouldn't have happened either way
Probably not, by this point in the War the situation was going badly for the Confederacy in the West. Vicksburg fell on the 4th of July which meant the Western Union forces achieved there initial objectives and were able to begin pushing into the heartland of the Confederacy. Victory at Gettysburg for Lee wouldn't have changed defeat at Vicksburg. The Union could've transferred troops east if the situation was serious enough in Maryland like they would do later in 1863 for the relief of Chattanooga.
DC would have been safe since the system of sorts essentially completed by this time and garrisoned by an independent command than the Army of the Potomac. For a decisive battle the Confederates would've had to siege DC without a secure logistic train and hostile forces to their rear.
As other's have pointed out it would be unlikely to have changed the international political situation. I think domestically it might have had an impact and may have delayed the Union from seizing Atlanta before the election in 1864, but that's engaging pure speculation at this point. Even if McClellan wins in 1864 its no guarantee he ends the war through negotiation even though he campaigned on it.
Good post. It all boils down to the fact that the union had the vast majority of manufacturing and ship loads of immigrants to recruit. The CSA had hardly none of that. It was an inevitable loss for the South based on logistics alone. Here's the thing that makes me smile. Despite being outgunned, out manufactured and fed...the Confederate Army still took way more Men with less equipment than the yankee soldiers took from us. THAT makes me smile.
>us
You guys gotta move on. We're how many generations removed?
We have. It's the rest of the dumbshit country dragging us down. Look at what DC is doing to everyone.
Modern political moronation aside, 90% sure you guys would have turned into a decaying latifundia, Latin America style if you became independent, except maybe some pockets of industrialization bordering the North. Saying this as a non-American
Realistically the CSA would have devolved into a bunch of competing power blocs backed by foreign powers (with the USA realistically having major influence over CSA politics) with a highly dysfunctional central government, if it didn't outright balkanize.
Now that's just ridiculous. I can imagine the CSA getting stagnant real fast due to its heap of social problems, but as long as they've got the Union looming over them, ready to invade when the opportunity strikes, they would be pretty easy to unite. The intense patriotism of the South was really the only thing they had going for them. That and their skill as soldiers. But even if they did get full independence in the 1860s, they would have to industrialize at an extremely rapid rate, or they would just get curbstomped by the North in a few decades.
That's really the problem. Slavery was a huge problem economically for the South, because made it so difficult for the white poor to compete with big plantations. The North grew so rapidly at that time because they were practically giving away cheap farms in the midwest to German immigrant. So in order to compete after independence, the South would have to quickly get rid of thing they started the whole hullaballoo over in the first place.
>But even if they did get full independence in the 1860s, they would have to industrialize at an extremely rapid rate, or they would just get curbstomped by the North in a few decades.
The largest powderworks on the planet in the 19th Century was built in South Carolina in 1861. The South was capable of some truly amazing improvisation when in a pinch. If the Confederacy had survived the war, I doubt there would have been any desire to demolish all of those factories they had just finished building and go back to a plantation-based economy. If anything, the industrialists who were long-maligned in the South would have serious political clout for the first time since their plants and factories and the armaments they could churn out would be the key to deterring any attempts by the Union to reinvade the Confederacy at a later date.
>Ukrainian-tier precision accuracy
Made me giggle
you're a pedo
You're a Nazi
Only in Guns of South timeline (Harry Turtledove).
Confederates lost Gettysburg in that book though
I dont think any single battle couldve saved the confederacy after first couple of years.
It was the overall strategy of defense early in the war that cost us confederates. A fast strike on DC early in the war would probably have led to peace talks and a truce. By the time Gettysburg happened, the northern aggressors were so far ahead in troop numbers, war industry, and had made alliances such that it was unwinnable.
The only time the Confederacy had any chance of getting let go was at Antietam.
After that their defeat was certain it was only a matter of time.
This too the South was horribly disfunctional at a defensive strategy in the first place and incompetence was made worse by the fact that the Confederacy had made their central government so weak.
Robert E Lee's first task was to try to set up the defenses along the Southern Coastline and he found every time he suggested a valid strategy the Govenor would ignore him and do something stupid like put up a bunch of hastily erected forts right at the edge of the water that the Union would easily swat aside and conquer.
I've always wondered how the civil war would have turned out if you put an absolute despot like Stalin in charge of the Confederacy. Don't get me wrong, Stalin was a thoroughly despicable man, but he had a talent for organizing the mass mobilization of an entire society that was unmatched before and has remained so since.
The south lost.
You lost to rock-worshipping illiterate sandBlack folk with rusted AKs Yankee
yeah
Probably not but it was as good of a shot as any