Confederate States

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

A lot would depend upon the circumstances of their leaving.  If the seven original seceders had been allowed to depart in peace, then that would have been the extent of it. By 1870, a gradual compensated emancipation would have been in place in the United States.  By 1880, if the seven departed states tried to gain readmittance, they would be rebuffed, as the United States would not want them, not because of slavery, but because of all the negros (to use the politer term in place of the one that would have been actually used).  This also helps to explain why we didn't annex Cuba at the end of the Spanish-American War.  The CSA would basically be equivalent to Jamaica or Mexico by 2000 in terms of economics and the sucking sound that a Perot-like anti NAFTA character would have referred to would have been of jobs going to the CSA.

As for the South winning an actual war of Independence, I just don't see it happening.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's an 1876 map of mine own:

Blue = USA - Free states
Grey = USA - Gradual Emancipation states
Red = USA - Slave states
Green - CSA - Slave states

New Jersey is not a mistake.  This was the status of New Jersey as of the Civil War,  and there were still a few slaves there in 1860, but its gradual emancipation had been going on so long that it was effectively a free state in all but name.

West Virginia is also not a mistake. There were greivances between East and West Virginia besides the slavery issue and it is entirely feasible that the spilt woud have occurred even without the Civil War, altho the boundary would be different, probably includung Danville in WV while Harper's Ferry would have remained in VA, if a split occurred.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Arkansas, like the other upper south states the seceded had a slave population that was approximately one quarter of the whole polulation.  UNlike them, it contained a significant amount of unsettled territory that was not suited for plantation agriculture, so I feel that if the upper south states had remained in the union, it would have been the first to consider gradual emancipation.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Do you think that if the Confederates had won, they would've taken parts of Mexico?

Yes. And Cuba. Google "Knights of the Gold Circle".

They might have wanted Cuba, but I don't think that they could have taken it from Spain.  Mexico would have had to wait until Maximillian was gone and I think that the Union would certainly have given Mexico enough support to defend itself.  The CSA would want such territory, but it would not have been able to gain it by either force or persuasion.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ernest, I do see you are from the greatest state in the south. Ever been to Sumter?

Yes, I've been to Sumter several times.  However, I'm fairly netural when it comes to the Second American Revolution, perhaps because my paternal ancestors were in Canada at the time, their ancestors having moved there after ending up on the losing side of the First American Revolution.    (I was born in the Sunshine state, tho.)

I can't see the war ending in 1862 with a Confederate victory, not with Lincoln as President.  The only realistic chance the south had of winning in 1862 was if there was British recognition, and the only way that could have happened would have been with a Union President who was politically inept enough to let the Trent affair get out of hand.  Say what you will about Lincoln, he was not politically inept, especially to that degree.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

At most Lee would have gotten to the outskirts of Washington, to the forts manned by the Heavy Artillery units.  The idea that the Army of Northern Virginia could have taken Washington, DC in 1862 is pure fantasy.  Just as Richmond took a long seige to take, so would have Washington, and the Confederate Army could never have won on a protracted seige because the Union reserves would be mobilzed to break it before it could succeed.  Lee's retreat sfter his invasion would always provide the situation for Lincoln to announce the Emancipation Proclaimation and once that Proclaimation was received in London, any chance that London would recognize the CSA before Washington did was gone.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If Jackson gets the rest he needs, when does he have time to launch the attack?

In the event of a complete federal collapse on the pennisula, there is no way that Lincoln would have let Pope take the Army of Virginia out of the Washington defenses.  If Lincoln had a fault in this war, it was that he was overly protective of Washington, but with good reason.  Also Lee would not have captured the artillery train intact, altho the Union could have been compelled to destroy it to prevent its capture.  Yes, Lee could have conducted a raid into the north, but his own supply situation could not have allowed him to hold territory there. Lack of ammunition would compel him to return south of the Potomac and he could not have carried off much in the way of other supplies with his army.

Finally, what does recognition gain the CSA?  Not much.  Neither England or France would have actually gone to war over cotton.  It would have made it easier for the CSA to buy naval raiders from the Liverpool shipyards, but the ones they did buy were enough to force most of the US merchant fleet to fly to other flags.  Before the Civil War the US merchant fleet was the largest in the world.  It never recovered that lost position after the War.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The CSA could not win the war on the battlefield by 1862.  It had to win it by making the North feel that it was not worth continuing.  A single decisive battlefield victory that annihilated a Union army would not have done it.  Northern political resolve showed many times that it could rebound from despair caused by temporary Confederate high tides.  Making those tides higher would not have affected the ultimate outcome of the war.  You need to either have the Confederates take Washington in 1861 or have a different Republican win the presidency in 1860 to have any reasonable chance of Confederate independence.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I agree that a decisve victory in which the main Union army is destroyed would have ended the war in the CSA favour. A win in Maryland or Penn in 1862 would have seen the French and British force a peace settlement.

Force?  It may well have brought about official recignition for the CSA, but there is no way either would jave been willing to go to war, especially since before they could consider it, the Emancipation Proclaimation would have been made.  Britain needed Northern corn far more than it needed Southern cotton.  Aside from making the naval war a bit more difficult for the Union, foreign recognition would not have gained the Confederacy anything.  If they had gone to war, well, our flag would have a few more stars on it than iyt currently does, depending upon how British North America was split up into states.  (Might have also added part of the Empire of Mexico depending upon how acquisitive we felt like being.)  The Union never did fully mobilize for war in the Civil War, it never needed to.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

A bit more war weariness and there might have been a few more states run like Indiana, but unless Southern Arnies could stay in Kentucky or  Pennsylvania instead of merely making raids into them, it wouldn't amount to enough to cause the war to be lost. The South did not have the logistical capability to do maintain large armies in the field far from the railroads.