History of The Southern United States - Civil War (1860-1865)

Civil War (1860-1865)

Aware that they could not conquer the much larger and more powerful Union, the Confederacy adopted a military strategy that would hold its territory together, gain worldwide recognition, and inflict so much punishment on invaders that the Northerners would tire of an expensive war and negotiate a peace treaty that would recognize the independence of the CSA. After secession, no compromise was possible, because the Confederacy insisted on its independence. As late as February 1865, Lincoln offered peaceful and honorable reunion, with cash to purchase all the slaves; his offer was rejected by rebel leaders who dreamed of independence even as the nation was collapsing, and its armies fought in the last trenches.

Both sides wanted the border states, but the Union military forces took control of all of them in 1861-1862. Union victories in western Virginia allowed a Unionist government based in Wheeling to take control of western Virginia and, with Washington's approval, create the new state of West Virginia. The Confederacy did recruit troops in the border states, but the enormous advantage of controlling them went to the Union.

The Union naval blockade starting in May 1861, reducing exports by 95%; only small, fast blockade runners—mostly owned and operated by British interests—could get through. The South's vast cotton crops became nearly worthless.

In 1861 the rebels assumed that "King Cotton" was so powerful that the threat of losing their supplies would induce Britain and France to enter the war as allies, and thereby frustrate Union efforts. Confederate leaders were ignorant of European conditions; Britain depended on the Union for its food supply, and would not benefit from an extremely expensive major war with the U.S. The Confederacy moved its capital from a defensible location in remote Montgomery, Alabama, to the more cosmopolitan city of Richmond, Virginia, only 100 miles from Washington. Richmond had the heritage and facilities to match those of Washington, but its proximity to the Union forced the CSA to spend most of its war-making capability to defend Richmond.