What if south won gettysburg

One hundred fifty years ago this summer, the greatest battle ever fought on North American soil was started over sore feet. The armed struggle of brothers, fathers and sons, while it may have been triggered by the want of boots, was about greater matters.

However, in the end and in the beginning it was about slavery. The argument for liberty for a state to depart from the Union was predicated on the absence of liberty for people bought and sold. The states of the Confederacy broke away because their economic survival was dependent on slave labor. It was the wealthy privileged who shouted the loudest for maintaining the status quo.

They had gained the most financially from free labor. They had the most to lose from free men and women. They also had the most to fear from the same people they controlled with guns, whips and the law. We are four score and many years older as a nation. The question is: are we years and hundreds of thousands of ghosts wiser? One way to answer is to imagine what would have happened if on those three fateful days in July the left flank of the Union lines had not held at Little and Big Round Top.

Envision for a minute that with the defeat at Gettysburg the North sued for peace. The rebels would be free to exploit their slaves without the interference of the industrial North and meddling abolitionists. The pious preachers of the South would continue to sermonize the superiority of the white race and the biblical justification for one race to rule over another. Even with General Meade stopping the unbeatable Robert E. Lee, it still took the whole union more than years to pass federal legislation overcoming the segregating and humiliating Jim Crow laws of the former Confederacy.

Ulysses S. Grant, was winning victories in the western part of the country, such as Vicksburg. Meade's victory -- at a cost of 45, to 50, killed, wounded or missing on both sides -- sent Lee back home. That's a major difference. As for the battle itself, many historians look back at the famous "Pickett's Charge" in which 12, units under Confederate General George Pickett attacked 3, Union forces on Cemetery Ridge.

The Union held and the disastrous engagement on July 3 has since been referred to as the high water mark of the Confederacy. But Guelzo said the charge wasn't the only moment that could have tipped the battle, the war, and possibly American history, the other way. It's playing multiple rounds of Russian roulette.

Gettysburg: Photos from the Field Years Ago. Seeker Indie. Politically, the situation in the United States was already very tense, with attention already beginning to shift towards the presidential election that was due in just a year-and-a-half.

Since the commencement of the war, the Democrats had been divided into War Democrats who supported the war effort and Peace Democrats who were pushing for some sort of ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. The strength of the so-called Copperheads, Peace Democrats who so strongly opposed Lincoln that they nearly crossed into being pro-Confederate, steadily increased after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

In , the Peace Democrats became so strong that they effectively took control of the party and almost brought down the Lincoln administration in the fall presidential election. Had they done so, the Confederates might have been able to establish their independence, for if a ceasefire went into effect it is highly doubtful that the political will would have existed in the North to resume fighting at a later date. Lee understood this perfectly well. In a perceptive letter to Jefferson Davis written on June 10, as the army was just beginning the advance that would lead to Gettysburg, the army commander pointed out that an outright military victory by the Confederacy over the Union was impossible, given the disparity in numbers and resources.

That being the case, the only policy which might bring about Confederate independence would be to encourage those elements within the Northern public that wanted a negotiated peace with the South.

The best way to do this, Lee clearly felt, would be by demonstrating the futility of bringing the South back into the Union by force. In other words, military success for Lee was aimed at achieving a political goal as much as a military one. Historically, during the first half of , the Confederates were able to hold their ground and inflict such heavy losses upon the Union armies that it appeared likely that Lincoln was going to lose the election and the incoming Democratic candidate, George McClellan, was going to be willing to declare a ceasefire as a prelude to a negotiated settlement.

Lincoln himself believed this and was astute enough to realize that a ceasefire was tantamount to Confederate independence. It was only the trio of Union victories that summer - won by Farragut in Mobile Bay, Sherman at Atlanta, and Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley - that restored the morale of the Northern public and saved Lincoln's reelection.

If this is what happened historically, how much more likely would a peace-through-exhaustion be for the Confederates if they had won at Gettysburg?

The Lincoln administration would have suffered yet another humiliation rather than a face-saving victory. Lee's army would have ended the campaign with yet another victory under its belt, having secured far more supplies and probably having suffered far fewer casualties. The Army of the Potomac would have been beaten once more, its men still questioning the competence of their commanders and regarding Lee as an invincible opponent.

In such a scenario, we can only assume that the Confederates would have done better during the campaign than they did historically, thus making the defeat of Lincoln and a negotiated peace much more likely.

What about the oft-raised possibility that a Confederate victory at Gettysburg might have led to foreign recognition by the United Kingdom and France?

In the summer of , a pro-Confederate member of Parliament, John Roebuck, undertook a bit of personal diplomacy and sought out Napoleon III of France about the possibility of joint recognition of the Confederacy. The issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation had dampened European inclinations to recognizing the Confederacy, but not entirely extinguished them. Napoleon III hinted that he would follow England's lead, and Roebuck addressed the House of Commons to push for diplomatic recognition.

Historically, Roebuck's effort was turned aside without too much trouble. Indeed, the government was rather upset with his engaging in freelance diplomacy with the French without permission. News soon arrived of Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, which shut down Roebuck's push for recognition altogether.

Never again was the possibility of British and French recognition a serious threat to the Union cause. But what if the news had, instead, been of a dramatic Confederate victory on Northern soil, which the Union army forced to flee and the South yet again triumphant?

Might Roebuck's push for recognition have gained steam? It's entirely possible. As mentioned in a past blog post, British and French recognition of the Confederacy would almost certainly have led to Confederate independence. It would not even have required military intervention by the European powers, for financial and political repercussions by themselves would probably have been sufficient to ensure Confederate victory in the war.

So although Gettysburg is not going to lead to the fall of Washington City and the surrender of the United States government, it is possible that it would trigger political and diplomatic changes that would vastly increase, if not guarantee, an ultimate Confederate victory in the war. But we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. It's important to note that Vicksburg fell to General Grant the day after the Battle of Gettysburg concluded, forcing the surrender of thirty thousand Confederate soldiers and securing Union control of the Mississippi River.

From a strategic point of view, this was an even more important victory than was the Union victory at Gettysburg. Even if the war in the Eastern Theater continued to favor the Confederates, it would not change the fact that the war in the Western Theater was still going the Union's way.