Could the Confederacy have won the U.S. Civil War?

Was the manpower and resources of the North so great that the Confederate states going to war exhibited criminal folly and blind arrogance?

Or did Southern politicians and generals make more mistakes than their Northern counterparts?

Was the the South's championing of slavery so unjust that it weakened the support of segments of its population for Secession itself?

Is there some other explanation?

Industrialization.

How would the Confederacy have known they'd won the war? What was their endgame?

Normally, in wars of independence you have an occupying force, and the strategic goal of the underdog is making the occupation so expensive that the occupant retreats. In 1861, except for Forts Sumter and Pickens, there were no Union troops occupying the south, and most of the war was fought on northern territory. That made the northern strategy quite simple: find the Confederate troops and destroy them. I wonder what would have happened if the South had decided to just establish all the things you need for a country's administration, send ambassadors to Europe and all that, and forced the North to make the first move. Maybe the Confederacy could have won the war by not starting it in the first place.

It all depended on the north maintaining the political will to continue the war. With a southern victory at Gettysburg and seizing Washington DC, a northern failure to take Vicksburg, then you can imagine the Democrats winning the 1864 election and then choosing a negotiated settlement. I don't know if such a scenario was realistic, but if the northern war effort collapsed, it would look something like that.

If they had unlimited resources and men. It would've been closer. Union did come out slow to start then revved it up.

My opinion about the topic:

Possibly, if certain Southern mistakes had been avoided. Lee's invasion of the North in 1863 leading to defeat at Gettysburg may have been a mistake, though if his subordinates had performed better on the second day, it might have been a Southern victory, which would've been hard for the North to swallow. But Lee's invasion of the North in 1862, leading to defeat at Antietam, was almost certainly a mistake, as the Southern troops were not in shape to fight or do damage in the North, and they were facing a scared Northern general (McClellan) who wouldn't have invaded them again. As bloody as Antietam was, the North could afford to lose the troops more than the South. If the South did not fight there, the Emancipation Proclamation wouldn't have happened when it did, and the Northern War effort would have looked more hopeless. Another factor is the Army of Tennessee. Another contributor here said that Shiloh was the key; if the South could've won that, they could've prevented Sherman's taking of Atlanta, and thereby prevented Lincoln's election. Maybe, but if the Army of Tennessee had performed better after Shiloh, Atlanta might not have been taken either. The main commander of the Army of the Tennessee in late 1862 and 1863, Bragg, was someone who alienated his staff, and divided his army. He got lucky at Chickamauga, but didn't exploit it fully. And there is no way he should have lost Chattanooga; Thomas's charge at Missionary ridge was far more suicidal than Pickett's charge at Gettysburg (if Pickett's charge was suicidal) yet it succeeded. The explanation for this has to be Bragg. And Jeff Davis knew that he was a problem, but did not remove him until it was too late.

Ehhhh, it would've taken a helluva lot. The North dominated the economic side of the war, and assuming it lasts for more than ~12 months, this is the most crucial aspect IMO.

OP, you pose a question that has been debated by historians and Civil War buffs for 150 years - could the South have won the war? I have attended Round Table discussions where this football was kicked around and listened to countless lectures which touch on the subject. From all of this, I think the general consensus answer to your question is - without a doubt.

I think that one of the more interesting approaches to this question involves asking how things might have been different if certain great men and not been killed or incapacitated at a certain time. As an example, had Albert Sydney Johnston not been killed at Shiloh in the Spring of '62, then the whole war in the Trans-Mississippi would have played out entirely differently. Johnston would never have allowed Vicksburg to be reduced and certainly the fate of Grant and Sherman would have been much the worse.

Or, more commonly, the question is asked "if Thomas Jackson isn't killed by his own pickets at Chancellorsville and been at Lee's side at Gettysburg, would the south have won the day there?' Gettysburg is, of course, the great fulcrum of the war and a Confederate victory there would have opened up endless possibilities.

You could discuss the refusal of Britain and France to formally recognize the Confederate States and how such a recognition would have changed the course of the war.

There are other interesting aspects and scenarios we could look at which might have impacted the outcome of the war, and it's fun to speculate on "what if".

The Trent affair. If the North overplayed their hand here or if Prince Albert had not toned down the British, the English fleet might have sailed against the North.
If Joe Johnston or Lee had disbanded but not surrendered their armies and ordered a guerrilla war.
If Jackson had behave better during the Seven days.
If Kentucky had went with the South.
If Foote was not in command of the navy in the West.
Any good size Southern victory in early or mid 1864 brings the Dem to power in the North.
Yes, the South could have won.

Sure it was possible. The real question is how could they have won? This was addressed by many posters in this thread.

I think the more interesting question is if the south would have survived as an independent country for long if they had "Won the Civil War"?

Would there have been follow-up wars?

Remember the south was fighting for it's independence, not to control the North and would not have most likely been successful at controlling the north as a territory anyway if they cause the North to Sue for peace.

How would later events like WWI and WWII played out if the conflict was not resolved?

Is it possible the south could have allied with Germany in WWI? I think it is very possible you could have actual fighting on North American shores.

How would this have effected the world depression of the 1930's and would the Nazi's have risen to power? How would this have effected communism rise?

If the south won it may have been a short term victory most likely an inevitable followup war over some issue.

If the North did not win and the US did not have a successful reconstruction, I think the world would be a significantly different place, and in most scenarios that I play out, not better for anyone living in the North or South of the US today.

Possible perhaps, but my opinion on this is that had two American nations been relatively closely matched in arms and allied with different powers in WWI, the more likely scenario is they just stay out of it altogether. After all, Germany floated the idea of opening an American front in Mexico, but the Mexican government never really considered it seriously. But this is pure speculation since the Confederacy winning depends largely on British support, which changes the whole diplomatic landscape... if anything, under that scenario, I'd say it's more likely the NORTH joins Germany in order to check a British/CSA alliance.

Almost certainly at least one war over Western expansion, given the nebulous legal standing of non-California land that was part of the Mexican Cession, and even CA itself might have been a source of conflict since the Confederacy would almost certainly have wanted a Pacific port for its export markets.

I like the scenario as you present it. I hadn't thought much about who joins who in WWI but clearly Germany was very a very different country then it was in WWII and it would have been easy to see the two North American countries taking opposite sides.

If the south won it would be a different world then we know today.

Also some of the institutions that the south was fighting for like continuing slavery may have continued much longer then we might imagine today. Who knows how much longer that mass slavery would have lasted in the modern world?

If Germany would have still rose to power, and the master plan was implemented. and they won that version of WWII (which was much more likely with a divided US) mass slavery of many groups of people could possibly still exist today, not only in west but the east as well.

A very different world.

I think many people look at this one dimensionally. Could the south have won? Certainly. You can always point to events that would change the course of history, but I can't imagine a situation where another conflict would not have happened.

North America might have looked more like Europe in the last century. Even with Canada and Mexico involved in major North American conflicts and potential wars. I don't see a situation where the South absorbs the North and American turns out anything like it is today, with reconstruction playing out like actually did but run by the South instead of the North.

Well, yes, but that's because the entire purpose of Reconstruction was to make the South more like the North.

Protections of black civil rights, the expansion of a base of small, free-holding farmers, breaking the power of plantation owners over Southern Legislatures... these clearly would not have happened if the South had won. The question of how long slavery would have continued is an interesting one, given how long the US continued slavery after most of the colonial overlords of the Caribbean abolished it (where it was even more profitable), and given that it was abolished in the US only after a violent conflict... given the state of race relations in the South, I don't think it's unrealistic to envision slavery past 1900.

The other scenario I see is the Confederacy waging a war of expansion against Mexico rather than the industrialized US.

If the South wins, it becomes an aggressive power. It would have designs on W. Va. DC. and the four slave states that stayed in the union. It would want at least part of New Mexico and trade rights in Ca. It would quickly seized Cuba and northern Mexico.