Question of the Week: Which of these events did more to seal the Confederacy’s fate?
Which better sealed the Confederacy’s ultimate fate: Hood’s turn north to Tennessee in late 1864, Lincoln’s reelection, or Fort Fisher’s capitulation in early 1865?
Which better sealed the Confederacy’s ultimate fate: Hood’s turn north to Tennessee in late 1864, Lincoln’s reelection, or Fort Fisher’s capitulation in early 1865?
Lincoln’s re-election. The Confederacy never really had a chance to win a military victory. Their only hope was that the Union would tire of the war and stop fighting. The re-election of Lincoln insured that the war would be fought until Confederate collapse.
Lincoln’s re-election. It showed the Rebels the US was totally behind the war effort
Old Abe’s reelection of course … at this point in the war there was little Confederate arms could do to alter the eventual outcome of the war … the south’s only real hope — and many of them knew it — was a Republican loss in the November Presidential election.
“Vicksburg (and Port Hudson) is the Key”
By far the re-election of Lincoln. It was a commitment by the north to go the distance.
Hood turned north too late to impact the election, which to me was the key event of 1864. If Hood had planned and executed the march up country earlier, who knows.
The attack on Fort Sumter. The odds were stacked against the South from the beginning” population, industry, resources, financial capability to support a war, the lack of moral justification for slavery, etc. Lincoln was waiting for the first shot to be fired against the Union to justify hostilities. Had no shot been fired at Sumter, Lincoln’s justification for war would not have occured, and the Confederacy would have been able to sufficiently prepare for war.
When we cover 1864 in my classes, everything is centered around the US presidential election. I would agree with those above that Lincoln’s reelection was the final realistic nail in the coffin for the Confederacy.
Of those three? Lincoln’s reelection. I’m fascinated by the counterfactual of what might have happened if Hood *hadn’t* turned north, but it feels like that was too late to really change the outcome militarily.
Lincoln’s re election hands down
Without Atlanta, Lincoln’s reelection would not have occurred.
For my thoughts, I have to say the election of Lincoln in 1864 was the final event for Confederate success bur the initial event was the firing on Fort Sumter.
I agree with the statements of Charles Martin and Frank Crawford. In the east, the Confederacy allowed itself to be maneuvered into a bad decision by President Lincoln and attacked Fort Sumter before it was truly prepared for war. By jumping the gun and initiating the use of deadly force, the South was perceived as the aggressor, thus losing the moral high ground: the unresolved loyalty of Tennessee and Missouri remained unresolved; Kentucky declared itself as “neutral.” And the hoped-for recognition of the Confederate States of America by Great Britain, and all the support that sovereign nation status would have entailed, dissipated in the morning mist.
The fall of Fort Fisher cut a supply line leading to a few counties in Virginia.
Hood’s decision to march to Nashville resulted in a he destruction of the only CSA army capable of movement. Effectively, the Nashville Campaign ended the war In Tennessee & most of the Western Theater.
Fort Fisher was part of a mopping up operation. Along with Mobile & other isolated strongholds, taking Wilmington it was one of the last important positions still under CSA control. There really is no comparison between moppong up & an external strategic defeat.
Everything became academic when Lincoln was reelected. Literally. The conclusion of the war was no l9nger a matter of “IF” the War might end, but “When”!
Reelection. Nashville and Fisher were sideshows of the bigshow at that point!
I look at the question from this counter-factual perspective. What if Hood’s move North had succeeded in destroying Schofield’s force and even somehow Hood took Nashville? And add what if Fort Fisher had not fallen? In each case, so what? With Lincoln re-elected he would be able to press the war to the end. Thus, Lincoln’s election sealed the Confederacy’s doom.
Lincolns reelection. In addition to the previous comments supporting that, it destroyed what was Robert E. Lee’s goal – defeat of Lincoln at the polls.
Lincoln’s re-election. It meant the war would continue to victory for the north, no matter what the cost.
Fort Fisher kept the port of Wilmington open to supply the Confederacy. It was a last artery providing oxygen for ANV. The fate of the Confederacy was sealed when it was closed. Lincoln gets re-elected, Hood advances and then retreats, but with Fort Fisher open, the Confederacy is alive. Say it stays online to the end, after Lee’s surrender. Fort Fisher being Confederate to the end allows President Jefferson Davis and selected cabinet members to escape the United States through Wilmington NC with the alleged “Confederate gold.” It’s foggy as to how they are not found by northern ships and laid to rest in international waters, but they set up a Vichy CSA on a Bermudian island under a British flag. A Confederate army escapes to Mexico and ships off to that new location, and a new fate exists for the Confederacy, unsealing the fate that events decided for them by the re-election, the rambles of Hood, and the January capture of Fort Fisher. Hey, somebody has to play devil’s advocate.