lol no they werent. if the southerners were petty farmers than the yankees were all simple jacks. the south killed twice as many people as the union did and with a army force half the size. the union had to kill a bunch of noncombatents and women to get anywhere like what happend with shermans march. he massacered the innocent and scorched the earth. the south couldnt rebuild and didnt want to lose more people to such terrooristic tactics.
The southerners were petty farmers, though. The South based itself upon an agrarian ideal, and by seceding didn't have access to the manufacturing plants the North had. They didn't have the number of supplies and guns the North had, and were at a disadvantage. The war still employed tactics used in the Revolutionary War, just meet up on some open land, and fire into each other. Its not even a matter of who were better soldiers, but who had the numbers, supplies, and the training/discipline to stand their ground while being shot at.
Sherman's March was kind of brilliant though. He marched into enemy lines, looted and burned towns, and destroyed everything in his path. That kind of messes with the other side psychologically. You know you've lost a war when an army can march into your territory and just destroy everything.
the southern states werent ever doomed to failure. they could have held their land had they not marched into the north and threw away their people at gettysberg. that was an unessasary battle and it nocked them off their roll. with 2 million people the union still got their buts handed to them.
Honestly, the only advantages the South had was potential European support, which wouldn't be that great, and the fact that they were fighting a defensive war. They had the advantage in the South as they knew the land, and Lincoln would have had to march into the South to break their will. They could've played this advantage, but once again, with limited supplies, and waning support, they wouldn't have lasted long just being cooped up in the South and playing defense.
Lee's only chance for resolving the war quickly was to shock the North. Probably why he was motivated to order marches into Northern / Middle States, so he'd shock the North into submitting to Southern wishes. It was either resolve the war by scaring the North, which he failed to do, or wait out as the North effectively sieges the entire South.
it wasnt just britain and france though. everyone supporeted the confederacy except pretty much mexico because lincoln promised them that he would help liberate them from Maximillian the 1st. the confederates wanted mexico though, for there own causes and not just to liberate them, and since france had it they were on the same side. the french were busy with mexican rebels though so they couldnt just send cheap guns to the confederates.
even the indians fought for the confederates. nobody liked the union they cause like i said they were imperialists, and they didnt value the lives of their soldiers..
The only motivation for Europe to support the South would be that it produced cotton, but the North produced other goods as well, such as grain, and many industrial goods. Also, after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, he put the war under the guise of being about slavery, which pretty much everyone in Europe had already abolished. No European country would fully support the Confederacy, knowing the Confederacy would absolutely lose, and had been painted as evil supporters of slavery.
Victor kruger said:
It is essentially what it was as states that withdrew were forced back in, effectively imperialism imposed on those states and a couple of decades later official internationally. You cannot tell me that fighting a war to impose one sides will on the other defines liberty or independence in any way, shape of form.
What would you call it ?
It is quite ironic actually. The Gettysburg Address, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure" basically states that the war was to preserve democracy. I feel like Lincoln thought it was his duty to protect democracy in the world, he felt that if the world saw that America, the "democratic" nation of the world, were to fall apart, then democracy wouldn't be copied and would die in the world. (and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.)
