How did the confederates plan to win the war?

Answer 1

They had mainly hoped to fight long enough that the North would not want to continue fighting and would accept the separation. They had also hoped that, like the Revolutionary War, foreign countries would come to their aid. Almost from the beginning, they sent representatives to France and England, the two most powerful countries in the world at the time, to seek their recognition and/or help. Both countries more or less adopted a "wait and see" approach (although England did help the South a little bit, like by selling them ships).

In late 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery in the Southern states that were rebelling. It was a very clever ruse by Mr. Lincoln. By 1862, most countries in Europe, including England and France, had banned slavery. With the issuance of the Proclamation, he was telling France and England that if they sided with the Confederacy, they were officially siding with slavery, and neither country was willing to do that (despite that neither particularly liked the Union or Lincoln).

That is why in 1863, General Lee made an attempt to attack the North. The South could no longer count on support from Europe; they had to win the war on their own. Lee hoped to eventually capture Washington DC and force Lincoln to settle the war; with Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, the South no longer had much chance of surviving the war. They still had armies in the field, and even Lee's army wasn't destroyed although it had taken significant casualties.... but the Southern armies were forced onto the defensive for the remainder of the war, and would never again seriously threaten the North.