What was the Confederate plan for winning the war and what flaws existed in this strategy?

Answer 1

The Confederate strategy was incredibly simple: survive until Northern war spirit was broken. The Confederacy was in a war to justify its own existence, so unlike the North, it didn't need to conquer territory or subjugate people; just hold on to its own. The great flaw in this strategy was that it hung on the assumption that the North and Lincoln would lose the will to fight before Confederate supplies ran out OR that a great European power would come to the aid of the Confederacy, although how much weight was actually placed on this latter hope is arguable. As for myself, I think most of the generals were not counting on foreign aid, even if the politicians were trying to push for it. A perfect example of Southern implementation of this strategy would be the campaigns of Robert E. Lee, who/which of course is/are almost always cited as the ideal general/campaigns. Lee was incredibly aggressive as a commander and fought with a tenacity only matched by a few generals in the North. Even though Lee, particuraly in his earlier Peninsula Campaign, actually suffered higher casulaty rates than the North, the ferocity of his attacks so disheartened the North and boosted his own troops' morale that the South clearly emerged the victor. Lee needed morale-crushing victories over the North in order to attack the North's morale. He knew he could never hope to invade the North and hold onto any conquered territory, nor could he hope to wipe out the entire Union Army. Nevertheless, the more men, material, and armies he destroyed the less support Lincoln would have back home for continuing the war, and it was that morale he hoped to destroy. Fortunately, Lee was a brilliant tactician and generally surrounded be extremely effective subordiantes who advised him and carried out his orders. Lee's downfall was simply a failure to crush the Northern will to continue the war. Despite his incredible victories, failures in the West; an inability to break the Union blockade; lack of foreign aid; inflation; massive taxes; and just overall exhaustion made it impossible to continue the war effort. Lee never succeeded in breaking the North's spirits to the point where they gave up the war. He came incredibly close, but thanks to firm, and at times even dictatorial leadership from Lincoln and Washington, the Union stayed the course until Southern resources could simply not support the war effort anymore. After the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered, the rest of the South was not long to follow.