Gary Gallagher: observation

Transcript context

…Here is one of the great misconceptions about the Civil War. Among the people who know anything about it, which in the US is a very small percentage, but if they know anything, they know United States’ victory was inevitable. Because the United States had 22 million people. The Confederacy had five and a half million white people- … and three and a half million enslaved people. The United States’ economy was infinitely more powerful than the Confederate economy. The United States had the United States Army. The United States had the United States Navy. Really, who’s gonna win this war? The US, it’s inevitable, next question. It’s not true at all. The US did have those advantages, but the Confederacy had compensating advantages. And one of those advantages was it had a much lower bar to cross for success. It didn’t have to invade the United States, didn’t have to capture Washington. It didn’t have to project its military power into New England. All it had to do was convince a majority of the civilian population of the loyal states that it wasn’t worth the cost to make these rebel states come back into the Union. These are two democratic republics at war, and in the end, the civilian sector decides. Somebody my age can… We have the perfect example, Vietnam. The United States was not defeated militarily in Vietnam, and it didn’t matter. ‘Cause when the people said, “We’re not gonna support this war anymore,” the war’s gonna come to an end. The smart people in the Confederacy understood this. They understood it at the time. Lee understood it. Jefferson Davis understood it. You had key people at the time saying, “There’s no way that a nation as large as ours and as populous as, a population as large as ours has ever been subjected in a war like this. A tie is as good as a win for the Confederacy.” And they came very close to that in the summer of 1864. The other thing is the sheer size of the Confederacy is a huge advantage to them. It’s huge, with a very poor transportation and communication infrastructure in many ways. And to move a large army deep into the Confederacy is a huge logistical problem. The same thing had happened to the British both during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. They confront this… The Confederacy’s as big as all of Western Europe. That’s a problem. It’s also a problem that the Confederates are fighting, literally fighting to defend their homes. That’s always, almost always a stronger factor than trying to impose your will on somebody else. All of these factors help the Confederacy. The US did have an army. The army had 15,000 men in it in 1860, 15,000. The Navy had fewer than 50 vessels, most of them on overseas stations. There were exactly three vessels available to blockade the Confederacy at the beginning of the war. The Confederate coastline’s 3,600 miles long. Probably not gonna be able to shut down a lot there. . There were exactly three vessels available to blockade the Confederacy at the beginning of the war. The Confederate coastline’s 3,600 miles long. Probably not gonna be able to shut down a lot there. So the point is that there are factors that help both sides. To me, the conditions for victory are the most important factor that favors the Confederacy. We just have to make it painful enough to the United States that they’re gonna say, “Let them go. We never liked South Carolina anyway. Just let them go. We’re not… It’s not worth it. It’s killing too many of our boys. It’s costing too much money, and we don’t have to worry about slavery in the territories if they’re gone, ’cause they’ll be gone. And our territories will be free of slavery.” So again, the Union is the invading force.…

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