>>64116768
>The North had like all of the manufacturing and all of the railroads.
The Confederate States would have been among the top 20-30 most industrialized countries on the planet, certainly one of the most industrialized nations outside of Europe. At the time of its foundation, it had 9x as many miles of track as Russia had at the same time. It certainly lagged behind the Union (most notably in the number of workers because they weren't willing to put the slaves to use making cannons instead of picking cotton), but it wasn't completely helpless. The big problem was the Antebellum lack of standardization (both broad gauge and standard gauge were in widespread use across the South) and the inability to develop a comprehensive railway policy until mid-war.
>The South could never win a war of attrition
It didn't need to fight the North to the point of annihilation, just to the point where the North lost confidence in victory. The South arguably got close to achieving this from late-1862 to mid-1863 but reversals like Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg ended their winning streak just as unpopularity of the war was reaching critical levels in the North (i.e. the New York Draft Riots). If Grant's army had been wiped out by malaria in the swamps around Vicksburg or if the Army of Northern Virginia had managed to score a big win on Northern soil, who knows what the domestic backlash from that would've been. Maybe not enough to get Lincoln thrown out of office, but certainly enough to make people seriously consider doing it.
>>64116884
>How can anyone think this was a victory, even calling it a stalemate is a bit of a reach
idk, I always thought 1812 was a massive embarrassment for the United States.
I mean, yeah it resulted in the Era of Good Feelings and the meteoric rise of Andrew Jackson, but at tremendous and unnecessary cost, certainly not worth whatever was gained.
