Gabor Boritt - Why the Confederacy Lost

Historians and Lost Cause enthusiasts have talking about why the Confederacy lost the Civil War for 150 years.  The discussion will never end.

This short classic book is a collection of essays on the topic.  Though published in 1992, it is still quite relevant.  Facts don't change; only opinions change.

"Chamberlain's story at Gettysburg also points toward an axiom undergirding this book.  Matters military, including what took place on the field of battle, played a decisive role in determining the history of the Civil War, and specifically why the Confederacy lost.  This statement is so self-evident as to make one who utters it look simpleminded.  Yet many professional historians do not seem to grasp this simple truth."
-Gabor Boritt, p. 5

The Confederacy, an outgrown of The South, lost the Civil War.  In the long run, it is perhaps good for The South that the Confederacy did lose.
-Gabor Boritt, p. 13

James McPherson points out that ultimately it was a military victory for the North.  The Confederacy was defeated because it was defeated militarily in the field.  This is the bottom line.  The war could have gone the other way, a battle here, a battle there.  As late as the summer of 1864 prospects looked good for the South, but then Grant and Sherman got going and we know what happened after that.  To his credit, President Lincoln knew from the beginning that the South's armies had to defeated on the battlefield, and he finally found General Grant willing to do the job.

"Predictions in July of 1863 of the Confederacy's imminent collapse turned out to be premature.  More twists and turns marked the road to the end of the war.  This only underscores the point about the importance of contingency.  To understand why the South lost, in the end, we must turn from large generalizations that imply inevitability and study instead the contingency that hung over each military campaign, each battle, each election, each decision during the war. When we comprehend what happened in these events, how it happened, why it happened, and what its consequences were, then we will be on our way toward answering the question: Why did the Confederacy lose the war?"
-James McPherson, p. 42

The generalship of Grant, Lee, and Sherman mattered greatly as to the outcome and longevity of the war.
-Gary Gallagher, p. 108

"Blacks were at the very heart of the Civil War.  Almost most Southerners seceded and went to war first to preserve their 'rights' and then to protect their homes, the issue of slavery was alw138-ays central.  Secessionists sought protection of individual and state rights from federal interference, specifically, the right to own property (read slaves) and take that property anywhere without fear of loss or seizure; the right to retrieve stolen or runaway property anywhere; and the right to live peaceably, without the attempts of outsiders to subvert the existing state or order, an order with slavery as its cornerstone.  The ferocious aspersions that the Rebels cast toward "Black" Republicans and  abolitionists suggested the central role of slavery.  In the minds of most Confederate soldiers, those Northerners were the arch-villians, the group that provoked this wholly unnecessary crisis and shattered the greatest government in the world through its anti-slavery activities."
-Joseph T. Glatthaar, p. 138-39

Blacks helped make the difference between victory and stalemate or defeat.
-Joseph T. Glatthaar, p. 161

"Shortly after Appomattox, Major Martin Delany told a black crowd: 'Do you know that if it was not for the black men this war would never have been brought to a close with success to the Union , and the liberty of your race if it had not been for the Negro.'  At the time it sounded audacious, even militant; now it sounds plausible."
-Joseph T. Glatthaar, p. 162