Guerilla wars require the support of the local populace so they can only work within the home territory of the guerilla force. There would have been no point to burning towns and fields of Southerners.
Raiding north of the Mason Dixon would just have amounted to small incursions through a hostile populace by quickly moving forces with little to no logistical support. Local townsfolk would have easily spotted the raiding parties and reported them to the Federal army who could have tracked their movement by telegraph and chased them down with equally mobile cavalry in superior numbers.
Guerilla wars are what you do when you don't have the strength to defeat the enemy in open battle. The Confederate States of America believed, rightly, that they did have the strength to defeat Northern forces in set battles. They just didn't have the production to maintain a protracted war, the latter is of course a real Capt. Obvious observation. By the time Southern leadership would have concluded that a guerilla style war was the only means of resistance left to them the South was weary of warfare. The womenfolk would not have been the only folks who wouldn't support a guerilla force when threatened with the sort of harsh reprisals every invading army has used (sooner or later in one way or another) against a populace where the enemy looks like everyone else.
I get a lot of what your saying but the South and the outlaws after the war such as the James gang and others along with decades of deep seated hate for the North after to me it seems would have supported 3G warfare aka guerrilla warfare. That both sides of the war looked the same other than accent seems like it would have further lent itself to guerrilla warfare. Would have a KKK type war against the North from the very start while the South was at full strength rather than after the South had been defeated been more effective?
