The South had most of the experienced officers, and most capable soldiers, but lacking a strong industrial base, they absolutely needed to win the war quickly. Since they fiddled around too much at the start, it quickly became a hopeless cause. It should have gone only one way after Bull Run, leading to a quick forced peace with Lincoln. Having issued too many general ranks based on favors, they didn't have the battlefield leadership to accomplish that early on. Eventually, of course, they put Lee in charge, but by then it was too late. The North had already gotten their industrial base into action, as well as an unlimited flow if immigrants for immediate induction into the Union Army in exchange for citizenship.
Those are some good points. Maybe the opposite of guerrilla war and a large army running roughshod through DC and the North would have been most effective.
Fighting a conventional war while mostly just trying to hold the South against an aggressor seems to me to have been the worst strategy as it turned into a war of attrition that the South couldn’t win.
What’s hard for me to understand is given a sizable confederate army and there commitment to there way of life. It seems to me that in some way shape or form they should have been able to make life miserable enough on the North that the North would have dropped the slavery issue and lose interest in the war as they had nothing to gain.
