The American Civil War - Why the North Won - ( .......just barely)

In my opinion, the North won this war, by a matter of luck, happenstance, a roll of the dice, and a series of factors that. like a card game, a lucky roll of the dice, or cards, Fate, plated into their hands, and won the day.

      Let me explain, in no particular order: Lincoln had lost nearly every election he had participated in, and stumbled into the presidency. Luck, or providence. I prefer divine guidance.
      Generals for the Union Army ranged from the brilliant to the stupid depending on how much money, power and/or political connections you had. The worst, or one of them, General Dan Sickles who could have thrown Gettysburg fray to the Confederates with a coin toss. Look it up. This morally corrupt Tammany Hall connected cowboy danced his way through bedrooms and bars dropping his DNA everywhere yet, shot the son of Francis Scott Key in the head for "defaming his marriage bed" while away at war, with his Mrs. Sickles. Shot him dead at high noon down the street from the White House. His lawyer was the first to successfully use the insanity defense.
      Robert E Lee blew a successful career as brilliant General by NOT listening to his staff at Gettysburg. He failed to grasp he did NOT walk on water, as did Picket who blew his whole division into the dirt. All of them dead, while he primped, yelled, and waved his sword from behind the lines.
      Arrogance on both sides, demanding their troops fight battles using tactics from the Crimean wars instead of tactics formed around winning strategies and saving lives, rather than needlessly killing their own troops and the enemy. Pyrrhic victories often were the order of the day: The Peach Orchard, Cold Harbour where my family lost cavalry officers from the North, and the massacre at Shiloh.
     After Gettysburg, it seemed as if Lee had lost his mind, all hope of victory had been lost in the collective Southern mind, yet Lee persisted with a 10 month Resistance in Richmond, winning nothing in the end. Union soldiers surrendered their food and water to Southern women and children who were starving and begging from Northern soldiers for aide.
     President Lincoln had waited far too long in replacing General Meade who should have been fired long before Gettysburg and replaced with Grant. General Sherman could have been placed in command who would have torn through the Southern ranks like a hot knife through butter and ended the war in half the time, but the recalcitrant Lincoln moved too slowly.
     Southern writers of note were quoted the North could have won that war "with one hand tied behind their backs." Maybe so.
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