Short answer: no, the Confederacy never got very close to gaining its independence. The nearest it came to having a real, visible path to separation and autonomy came during the lead-up to the 1864 presidential election, yet as elaborated below, even this ended up being something of a blowout for Lincoln and the Union. To illustrate, perhaps we should break this into three categories to examine the Confederacy’s chances: political, military, and diplomatic. At minimum, the Confederacy would need to achieve success in one of these categories to have any real shot at independence. Realistically, to achieve the same level of independence as the United States following the American Revolution, they’d need all three.

Military – Although the Confederate armies achieved several shocking and resounding victories throughout the course of the war, none of them were total victories (that saw the destruction or capture of an entire Union army group), and none damaged the north to the extent that they considered suing for peace. Lee was easily the most successful of the Confederacy’s generals, yet even he never had the logistic ability to capitalize on his most decisive victories. For example, Fredericksburg was one of his most lopsided battlefield triumphs, yet he never even attempted to pursue the Union army after their defeat. Well covered by artillery, and with much of their infantry still available to fight, Lee never considered pursuing them into town and against the Rappahannock River. To be fair, it wouldn’t have been a wise move, yet to achieve total victory and destroy Burnside’s army, this is what he would have needed to do. Similarly, although Chancellorsville was a rout, it did not lead to the destruction or capitulation of Hooker’s army. Even Pope was able to get many of his men out of 2nd Manassas (granted, most ran for it). In the West, even the most resounding Confederate victory, at Chickamauga, was not exploited properly, and a good portion of Rosecrans’ army lived to fight another day. Lastly, Lincoln was always keenly aware of how important Washington City (as it was known then) was to the diplomatic and political underpinning of the Union, and fortified it appropriately. Thus, the Confederates never came all that close to landing the crippling military blow that might have brought the Union to its knees.

Political – Although the Confederate military did better than anyone could have imagined, and played into the success this political category achieved, the domestic political maneuvering the Confederates and anti-war Copperheads engaged in actually brought the Confederacy as close as it ever came to real independence. Lincoln famously had to battle with the warring factions within his own party (radical Republicans versus the Blair Republicans), which was all aside from the grief he got from the anti-abolition Democrats. Military reverses at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville painted a bleak picture for Lincoln in the early part of 1863; Democrats thought they had a real chance of toppling Lincoln in the 1864 election the next year. Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg and Grant’s capture of Vicksburg staunched that anti-Lincoln momentum for a time, yet Grant’s heavy losses against Lee during the summer of 1864 (and Sherman’s inability to capture Atlanta prior to July 1864) put a little iron back in the Democrats’ glove. Lincoln’s opponent in the election of 1864 was George McClellan, former commander of the Union’s Army of the Potomac, and a man running on a peace platform. Had Sherman been beaten in Georgia that summer along with a routing of Grant’s army in Virginia, McClellan MIGHT have had a chance at winning the election. (This veers into history-what-if territory, however) As it played out, however, Lincoln had the two best commanders in charge he could have hoped for, and there was never really a chance that either would have crumbled against a numerically inferior foe with poor logistics networks. In the presidential election of 1864, Lincoln won 212 electoral votes to McClellan’s 21. It was a blowout. Thus, politically, although the Confederacy had a shot, when it came down to the electoral college math, they didn’t come close. Jefferson Davis and the Confederates hoped a war of attrition would weaken the Union’s will to fight, and a political mandate from the people would force Lincoln to sue for peace, yet as the presidential election of 1864 proved, this was not to be.

Diplomatically – This was an even bigger blowout, though not in a quantifiable way that is as easy to examine as, say, electoral college votes. The envoys the Confederacy sent to England and France in an attempt to gain foreign recognition never got formal audiences with the Crowns they desired, and although the British diplomat, George Mason, did elicit some sympathy from England’s P.M., he was never heard from in an official capacity. Slidell in France did even worse, and the end result was that neither were able to convince England or France to side with the Confederacy. They were hampered by the fact that the Confederate army never achieved a total victory (like the destruction of an entire army, the capture of Washington, or Lincoln himself) that would have swung international opinion. In sum, diplomatic efforts never bore any fruit, and without international recognition, even with a domestic political victory or a military rout, independence wouldn’t have meant much. Of course, one could argue that diplomatic recognition might have come IF the military had achieved some sort of total victory or shocking triumph, but again, this brings us into history-what-if territory.

[Sources: Bruce Catton, ‘Mr. Lincoln’s Army’ & ‘A Stillness at Appomattox’; James McPherson, ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’; Doris Kearns Goodwin, ‘Team of Rivals’]