What was the greatest chance for a Confederate victory?

Read Dixie Victorious.

The British government more than likely did not care about the slavery part, but the British people would have. They would not be able to justify to their people why they were helping a nation which by this point Lincoln made sure it seemed was fighting strictly for keeping slavery. Also, I believe the Russians were prepared to declare war on the British if they had decided to help the South. This couldd have been world war 1 =P.

Well had it been before lincoln emasculation like say the Maryland campaign then it would not be viewed by the British about slavery and they would be more willing to aid the south, The French might also help the south in order to further weaken the USA as well.

Interesting I wouldn't expect the Russians to so willing jump into the war to fight the british, although they would be pretty upset because they couldn't sell the Alaska territory anymore unless say Canada bought it.

Well my point was that the best chance the confederates had to get the British to join was before the emancipation.

I think that if the army of the Potomac was shattered at Gettysburg the Union would have been forced to surrender due to popular demand of its citizens. I also think that it is the most realistic because neither France nor England wanted to enter the civil war.

The Union would have not surrendered. No matter what the population wanted, Lincoln was gonna continue the war. Now if they had lost at Gettysburg, and Lee had pushed on to Washington and possibly sieged it, then maybe we could start talking about a Union surrender. To be honest though, Lee really did not have much of a chance at winning at Gettysburg after the first day.

No offense, but you are incorrect. The South took more casualties at Gettysburg, Chattonooga, Vicksburg, Fort Donelson, Five Forks, and Franklin, to name a few.
Also, the surest victory for the Rebels would be if Early had taken Washington. There's no doubt if he had, that The Rebels would have gotten European intervention. The rest are all probablies. Even Gettysburg is a probably. This would have been a sure thing.

There are few options that make it more likely for the Confederacy to win, such as Joe Johnston not being replaced with Bragg, thus Atlanta not falling, therefore making Lincoln not elected and George McClellan becoming Prez and ending war with peace treaty. Or, the Army of the CUmberland is destroyed at Chickamauga, thereby allowing the Confederates to take Chattanooga and delaying Grant and Sherman, maybe some other consequences. Of course the UK joining, but everyones talked about that. Maybe Jubal Early taking Washington, but I just don't see how he could have done it. I will say that winning Gettysburg or Antietam would not have effected the war as much as some would believe, as in Antietam, Lee had a little bit over 20,000 troops, and the Union army had over 50,000, and with Gettysburg, Lee's supply lines and lines of reinforcement would still have been cut, since through Union controlled territory.

After a series of humiliating defeats the union army was prepared to give up by the time of Gettysburg. If the union had been defeated at Gettysburg the union army would have started falling apart. The American public would have lost the will to fight on and Linocoln would have lost the election. The Confederates would not have been able to mount a siege on Washington D.C. though with the public's will to fight on gone Abraham Lincoln would have been forced to let the Confederates in to Washington and would have been forced to surrender.

About the part with Early taking Washington: They got a lot closer than you would think. They got, I believe, into the city itself before reinforcements from the 6th Corps arrived. So it was very possible.

Nope. Lee would be cut off from supplies because DC was on his line of supply. He would keep pillaging the countryside, but he really couldn't do much. A whole new army would be massed up, and would be thrown at him because of the North's superior manpower advantage.

It may have been possible, except at the exact same time Early was probing the forts around Washington, two corps of Union soldiers from Petersburg were marching straight down to take care of him and his troops. That, and there were over 10,000 soldiers in the forts ringing around DC that would easily repulse Early if he got even close.

Not at this time, there weren't. All the garrison troops had been pulled out before hand, because (ironically) Grant thought they weren't needed. But, it was possible, that's the point.
Edit: Most of, not all of, the garrison troops were gone.

Actually, if my memory serves, when Early was spotted a few miles from the cities, about ten or so thousand clerks were given guns and were told to man the forts. But Grant had actually dispatched two corps, the VI and XIX Corps which arrived right as Early reached the outskirts of Fort Stevens, one of the forts around Washington.

Oh, I thought you meant the Garrison troops that had been in the Washington Defenses for 4 years. Well, I think it's fair to say that the clerks weren't going to be able to hold Early's troops off for long. Plus, Early delayed before he attacked, because he was unsure of the number of Union troops in the Forts. They were also delayed by the looting of Montgomery Blair's Mansion, which had contained several barrels of whiskey, which many of the Rebel troops promptly got drunk on, which, as you can imagine, delayed their march the next morning.

Fuck Robert E. Lee! He was the reason they lost. If I was President of the South I would want "Stonewall" Jackson in command. Lee won battles yes, but at high cost. Only one of his five frontal attacks he ordered at the Seven Days battles succeeded. He lost 20,000 men in a week which was 1/4 of his entire army. Jackson knew that such loses would mean southern defeat. He grasped that frontal attacks were guaranteed to fail (in fact, six out of every seven attacks during the whole Civil War DID fail). Immediately after the battle, Jackson came up with a new defensive strategy that exploited tremendous defensive power from rifles and canister shot. Jackson believed with his troops occupying a strong defensive position, he could stop any Union attack. Then his forces would swing around a force the Union troops against some impassible terrain like a river or mountain which would force them to surrender. Using these new tactics, Jackson proposed strategy was to invade the north. His aim was to avoid Union strength and strike at their weakness. Lincoln left nothing to defend the North's fragile interior and left his forces to invade the South and keep a strong garrison at DC. Jackson saw this potentially fatal flaw in the North's strategy and he wanted to exploit it early (not like until 1863). After the Battle of First Bull Run, Jackson pleaded with Jefferson Davis and Lee to attack because George McClellan's Army of the Potomac needed to replenish and get reinforcements. Jackson was confident he could take DC and defeat any force McClellan threw at him, but Lee and Davis refused. Then when McClellan was ready in Spring 1862 he order his force of 100,000 men to the Virginia Peninsula between the York ad James Rivers. The road to DC was open! Jackson requested an invasion into DC, but Lee refused saying he needed him to defend Richmond, but what would happen if Lincoln was captured in DC? For the rest of Jackson's life he would try convince Lee and Davis to invade the North, but they refused until May 1863, but on May 2 Jackson was killed.

I would blame Davis more than Lee, and his frontal attacks in the Seven Days actually saved the Confederacy. He pushed McClellan all the way back to the Peninsula. Lee wasn't even in a high command post until when Joe Johnston was injured. Jackson and Lee together were great, and besides, if you attacked DC and left Richmond open, you are losing more. Richmond had the most factories in the South, and DC was protected by a large garrison. And any force that invaded the North would have their supply lines cut. So don't blame Lee. He practically almost won the war.

The difference between the South and the North was that the North could afford tens of thousands of losses such as at Fredricksburg and Cold Harbor while the South could not have. In retrospect the Confederates lost when they declared war no matter how great their victories they did not have the resources of manpower to win and eventually the northern industry and manpower would have overwhelmed them. Also a great general in the east does not mean there would be victory in the west. Instead of making Stonewall Jackson head of The Army of Northern Virginia I would have deployed him out west to rally support in the border states and to protect the Mississippi River.

That is why I feel that if Britain entered the war, then the South could probably have won.

Of Course. The South almost beat the North on their own. Though, I don't know if it would be a sure thing.

If Lincoln wasn't reelected, then the South's soveirgnty was preserved. So it more or less was Davis' fault since he removed Johnston from command of the army defending Atlanta, and replacing him with Bragg. Even though the corps commanders of said army even made a petition for the return of Joe Johnston.