 If we look at modern counterinsurgencies to this day, it's almost impossible to defeat them if they have the support of the population. The South had almost complete support from its population, and they didn't have to win the war. They had to merely survive, and that was the position that they were in in the summer of 1864. Lincoln sees it, and he says to his cabinet, you think I'm going to be beat? I'm going to be beat badly.