Fire Memes for Traitor Haters

But by making it into a guerilla war, all the military force the Union has can suddenly be concentrated even more disproportionately, as guerilla forces cannot concentrate in one area safely. All the ports of the South would be immediately lost, effectively, giving the Union a near-100% effective blockade. Appalachia, the best land for guerilla warfare in the Confederacy, was overwhelmingly pro-Union. Failing to defend their territory would mean the Union would have full access to all of the traitors' slaves, which is the exact thing they were trying to avoid. And guerilla warfare is significantly more difficult without widespread fast-firing small arms.

Even nomadic Native American nations of the period who were quite experienced in that form of warfare struggled to inflict serious casualties on even small punitive forces of the US Army, and against genocidal settler militias, because guerilla warfare is really a last-resort sort of thing for organized states. It isn't a 'best option' in 99.99% of cases so much as a 'Hail Mary' when everything else has failed. Effectively surrendering the vast majority of your industrial, demographic, financial, and organizational strength to buy time is just not a good trade in most cases unless you think someone is coming to bail you out, WW2 style.