"what were the mistakes that allowed this opportunity to slip from their hands"
James my Friend, That would take a book to explain but I will try to give my opinion in a few lines.
I think that the first problem they had was when they tried to leave the Union. The relationship between the North and South was like a bad marrige. The South decided that they did not like the arrangement and that they wanted out of it. I can see that point. But if you want out of your marrige, you do it in a court of law. If you decide to do it at the point of a shotgun the law will come after you. That is what South Carolina tried to do that the law came after them. The other Southern states tried to stop the law from doing it's job and they all brought down the ire of the Law on themselves. They tried to form a new government, but as you know from this board, they were real heavy into what they called "States Rights". The problem with that was that they put their individual rights ahead of the needs of the central body. It is a wonder that Jeff Davis did not have ulcers putting up with the governors and some of the legislators. He needed troops and Vance of NC would not let him have any NC troops when he needed them. The same thing with Brown of Georgia and to an extant with Milton of Florida. In the legislature he had to put up with more of the same. He had to put up with Wigfall (I think that was his name) of Texas. Toombs was another one. Everyone was trying to micro manage things and Davis was the best micromanager of the bunch it seems. At one point, I forget if it was Mississippi or Louisana decided to stop growing cotton and concentrate on food production but when General Lee needed food to feed his troops and requested it from Richmond, the states that had it would not share it and so the troops went hungry. At one point when the south was hurting for arms, the state of Texas demanded that the muskets that they had send to Richmond be returned to them. In the army, there was a lot of politicing among the Generals. I can think off the top of my head of Joe Johnston complaining about his position in the Army being number five, I think behind Lee, and Longstreet and Beauregard and one other. I read it once but I forget. In anycase he was number five and he did not like it. Beauregard was another one. Thot the army did not appreciate what he had done and did not like his position in terms of rank. I could go on and on but I don't want to make this to long other to say that was just a few of the things that cost them the war. It was not lack of troops or quality of troops or even arms. It was leadership. It was political appointing people to leadership roles based on what the various states wanted not based on ability. The south did have some great military men but they came up short in resourses to carry out what they needed to accompolish. In my opinion
FC