lol wow your arrogance is astounding, and my guess is that that documentary is the only thing you've ever watched or read about the war. burns does a great job but no offense, he romanticizes quite a bit and specifically brings in people like shelby foote who are essentially professional romanticizers, even if they are still quality historians. burns mentions a lot of facts about the war that are relevant to the point that i'm making, but he's not really a military guy and he doesn't really explain how fucked the south was from day 1. honestly part of that is because if he did, he wouldn't have much of a documentary, would he?

war isn't just about winning battles kiddo, it's about logistics and resources. a huge part of WW2 was simply securing and supplying things like oil, gas, food, munitions, etc. the civil war was no different, though the tech was obviously not as advanced. if you take some time to read some actual books on the war, you'll understand that the 'southern strategy' was essentially to fight a war of attrition until the north gave up or foreign aid came. neither of these outcomes was ever very likely, but the south didn't really have a choice if it wanted to maintain significant economic and political power since its economy really did rely on slavery. so they ended up starting a war they knew they couldn't win but that they couldn't get out of if they wanted to maintain their lives as they knew them (this applies to the rich and powerful btw, most free southerners were poor as fuck and their lives probably wouldn't have changed much either way). it was the definition of a lost cause.

I'm no rebel, but the Army of Northern Virginia

don't buy the romanticization kiddo, they were racists who wanted to keep human beings enslaved and were willing to kill and die over it. nothing more.