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Let's say you're redoing the Civil War and you get to play one of two characters: Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis.
Would it actually be easy to win the war playing as Jefferson Davis?
Obviously, the South would never have been able to conquer the North. The North had immense economic, technological, naval, and manpower advantages. But they didn't need to. They just need to impose enough of a cost on the North that the North would come to a settlement. This doesn't appear that far-fetched. The re-election of Abraham Lincoln was no sure thing in 1864. Had the war not turned decisively in favor of the Union, its possible that McClellan could have won. In the end, he still captured 45% of the votes and won three states (NJ, DE, KY). If McClellan prosecuted the war as President like he did as a General, its likely the South could have held out for a long time. Situations like the starvation of Union prisoners in Andersonville, and the sheer awfulness of the conflict would have likely have proven intolerable without a sure path to victory.
So what could the South have done?
Fabian tactics. They should have simply refused to give battle whenever possible, and harassed Union communications. Johnston did just that as he retreated in the face of Sherman's army. But then he was replaced by the Confederate government because they preferred someone who wanted to fight. Then Sherman took Atlanta.
Lee's incursion into Pennsylvania was a fatal mistake that did more to weaken the Confederate cause than anything. He may have been a good tactician but this strategic blunder is unforgivable.
But the real weak point here is Jefferson Davis. He often involved himself in military decisions and wanted commanders who took an aggressive posture. While appropriate for a stronger force, this is entirely inappropriate for a weaker one. Confederate doctrine should have been preservation of precious manpower, avoiding giving battle, never fighting when not intrenched etc... That last part is also key since the Civil War showed some signs of a proto-WWI type environment.
In any case, in hindsight, the war seems eminently winnable for the South. Which character would you play: Lincoln or Davis?
I studied the American Civil War in graduate school, and the books I read (and my professor) did not think highly of the Fabian thesis. They pointed out that
There are also some who suggest that the South was unable to wage a guerrilla campaign (e.g. in the aftermath of Lee's surrender) because of poor or brittle morale. This is untrue; the South accepted an outrageous percentage of casualties that would probably have folded up other nation-states, including the Union.
Highly recommend Gallagher's Union War and Confederate War on this question.
If I was going to try to win the Civil War for the South as a time-traveler, I would have used the tourniquet in Albert Sidney Johnston's pocket to save his life and do my best to make sure the Union troops were routed at Shiloh on the second day. Johnston was regarded by many as the best commander in the United States going into the war, and American literature over-indexes on the fighting in the East. The truth is that the Western campaign was arguably the most decisive. (Focusing on Gettysburg is arguably a bit of pro-Confederate myopia that glorifies the South's high-water mark in the East while overlooking their relatively poor generalship in the West, although you aren't wrong about the potential electoral consequences.) A victory over Grant there could have removed the North's most effective commander.
Of course, saving Johnston's life might not really matter in the long run – I like it because it's an interesting "what if," a small change of the sorts that spawn alternate-history books. There are lots of other things an effective time traveler could do, such as ensure Grant did not get the early sweep at Forts Henry and Donelson (possibly more important than saving Johnston), pick up Special Order 191 before it was recovered by Union forces, give advice on how to win/not lose at Gettysburg, kick the early trial plans to free slaves to act as soldiers into higher gear, or possibly even persuade South Carolina not to fire the first shot.
I also do think that the South could have used more effective defensive tactics without going purely Fabian. Lee (who had an early war nickname of "the King of Spades") imposed massive costs on the North via effective trenchworks and defensive tactics later in the war. But at the end of the day, particularly in premodern war, "eating the other guy's corn" versus "letting the other guy eat your corn" is a big difference.
The South did eventually wage a successful Fabian/guerilla campaign. The first attempt (the first Klan) was crushed, but the white South ultimately "won" (in the form of Redemption and Jim Crow) by maintaining the capacity for organised political violence while exhausting the Feds' willingness to keep enforcing Reconstruction. The South may not have been able to do that under the leadership of the planter class - the Redeemer leadership was much less aristocratic than the CSA officer corps or the first Klan leadership.
Ignoring "lose the war but win the peace", I agree with @Shrike that Shiloh was the easiest place to win the war for the South, in hindsight. If AS Johnston (or even Beauregard, who seems to have been a perfectly competent general) defeats Grant's and Buell's armies in detail (as it looked like they probably would on the eve of the battle) then they hold Corinth, which gives the Confederacy a working east-west railway line, and even at a purely tactical level delays the Vicksburg campaign by a year (or indefinitely if the political impact of being routed at Shiloh ends Grant's career). Delaying Vicksburg by a year means that the war is indecisive by polling day in 1864 and McClellan beats Lincoln. In the best case, a victorious Johnston supported by sufficiently talented political leadership is able to flip Kentucky and the war west of the Appalachians is over. Is the minimal intervention for a time traveller to flip the American Civil War simply warning Johnston about the strategic importance of the hornet's nest?
Ending reconstruction was not losing the peace for the Union. Their war goal was not racial equality in the south, or even really overturning the south's social system. The war goal was to end the southern planter class's veto power over the republic's politics- which they did quite effectively.
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