Well after four attempts I finally completed the games as the CSA at the end of 1963. The problem I had was I kept finding out new things from reading these boards and that made me want to restart using the new info I had just read about.
On the fourth attempt I went for it and low and behold smashed the northern army and the war ended December 1963. I found the best tactic was to capture Washington as quickly as possible and just dig in making sure the route back to Richmond was kept free from the federals and keeping my Army supplied then using one army in the West to slowly push up north then move east towards Washington. Also all my cavalry was running rampant in the north west. The north would send nearly all there forces to recapture Washington leaving my armies in the West to do pretty much what they wanted.
All I can say is wow what an amazing game it took me a little while to work out how to play it properly reading the manual twice and these boards were invaluable in the learning preocess.