There was no chance whatsoever that either the election of Fremont, Lincoln, or any other hypothetical Republican President in the 1850s or 1860s would be tolerated by the majority of the South. Even if you successfully stop Tennessee or North Carolina from secession, it's an absolute certainty that South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia still will, and it's hard to imagine Texas or Florida not dong so either.
I'm not sure about a "great man" theory of history, but as long as the Union keeps Virginia in any of these scenarios, Grant, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson all fighting together on the same team means the "war" against the severely underdeveloped Gulf Coast state would be more like suppressing some riots vs. the multi-year horror it was.