PS, I understand you and all of your Southern Sympathizer Friends (In Indiana, we called them the "Damm COPPERHEADS"
) have this emotional attachment and need to canonize Ol' Marse Robert as a SAINT (Patron Saint of Lost Causes, maybe?
) but you REALLY need to step back and look at what you are saying...
Lee COULD have had his "Decisive Battle," in 62 or 63, in TENNESSEE, or GEORGIA, or SOUTH CAROLINA, after a Union force with a LOT less power, AND probably commanded by a Burnside or a McClellan, i.e, NOT a Grant, at the end of a LONG and tenuous supply line stretching through HUNDREDS of miles of "hostile" territory with partisans, and new "Swamp Foxes" and the South'ren "Cavalry Geniuses" making his railways and roads a living hell, that MAY have accomplished all the "wishful thinking" and fantastic twisted logic you ascribe to what MIGHT have happened if Lee had WON at Gettysburg
INSTEAD, he squanders the GREATEST assets of the Confederacy, interior lines, manpower, and wealth, defending an "artificial" capitol 50 miles from his enemy's STRENGTH???? That was only MADE the capitol to "buy" his LOYALTY???? And then goes on the OFFENSIVE????
No, the ONLY thing that would have insured Sainthood for Sir Robert, Earl of Virginny, would be if he would have STUDIED AMERICAN HISTORY....WASHINGTON won our independence by not LOSING the "Big Battle," winning the occasional "skirmish" that would give his army great experience, and keep the enemy off balance, keeping an "Army in Being," letting Lee and Marion conduct "Guerrilla" warfare when the British tried an "expedition" through the SAME areas the Union forces would have to try in 1863, all the while seeking and GETTING foreign recognition and support....
HE grasped NONE of this. SO, Lee was a FAILURE to the Confederacy.
DON'T allow the heartrending picture in your mind's eye of all those great, hardened and honorable Confederate veterans SOBBING when their "Great Leader" rode out on his magnificent white horse (while they were EATING theirs
) to meet Grant at Appomattox, cloud your ACCEPTANCE of the TRUTH, that Lee was the main reason they were THERE, starving, forsaken, out of powder and ball, barefoot, bedraggled, bloody,and BEATEN.