Gettysburg was one of two major fuckups of his in the war (the other one being Malvern Hill). This just proves no one is perfect. There are a lot of "why"s to Gettysburg. One, no more Stonewall. When you had the trinity of Lee, Jackson and Longstreet, they never got beat. Two, he lost a really good friend and it messed with his mind. Three, he thought his men were invicible, and prior to Gettysburg they were. He thought they could do it, and they came really close to succeeding. Remember that Gettysburg was a three day battle, and in the end the Yankees were tore up too much to pursue Lee. Four, Lee was almost 60 and had been in the field, living in a tent, for over a year. He had just gotten over a sickness and having been thrown from his horse and breaking his hands.Invictus wrote:Rock Island Ranger wrote: Im not sure history should count those things against him since accounts of the decisions were at best, mixed. Add in the inability to KNOW many factors on a certain time frame, and you have a decision made an hour ago that is now...a bad idea. He did take risk and he did make decisions. What leader of this magnitude has ever done it all JUST RIGHT. And in a time frame where technology was a set of Bino's.
Agree CSM, it's just unfortunate that all of these possible mistakes seem to be present in the most decisive battle of the war. His last great opportunity was squandered because of multiple bad decisions. At least you could argue that.
Gettysburg was not the end. It wasn't until Grant came in, with his Soviet Union style tactics of killing as many of his men as possible to achieve the ends, that the war turned, but even then it took over a year to do it.