re: OTD in 1865, Gen. Lee gave his sword to Gen. Grant

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Lee, Jackson, Beauregard, Forrest, Stuart, Longstreet, A.P. Hill, Bragg, etc.

All better than any Northern commander

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Stonewall individually may have been better than most, but to say Lee was the best is just you being dishonest with yourself.

Lee lost the war. Period.

An excerpt from an article written by Edward H. Bonekemper whose written several books on the Civil War.

Why Grant Won and Lee Lost

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Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign, which gave the Union control of the entire Mississippi Valley, was greatly assisted by Lee. In early May 1863, Lee had repelled a Union offensive commanded by Hooker at Chancellorsville, but Rebel frontal assaults on the final days of that battle (often ignored by historians) cost Lee many casualties. Riding the crest of his influence following Chancellorsville, Lee convinced Jefferson Davis to allow him to keep Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s First Corps with him in the East for what became his Gettysburg Campaign. Longstreet had been seeking new opportunities in other theaters, but Lee argued that Longstreet’s corps was needed for an offensive in the East and that the semi-tropical Mississippi climate would defeat the Vicksburg Campaign of Grant, who was sweeping through Mississippi at that very moment.

Instead of sending the First Corps to oppose Grant in Mississippi or even to aid the outnumbered General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee, Lee retained that corps for his own offensive campaign in the East. Early in June 1863, while Grant besieged Vicksburg, Lee began troop movements toward Pennsylvania. In the ensuing Gettysburg Campaign, Lee committed a series of costly errors, and his army suffered 28,000 casualties before retreating back to Virginia once again. By the close of the Gettysburg Campaign, Lee’s cumulative casualties had reached more than 80,000 while he had imposed about 75,000 on his Union opponents, who could afford the losses much more than he. Lee’s army thereafter would remain relatively inactive until it faced Grant in 1864.

With Lee’s assistance in ensuring that his Mississippi Valley foes received no help from the East, Grant completed his Vicksburg Campaign with little difficulty. As he had done at Fort Donelson, Grant maneuvered so that he would capture a Confederate army as well as a critical place. Those two armies who surrendered to Grant were the only Civil War armies that surrendered to their opponents before Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Their surrenders demonstrate Grant’s focus on going after enemy armies as well as places – a focus shared by Lincoln and critical to Union victory. After Vicksburg, Grant’s cumulative casualties were about 31,000 while he had imposed over 77,000 on his foes. So Grant had gained control over a wide swath of the western Confederacy and made Confederate armies pay the price for opposing him, while Lee had decimated his own army in a series of strategic and tactical offensives that were unnecessary to the stalemate the Confederacy needed.

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The most important sentence ever spoken about Lee.

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while Lee had decimated his own army in a series of strategic and tactical offensives that were unnecessary to the stalemate the Confederacy needed.

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