Robert E. Lee spent 17 years in grade as captain and he had the nick "King of Spades" due to his consistent command of ditch digging for ramparts and fortress walls from New York to the Mississippi for many and long years.
As one of the Confederate commanders Lee had success with some hit and run attacks but too many of his campaigns were disasters from the first one into West Virginia through to Gettysburg. It was only after Gettysburg that Lee wuz officially designated General in Chief of the Confederate States Army, more than anything else to brass him up as he continued to be run out of place after place.
CinC Lee met his Waterloo at Petersburg when he was beseiged by a competent and aggressive commander in General Ulysses S. Grant who finally broke Lee by the end of January 1865. The two met personally a few months later at Appomattox Virginia which is where General Grant found himself with two swords -- his own and the sword of General Robert E. Lee.
Your boy Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson of the Confederacy had the career nick of Tom Fool. Stonewall wuz shot by his own men in what came to be called "friendly fire." Pickett's Charge went on without Pickett who knowing better than to obey an order by Lee stayed back in the trees while his men were cut down during the one mile long attack across the open field.
Potus Lincoln and CinC General Winfield Scott had offered Lee command of the Union forces chiefly because it would have been a political coup against the embryonic Confederacy. The Custis-Lee family were known by Washington society and inside its circles of power. Getting Lee out of Virginia and away from the Confederacy was a smart move to attempt.
It was the case regardless that with the power and might of the Union industrial states at his command Lee could have succeeded as Union CinC. It would have been tough for Lee to have been any worse than McClellan or Halleck or Buell who among others were students of French fortifications, hence the "Do Nothing" tag applied to them during the first year of the war when they were in their naturally passive mode of command. These and other generals like 'em wanted to win without destroying Southern property -- not too much of it anyway. (We see the influence up to the present.)
Lincoln finally caught on that he needed attack generals who bite so he quickly advanced brass such as Sherman, Meade, Grant, Sheridan and a slew of other heavy hitters, shakers and fast movers. Admiral David Farragut who tied himself high onto his ship mast to command attacks routed the Confederate navy. Farragut cleared out the Mississippi starting at Mobile then New Orleans and upstream. He and Grant complemented one another by working a series of successes, Vicksburg most notably.
Given that Lee was anyway both timid and less than competent in campaign warfare, one of these generals would very likely have aced out Lee for the top spot. As it was, when Grant went after Lee in 1864 not only did Grant defeat Lee, Grant broke him. Gen. Meade hammered Lee at Gettysburg but Grant ended Lee at Petersburg. When Lee and his army fled Petersburg going west and away from Richmond and the Confederate main forces everyone knew Lee no longer knew up from down nevermind east from west. Game over.
Lee was a frail man. Grant was in contrast a bear of a man.
According to the census of 1860 the population of the United States numbered
31,443,321 persons. Approximately 23,000,000 of them were in the twenty-two
northern states and 9,000,000 in the eleven states that later seceded. Of the
latter total, 3,500,000 were slaves. The size of the opposing armies would reflect
this disparity. At one time or another about 2,100,000 men would serve in the northern
armies, while some 800,000 to 900,000 men would serve the South. Peak strength of
the two forces would be about 1,000,000 and 600,000, respectively.
Putting 2 & 2 together it seems to me that Lincoln could have promoted someone who
in those days we could assume had less insight into these matters than even you &
still would end up victorious being that the odds of 4 to 1 were impossible for the south to overcome.
Union and Confederate Resources, 18611 Union Confederacy
Percent of nation’s population 71% 29%
Percent of nation’s railroads 71% 29%
Percent of nation’s farm acreage 65% 35%
Percent of nation’s manufacturing workers 92% 8%
Percent of nation’s manufacturing output 92% 8%
Number of factories 110,000 18,000
Railroad mileage 22,000 9,000
As North and South lined up for battle, clearly the preponderance of productive
capacity, manpower, and agricultural potential lay on the side of the North. Its
crops were worth more annually than those of the South, In seapower, railroads,
material wealth, and industrial capacity to produce iron and munitions the North
was vastly superior to the South.
