This isn't worth the cutting and pasting I would do in some not-worth-the-effort reply to show you where I got my numbers. I am glad you enjoyed the book.
I guess you win the argument by a massive amount of whatever against the wall.
Lagmeister: "Your source is slanted and the title screams it"
But the numbers are the same as you can find anywhere else, here, for example.
Lagmeister: "...(Grant went after Lee with 400 thousand armed men you say???? what??? - he could have instantly surrounded Lee and choked every move!!)"
Sorry you misunderstood, those were cumulative totals:
Over the course of the war, Lee commanded a cumulative total of about 600,000 troops -- not all at once, but over the entire war.
Of those about 120,000 were killed or wounded = 20%, slightly higher than other major Confederate commanders.
Grant's numbers for the entire war are: 620,000 total commanded of whom 94,000 were killed or wounded = 15%.
Lee's total of 120,000 killed/wounded is 26,000 more than Grant or 29%.
Of course Grant's numbers include his western campaigns where he proved to be brilliant against less capable opponents.
So if you look just at Grant vs. Lee, Grant commanded a cumulative total of 400,000 in the east of whom 71,000 were killed or wounded = 17.6%.
That is still lower than Lee's 20% overall.
And if you look at Lee vs. Hooker, McClellan & Pope, then Lee's winning battles averaged 22% killed/wounded while their losing battles averaged 15%.
It only proves that winning can cost more lives, lives Lee was willing to lose, until he ran out of them.
At Gettysburg all told, Lee lost 49% of his force while Mead lost 23% of his.
And Lee lost, so who was the "butcher" then?
Lagmeister: "I guess you win the argument by a massive amount of whatever against the wall."
In this case the "whatever" is simply recognized Civil War data presented comparatively.
But you are absolutely correct that in the Overland campaign Grant on offense lost 60% more soldiers than Lee on defense.
More losses on offense were entirely normal for the time -- Grant lost 53,000 Lee lost 33,000.
But Lee on offense also lost 33,000 total (49%) in his Gettysburg campaign compared to Mead on defense losing only 24,000 = 24%.
And yet the myth persists that Grant was a "butcher" and Lee "brilliant".
Why?
Ah, so you've met BroJoeK? Yup, that pretty much sums up his methodology.
If you want a laugh, ask him about "Pearl Harbor", and how it was exactly like Ft. Sumter. :)