[lentulusgracchus]

That and to keep Davis from spliting the army up and sending part in a fruitless attempt at saving Vicksburg.

New one on me but entirely credible. Edward Bonekemper asserts (and backs it up) that Lee's home-state devotion made him a ferocious competitor for resources with Bragg's Army of Tennessee (and may have doomed it, he suggests).

[Non-Sequitur]

New one on me but entirely credible.

Not new at all but one that has been documented by historians like Stephen Sears and Noah Andre Trudeau.