[Tallguy]

Robert E. Lee was a far better commander than Grant, he simply lacked the resources to defeat Grant. However, Lee made one serious blunder, and that was trying to invade the North and then trying it again a year later. Losing at Antietam was a huge blow to the South's morale and then it was followed by the defeat at Gettysburg. Had Lee simply let the North come to him, public opinion would have eventually won the war for the South. This would have basically been the same tactic that Washington had used in the Revolution.

Perhaps. But Lee had the 'initiative' and he didn't want to keep handing it back to the more massive Union armies. Sooner or later they'd improve. Plus, it was generally agreed that the Confederacy had to win a major battle on Union soil in order to get the international recognition of their independence. Time was not on their side (Union Blockade, loss of the Mississipi, etc.).

[Wallace T.]

The North gained great strategic advantage in 1861 when it captured West Virginia, kept Maryland in the Union by force, overcame the pro-Confederate governor of Missouri, and pushed Kentucky into neutrality and later into the Union camp. The very emphasis on states' rights that the Southerners treasured was part of their downfall. By deciding to fight a defensive war, Jefferson Davis and his cabinet permitted the Union to seize the initiative in the Border States. Remember that in the early months of the war, many citizens and politicians in the "lower" North, from central and southern Illinois to New Jersey and New York City, favored a peaceful parting of the Southern states. Even some abolitionists were not opposed to the independence of the South.

Leaders more aggressive than Lee and Jackson were in the beginning of the Civil War would have taken the war into Pennsylvania and Ohio in 1861 and 1862 and forced the Union to relinquish its claims to the Southern states.

[wagglebee]

There was a lot of animosity toward the war in the North, they generally saw the South as backwards and not worth fighting. Plus, they really wanted interruption of cotton and agriculture products to end (we tend to forget that the effects of the blockade were felt on both sides). Lee's attempts to engage the Union in the North made many of the "fence sitters" pro-war.

I really think if Lee had done as Washington did in the Revolution, he would have been successful -- that was to make the enemy come to you, get victories where you could, but mainly avoid humiliating defeat. Had this happened, the Northerners would have eventually tired of the costs both in terms of loss of life and economically, the desire to become trading partners with the South would have been too great.