I think you should call me a Monday Morning General, not an Armchair General. It's always easier to look back and call the shots.
None the less, Lee knew he was facing superior resources from the beginning. Why he allowed himself to get into slugfests that cost him more than he could afford to lose is a mystery to me.
I understand they went into the war thinking it would be short, and decided by some sort of set-piece Waterloo, but by the end of '62, it should have been obvious to all that there were no knockout punches to be thrown, and the winner would be the last able to field a force.
Grant understood that very well. Sherman even made this call early on when he ranted to anyone who would listen that it would be long, bloody and take far more men than were then in the field. They called him crazy then and tried to cashier him. A year later, they knew he was right.
Good question. Lee certainly knew that. Perhaps the strategy was to cause large losses for the North and hold out until Lincoln lost the 1864 election because of those losses. Came close to working. I've read that until late that year Lincoln thought he might well lose in the fall. Lincoln even made Nevada a state before the election to help boost his chances. Nevada hardly qualified as a state at that point.