Yeah, that's what happens when you whittle your army down by fighting senseless battles and are forced to react instead of manuevering to your advantage. Lee owns this, just like he owned Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. In Overland he finally had to face a superior General who was unimpressed with his reputation and was not going to retreat.

@@Zzyzx-- Just as Grant owned Cold Harbor, right? Not superior in my opinion, an equal perhaps. Grant was no genius, he simply knew it was a numbers game and could sacrifice as many men as needed to eventually win by attrition. Pretty obvious reasoning when you think about it, the fact that all of the Union Generals before him couldn't figure that out tells you a lot about them.

@@craigcolandro2781 Grant made plenty of mistakes during his military career, Cold Harbor and the Crater being two of them in 1864. They were two more tragic mistakes in a tragic war but neither jeopardized the existence of the Union. Lee fought battles resulting in casualties the South couldn't possibly sustain. His mistakes resulted in final Confederate defeat and he himself saw it coming. There's a big difference between having the numbers and using the numbers to win - witness McClellan at Antietam who had double the troops and better supplies than Lee and barely managed a tactical draw. If military victory is nothing but a numbers game, shouldn't Davis and Lee have known this and planned the South's campaigns accordingly? They both knew the North could make good it's losses and the South couldn't. The South could definitely have won independence from the Union despite the North's advantages in numbers but they had to stay reasonably intact and in existence to do so. But that wasn't Lee's mentality. Longstreet and Lee famously clashed at Gettysburg over offensive versus defensive fighting. The Confederate losses of 1862-63 led to Lee facing a larger, stronger Union army in 1864 while, at the same time, Sherman abandoned his supply line and cut the heart out of Georgia. Things could have worked out very differently for the South if in '64 they still had most of the troops Lee squandered in '62-63. No, Grant and Lee are not equals. Grant lost some tactical battles but always won the strategic victories. Lee won several tactical battles, some brilliantly, but never won a truly strategic victory, one that would lead to Southern independance. Grant was clearly the superior General and for my money, the greatest General of the Civil War.

What do you mean?

That makes zero sense. Dead union soldiers loses Lincoln support, not increases it.

Wow, I guess it would have worked out much better for his legacy if Grant had just stayed north of the Rapidan and avoided all these controversies about illegal campaign contributions for Lincoln

More love for Sarah!

How? By saying, "Thank you, Sarah?" 😉

Just my impression. You may have a different impression!