However, he had the numbers in the centre. Longstreet took in ca. 15,000 against somewhere in the region of 5,000. We have to look elsewhere for the reasons the attack failed, and it certainly could have succeeded under slightly different circumstances.
Provided an asteroid of sufficiently small size wiped out Meade's army and killed all its officers and men, is what I presume you mean. Lee was drawn into a meeting engagement and attacked without any real knowledge of the number of men he faced or with the terrain. His whole campaign was based on Victory Disease and this is why the battle focuses on how Lee lost as opposed to how Meade won. Sure, the margin was narrow but then so was the Battle of Kursk.
The attempt to portray it as a doomed endeavour is overcompensation against the "Lee as God of War" attitude some Americans have.
No, it's based from a sober, realistic military analysis. On the first day Lee did drive back a few Union forces which drew him into a general engagement which it surprising him argues whether or not Lee was sane during the start of and progression of the battle. He attacked the Union left and right at separate times during the second day, was bloodily repulsed both times and was primarily chewing up his army, leaving his only large-scale forces left which in his infinite wisdom he threw into a frontal assault over open terrain and into a great deal of artillery firepower. Artillery decided only a few battles in the war and that was an arm favoring the Union, never the Confederacy.
I've never understood this notion of Lee being obsessed by the attack. I've main heard it from Bonekemper and those parrotting him. I just doesn't ring true.
No doubt why Sherman was bad for overestimating enemy numbers but McClellan was not. Yet if McClellan faced 600,000 Confederates then surely Sherman must have faced 200,000,000, right? This is hyperbole, it's a figure of speech. Lee was obsessed with the attack because on the first day he gave full approval to the general engagement he had explicitly ordered against. On the second day he tried a flanking attack on the right and a direct attack on the left, both of which were against forces he had no idea of the number of, against terrain that favored the defender and not the attacker, with him having his smallest margin of numerical inferiority in the entire war. On the third day, his attacks having failed twice he decides on insanity and repeats a third time what failed to work the previous two.
If that's not favoring the attack I'd shudder to see what you think *is*. Perhaps Hood in Tennessee? Or was that not favoring attacks either?
? This is a strawman. No-one is arguing brilliance.
Plenty of people do argue Lee handled all his battles brilliantly, even Antietam and Gettysburg which are signs that he was a bit more Luigi Cadorna than he was Napoleon. You also I might note say that Lee simultaneously had other options but that the charge was his only option. Which position do you actually hold or is this an instance of doublethink to ensure that Lee is always the heroic general and the Army of the Potomac composed of inferior apes he was prevented from overrunning by sheer numbers?