"Other historians began piling on.
Lee, they wrote, mishandled overall strategy of the war. Outmanned, Lee should have taken a more defensive posture, drawing the North into difficult Southern terrain. Instead, he was constantly on the offensive, which resulted in heavy casualties and broken spirits."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...n-robert-e-lee-he-wasnt-very-good-at-his-job/
I have seen this criticism time and time again. I tried to answer it some years ago in soc.history.what-if:
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One thing that is often forgotten in the argument that the CSA should have adopted a more defensive posture: Confederate public opinion was overwhelmingly critical of the Confederate government and military for being *too* defensive. There is a good discussion of this in Chapter 3 "Military Strategy") of Gary W. Gallagher's *The Confederate War* (Harvard UP 1997). As Gallagher notes, even Lee at times was criticized for perceived timidity--and you can imagine the public's opinion of Joseph E. Johnston and what one young officer called his "doctrine of evacuation on every occasion."
Richmond diarist J. B. Jones commented in June 1861 that the Confederate government would start out with a defensive strategy but acknowledged that this would be unpopular "for a vast majority of our people are for 'carrying the war into Africa' without a moment's delay." Edward A. Pollard complained in 1862 that Davis was trying "to conform every movement in the field to the invariable formula of *'the defensive policy.'*" A Macon newspaper no doubt spoke for many in September 1862 when it conveyed news of Lee's movements toward the Potomac River and Maryland: "Having in this war exercised Christian forebearance to its utmost extent, by acting on the defensive, it will now be gratifying to all to see...the war carried upon the soil of those barbarians who have so long been robbing and murdering our quiet and unoffending citizens."
Gallagher also argues (pp. 133-4) that "Results on the battlefield lent credence to widespread sentiment in favor of mounting at least some major offensive operations. Defensive strategy often yielded meager long-term results or exposed territory to invaders (territory usually owned by Confederate voters). Most disastrously for the Confederacy, defensive operations sometimes culminated in sieges...Indeed, every significant siege of the war--all of which closed campaigns wherein the Confederates held the strategic defensive--brought Union victory."
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/PYJv1ovA5vc/SmU1QEJeC9MJ
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Any thoughts?