Lee General in Chief

MikeyB

Sergeant
Joined
Sep 13, 2018
Did Lee do much as "General in Chief" or was this in name only? Was 99% of his time and efforts focused on commanding ANV to the detriment of grand strategy?

Would the CSA have been better served with someone else focused on this role and the grand strategy component versus having someone else preoccupied w/ managing the Virginia front?

Or did it not matter because Davis was really calling the shots from a grand strategy perspective anyway?

mike
 
This was exactly one of the Confederacy's major problems; the lack of a Commanding General-in-Chief, similar to the role that Grant was assigned to in March 1864. The Confederacy belatedly realized this error in the last months of the war when it put Lee in that position too late to do any good. At least the Union recognized the need for a unified command when there was still time to implement it. In the beginning years of the war both sides suffered from independent military commands that were defined by geographic regions. These fiefdoms were controlled by their commanders who could coordinate and collaborate with other commands or not.
 
The Confederate Congress discussed creating a general-in-chief position in early 1862, but Jefferson Davis was opposed to the idea and the law was not enacted.
 
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