Quote:I think that Lee was smart enough to realize that he couldn't win, and so instead of playing it conservatively he decided he'd take risks and try to force the issue.
Lee had a string of amazing victories over larger and better-equipped opponents: Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. But these were all situations in which he forced, or at least allowed, the union commanders to attack him in highly defensible terrain. He attained a similar result at Antietam where he should have been crushed but instead fought McClellan to a draw. In all of these cases he was ably assisted by the utter incompetence of the union command.
But at Gettysburg he ignored Longstreet's recommendation to disengage and move to a point between Gettysburg and Washington and force Meade to attack him on ground of the Confederate's choosing thus once again replicating the conditions of his three most successful battles. Instead he attacked. I've seen some suggestion that he simply got carried away with the idea that his army could do anything. However, it is true that he well understood that the north had the resources to keep wearing the south down. The comparison to Admiral Yamamoto is not misplaced. He too understood what he was up against.
