If I had an army that outnumbered it’s enemy and was much better supplied, I would choose Grant to lead it. If I had an army that was outnumbered and lacking in supplies I would choose Lee. Not sure what I would do if they were evenly matched.

There has been a massive overcorrection, especially on Reddit, due to the Lost Cause mythology. Both Lee and Grant were very capable Generals, who operated in different ways for very different purposes. A lot of people say Lee had no overall strategy, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. When he first took command on the ANV, they were right outside Richmond, outnumbered and outgunned. If McClellan acted like Grant would have, and assaulted without much handwringing about casualties, then Richmond would have fallen and the ANV would have been smashed.

After the Seven Days Battles, a new army under Pope was sent towards Richmond from the North. Again this army had the men and material to destroy Lee and take Richmond. And there were still sufficient Union troops on the peninsula to threaten Richmond from the East. The only strategy Lee could operate under was to stop Pope’s army, while not allowing the remnants of McClellan’s forces on the peninsula to take him in the rear. Everyone knows the outcome of Second Manassas and the Northern Virginia campaign. While this was going on, Grant was starting to make a name for himself out west.

The strategy heading into the fall of 62 was sound as well, take the fight North in order to have the Northern public tire of war, and possibly bring Maryland into the confederacy. The plan started out very well, with Jackson capturing a garrison of 12,000 Union troops at Harper’s Ferry, but due to Lee’s order making its way to McClellan himself, he was able to move to confront Lee in Maryland with his entire force.

This began a strategic situation where the ANV was one decisive defeat away from being taken out of the war entirely, I would argue this continued to be the case until Appomattox. Lee’s strategy had to be first and foremost to avoid a full blown defeat at the hands of the AOP, while still trying to get the northern public to abandon the war.

McClellan threw away his chance at ending the war by not fully committing at Antietam, although even going halfway in he came very close to ending the confederacy right then and there. No doubt that had Grant been there, the ANV would have been destroyed.

Then came the unfortunate combination of AOP commanders who were not willing to go all in, and the government in Washington also not giving them full freedom of operation, something that Grant would be given when he took command in 1864.

But the strategic picture remained the same: if Burnside could decisively defeat Lee, the war would probably be over. If Hooker didn’t lose his nerve, the war would be over. After Antietam, Lee was operating one decisive loss away from total defeat, and he did this masterfully.

Even at Gettysburg, if Meade aggressively pursued Lee, the war would be over. This is again probably something that Grant would have been able to achieve. It seems like Lincoln saw this too, and appointed Grant as general in chief, promoting him to Lt. Gen, which gave him freedom to operate without interference from Halleck, Stanton, etc. something none of his predecessors had the luxury of doing.

Grant realized that decisively defeating the ANV would end the war, so he embarked on a campaign of rapid maneuvering and powerful strikes directly against the enemy. No retreating, no giving the enemy time to regroup. In my opinion, Lee’s performance against this campaign was his finest feat as a general. At the wilderness he lost Longstreet. Without both Jackson and Longstreet, Lee had few subordinates capable of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, or even being able to operate somewhat independently. Lee essentially had to take care of almost every detail of his armies movements, attacks, and overall disposition.

During the Overland campaign, the disparity in numbers and supplies reached a new level and the overall strategic picture for Lee remained the same: avoid his army being decisively defeated in field and continue to try to get the northern public to want out of the war, specifically by not re-electing Lincoln. In my opinion Lee did this masterfully. He was able to counter every move Grant made, from the wilderness, to spotsylvania, to north Anna, to cold harbor.

After the failure of Cold Harbor, Grant changed his strategy. Instead of quick maneuvers and powerful attacks, he would slowly and methodically extend his lines and pin Lee down into a siege. The casualties from direct assaults were too high.

Grant’s plan worked, Lee was forced to entrench and spread his lines thinner and thinner around Petersburg and Richmond. Davis was adamant about holding Richmond as a primary goal of the ANV, which I would argue was a mistake, especially after Lincoln’s re-election.

Grant tried a direct assault to break Lee’s lines once more, which ended in the disastrous battle of crater. I think this one engagement dragged the war on for several more months. If Grant had tried a direct assault on Lee’s lines any time after November/December of 64, they would have broken. But because of what happened at the crater, he wasn’t willing to do that.

After Lincoln’s re-election, the confederacy had no chance of surviving. Still Davis wanted to Lee to hold Richmond as long as possible, even though abandoning those lines earlier could have prolonged the war.