Undoomed Warrior: The Strange Case of Robert Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign

Robert E. Lee realized in September 1862 the South could not win the war. He recommended that President Jefferson Davis send a peace proposal to the North. Davis refused. In May 1863 Lee again proposed to proclaim peace, taking his army into the North for the 4th of July at the place Continental Congress had forged the first American constitution in 1777. The accidental battle at Gettysburg interfered with Lee's "wisest, grandest, most imposing" plan. The South went down to defeat. John Ell...