If the Confederate Army had invaded the Union more than in July 1863,

[exboyfil]

51. Lee was a military general

What you and the previous post are proposing is nothing short of treason. Lee would never throw the game (especially with lives at stake). No general should ever do that. Davis and the Confederate Congress would have had to make the decision to surrender at that time. Johnston surrended because obviously no functioning government remained after the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army (which he had to surrender or see it destroyed).

Lee is overrated especially given Gettysburg, but he was an extraordinary general. He was not a politician. His cause and tactics were far less barbaric than Shermans (contrast the behavior of his troops in the north versus that of Sherman). Sherman had to do what he did to break the back of the South but it was cruel and unpleasant (kind of like the 200 years that people were owned and not allowed freedom in the colonies and the U.S.). The South got what they deserved, and, in my mind, especially South Carolina who Sherman took a special interest in.