ABSTRACT
It took Davis the better part of a year for Davis to fully appreciate Lee's battlefield talent. But, at the conclusion of the Seven Days Battles, in 1862, Davis gave his full support to Lee, despite his wariness of Lee's willingness to risk all on a single roll of the iron dice of battle. The one glaring exception, as Steve Woodworth points out was when Davis held back substantial troops to guard Richmond and points south, as Lee marched north in 1863. Wadsworth explores how this departure from the norm may have cost Lee the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as the Confederacy's best opportunity to force a negotiated end of the war. This essay also relates how Lee personally managed Davis in ways no other Confederate commander ever attempted – much to their detriment. But the final consequence of placing all of his faith in a commander, whose strategic vision rarely took in any theater of war except Virginia, was that Davis was never able to find a winning commander or formula for victory in the West, which proved the decisive theater of the war.
