@BillRM,
Grant was not the tactical commander of the Army of the Potomac; certainly, though, he drove Meade on to that attack. He glosses over Cold Harbor in his memoirs. However, you continue to ignore that evidence of incompetence on the part of a commander is not evidence of brilliance on the part of his enemy. Lee consistently failed to control his general officers--letting Stuart have discretionary orders, given his love of riding off into the blue on adventures, on June 22, 1863 was grossly irresponsible on Lee's part. For a week, he didn't even take notice of Stuart's absence. It didn't bother him until he ran into Meade's army and had no intelligence about that army and its movements.
Lee consistently failed to do basic staff work--this is evident for the Seven Days, this is evident for the campaign leading to Cedar Mountain, this is evident in his decisions at Gettysburg. On the second day, McLaws and Hood did not attack until late afternoon, because Lee's staff had not found a route for the approach march of the First Corps, and Longstreet's staff had to do that before his troops could move into position to attack. Lee consistently squandered the lives of his men. This is evident in his failure to coordinate the attacks of A. P. Hill with Longstreet and D. H. Hill in the Seven Days--at Beaver Dam, Boatswain's Swamp, Gaines' Mills, Savage Station and Malvern Hill. As i've already pointed out, D. H. Hill said of Malvern Hill: "It wasn't war, it was murder." It is evident at Second Manassas when Jackson was pleading for Longstreet to come in, but Longstreet didn't feel like it, and Lee did nothing while A. P. Hill's men were reduced to throwing rocks at the Yankees and launching bayonet attacks because they had no cartridges.
The only thing that made Lee such a reputation was that he faced so many incompetent commanders. If he had been facing Thomas, he'd have been in a prisoner of war camp by early 1863, if not sooner.
