[RichardB]

As a former enlisted man, Lee's willingness to waste the lives of thousands more southern men in futile gestures makes me cringe. But I am not fit to judge a 19th Century aristocrat.

It is ironic that when Lee surrendered, the very strong President of the United States on March 4, 1865 had already announced his postwar policy:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.“

Lincoln was murdered soon after the end of the war and weaker men were left to direct the reconstruction. I suspect the post war period would have been much better for the confederacy if Lincoln remained president.