1. He had full knowledge of the difficulty of such an attack having
had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of Burnside's futile attempts
to break Lee's own lines on Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg;
2. Lee was beside himself at the missed opportunity to return the
favor to Meade at Mine Run in December, 1863, when Warren had the wisdom
and the guts to avoid what would most likely have been 'High Tide for the
Union," the slaughter of 20,000 Union soldiers;
3. Even if the Union line had been broken, Hancock's assault
on the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania---with 20,000 men that initially broke
Lee's own lines but receded like a wave when the Confederate internal lines
easily consolidated and drove the Union attackers back---is evidence for the
proposition that frontal assualts--as the men who had to make them knew--were
basically suicidal endeavors in the Eastern Theatre by this time in the war.
Longstreet was well aware of this last fact. He felt it in his gut
just as almost every man who made the assualt did.
I think Lee was mentally, emotionally and physically drained, and was led
in desperation to truly rely on God's will as the final arbiter not only on
the wisdom of his military strategy and tactics, but the righteousness of the
Secessionist Cause itself.
Kelly Richter
UIC History Department