Your post intrigues me further. It's difficult to imagine a worse choice for corps command. Does anything in SDL's resume suggest that he should be given this position?

A leader must be judged by his decisions and actions, which certainly includes his selection of senior lieutenants. In retrospect, Richard Taylor, the officer named to succeed Lee in departmental command, seems to me to have been a far better choice. For that matter, the army would have been better served to have retained Johnston and replaced Hood with Taylor.