Thank-you for the suggestion. I tend to look at Gettysburg as the culmination of 2 years of personalities finally coming to the fore. Lee clearly was a bit delusional about the capabilities of his army and suffered from "don't confuse me with the facts, I'm in charge here" attitude with some of his more competent juniors. On the other hand, the Union army had just finally managed to get leadership that understood the principal of "defensive victory", not without many stops and starts and changes of direction on the way. I guess Newt Gingrich and I have a similar view view of Gettysburg in that it fascinates me simply because of the number of really minor events, any one of which that could have dramatically changed the outcome.

These evolutions of leadership are not unusual nor or the apparent petty personality clashes that get born out on the battlefield, gracious, think of the first 2 years of WWII for the allies, or the Patton / Montgomery feud.

I'll look up the Chancellorsville book. Thanks.

John