Friend Joe:
I firmly state that I do not wish to imply that CSA leadership was capable or intended to make warfare on the populace as the USA did. On this matter there is no disagreement between us.
The point I wished to drive home was that Lee and Jackson were professional soldiers capable of great ingenuity but also hardened to the realities of the war. The "Lost Cause" mythology is not my invention. Recent scholars have applied that to the "Virginians" who deified Lee and Jackson after the war. principal among them were Pendleton and Early. Their undermining of the achievements of non-Virginians (Longstreet, in particular) is well documented. Lee and Jackson were humans with all the faults and foibles of humans. They were professional soldiers who were most alive in the thick of the battle. And battle means bloodletting. John