Sears referred to the choice between Virginia and Mississippi as a "Hobson's Choice". Meaning you think you have an option - but you really don't. If the South helped the west too much, then Virginia would have to be abandoned (in Lee's mind). The Confederacy simply didn't have the manpower or means to fight a prolonged war on multiple fronts with any expectation of success. Lee's gambit in 1863 was as much a realization of the South's desperation as anything else.

Even if the South had another victory or two in the west it wouldn't have likely altered the outcome of the war. Chickamauga was a totally pyrrhic victory. Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Second Manassas were others. Lee always sought a climactic battle where he could defeat the Union army in a Cannae style and bring about an end to the war in a matter of days.

Yes, that was a fatal flaw. There were a few occasions where the CSA came close to doing that but that thinking also led to the result at Gettysburg. My view is that Longstreet's strategic thinking was more likely to bring victory.

A friend of mine and I used to play Victory Games "The Civil War" every year on Black Friday, while the wives went shopping we played all day. I guess we played the game 20 times over the years, the rebs only won a few times and it was always when the score was checked in 1864 and the Union was not far enough ahead for Lincoln to win re-election.

Fascinating topic, gentlemen - I've enjoyed reading the dialogue so far.

My view is that few, if any, Union generals besides Grant could have taken Vicksburg. Like all of us, I love the John Tiller games, but one thing the game engine (understandably) struggles to replicate is the logistical challenges faced by Civil War commanders, which were almost insuperable at Vicksburg. I also think there were plenty of occasions in the Vicksburg campaign up to and including Champion Hill, when another 10,000 men on the Confederate side would have made all the difference. You could argue that if say, Pickett's Division had been reinforced by Corse and Jenkins to its original five brigade strength, then Pickett's Charge would have been different, but I don't agree. Leaving aside the VI Corps which represented the AOP ace in the hole at Gettysburg, and would surely have been thrown in to check a stronger or more successful Pickett, the ANV would still have had a defeated AOP with a very powerful cavalry arm sitting in a prime position to cut Confederate supply lines through the Shenandoah Valley.

I think the search for a 'Confederate Cannae' shows the extent to which warfare is framed and limited by cultural expectations. It's easy to say now that the Confederacy's best chance was to dig in, literally and metaphorically, and attempt to wear down the North's resolve. Under this model, Kentucky's neutrality is not violated and once the Peninsula campaign was defeated, Lee sits on the Rappahannock & does not fight, so far as possible, without the benefit of entrenchments.

However, Lee and his contemporaries simply did not think like this. They clearly believed that the Confederacy needed to not only destroy a Northern army, but to be seen at home and abroad, to do so. Of course, they ignored the fact that the Confederacy chose to fight on after Fort Donelson & Vicksburg... and the fact that so too did the Romans, after Cannae, with the complete destruction of the Carthaginian empire the end result.

I purchased a copy of that game over a year ago to play with a boardgaming regular (although we postponed games due to illness and coronavirus but should resume again this year). We intend to use alternate rules (see http://www.wargameacademy.org/ARCHIVES/CVW/CVW-Rulebook-WGA-3rd-110427.pdf when we play it (although others are on our list ahead of it). Another Victory Games' titles we enjoy is Across 5 Aprils (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4047/across-5-aprils) which is also designed by Eric Lee Smith.