ConfSS,
Read before you react, please. Here is what I said (quoted, below, JUST 4 YOU, ConfSS). Basically, there were some key mistakes made by Lee, but the BIGGEST was ordering Pickett's Charge. Yes, I am aware of the facts about Southern troops looking for shoes and other details at the start of the battle.
I TOURED the actual battlefield at Gettysburg. Have you done so? I have also visited Malvern Hill and Petersburg and Pamplin Park, all near Richmond. Have you?
I may not have read LOTS on each battle, BUT I have read LOTS. And I have read that, contrary to the "Lost Cause" that General Lee made mistakes. And some of those mistakes were due to his "hubris" about war and his troops and himself.
Prior to Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee had established a reputation as an almost invincible general, achieving stunning victories against superior numbers—although usually at the cost of high casualties to his army—during the Seven Days, the Northern Virginia Campaign (including the Second Battle of Bull Run), Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Only the Maryland Campaign, with its tactically inconclusive Battle of Antietam, had been less than successful. Therefore, historians[who?] have attempted to explain how Lee's winning streak was interrupted so dramatically at Gettysburg.[citation needed] Although the issue is tainted by attempts to portray history and Lee's reputation in a manner supporting different partisan goals, the major factors in Lee's loss arguably can be attributed to: (1) his overconfidence in the invincibility of his men; (2) the performance of his subordinates, and his management thereof; (3) his failing health; and, (4) the performance of his opponent, George G. Meade, and the Army of the Potomac.
Throughout the campaign, Lee was influenced by the belief that his men were invincible; most of Lee's experiences with the Army of Northern Virginia had convinced him of this, including the great victory at Chancellorsville in early May and the rout of the Union troops at Gettysburg on July 1. Since morale plays an important role in military victory when other factors are equal, Lee did not want to dampen his army's desire to fight and resisted suggestions, principally by Longstreet, to withdraw from the recently captured Gettysburg to select a ground more favorable to his army. War correspondent Peter W. Alexander wrote that Lee "acted, probably, under the impression that his troops were able to carry any position however formidable. If such was the case, he committed an error, such however as the ablest commanders will sometimes fall into." Lee himself concurred with this judgment, writing to President Davis, "No blame can be attached to the army for its failure to accomplish what was projected by me, nor should it be censured for the unreasonable expectations of the public—I am alone to blame, in perhaps expecting too much of its prowess and valor."[111]
The most controversial assessments of the battle involve the performance of Lee's subordinates. The dominant theme of the Lost Cause writers and many other historians is that Lee's senior generals failed him in crucial ways, directly causing the loss of the battle; the alternative viewpoint is that Lee did not manage his subordinates adequately, and did not thereby compensate for their shortcomings.[112]
jusplay4fun wrote:in Response to ConfederateSS:
Yes, mistakes by the Military Leader make a battle or military action a HUGE BLUNDER.
I think that most of us agree that Custer blunders led to his defeat and death at Little Bighorn.
I will support my earlier contention that General Robert E. Lee blundered at Gettysburg.
In summary, Gettysburg demonstrated all of Lee’s weaknesses. He initiated an unnecessary strategic offensive that, because of his army’s inevitable return to Virginia, would be perceived as a retreat and thus a defeat. He rejected alternative deployments of Longstreet’s corps that might have avoided or mitigated critical losses of the Mississippi River (including Vicksburg and then Port Hudson, Louisiana) or middle and southeastern Tennessee (including Chattanooga). His tactics were inexcusably and fatally aggressive on the second and third days at Gettysburg, he failed to take charge of the battlefield on any of the three days, his battle-plans were ineffective, and his orders (especially to Stuart and Ewell) were vague and too discretionary.
Gettysburg indeed was Lee at his worst.https://www.historyonthenet.com/picketts-chargeAnd ConfSS, before replying, based on the one quote above, please read the entire article I posted above.
I also read that Lee had too much confidence in the ability of his troops to win any and all battles. He was overconfident of his Leadership and his inner circle and of his troops. (General Longstreet did advise AGAINST Pickett's Charge; that is well documented.)
Also, from the SAME source:
British Colonel Arthur Fremantle, an observer at Gettysburg and elsewhere, advised Lee concerning the flaws of Lee’s aggressiveness: “Don’t you see your system feeds upon itself? You cannot fill the places of these men. Your troops do wonders, but every time at a cost you cannot afford.” Later, Lee’s own General D. H. Hill described the folly of the Army of Northern Virginia’s penchant for the tactical offensive:
We were very lavish of blood in those days, and it was thought to be a very great thing to charge a battery of artillery or an earth-work lined with infantry. . . . The attacks on the Beaver Dam intrenchments, on the heights of Malvern Hill, at Gettysburg, etc., were all grand, but of exactly the kind of grandeur which the South could not afford.
All of the attacks mentioned by Hill had been personally ordered by Lee.
ConfederateSS.out(The Blue and Silver Rebellion).... 
