EatTheRich
President
You ignore the fact that throughout the war they attempted to force states that remained loyal into the Confederacy ... first Texas, then Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania.Lee merits praise for his activities on the battlefield. He wasn't perfect, but he was very good. He was better on defense than offense, but he was probably the best commander in the Civil War for getting the troops he needed to the right place at the right time. On the attack, his attack plans tended to be too complicated (Gettysburg is a prime example). On defense, he was excellent at choosing good terrain. I do not thing Lee, or the CSA in general, had the goal to "destroy the Union." The union of the states that didn't secede would have remained -- the CSA merely wanted to exit the union, not destroy it, and the states that left would have left behind a remaining union larger than themselves.
If the Confederacy had won only perhaps New England would have been left of the United States ... Confederate victory meant gobbling up the remaining states for themselves.