So, we need to clear something up. Confederate war aims did not involve the complete destruction or conquest of the United States. Jefferson Davis and Robert Lee, the Confederacy's chief strategists, dismissed the possibility of a total military victory out of hand. The disparity in strength was simply too great, and politically, they were committed to the idea of a separate, slave-holding republic; the entire point of secession had been to get away from anti-slavery northerners who might threaten their peculiar institution. Rather, they sought to make their secession permanent by frustrating Union attempts to forcibly reunite the sections.

While agreeing that a negotiated peace was the best that could be hoped for, the two men had differing views on how this was to be achieved. Davis felt that morale and commitment could tip the balance. Essentially, if the Confederacy kept armies in the field and traded body blows with Union forces as near to the borders as possible, this would eventually sap northern will to continue the contest. Lee was less sanguine about the Confederacy's prospects for winning a long war. His impression was that the Union would only grow stronger and the Confederacy weaker as the war wound on, and that if the south was to achieve independence, it would have to do so quickly, before the north fully mobilized. Lee believed that demoralizing the northern public was the only reasonable way of forcing a peace, and a shattering defeat of the Army of the Potomac would achieve this. With this in mind, he committed to a strategy of fighting decisive battles of annihilation in 1862-1864. What looks like reckless aggression to some was, in fact, motivated by Lee's deep pessimism about Confederate prospects.