Word: longstreets
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...Longstreet also learned from his experiences throughout the war. The size of the battle and the loss of life in the civl war were much larger than practically anyone had expected. Longstreet tried to repeat his victories, like Fredericksburg, where he had established strong defensive positions and let the enemy attack them, and to avoid costly confrontations like Antietam, where the gains, if any, were negligible compared to the casualty rate. Even at Gettysburg, Longstreet had planned this kind of defensive maneuvering until he was forced by Lee to lead the attack that would become the most disastrous failure...
...Longstreet had his own dangerous failings as a general. At several points during the war, his carelessness and indecision nearly led to disaster for his army. At Knoxville, his hesitation and poor planning led many of his troops into a ditch where they suffered over 800 casulties in 20 minutes. Throughout the war and for years after, such unexplained failures became the focus of the debate over Longstreet's qualities as a general. Most importantly, though, the popular desire to save Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's greatest hero, from any blame for the loss of the war left Longstreet...
Wert explains that it is this unresolved controversy that has led to Longstreet's relative obscurity as a Civil War leader. His quite, but impressive service to the Confederacy became the basis for his failure to become a great Civil War legend. Stonewall Jackson's bold successes obscured his failures and his death shortly before Gettysburg left him an unblemished hero and martyr for the Confederacy. Robert E. Lee, the commander and gentleman who is generally considered one of history's greatest generals, gradually surpassed Jackson as the premier hero of the Old South. "The singular figure in the army...
Wert concludes that Longstreet was a superb though humanly flawed general. He was certainly the best subordinate commander in Lee's army and perhaps the best in any army on either side during the Civil War. By looking fairly at the records of the other generals, like Lee, and dealing seriously with the battlefield conditions of the Civil War, Wert provides a credible basis from which to evaluate Longstreet's performance...
...also fits Longstreet's personal experience well into the general context to the Civil War. By reminding readers that practically every one of Longstreet's closest circle of friends from West Point faced each other as commanders on both sides during the battle of Chickamauga, Wert aptly places Long-street in the culture that made the war so divisive...