The Federal's first opportunity to destroy it occurred on July 21, 1861 near a railroad junction in northern Virginia, when Major General Irwin McDowell's eager but green troops swept across Bull Run Creek, caved in the enemy's left flank, surged forward to the Henry House Hill, mortally wounding rebel General Barnard Bee and killing General Francis S. Bartow outright, and nearly routed Generals Beauregard and Johnston's combined forces. The day was saved only by the timely arrival of two fresh brigades, which counterattacked and stove in the Union right flank. When the Yankees orderly withdrawal turned into a route, the field was left to the victorious rebels, who'd suffered some 2000 casualties to their opponents 3000. McDowell was blamed for the failure and demoted, while the stock of his two principal opponents soared. 

McDowell's successor, Major General George Brinton McClellan, (affectionately known to his men as "Little Mac) made the next try, leading a huge host of better trained troops up the peninsula between the York and James rivers in the Spring of 1862. They got so close to the gates of the City of Richmond that they could see the city's spires and hear the church bells ringing for Sunday services. But then Joe Johnston was seriously wounded at the battle of Seven Pines and President Jefferson Davis replaced him with the more offensive-minded Robert E. Lee, who attacked and drove McClellan across the peninsula to Harrisons Landing on the James, where his army was bottled up and surrounded, its back to the river. Little Mac then proposed to cross the James and attacking Virginia's "soft underbelly" at Petersburg (a plan later adopted by General Grant in May of 1864), but his plan was vetoed by Lincoln and his advisors. Shortly thereafter, McClellan's army was siphoned off and turned over to the bombastic John Pope, who led it to a disastrous defeat at Second Manassas on August 30, 1862. Pope's retreat turned into a route similar to McDowell's and Washington was saved only by the heroic rear guard efforts of troops led by "Fighting Phil" Kearny and Isaac Stevens, both of whom were killed at the battle of Chantilly (or Ox Hill) the following day. 

Flushed by success in three straight campaigns, and taking advantage of the confusion among the Federals, the ANV crossed the Potomac and marched through Frederick to Hagerstown, Maryland, from which point Lee planned to continue north into Pennsylvania, once his chief lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, had dealt with the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry. But while camped south of Frederick one of Lee's men carelessly discarded a copy of his plans for the campaign (wrapped around several cigars) on the field. When McClellan (who'd been given his army back to deal with Lee's invasion) read this paper, he bragged that Bobby Lee was right where he wanted him and that he'd proceed to destroy his several scattered detachments "in detail." And he almost did so, but for the timely arrival of red-shirted Ambrose Powell Hill, whose "light division" came hurrying into the eastern outskirts of Sharpsburg, Maryland on the afternoon of September 17, 1862, just in time and in exactly the right place to strike the left flank of Union General Ambrose E. Burnside's 9th Corps, which had finally crossed "Burnside's Bridge" and was about to envelop Lee's rear and cutoff his retreat route to the Potomac. Although Lee left the field to McClellan two days later, the Union "victory" was a hollow one insofar as President Lincoln was concerned, since he felt that Little Mac had squandered a chance to destroy the ANV.

Bumbling Burnside replaced McClellan that November and led the Union army to arguably its worst defeat at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. When "Fighting Joe Hooker" succeeded Burnside in January of 1863, Lincoln wrote him that, "...I have heard...of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain success can set up dictatorships. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk the dictatorship." 

As bombastic and cocky as Pope, Hooker almost pulled off what the President expected. Almost, except that once he'd stolen a march on Lee, crossed the Rappahannock and gotten in the enemy's rear at Chancellorsville, he lost his nerve and ordered his army to entrench (with its back to the river), rather than continuing rapidly through "the Wilderness" and thus forcing Lee to fall back closer to Richmond. Had he done so, the outcome might inevitably have been a siege similar to the one conducted by Grant the following year; a siege which eventually must have succeeded. 

Following the battle of Gettysburg (two months after Chancellorsville), Lee's army found itself in a similar predicament to that at Sharpsburg, its back once again up against the swollen Potomac; this time, opposite Williamsport, Maryland. But when Union commander George Gordon Meade hesitated to attack for several days, Lee finally crossed the river on the night of July 13-14, 1863, and escaped again. Lincoln was as furious at Meade as he'd been at McClellan, but having no suitable replacement to name, he bit his tongue and allowed Meade to remain in command. 

Life number six was cashed in at the beginning of May, 1864, when Grant & Meade's army crossed the Rapidan River and started down the road toward Spotsylvania Courthouse. Had they gotten clear of the Wilderness before Lee reacted, their huge numerical superiority in infantry, artillery and cavalry would probably have forced Lee to either retire to the Richmond defenses or fight a pitched battle out in the open, where he'd likely have been decisively defeated. But the ponderously slow Union supply train took its time wobbling down the sandy roads from the two Rapidan River pontoon bridges, thus eliminated the element of surprise, and affording Lee the chance to trap and battle the Federals in the tangles of the Wilderness, rather than out in the open. 

Grant sidestepped Lee several times after that, each time moving a bit further southeast and closer to Richmond., But since he was unable to decisively defeat the cagey Lee he finally abandoned his bludgeoning tactics and adopted McClellan's more sophisticated plan of crossing the James and attacking Petersburg. To accomplish that chore he chose General William "Baldy" Smith and his 18th Corps, which had been part of "Spoons" Butler's Army of the James, bottled up along the James at Bermuda Hundred. Smith was ordered to cross the river, march to Petersburg as rapidly as possible and capture the place "if practicable." Hancock's 2d Corps from the Army of the Potomac would follow and reinforce Smith, if necessary. But Baldy, who'd been in Grant's fairly good graces up to that time, lost his nerve after capturing a good bit of the rebels thinly-manned entrenchments and, instead of continuing on into the town, had his men hunker down in the captured trenches and await Hancock's arrival. To further compound the error, when Hancock finally arrived and asked Smith how he could be of assistance, Baldy requested that Hancock have his corps replace Smith's "exhausted men" in the trenches. By the time the two of them attacked the following day, Lee had sent enough reinforcements down to Beauregard to prevent their success. It would take Grant another 10 months and many thousands of additional casualties to capture Petersburg. In his memoirs he wrote that Smith had, "...arrived in front of the enemy's lines in the forenoon of the 15th [of June, 1864], and spent the day until seven o'clock in the evening in reconnoitering what appeared to be empty works." He also confided that Baldy "had been promoted to the rank of major general shortly after the battle of Chattanooga on [his] recommendation", but that he "was not long in finding out that the objections to [his] promotion [by the Senate] were well founded." It was due to Smith's caution that yet another opportunity to end the war was squandered, that one arguably the most flagrant of the lot.

Confederate life number eight expired during the so-called "Battle of the Crater," presided over by Little Mac's friend "old Burn," who botched the arrangements so badly the rebs had time to recover from the surprise explosion and bring sufficient reinforcements to the point of attack to recover all the lost ground almost immediately. The plan was a good one, but what we would today term "political correctness" contributed to its failure. The troops originally picked and trained to rush into the breech (Ferrero's Colored Division) were replaced at the last minute by inept General Ledlie's unrehearsed division of white troops, for fear that if the attack failed and resulted in a great number of casualties the administration would be accused of sacrificing the black soldiers. Burnside was blamed for the debacle and soon found himself back in Rhode Island, "retired" from active service for the duration. 

The Confederates last life slipped away when Phil Sheridan's cavalry, led by George Custer's dashing division, got out in front of Lee's army, reached Appomattox Station first, captured their supply train and barred their way west long enough for the infantry and artillery of the Armies of the Potomac and James to arrive. Had Custer come even a few hours later, the ANV might have been fed and resupplied, then slipped away into the mountains, possibly to be joined there later by the remnants of Joe Johnston's army from North Carolina. Under that scenario the Confederacy might have survived awhile longer, though a shadow of its former self. 

By way of capitulation, several of the ANV's lives were saved by the timely arrival of reinforcements on the field, several by the ineptitude or timidity of Federal commanders and a few by the defensive genius of Robert E. Lee, who was able to hold together (well beyond what anyone had a right to expect) a rag-tag army similar in many ways to that which his father's friend George Washington had commanded. 

I believe the "high tide" of the Confederacy did not occur at Gettysburg, but on September 9, 1862, the day the ANV marched through Frederick, Maryland prior to the battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam). At that time they had rung up successive victories over three different Federal armies, commanded by three different generals, and seemed truly "invincible." 

For those who might insist that First Manassas shouldn't be considered a battle fought by the ANV, then we might substitute the battle of South Mountain (September 14, 1862) in its place and propose that day as another near disaster for the Confederate cause. Had General William Franklin's crack 6th Corps pushed through Crampton's Gap more expeditiously that morning (or even afternoon), it could have interposed itself between Lee's main body and the detachments with General's Jackson, McLaws and Walker, which would in turn have afforded McClellan the opportunity to concentrate first on Longstreet's division at Hagerstown, then on the other three separated detachments one after another. But Franklin was no Sheridan and McClellan no Grant. And so the ANV got to live another two years and seven months more, though never the same after the slaughter at Sharpsburg, the battle Lee should never have fought.
 

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