OK, we admit it. Jefferson Davis had the nearly impossible task of fighting a war against a superior enemy while simultaneously trying not to do the obvious and trade space for time. Davis needed to show the Europeans that the CSA was a real country while under enormous (and understandable) political pressure to hold onto territory. The problem is they couldn't. While everyone applauds Lee in Virginia, at the same time Grant is systematically driving a stake through the Mississippi Valley.
Davis' strategy was offensive/defensive. Let the Federals in and then hit 'em as hard as you can. This worked in Virginia but no one out west had a solution to Grant and later Sherman. We are amused by historians who criticize Sherman's drive through East Tennessee and to Atlanta, saying he failed at multiple places to destroy the Army of Tennessee. But, Sherman wasn't trying to destroy the Army of Tennessee. At Shiloh he figured out what happens when two armies go mano-a-mano and tried to avoid it. Instead he just out maneuvered the grays again and again.
The solution wasn't attacking the North. Antietam (Sharpsburg for the Johnny Rebs out there) and Gettysburg were disasters for the Army of Northern Virginia.
So maybe Davis was in a bad, no win situation. What's the solution? Lee out West?
The problem is geographically in Virginia the rivers form moats around Richmond that could slow down opposing armies while in the west they flow north to south which form waterborne highways straight to the heart of the South
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