Something to Ponder and Debate?

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I just stumbled on this question/answer on a site named Quora Digest:

Of all the Civil War battles, which one was the most decisive in turning the tide against the Confederacy? And why?

Do you agree with the sole answer?

The decisive strategy for Union victory in the US Civil War was to deny the Confederacy the capacity to maintain their resistance and defeat their leadership in the field. Ultimately the decisive battle of the US Civil War was not a single battle, but a campaign of five battles. Grant's Wilderness Campaign was remarkable in that Grant lost every battle, but by continuing his advance on Richmond, he kept his operational focus on denying Robert E Lee the freedom to maneuver that might have spared Lee a battle of attrition the Southern commander could not afford. Lee's mobility was finally eliminated when Grant crossed the James River and assaulted Petersburg, through which ran the last rail link to Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia. That link was critical. Lee could not have kept his army supplied without it. While Grant's effort to take Petersburg came up just short, Lee was forced to entrench to defend Petersburg, and he kept extending those defenses to protect the rail line, thus sacrificing all of his mobility and strategic flexibility. Thus pinned, Lee's army could be exhausted until he lost the will to fight, which happened early in the Spring of 1865.

Gettysburg is often cited as the decisive battle of the Civil War, as it marked the failure of Lee’s second invasion of the North. Lee's conduct of that battle was well beneath his usual standards, and combined haphazard and stubborn leadership. As conducted, Lee had no intention of fighting there when he accidentally became engaged. Having gotten into the fight, Lee surrendered to advantages of good defensive terrain and assumed the burden of attack almost blind for lack of proper cavalry reconnaissance. This stubborness cost him dearly. Although Gettysburg was very closely fought on the second day, Lee had already lost the advantage of good defensive terrain and faced a significantly larger Army of the Potomac on ground of its own choosing. Even before the disaster of Pickett's charge on the third day, the outcome if Gettysburg was likely to be a battle of attrition that the North could afford and the South could not.

It is possible to imagine Lee winning the second invasion of the North in 1863, but not without better control of his cavalry and a significant Union mistake. It would have taken a huge reversal of military fortune to erase the diplomatic gains that Lincoln had achieved in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in late 1862. Lee was forced to return to his defense of Richmond, but had not lost his ability or will to fight after Gettysburg

The other viable candidate for the decisive battle of the US Civil War is Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. This view posits that the Republicans were in great trouble in the 1864 Presidential Election, which was seen then and since as a referendum on the war. This narrative suggests that the price Grant payed in Northern blood to pin down Lee was excessive and the North was ready to quit rather than finish the job of subduing the Confederacy.

Sherman fought a brilliant campaign against the inferior Confederate forces of Joe Johnston, maneuvering the Confederate general out one good defensive position after another in the rough terrain northwest of Atlanta. Jefferson Davis eventually sacked Johnston, replacing him with the pugnacious but impetuous John Bell Hood, as the Confederates were driven back to the defenses of Atlanta itself. When Sherman attacked to cut the various rail connections to the Georgia capital, Hood launched unsuccessful counter attacks. On September 1, 1864, Hood was forced to withdraw from the city to avoid losing his army to encirclement, thus shattering the illusion that the Union was stalemated in the Summer of 1864.

Actually, the preponderance of Union forces that year made it quite unlikely that the Confederates could have stymied both Grant and Sherman, and the less dramatic but devastating Union naval blockade had drastically reduced Southern access to arms or international currency. The Republicans won solidly in the election 2 months later, retaining both houses of Congress and granting Abraham Lincoln a second term, and quashing the last legitimate Southern hopes of a negotiated peace that would have preserved their independence.

While it could be argued that Jefferson Davis lost the Atlanta campaign by replacing Joe Johnston with Hood, Sherman had the forces to get the job done and out generalled Johnston before his replacement. It is quite likely that Sherman would have secured Atlanta and devastated Georgia even if he had been delayed another month or two. Even had the Lincoln administration lost the election, the South would have been in a very weak negotiating position when Lincoln's Democratic opponent, General George McClellan, was sworn in in 1865.