Robert E. Lee realized in September 1862 the South could not win the war. He recommended that President Jefferson Davis send a peace proposal to the North. Davis refused. In May 1863 Lee again proposed to proclaim peace, taking his army into the North for the 4th of July at the place Continental Congress had forged the first American constitution in 1777. The accidental battle at Gettysburg interfered with Lee's "wisest, grandest, most imposing" plan. The South went down to defeat. John Ellsworth Winter is a professor emeritus of philosophy. Additionally, he had been Guest Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria. Dr. Winter has toured the battlefield at Gettysburg over a hundred times. He attended the 75th anniversary of the battle in 1938 (as a Boy Scout) and the 100th anniversary in 1963 with two of his sons. He plans to attend the 150th anniversary 4 July 2013. He is married for 30 years to the poet Elva Winter. They share a blended family of 9 children and 12 grandchildren.