What if Thomas had been put in top command in 1863 rather than Grant

A quote from Donn Piatt, General George H. Thomas A Critical Biography, Robert Clarke & Co, 1893

“Had General Thomas been intrusted with the command given Grant he would have placed Rosecrans or Buell in command of a force large enough to cover Washington, and transported the Army of the Potomac to Tennessee. This would have forced Lee to evacuate Virginia and concentrate his forces in the cotton states. We would then have had the immense advantage of but one army of invasion and that with its base in the very heart of the Confederacy where our fleet could have co-operated in not only keeping open the Mississippi, but menacing the coast of both the Atlantic and the Gulf. This would have been the intelligent warfare on our part that General Thomas saw in the beginning and kept in view until the end. The authors of “attrition” who sought success over the dead of our own armies died without knowing that brain could have saved us blood, and that intellect is rather more necessary to the proper conduct of a war than it is in the purchase of hides and sale of leather at Galena.”