Who is the best Civil War general?

[Anime Daisuki]

Who is the best Civil War general?

Most over-rated, and most under-rated?

Discuss.

[Enigmatic]

I'm absolutely giddy. The American Civil War is my area of focus. This is great. This thread was made for me. ;D

I'm not entirely sure where to begin. I guess the best thing to do is ask how you define "best." Or is that up to us to decide? This is really going to take some thought.

[Lakenburgh]

Since not everyone here is from America, you could even ask which civil war .

[Takaram]

Like Enig said, best is a relative term. I imagine that Lee's name will be brought up quite a bit. He did well with a difficult situation, to be sure. Grant, unlike previous Union generals, had the guts to use his overwhelming advantages in manpower and equipment in his favor, which could also put him in the running. There are several others who I know of who might be considered, but I'm not exactly an end-all authority on the Civil War or anything.

[Cerb]

For all of his faults later in the war, I have to give a solid thumbs up to the skills of stonewall.

Hist early campaigns were quite breathtaking regardless of which side you were rooting for.

[Pompadoodle]

I'm no expert on the American Civil War. However, I have taken part in a number of discussions about 'best' generals.

It seems to me that by 'best' you have to mean something like 'most successful given the resources (broadly construed) which he had to work with'.

With this sort of definition, someone like Hannibal comes out as an absolutely superb general- he inflicted devastating defeats on the best army in the world, using a numerically inferior force of second-rate infantry, so-so cavalry, and a few elephants. Alexander and Napoleon don't come out quite so well, since their troops were superb.

[Anime Daisuki]

Jul 26, 2010 20:14:08 GMT -5 Enigmatic said:

I'm absolutely giddy. The American Civil War is my area of focus. This is great. This thread was made for me. ;D

I'm not entirely sure where to begin. I guess the best thing to do is ask how you define "best." Or is that up to us to decide? This is really going to take some thought.

To me best means, the best strategist, smartest brain, the person who can outwit and outmaneuver the enemy.

But you are free to define 'best' however you see fit. ;D

[Magthere]

Ulysses S. Grant is probably the most over rated general, yes he did come up with the winning strategy to end the war, that strategy? Use the Norths massive man power to overwhelm the enemy regardless of casualties, so yes he did beat the south but all he really did was have his troops slug through to the end, a great feat, but not necessarily a smart one in terms of moral or conservation of man power.

Best General I think is William Tecumseh Sherman he was able to dig deep into Confederate territory do massive amount of damage, and manage to gain a large amount of the Souths Ire.

Worst General, Ambrose Burnside, so named by the History Channel, not just as worst general of the Civil War but worst general ever (to his credit he warned Lincoln not to put him in charge), he manage to give away his advantages in battle, including the high ground in one encounter, waited for the Confederates to gain reinforcements in another, yeah not the guy you want to serve under...

Most under rated, either Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson, Lee probably could have had the South last lot longer if he had been allowed to continue to fight defensively, it was his two offensives north ordered by the Confederate government where he had his first major defeats (Antietam in the first offensive, Gettysburg in the second) Also Stonewall Jackson was able to hold his forces together quite well and Lee mourned his passing severely for his skill (strangely enough both Lee and Jackson weren't even major fans of slavery)

[Enigmatic]

Where are you from, Mag? Just as a guess, I'm going to say you aren't from the southern United States. Down here, Lee is far from under-rated. The man is practically a saint. There are statues and paintings of him. We may have lost the war, but it wasn't because of lee. Did you know that he fought off three Federal regiments by himself with nothing but his cavalry saber?

I think tomorrow I'll sit down and write a nice long post about the best generals of the Civil War.

[Takaram]

I wouldn't say that Lee is underrated. I'm pretty sure that he is universally recognized as a great general who would have been a major asset for either side had he joined, and the fact that he joined the CSA was a part of what drew the war from being the short skirmish that many people thought it would be and turned it into the massive conflict it was.
Jackson, on the other hand, is certainly overlooked, but that is only because he died so early in the war.
Sherman would also be a good contender for Best General, although I think it could be argued that he just used the same strategy as Grant, but in a different way.

[Magthere]

Yeah I was kind of grasping straws on the underrated, I do know that even up here in Massachusetts Lee was considered a good general, but I think that after all the times i heard Grant compared to Lee I assumed that we were underrating him (up here), As for Sherman he may have used a SIMILAR strategy to Grants, but Sherman was able to make the modifications so that he could plow through Georgia and the Carolinas, where as Grant's turn at the Strategy only had him plow through Virginia, so Sherman made enough modifications to go farther with the strategy.

[Enigmatic]

The underrated generals would be much less well known than Lee or Grant or Sherman or Jackson(coincidentally the subjects of the post I'm currently writing in my head). If we're looking for underrated we ought to look at the lesser known generals such as Longstreet, Beauregard, Stuart, and a few others I could name.

Personally, I would call Longstreet the most underrated. He was a very competent and intelligent commander, but he gets a lot of flak especially in the South. Instead of blaming Lee for the defeat at Gettysburg, most Southerners, especially those who bought in to the Lost Cause myth, blamed Longstreet. In reality, if Lee had headed Longstreet's advice Gettysburg might have had a different outcome altogether or at least would not have been as grave a defeat as it was.

[American Federalist]

I'm of the opinion that both Lee and Grant are among the best generals though for different reasons. Lee was a brilliant strategist, he began his military career as an engineer and as such was probably one of the foremost experts in the area of combat fortifications. Not only that but many of Lee's tactics in the war weren't fully understood until the first and second world wars. He was in many ways ahead of his time. That being said he did make mistakes, even the smartest people make the dumbest mistakes.

Grant's place as a great general comes from his willingness to fight. Many of Lincoln's advisors didn't like Grant due to his excessive drinking, to which Lincoln replied "Send my General a case of whatever his drinking." Grant may not have been as brilliant a strategist as Meade, McClellan or even Winfield Scott, but he could see past the rebel phantom armies that had terrified past Union generals and actually fight and win.

[Hockeynutville]

I would say that in my opinion, the large number of the "better" Generals or Commanders were on the side of the south. Now I certainly can't speak for their military educations or IQs, but let's face the facts.

The North had an overwhelming superiority in manpower, industrial capacity and infrastructure for moving supplies and men around. Not to mention the South had virtually no Navy of which to combat the North's blockades. I honestly think that it was a war that the South could not win from the start. The only real hope was to cause enough damage to the Union armies and be able to hold the North from pushing back the lines until a treaty could be met.

I would probably put my vote in for Robert E. Lee. Lee had pretty much everything manpower and material wise working against him and yet he managed to win battle after battle until Gettysburg, and then we see the truth in the matter. Lee could not make any mistakes in order to possibly win the war, and as what usually happens with all great Commanders he eventually did. Even so, despite basically being on the defensive after that, he still made the North work and constantly evaded or held back Union armies from destroying his until the truce.

I think by the time 1864 came about with the Union having the superiority in just about everything in number, it really would not have made a huge difference who was in command of their armies at that point. But until the North was truly mobilized, we saw the general ineptitude of their army commanders with a few exceptions.

[Grub]

I didn't like the side, but I always liked Stonewall Jackson and how he liked to eat raw lemons.

[Hockeynutville]

Must be where he got that stiff upper lip.

Aug 5, 2010 21:24:37 GMT -5 Grub said:

I didn't like the side, but I always liked Stonewall Jackson and how he liked to eat raw lemons.

[Anime Daisuki]

Jul 28, 2010 19:52:14 GMT -5 Enigmatic said:

Personally, I would call Longstreet the most underrated. He was a very competent and intelligent commander, but he gets a lot of flak especially in the South. Instead of blaming Lee for the defeat at Gettysburg, most Southerners, especially those who bought in to the Lost Cause myth, blamed Longstreet. In reality, if Lee had headed Longstreet's advice Gettysburg might have had a different outcome altogether or at least would not have been as grave a defeat as it was.

I have to agree with that. Unlike Lee who tends to under-estimate his enemies, Longstreet did not have that problem, and was equally well respected by his troops.

Another underrated general I think is Winfield Scott who had great vision in conceiving the Anaconda Plan. He also recognized Lee's potential and McClellan's shortcomings before they became apparent to anyone. Winfield Scott probably would have been a great Civil War general were he 30 years younger.

[Enigmatic]

Longstreet has also been heralded by historians as the greatest corps commander on either side of the Civil War. Longstreet helped lead the Confederates to victory at Second Manasses, Chickamauga, the Seven Days Battles, and Fredericksburg. There was a very good reason he was Lee's chief lieutenant. It's a shame Lee failed to head his advice at Gettysburg. Another point in his favor, or against in Reconstruction South, Longstreet was not the great a supporter of slavery and embraced equal rights after the War along with reunification of the nation. Unlike many of his fellow confederates, Longstreet was not bitter over the loss and went on to serve the United States admirably. That doesn't really speak to his talent as a general, but I thought I'd include it anyway. I've always liked Longstreet.

I agree with that assessment of Scott, Anime. Scott was an excellent commanding general in the Mexican War, which is commonly held as a sort of training ground for the American Civil War. Many of the generals of that era were coming up under the tutelage of generals like Scott. I think it's safe to say that you see a bit of Scott in his successors and he himself made a great contribution to the Northern war effort with the Anaconda Plan, as you mentioned. We probably can't call him a Civil War general as he was on in age by the time that war began, but he is certainly often overlooked by history. He had the "misfortune" of serving during a war which is either little more than a footnote in most American survey classes or used as an introduction to the Civil War and to highlight the early careers of the officers who served in that conflict. No one wants to talk about the relatively quick and very successful wars.

[The Lupine Brotherhood]

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall Jackson", as quirky and masochistically puritanical as he was (he was supposedly afraid to get too attached to people or things for fear of letting it distance him from God) was the best strategist in the entire war, IMO. He had the strategy that could have won the war for the South.

He was in favor of taking the battle to the doorstep of the Union's factories and industrial centers, knocking them out with a sort of focused assault and taking advantage of the momentum gained and the North's own bewilderment in order to cripple and eventually incapacitate them.

Lee, as brilliant as he was, was very offensively minded, and Jefferson Davis was in favor of digging in and fighting an entirely defensive war, hoping for European intervention. The former strategy ultimately failed, and since Fort Sumter arguably made the South the diplomatic belligerent party, the latter would likely have failed to.

*end of rant*

[Enigmatic]

Just a small interjection here, Fort Sumter was an offensive affair for the South. After secession, the South demanded that Union forces evacuate Fort Sumter. They refused and eventually Confederate forces from Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson, and the Floating Battery fired on Fort Sumter thereby starting the American Civil War. Fort Sumter made the South the belligerent party because the South was being belligerent.

Also, Lee hoped for European intervention as much as Davis, but realized that much like the Continental Army of the Revolutionary War, the Confederates would need to gain a decisive victory on Northern soil in order to prove to European powers that their cause was viable. This of course never happened, though not for lack of trying on Lee's part. An offensive mindset was not necessarily his flaw, but his commitment to one large battle did eventually lead to arguably his greatest defeat at Gettysburg.

I really need to sit down and right a long post about Lee and the other great generals. Although, a lot of it has been said already.

[Anime Daisuki]

Also, Lee hoped for European intervention as much as Davis, but realized that much like the Continental Army of the Revolutionary War, the Confederates would need to gain a decisive victory on Northern soil in order to prove to European powers that their cause was viable. This of course never happened, though not for lack of trying on Lee's part. An offensive mindset was not necessarily his flaw, but his commitment to one large battle did eventually lead to arguably his greatest defeat at Gettysburg.

That kind of reminds me of the Japanese Navy's preoccupation of the concept of a final showdown in WWII.

As for European support, people have said it was never going to happen with the South's support of slavery. The only power able to intercede is the British with their large navy, and it would have been a spectacular naval war.

[Takaram]

It probably would have, yes. But the British really couldn't intervene on the side of a slave holding nation in a fight against a free nation in a fight over slavery, which Lincoln effectively made it by signing the Emancipation Proclamation, at least in the eyes of the British people.

[Enigmatic]

Well, it was about a little more than just slavery, but that was at the very root of the conflict.

It was possible that the British might intervene, but it was slim from the outset. Britain was a large importer of Southern cotton and it was hoped that this would facilitate an alliance. The South voluntarily embargoed themselves early on to facilitate this and the Union blockade eventually made any export difficult to say the least. However, in the years leading up to the Civil War Britain had built up quite the stockpile of cotton. The South's hopes of influencing Britain in this way failed to materialize from the very beginning. Interestingly, it was Russia that suffered the most from the lack of Southern cotton, but as far as I know the Confederacy made no attempts to gain their assistance. Of course it's not as if the Russians could have done much to aid the South, but I thought it's an interesting bit of trivia nonetheless. Additionally the War between the States helped foster British jobs. There was little benefit in Britain joining the war from the very beginning.

Slavery was an issue of much importance to the British who had abolished it some thirty years previous and worked to see it come to an end around the world. The Emancipation Proclamation was a huge political victory for the North. It inspired slaves in the South to rebel and/or escape North, it calmed the border states as the proclamation only effected states in active rebellion, and it made ending slavery a political goal of the war. That was death knell for any alliance with the British.

French intervention was an entirely different and far more storied affair. Lack of cotton greatly affected France and Napoleon III had his sights set on territory in Central America. Confederate victory would have assuaged the "cotton hunger" and made French efforts in Mexico easier. Many French politicians and industrialist favored recognition and support of the Confederacy, but there was also a large pro-Union faction which served to halt Napoleon III and prevent diplomatic recognition of the CSA. France officially remained neutral, but marginally favoring of the Confederacy. The French came close to entering an agreement with the Confederacy, but disapproval by the British, diplomacy with the Union, and Confederate defeats served to dissuade the Emperor from any treaty with the South. France stayed out of the war, the Confederacy was defeated, and the United States went on to aid Mexico in defeating the French. It makes you wonder. Perhaps if the Confederacy had won the war, France would be in control of Mexico, but I think I'm off topic enough for one post so we'll save the counter-factual history for another time.

[Kintobor]

I would have to go with William T. Sherman as the best general of the civil war. He was able to carve up the interior of the south and take Atlanta as a christmas gift for Lincoln. He did this all by living off the land cut from union supply lines. Even today in the south Sherman is hated for what he did.

[Coltonians]

I really dont have a best general in mind, however Sherman is by far the worst. He destroyed the south using his total war tactics. He left a weak South with would be devastated for years to come.

[Takaram]

Sherman's total war tactics crippled the South's ability to feed it's own population and helped bring the war to a close. Doesn't sound like a bad general to me. That actually sounds rather effective.

[Enigmatic]

I guess it depends on what side you were on Tak. If you're a noble Southern like myself then the inability to feed the population and to wage a just war for freedom and independence then it's a bad thing. If you're a damn Yankee then that defiler Sherman is a hero.

;D It's all about perspective.

[Pompadoodle]

I don't think that there was anything noble about the antebellum South. And saying that the South was fighting 'for Freedom' sounds a touch ironic to me.

[Enigmatic]

The Antebellum South was like anywhere else really. It had it's unique features of course, some good some bad, and it was full of saints and sinners and everything in between. My post was mostly a joke, but you're right in picking up on the irony. I'm not sure if I really meant it, but it's accurate to say there's a good bit about the Civil War South that's ironic.

If you asked the Southerners of the time, they would have said they were fighting for "States Rights(probably pronounced "rats")", which is the reason I trace the beginnings of the Civil War to 1790, the year of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. They believed the North was going to impose on the South laws they considered unfair and perhaps even tyrannical. The end of slavery would have meant for many Southerners the end of their way of life. Or so they saw it. Slavery was, unfortunately, bound to the very fabric of Southern society. The wealthiest and most influential made their money from farms full of hundreds of slaves and those below the Planter class sought to join it. The "little guys" got their food, seed, and supplies from Planter stores. Just about everything came back to slavery. So when it appeared threatened they reacted to preserve their way of life. They believed that not only did they have the right to continue to practice slavery, but that they also had the right to leave the Union should they wish(again Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and a lot of other history). Now the ironic part. They were fighting because they saw it as illegal for there to be federal laws forbidding slavery so they seceded and formed a confederation. The Confederacy then passed a law stating that no Confederate State could pass a law abolishing slavery. They seceded to avoid laws which overrode state laws and then passed laws which overrode state laws.

So, we have a war about states rights and independence and freedom and oppression and racism and a host of other things pertaining to the South, the North, and individuals. Nothing's ever simple. No war is ever one dimensional.

Also, I am to a noble Southerner.

[Takaram]

I understand what you're saying Enig, but when you look at Sherman with a fairly neutral viewpoint, you can see that he did effectively aid his own side in damaging the ability of the CSA to make war against the USA (This is coming from a born and raised Floridian). Whether or not you like him, he was a very effective general.