Union Civil War Generals

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Was there any Civil War General who was smart enough to really challegene Lee? I myself am a huge Sherman fan.

[CBR]

Grant seems to have done a fair job. Several of Lee's opponents were very timid, with McClellan being the worst, and that allowed Lee to win battles when he shouldn't have. Not that Lee was bad but he sure had a lot of luck when it came to outright bad Union generalship.

[RabidGibbon]

Meade 'really challenged' Lee.

[Fisherking]

LOL

The only reason that war lasted so long was Union incompetence.

Lee couldn’t help but look good because everyone else was so bad.

Both sides made big mistakes and it is a war that never should have been fought in the first place.

I think Grant was a butcher. He was way too free with the lives of his men and just overwhelmed them with numbers.

Sherman would have been hung as a war criminal if he had lived today. He waged a war of terror against the civilian population. They hung Germans for doing less than what he did in the south.

Meade’s great victory was holding defensive positions while Lee bled himself dry…and then let what was left go back to VA and continue the war for another year and a half or so.

The south never had a chance. It lacked everything from the very start of the war.

All it had were some competent officers. It is impossible to say how they would have done had their opposition been well lead.

It is easy enough to admire some of the leaders for their exploits but if they could have accomplished that against a well lead foe is an open question.

[econ21]

The only reason that war lasted so long was Union incompetence.

I am not sure that's right. One factor is the scale of the conflict relative to the initial preparedness of the starting forces. American did not have much of a military before the conflict and trying to raise armies of the scale they did, to subdue the size of territory they did, was a non-trivial task. Think about how long it took the US to mobilise in arguably more favorable circumstances in WW1 and WW2. Yes, many of the starting generals on the Union side don't look great, but the task they faced was daunting.

Another factor is the changing technology, which tended to favour the defender. The development of the rifle and of artillery saw the transformation of tactics from Napoleonic at the start of the conflict to essentially WW1 style trench warfare at the end. In a way, this is linked to my first point about scale: the world was moving away from wars that could be won by single decisive battles, into ones which inherently would last longer. Yes, Grant can be called a butcher, but maybe he just understood that attrition is the reality of trench warfare? Similarly, Sherman's grasp of total war and the importance of civilian support for the war effort seems rather prescient of WW2 era thinking.

Calling the Union generals incompetent seems very similar to calling the WW1 British generals donkeys. It's one reading of the evidence, but I suspect it is blaming individual actors for circumstances largely beyond their control.

[CBR]

Calling the Union generals incompetent seems very similar to calling the WW1 British generals donkeys.

Not really. McClellan was simply not up to the job of leading an army into a campaign. Just look at his behavior in the Peninsula Campaign. If Grant had been in charge Richmond could have fallen in '62. The events leading up to Antietam was perhaps even more pathetic as McClellan had Lee's orders in his hands yet he failed to fully exploit it.

Hooker did somewhat better as he did manage to surprise Lee, yet he hesitated when he finally encountered enemy units which led to Chancellorsville. Of course it it did not help Hooker that he had a corps commander like Howard nor did it help getting knocked out by a shell at a critical time during the battle.

Some commanders have the guts needed to fight and some simply don't.

edit: oh and technology had nothing to do with the length of the war or battles not being decisive enough. It was a simple matter of size of the country coupled with low population density and therefore difficult logistics and occasionally broken up terrain. If technology meant wars could no longer be won by single battles then why where there so many long wars that involved several battles?

[CBR]

That Grant was a butcher is just a rather persistent myth. Whatever Sherman did was no worse than seen in wars before or even after so why single him out? What Germans hung for doing less than Sherman?

[Fisherking]

That Grant was a butcher is just a rather persistent myth. Whatever Sherman did was no worse than seen in wars before or even after so why single him out? What Germans hung for doing less than Sherman?

Sherman’s war crimes included: the execution of prisoners of war, the execution of civilians in reprisal for resistance, the execution of blacks (supposedly so they didn’t fall into the hands of the CSA, but actually because he could not be bothered bringing them along), condoning rape, murder, & looting, the wholesale burning of whole towns and cities without regard to military value, ordering the looting and burning of civilian homes. It is not disputed that he did these things and even admitted to most of them.



Sherman once wrote to his wife that his purpose was the "extermination, not of soldiers alone...but of the people" of the South.

Troops were even ordered to shoot civilians “at random”.

When other armies have committed such acts we label them as atrocities and do our utmost to bring to justice and execute the perpetrators. In Sherman’s case we call it Total War and give him a pass as a hero.

Finding a war criminal with a longer rap sheet would be difficult.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

LOL

The only reason that war lasted so long was Union incompetence.

Lee couldn’t help but look good because everyone else was so bad.

Both sides made big mistakes and it is a war that never should have been fought in the first place.

I think Grant was a butcher. He was way too free with the lives of his men and just overwhelmed them with numbers.

Sherman would have been hung as a war criminal if he had lived today. He waged a war of terror against the civilian population. They hung Germans for doing less than what he did in the south.

Meade’s great victory was holding defensive positions while Lee bled himself dry…and then let what was left go back to VA and continue the war for another year and a half or so.

The south never had a chance. It lacked everything from the very start of the war.

All it had were some competent officers. It is impossible to say how they would have done had their opposition been well lead.

It is easy enough to admire some of the leaders for their exploits but if they could have accomplished that against a well lead foe is an open question.

I myself never liked Grant ether. He was OK, wasn't bad. He reminds me of Eisenhower (Someone else I don't think was all that perfect ether).... OK but not the best.


Hey, don't hate Sherman to much, he could not help it he had to bring Total War onto the citizens .