The Greatest General of The Civil War....

[williamlayton]

Joe
You are wrong. As a matter of fact you are just trolling.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

Joe
You are wrong. As a matter of fact you are just trolling.
Blessings

Um...no...  Or if it is, then you, Iron, and the others who constantly point fingers and yell "Slavery" would fit in that category too.  I'm trying to get you and the other "well, we had to do whatever it takes to preserve the Union" advocates to realize just what Honest Abe allowed and what you support.  I've so far seen you all trying to justify, deflect, or disown your support of the "total war" that was part of Honest Abes plan.   Sorry if it shakes your view that he was a saint who did no wrong and that any means was justified to preserve the Union. 

Some of us have been told that the South has to take responsibility for starting the war.  Maybe it is time for the North and its supporters to take some responsibility for what the federal government did to win it.

[Brewster]

Absolutely no problem accepting what was done to win.  Responsibility?  LMAO.

[mannyrock]

 
   Grant and Sherman were both great generals, but I find it hard to say that they were the "greatest."   In almost all instances, they had overwhelming superiority in numbers, equipment and supplies.   How would these Generals have fared had they been commanding armies and equipment such as the Confederacy had during most of the War?  They would have been slaughtered.

    Lee was a brilliant defensive commander, but that is all.

    Without question the two greatest Generals of the War were Jackson and Forrest.  They repeatedly attacked and defended with inferior armies, and routinely came out with huge victories.  These two Generals are still studied world wide for their genius.  Grant and Sherman certainly aren't. 

    By the way, Sherman's "March to the Sea" was decidedly unimpressive from a combat command viewpoint.   By the time of his March, the Confederate Army was starving and on it's knees.  Sherman had an overwhelming superiority in every respect.   So, what is so impressive, from a command viewpoint, about marching along the major roads, burning everything in sight, and scattering the starving scarecrows that remained of the Condederate Army?   Answer:  nothing. 

    I agree that it was a brilliant from a logistical standpoint though.

[us920669]

As I recall, Sherman's feat required him to quit his logistics base, knock over Atlanta and then make for the sea to take on more food.  Of course they foraged, or plundered, what meager scraps they found along the way.  However, heavy rains could have turned the roads to mud and put him in a pretty sticky situation.  I'm not saying the wouldn't have made it, they had lots of horseflesh to grill up, but it would have worn out his army badly.

Less mentioned are the exploits of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  Now, the valley was feeding Lee's army, so he could plead military necessity as he killed livestock, burned crops and wrecked barns, plows and anything else he could find.  Without any meaningful post-war relief effort, this led to problems with malnutrition, disease, infant mortality, etc which persisted for many generations.  Since the valley is fairly narrow, it is likely that the officers controlled the men better than in Georgia.

I keep coming back to the idea that the north based its actions on the idea that it was one country.  By taking the war to the southern people, the Yankees  more or less validated the south's claim that there really were two nations, and as the man with the beard said, "Let my people go". 

[williamlayton]

Of battles legends are made wheather deserved or by accident.
Forrest did good until there was a competent army in front of him----I have no particular bones to pick with Forrest or any of the General in this war.
They did as they needed to do.
The North was pitiful, as far as Generals go, in the beginning--even Lincoln chimed in on that.
Hood was a rather inept General and had the personality flaws to match.
The real problem from the beginning was command and structure, and that goes for both sides.
There was little cohesion, little or no chain of command past the Generals in charge of individual armies. No cohesion and certainly the Generals of each army saw no need to be a part of a team action---except in a few cases.
This one thing was a major reason for Lee's failure at Gettysburg.
The North has to many to discuss in detail.
Blessings 

[subdjoe]

As I recall, Sherman's feat required him to quit his logistics base, knock over Atlanta and then make for the sea to take on more food.  Of course they foraged, or plundered, what meager scraps they found along the way.

Sherman's army ended their march with something like 50,000 MORE head of cattle than they started with.  Hardly "what meager scraps they found."

[us920669]

I stand corrected.  I didn't think there could be that many beeves in Georgia after years of blockade.

I had a feel for Hood's incompetence.  Could he have been as bad as Joe Johnston?  Somewhere I got the impression that Albert Sidney Johnston could have been another Lee.

[williamlayton]

Joe
Have not been aware of that statistic. Give me a heads up.
Blessings

[mannyrock]

    I am not sure if 50,000 is the correct number, but numerous books report that Sherman ended up with far more cattle than he started with, and it was in the thousands.

    He cut a 50 mile wide swath across Georgia, for hundreds of miles, snatching up all of the livestock within.    That's how he ended up with so much.

     He also seized poultry, pigs, grain etc. in huge quantities, also taking it with him to the sea.

     Did this make him a great general?  No. Probably a good quartermaster though.

     What would have happened if he had had to meet a Confederate Army, with equal men, equipment, horses, supplies etc. to his?   I doubt he would have won.

[Brewster]

I believe the numbers would be 5,000 starting and 10,000 ending.

[williamlayton]

Thats a lot of cattle to heard. I don't recall reading accounts of the troops being that well fed. As a matter of fact they were on short rations much of the time. Of course marching the mikes they marched each day, there would be little chance of slaughtering and butchering. 
Not discounting the report---I just have never read any reports of it.

Manny
What was the basis of the statement about equal numbers and such. It is a fact that the Northern boys fought as bravely as the South's did.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

The 50K head was something I ran across while looking for something else several years, and three hard drives ago, so I was drawing on memory.  It may well be the combined number of cattle, horses, and swine.  In any case, a not inconsiderable amount of livestock.  I'll keep looking.  It was an older book online. 

Here is period account of some of the things some of you applaud as necessary to save the Union.

http://www.nytimes.com/1864/12/04/news/sherman-s-march-immense-destruction-of-supplies-food-plenty-and-the-army-felt.html

Those who, from any cause, chanced to be away, lost all. A lady on the Eatonton road, whose father is in the army, feeling afraid to stay at home, went to the house of a neighbor, and, on returning, found every plate broken, every knife and fork and spoon gone, and her own clothes stripped to shreds and scattered about the lot.

Lord, yes...gotta get rid of those assault dresses and crockery!

[mannyrock]

     My comment regarding Sherman facing an army of Confederates of equal numbers and equipment has nothing to do with which soldiers were braver.  Assume that the soldiers were equally brave on both sides.

   Question is, would the "great" Sherman  have been able to defeat such a Confederate  army, assuming it were commanded by one of the best Confederate generals, such as Jackson, Lee or Forrest?  I think not.  I believe that any one of them would have sent him packing.

[williamlayton]

Well Sherman and Grant had faced some good armies just recently and defeated them. Just  for the facts--the South had no great armies left by this time. The Boys had given it their all, and gallantly, but the remainder of what was left of the South was easily recognized by Sherman. This was the reason for the march--it brought the war to the heart of Dixie, a sense of the reality or the end.
It was an enevitable occurance. If it had not been Sherman it might be that we would be discussing another general.
Just as in WWII, it could be Patton and not Russia in Berlin. The results were bound to be the same.
I would guess it would be Sheridan we would be talking of.
Now, if you would think Sherman was bad---what if it had been Custer?
Blessings 

[mcwoodduck]

I think Custer at that time would have been different.
When he went after Sitting bull he thought there were fewer then there were and he thought they were not armed as well as they were.  The henry rifles the indians were given had a limited ab=mount of ammo with each rifle and he did not know that the Indians had figured out how to reload the rimfire loads.
In the Civil war he knew the basic armament of the confederate troops and the battle flags would let him know who he was facing and how many men he would have been facing.
In the Civil war he was a Brigidier general, in the indian wars he was a Lt. Col with a lot to prove and ambition to be a General again and bold moves would bring him back his stars.
On the same note I think Custer, had his units been part of the march would have made a B line across the south chasing after rebel units like Patton across France.  But we can speculate as to match ups between generals like the Deadlest Warrior show but since it never happened we can only speculate and all answers can be correct and wrong at the same time.

[sidewinder319]

I think Grant gave the Civil War treaty table to Custer.  Didn't Grant think Custer was an outstanding officer?? The Anti-NDN war movement was very strong in the east at the time of the Little Big Horn or Greasy Grass. Custer history has been clouded by the Pro-NDN movement of the early 19th century.

[williamlayton]

Could br right about Custer. He had friends in the South from days at West point.
Still he was a glory hound at heart and his reputation would have been enhanced by large scale destruction.
It is a far fetched thought, about Custer, at best.
We will never know what Sheridan would have done, if cut loose.
What would McClellan have done if he were given the job of Sherman--with his zeal to restore his honor?
Blessings

PS--in a discussion, I had a professor say that he would have had the RR repaired ahead of hisownself so that he could take a train to Savannah.

[AtlLaw]

PS--in a discussion, I had a professor say that he would have had the RR repaired ahead of hisownself so that he could take a train to Savannah.

and called it the "Nancy Hanks"... 

[williamlayton]

 
Blessings

[pspinc2003]

 Nathan Bedford Forrest...............

[wncchester]

"did they do anything they didn't do later in the indian wars ?"

No.  Nor was it nothing the blue coats had not long been doing to the indians before the War of Secession.   

That "kill 'em all" mindset is no doubt part of what made it so easy to continue in Ga, SC/NC and Virginia.   I've never heard or read of any actions by the southern forces such as were fairly common form the northern forces; if any such had occured it would still be loudly taught in every "history" book printed.   

At least the generals Sherman and Sheridan, perhaps others, would be imprisioned if not hanged for "war crimes" if they oversaw/permitted such actions by their men today.  And neither of those generals faced organised or effective Confederate forces at all during their respective rampages, they were ONLY resisted by scattered clusters of untrained, ill equipped old men and boys doing their best to defend their homes and familes against massed and well equipped troops having the adventure of their lives running rampant in near defenseless, prostrate lands.

The relivant question isn't how many cattle, hogs, mules and chickens lay before Sherman/Sheridan, it's how little remained after they passed.  Those animals that weren't taken were shot where they stood.  Scanty stores of food, town by town, farm by farm, house by house, were confiscated or burned, including the homes themselves.  The flood of blue suits were like a huge flow of lava, destroying  all in their path, leaving behind a starving and unsheltered population of old and young, black and white, without the basic means to survive or even work the land for another crop.  And it was all done after those two fine Union generals KNEW the end was in sight. 

Anyone thinking the South's deep seated and long lasting hatred of the North after the war was due to simply  'freeing the slaves' (which is NOT what the South fought for anyway) is an ignorant fool.

[williamlayton]

You make war, you accept war being made against you.
Personally, in the persuit of ending the war as quickly as possible, I find Shermans tactics to be quiet good.
Do you hold the same philsophy about Carpet bombing Germany until the day they surrendered? Have you every talked to any dogface that objected to it?
Blessings

[wncchester]

"I am sure it did, same as I am sure Southern soldiers too commited rape while in the field."

IF that were true of the Southern Armies the "history" books would still be in a rage over it.


William I'm appalled at your determination to excuse the willful and unaccountable excesses of the Northern Armys both in the last year of the War of Seccesion and (I assume?) the almost as bad long years of Martial "Law" that followed.   How you can suggest the bombing by Allied air forces in WWII are moral equivilents of the Northern troops "one on one, look 'em in the eye" criminality during Sheriman's and Sheridan's rampages of burning and, yes rape of women, directly against starving old people, children and helpless women is litterally beyond my ability to comprehend.

Blessings???

[williamlayton]

I make no excuses for what anyone did---I observe what is fact.
What did they do that was not what you would do---and I can almost guarantee no one could have stopped some of the excess'. They happen as a results and are not planned or premeditated.
I don't really think some of you folks understand war and what it takes to win.
Blessings

[renegade50]

brevet major general
henry j hunt
cheif of union artillery for the vast majority of the entire war

little known
very un- honored and recognized for his tell it as it is manner and not abiding to the political beleifs of the administration he served under


he firmly beleived soldiers should not have a political stance








for the south

lee
longstreet

gordon

mahone
cleburne

[williamlayton]

Same as the Desert Fox---it got him nowhere.
If you have ever been in a real life struggle--a fight-- that takes on a life of its own--the rest of the world and rules be hanged--such is war.
Blessings

[williamlayton]

Greatest Generals---HUMMM.
Was the art of war changing? I think so. there were many on both sides that were still fighting napoleonionic  style and yet the art of the flying artillery and improvements in weaponry and navy were dictating a different style.
Europe did not understand this and the results were a stalemate in WWI.
While the South promoted and fought a defensive battle plan it was outmoded and in the long run cost them the war.
Forts were all but useless.
It was truly a revolutionary war--as far as tactics were concerned.
Certainly, Jackson was far ahead of anyone with his concepts of calvary.
Grant and Sherman used the tactics of movement that were new.
This war proved to be a turning of strategy which only caught on later.
Blessings

[us920669]

Wow, Savage, your post covers as much ground as Stuart's cavalry.  Yeah, it was a terrible thing, and from a historic perspective the "right" side won - industry over agriculture.  But legally, I think the South should have been permitted to dissolve the union.  The nations would have become trading partners and allies, maybe even have linked up again politically.

I think Blacks were the biggest losers.  They got their freedom, but the northern states refused to let them immigrate, reducing them to the status of serfs in a land of squalor and starvation, a situation lasting about 100 years.  In many countries in the Western Hemisphere slavery ended peacefully rather than at the point of a bayonet, and those places today have much less racial tension than the US.

My home town - Alexandria, Virginia - was Yankee country for most of the war, but the only Civil War memorial I can think of is a statue of a confederate soldier in the center of the main street.  Hat off, head bowed, he faces south, not to celebrate the war but to mourn the death and destruction.  Even today, it seems completely "correct".

I didn't see your picture when I started my reply.  Who is it and where is it (I can tell it's the north)?  Is that a Bible?  It looks very solemn and respectful.

[williamlayton]

99
Well, this is the subject of this forum. It will not die.
Maybe, you should not venture here----you are certainly welcome.
Blessings