Posted on 04/09/2017 8:20:32 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, accepts the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia from Confederate General Robert E. Lee
And how many years before the Never Trumpers surrender?
Robert E Lee
Greatest American general in history.
I would agree.He did make a horrible mistake at Gettysburg however.
True, but he could not have asked for a more magnanimous enemy to receive his surrender. Grant greatly admired his Confederate counterpart.
Longstreet then shooed Custer off by reminding him that he was an enemy combatant behind opposing lines and subject to capture. Abashed, Custer returned to General Grant who then made the formal offer to General Lee.
Custer's wife Libbie was given the table on which the armistice was signed. General Phil Sheridan had bought it from its owner, Wilmer Maclean, for $20.
Patton. Lee was a loser.
Indeed. Even Grant himself said he couldn’t defeat him outright; rather, Grant won simply because the North had too many men and won through attrition.
Lee is one of those guys in history easy to like.
I always thought Grant was the greatest military man ever to put on a uniform on behalf of the United States.
Robert E Lee was a fine gentleman and great general.
Without question. He doesn't compare to Patton, who basically invented modern tank warfare.
That’s the old cliche. Funny how all those advantages didn’t work out so well for McClellan, McDowell, Burnside, or Hooker.
Patton would be in heaven if he could ride in and fire some rounds from an M-1 Abrams while watching a Warthog work out. Patton coordinated armor and artillery with air support.
Don’t forget Heinz Guderian. He fielded armored divisions before Patton.
> Robert E Lee. Greatest American general in history. <
I must respectfully disagree. I’d without hesitation rank Washington above Lee. No contest there, in my opinion. Both Lee and Washington faced long odds. But Washington was able to pull it off. Lee could not.
As for Grant, he was a good general, but not a great one. Grant had the resources. He skillfully deployed those resources. But he had the advantage from Day One. He was not the underdog.
>Without question. He doesn’t compare to Patton, who basically invented modern tank warfare.
As much as I like Patton, this isn’t true. Patton was the only US General smart enough to copy the German’s panzer tactics but the US army proceeded to ignore everything Patton and the German panzer generals had used until the 1980s. Most US generals had no idea how to properly use tanks during or after WW2. In the 80s some analysts decided to take a look at the tactics used by the Arab armies and the Israeli army.
What they expected was the Israeli’s using US army tactics and the Arab’s using Soviet tactics. What they discovered was Israeli’s had been using Blitzkrieg tactics from day one and the Arabs where using US army firepower tactics and getting their clocks cleaned. This led to the creation of the air/land battle doctrine for the US army which was basically just what Patton and the rest had done 40 years before with a different name.
Patton was an extremely good general and the best the allies produced but he didn’t create anything original.
The real villain of Gettysburg was Jeb Stuart. If Stuart had done his job scouting Meade's flank, Lee would have followed Longstreet's suggestion to lure the Union forces to attack him in a very favorable location, avoiding the massacre of Pickett's Charge and conserving valuable men and resources to continue the War. Instead Stuart gallivanted around the countryside attempting to ride around the enemy army and build his flamboyant reputation.
> Don’t forget Heinz Guderian. <
Yes, Guderian was a great tank general. But he used his talents in the service of a monster. I’ve often wondered how German general like Guderian would have answered this question:
Knowing what you know now, would you have killed Hitler in 1939 (and forfeited your life in the process)?
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