[RedMonqey]

...look at Grant's western campaigns which featured lots of movement, flank marches & close cooperation with the Navy.

Grant's movement were basic military tactics, although his river campaigns were notable. His successes at Fort Henry and Ft. Donelson were due more to Southern ineptitude than Grant's Brilliance.


But that is the fortunes of war.


There were frontal assaults like at Vicksburg, but there were good reasons to think that he might be able to punch through.

Vicksburg fell after 11 naval and land assaults. The good reason for Grant's success was the fact he could afford to lose large numbers of men. If Grant and the Union had the deficits the South faced, Grant would have been forced to admit defeat.

Grant was the best Union general. Unlike others(cough, McClellan, cough) He recognized what it took to win the war and had the fortitude to do it. It was the Union's natural superiority in men and industry and he used both to effect. .

He knew the South couldn't match his losses and a war of attrition would be to the North's advantage. .

[Non-Sequitur]

His successes at Fort Henry and Ft. Donelson were due more to Southern ineptitude than Grant's Brilliance.

Couldn't that also be said of many of Lee's victories? Looking at his opponents at Chancellorsville and Second Bull Run and Fredericksburg and the Seven Days one could easily make that case. And Lee also lost to lesser generals, Meade for example. Or McClellan. Grant did not.