[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Peng first made General Tso's chicken in the 1950s

I thought it was personally made for a famous Chinese general back in the Ch'in Dynasty or something?

[ifinnegan]

“I thought it was personally made for a famous Chinese general back in the Ch’in Dynasty or something?”

No. Just named for him.

It was made for a US Admiral.

[iowamark]

It looks like that was just a story. Everybody knows that most Chinese dishes made in the US are recent inventions.

[smokingfrog]

It was just called something different back then.
我们没有看到你的猫

[Fiji Hill]

General Tso Tsung-t’ang was a prominent general in the mid-to late-nineteenth century during the Ch’ing Dynasty (not to be confused with the Ch’in Dynasty. Tso, who commanded forces loyal to the government, played a major role in quelling the T’ai P’ing Rebellion of 1851-1864, arguably the third bloodiest war in history (after WWII and the An Lu-shan Rebellion of AD 755-763) and remained a prominent figure in China’s defense establishment for years afterwards.

He apparently has no connection to the dish other than it being named for him.

[Sasparilla]

...I thought it was personally made for a famous Chinese general back in the Ch’in Dynasty or something?...

I thought so too.
Now I’m thinking that The Art Of War was ptrlbably written by a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco in 1939.