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
That’s right.
According to Grant and Sheridan, the Greatest General on either side in the Civil War was Nathan Bedford Forrest.
If you say “Whoa” on that, I would say ok IF you define it a little more tighter and say “Greatest Fighting General”.
Once you say it that way, there can be no dispute. Forest always led from the front and killed, in personal hand to hand combat, approximately 28 Yankee soldiers.
Post War Liberal Historians, much like today, attacked and maligned him unmercifully because he was a Confederate General and was involved with the KKK to some degree after the war.
Never mind that historians ignore the fact that
soon after becoming involved with the KKK he advised it’s leaders that if they didn’t cease and desist from their most onerous activities he would personally lead a force to kill every last one of them.
So, in many peoples opinion, Nathan Bedford Forest was objectively our greatest fighting general hands down and no contest.
“Bold” “Fearless” “Audacious”
Most of the historical references to Forrest that I read include those adjectives. Forrest’s successes are especially impressive since he had no formal training as a cavalryman. He took chances and many of them paid off.
In a way Forrest epitomized the confederate army - bold and aggressive, and served as an antithesis of the union army - cautious and tentative.
>Comparing Patton to Lee is not a good caparison. A better comapoarison is Patton to Jackson.
I don’t think that’s fair either. Patton was closer to Sherman in brains and tactics and it was Sherman who won the Civil war not Grant. However, Stonewall Jackson is probably the finest military mind ever produced by America. He’s on par with Erich von Manstein(General who planned the invasion of France and saved Hitler’s bacon after Stalingrad) in tactics, strategy, new ideas and with a keen mind for changes in military warfare. With Stonewall Jackson in charge of the Union armies the war would have been over in a month.
A case could be made for Winfield Scott, the nation's leading general for a generation, the successful invader of Mexico and the man who developed the overall strategy the Union used to defeat the Confederacy.
...........yes, I’ve read at least four books about the man. He may have been one of the few men ever on this earth that was incapable of knowing or feeling fear. How he survived all the engagements he lead was a true miracle.
I try to imagine what it would be like to ride at the head of as many as 15,000 guys ALL mounted and sabers rattling with thousands of wagons and artillery following along behind. The sheer magnitude of it all is just thrilling.
I would give anything to be able to go somewhere and see 15,000 men, mounted, riding into imminent battle. Amazing.
It’s a shame we didn’t have video and sound back then.
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But the WAR was NOT over! Down in Texas, a month later, the Union attacked a confederate “Stand Down” army and the confederates won!
In the Indian territories, Stand Watie, the LAST Confederate General later dismissed his troops, and on the High Seas, the CSS Shenandoah continued to “Save the Whales” by sinking Union whaling vessels. When she quit in the fall of 1865, she steamed into a British Port with her Confederate National Flag flying high.
Meanwhile, in several of those Slave States that had joined the Union, SLAVERY went on as usual until the ratification of the 13th Amendment, eight months after the end of the war and the death of Lincoln.
Fifteen-twenty years later, US Troops were still freeing slaves held by the Indians in the west, mostly whites, Mexicans and other captive Indians.
While Forrest is a skilled officer of the highest order, I would not call him the “Greatest General on either side of the Civil War. He never commanded an army nor did he ever command infantry formations during the war. Forrest commanded a cavalry corp in the AOT at Chickamauga. That was the largest body of troops he led during the war. I certainly would not argue that he may well have been the best Cavalry General of the war.
They've retreated to the fastness of their studios at CNN and the offices of the NYTimes to fight a never ending guerrilla war -- the very thing that Robert E. Lee decided against and for which he is rightly venerated to this day.
Only a mistake in hindsight. Lee was all-in at Gettysburg. But it was no different at his greatest victory shortly before Gettysburg — Chancellorsville. If Jackson had been caught making that flank march, or if the Union had prudently tightened their lines Chancellorsville would have been an epic defeat.
“But Washington was able to pull it off. Lee could not.”
Washington had the French for allies. Lee did not. :)
J.F.C. Fuller, Liddell Hart and Heinz Guderian might disagree.
Stuarts actions were the direct responsibility of Lee.
Lee authorized Stuart to select his own route North into Pennsylvania after Longstreet’s Corp crossed into the Valley. Lee’s plan for the operation in Pennsylvania never considered of waiting for Union Forces to attack him. His concept of operations, as explained to Longstreet before the campaign began, was to take the army into Pennsylvania, draw the AOP north, there find suitable terrain and attack the AOP, defeating it in detail. Lee never considered a defensive fight against the AOP in Pennsylvania.
Lee had other cavalry formations at Gettysburg. Perhaps they were too beat-up from guarding the mountain passes from AoP probing attack to be of much assistance at Gettyburg. I’d have to re-read the campaign history leading up to the 1st Day to be certain about that. But Stuart’s forte was gathering intel for his commander and none of the other cavalry officers were held in the same esteem by Lee.
> Washington had the French for allies. Lee did not. :) <
Good point!
Eight Yankee officers huddled together in the face of two Confederates.
Rommel was an infantry officer in WW1. He mastered infiltration tactics fighting the Italians then. Blitzkrieg, or maneuver warfare, is merely the motorization (with armor) of infiltration tactics. It’s all about moving faster than your opponent.
Lee did not have a French Army and the French Navy, fighting with him. Washington did.
But at some point the enemy concentrates at a position from which no amount of flanking will force them out. I'm thinking about Rosecrans' campaign in Tennessee. Brilliant though it was it ended in the epic defeat at Chickamauga -- and a similar fate must have played on Sherman's mind when the Confederates took a stand near Atlanta.
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