Grant was clearly the best general in American history. Lee was an excellent tactical general in the Napoleonic tradition. Grant was perhaps the first modern general and a much better strategic thinker. His reputation is slowly rising to its proper place as the stain on his reputation soiled by a hundred years of Lost Cause revisionism has been washed away.
That being said, while I have mixed emotions about statues of Confederate heroes, I do not support this fever to remove them.
Lord where to being how full of shite you have always been sweetie
I am beyond scared, as I must admit, by this “rush” to remove statues depicting historical figures who happen to have fallen out of favor with the left.
If you ask me, it had been a great act of magnanimity by the Northern victors to have Southerners put up statues of their military leaders after the WBS had ended.
Dear Southerners, please do accept my assurance that in no way is it my intention to cause you any hurt and pain, but the victors, after some time, came around to realize that the whole nation needed a “healing process” after all the horrors of the war - this is exactly that what was never done in Europe after the last wars (thus the hatred between peoples lingers on for the most part).
And now, old wounds are needlessly ripped open again, or so it seems to me (from the other side of the pond).
Beyond horrible, imho :-(
Lee was a great and honorable man, and a very good general; he was able to do more with less in the Army of Northern Virginia than just about anyone else could have. He was aided in this by some outstanding subordinates like A.P. Hill, Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart, especially Jackson. Was Lee perfect? No, he made some serious mistakes, but few if any others could have done what he did overall for the South.
Grant may not have been Lee’s equal in the great-and-honorable department, and he may not have been as good a tactical general, but he was the RIGHT general for the Union at the right time. He realized that the Union’s biggest advantage was its mass and firepower and that the best way to handle Lee was not to fight on the South’s terms, but to use that overwhelming numerical advantage to grind them down. And he had the cojones to stick with his strategy even in the face of some losses and appalling casualties, because he knew it was the right one. And it was. Plus he also had some very able subordinates who thought the same way, like Sherman and Sheridan. Grant, in a way, was a better general for the evolving method of mass industrial warfare. Lee was more of an old-school general whose time was ending.
}:-)4