South had its share of bad generals

Roanoke.com ^ | August 17, 2003 | NED HARRISON

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Post your 5 best and worst. Fire Away!

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[AnAmericanMother]

Braxton Bragg was a disaster. Two of my gg grandfathers served under him - one a captain commanding an artillery battery, one a plain private in the scouts/partisan rangers. Neither one of them could stand him -- and I'll bet either one of them could have done a better job.

I gotta vote for Benjamin F. "Spoons" Butler as worst on the Yankee side. Rotten and corrupt Massachusetts politician, couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. Somewhere around here I have his obituary from a Memphis paper - it's a classic! I'll go hunt for it and see if I can turn it up.

[snippy_about_it]

A bump and a ping!

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[Bluntpoint]

Gen. Des Orrder

Gen. Clester Feck

Gen. Ereteric

Gen. "MO" Toros

Gen. Issamo

[AnAmericanMother]

Here 'tis! It was in the Nashville paper, not Memphis:

The Beast Is Dead

Gotta love it. Them was the days when an editorial WAS an editorial:

"If there be a future of peace in store for Ben Butler after his entrance upon eternity then there is no heaven and the Bible is a lie. If hell be only as black as the Good book describes it, then there are not the degrees of punishment in which some Christians so firmly believe. He has gone, and from the sentence which has already been passed upon him, there is no appeal. He is already so deep down in the pit of everlasting doom that he couldn’t get the most powerful ear trumpet conceivable to scientists and hear the echoes of old Gabriel's trumpet; or fly a million kites and get a message to St. Peter who stands guard at heaven's gates.

[jalisco555]

You can't mention poor generals without discussing McClellan, a man unable to bring his enormous advantages in manpower and materiel to bear at the critical moment. A better general would have captured Richmond in 1862.

Gen. John Bell Hood, class of '53, never understood that the South could win only if the war could be prolonged until the North decided its losses were not worth the goal of maintaining the Union. Hood preferred aggressive - and costly - military campaigns.

At the risk of being flamed right off FR I point out that the same thing has been said of Robert E. Lee.

[laconic]

Bragg alone was the top five (and that's from a Northerner). I remember reading that he would stick to plans he'd made before a battle after the battle had changed the entire strategic picture upon which the initial plans were made. He was responsible for not following up after Chickamauga (when the full western army could have been bagged); yielding Fort Fisher; and making every one of his peers angry at him for life in the process. The author fails to mention Hood's idiocy at Franklin, when on drugs, he ordered the frontal attack that killed six of the South's best generals and thousands fo its finest young men. Hood is also the genius that allowed the southern army to get BEHIND Sherman's March to the Sea.

[Rebelbase]

"Gen. George Pickett, class of '46, is on the list not because of his performance at Gettysburg - his famous charge was doomed from the start - but because he was not with his soldiers at Five Forks on April 1, 1865, the battle that finally turned the Confederate lines before Petersburg. The South lost 5,200 men that day."

Shadbake bump.

[Snowy]

Gen. George Pickett, class of '46, is on the list not because of his performance at Gettysburg - his famous charge was doomed from the start

Wasn't it Lee who order Pickett's charge?

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Harsh words, indeed.

[Cincinatus]

the same thing has been said of Robert E. Lee.

The difference being that Lee tended to win battles while Hood lost them.

[jalisco555]

Wasn't it Lee who order Pickett's charge?

There is a group of historians who blame the South's defeat on Lee's aggressive strategy, with it's high and unsustainable casualty levels. I think Longstreet also believed this.

[Non-Sequitur]

Hmmmm. Hard one. OK, here goes.

Five Best Union

Grant
Sheridan
Hancock
McPherson
Thomas

Five Worst Union

Pope
McDowell
Burnside
Buell
Butler

Limiting the list to 5 worst generals was hard...but so was limiting it to 5 best. The Union corps and division commanders aren't as well known as their confederate counterparts but, on the whole, were much better.

Five Best Confederate

Jackson
Lee
Forrest
Stuart
Johnston, Joe

Five Worst Confederate

Bragg
Polk
Hood
A.P. Hill
Pillow

I think the author was too hard on Joe Johnston and not hard enough on Hill.

[yarddog]

The best judge of a general's effectiveness are his enemies.

The Confederates considered McClellan one of the best. I think Grant is vastly overrated. He was competent but little else. He suffered defeats which would have destroyed Lee's army but since he had such overwhelming numbers it didn't matter.

He was saved at Shiloh by sheer luck.

[jalisco555]

The difference being that Lee tended to win battles while Hood lost them.

Yes, but every battle led to another battle which let to yet another. Lee's casualty rates were enormous and unsustainable.

[stainlessbanner]

Reading Sword's "Southern Invincibility" will anger any Southerner to the boiling point. It seems Bragg and Hood more politically oriented than capable military leaders.

[jalisco555]

The Confederates considered McClellan one of the best.

I'm aware of this but I confess I never understood it. It's true that McClellan had great organizational skills and was very charismatic but as an army commander he was a failure.

[Snowy]

There is a group of historians who blame the South's defeat on Lee's aggressive strategy, with it's high and unsustainable casualty levels. I think Longstreet also believed this.

I read "Killer Angels" not too long ago (great book, by the way). I believe that the book said that Lee ordered Pickett's charge. If that's so, that was a really bad decision. I also have visited Gettysburg many times and have seen the terrain. I wonder what Lee was thinking?