Grant? Are you nuts? The only reason he beat Lee was that he had far more men who were much better equipped. If Lee and Grant had swapped sides, the South would not have lasted two years.
Grant was not in charge of the Union armies for two years. When he was placed in charge, he defeated Lee rather rapidly.
He beat Lee after McClellan, Meade, & Burnside, who had the same amount of men & equipment failed.
He won. Lee lost. Deal with it.
Although I would have agreed with you once upon a time, I now believe Grant was a greater general than Lee. Lee was always on the defensive against Grant (in fact, he never went on the offensive against Grant at all). That gave him a tremendous advantage in terms of casualties.
Also, Lee twice nearly squandered his army, only to be saved by the timidity of the generals opposing him. He stayed on the field of Antietam on September 18. An attack by Porter's unused Corps would have destroyed his army and ended the war very early. However, McClellan lacked the guts. Then, after Chancellorsville, he ordered a full frontal assault on the Union position. Had not Hooker retreated earlier, the result would have been disasterous.
Lee was a great general, who was very lucky with his opponents . . . until Grant came east. Then he was finished.
Good point about Lee. Better than Grant, who was pretty good as well.
Here are some other "bad guys" who should be mentioned:
Nathan Bedford Forrest- Confederate genious. Scary tactician-founder of the KKK.
Heinz Guderian. The architect of the modern ground war as it incorporates heavy armor. Nazi bastard. Smart guy.
Good guys:
Moshe Dayan. You have to love someone who kicks the sh*t out of so many Arabs.
MacArthur and Nimitz. Fixed the East in a way we somehow failed to fix Europe.
Ronald Reagan. Destroyed America's most dangerous enemy ever without firing a shot. THAT'S a general.
Not-so-sure-if-they're-good-guys:
Alexander the Great. The Persians had launched numerous wars against Greek civilization and Alex would have no more of it. Made it all the way to India.
Julius Caesar. Nothing needs to be said about this guy. Created the Empire. Screw the Senate, as I say unto this very day.
Grant's Vicksburg Campaign of May, 1863, is pretty impressive. As I've studied the War of Northern Agression more and more, the more Grant impresses me. He learns throughout the War, whereas as Lee, of whom I have the greatest admiration (can look at three pictures of him as I type this), is pretty much the same general in April, 1865, that he was in June, 1862.
The book, The Military 100, gives Grant a better ranking than Lee. Grant is number 33 and Lee at 60.
The top ten are
Washington
Napolean
Alexander
Genghis Khan
Julius Caesar
Gustavus Adolfus
Francisco Pizarro
Charlemagne
Hernando Cortez
Cyrus the Great.
Take a good look at Grant's western campaigns. Also, the Union AoP had a massive inferiority complex when it came to going up against "Bobby Lee". Let's just say Grant had to simplify the playbook.
Grant was a great commander because he was not afraid to take casualties in a war of attrition.
Lee turned down the job. (He was offered command of the Union Army at the start of the War.)
Without detracting from the brilliance of Lee, Grant used the tools at hand. His seige of Fort Donnelson, his first major campaign, showed his tactical and strategic capability.
Grant unfallingly won the battles he should have won, something that can be said for few other generals. (Shiloh, aka Pittsburg Landing, was a tactical blunder, possibly from underestimating Johnston, a blunder from which he recovered.)
Lee sealed the fate of the South with Pickett's Charge. After that moment the South could not prevail. Arguably, the South might not have gotten to 1863 without him, but it's difficult to tell.