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To: Cyropaedia
First, it is Southron and US. Grant got his butt whupped by Robert E. Lee all over the field. I have studied all history, and Robert E. Lee is in the ranks of Napolian (Spelling?).

It is unimaginable that somebody would consider US Grant on par with Robert E Lee. The command of both Northern and Southern forces was offered to Lee but historically Lee said "I cannot turn my back on my country (Virginia)"

The north throughout the war was better equipped, had vastly larger armies , supply routes and still even in nearly every victory took more casulities than the south (when fighting Lee).

I would also consider Stonewall Jackson to be up there as a great commander.. the way he would suck on a lemon during battle and stand almost arrogant in battle is amazing. At the virginia military institute each year on graduation night, his grave is peppered with lemons.

No Grant was not a great military leader, very few Northern Generals were... the only mistake Lee made was at gettysburg because he believed the south was invensible at that point. He should have withdrawn and marched to Washington DC.

However, for effectiveness, The only thing that saved the north in the civil war was the schorched earth tactics undertaken by U.S. Grant. Northern soldiers were fat and Southern soldiers were starving and without ammunition but we still racked up more kills... we just ran out of people (smaller population). And with USG burning every single crop and confiscating food/southern women the south was doomed desipte the far superior tactics of Lee.
75 posted on 11/14/2004 5:36:43 PM PST by DixieOklahoma (Stop specter vision! Keep specter out! Just say NO to specter!)
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To: DixieOklahoma

This is going to sound a little wishy washy but Lee was a good but not great general and Grant was an above average but not truly great.

At the start of the CW he beat a lot of really bad Union Generals. McClellan was a great organizer but would not fight because he always assumed Lee had greater numbers than were actually under his command. As a result, Lee racked up many victories and his reputation grew as a result.

Grant on the other hand was not well organized, but unlike other Union Generals, he was not afraid to use his advantages in supplies and manpower to his advantage. In addition, un like McClellan he was willing to take some risk to win the war. Also, several of Grant's early failures were not entirely of his own making.


170 posted on 11/14/2004 5:58:25 PM PST by Cavalier79
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To: DixieOklahoma

Southron?


636 posted on 12/22/2005 11:34:38 AM PST by luvbach1 (Near the belly of the beast in San Diego)
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To: DixieOklahoma

Well, no. Longstreet was probably a better general, but going back even a little further, General Albert Sidney Johnston might have been the South's best. He actually was kicking Grant's but all over Shiloh until he got killed. Longstreet seems to have been the only Confederate general who grasped the potential of modern warfare, which he called the "offensive defensive," or counter-punching from a heavily defended position. Lee was a great general, but he was hamstrung by outmoded notions of warfare, such as frontal assaults which he clung to disastrously, as at Gettysburg. That was an acceptable tactic during the days of smoothbore muskets, but the advent of rifled barrels made such attacks almost suicidal.


741 posted on 12/27/2005 4:51:12 PM PST by Hootowl
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