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Which Confederate General was actually better? The only decent one would be Lee. No idea where this idea comes from, the idea that the loosing side in a war ha

by hef19898 3y ago

Which Confederate General was actually better? The only decent one would be Lee. No idea where this idea comes from, the idea that the loosing side in a war had better Generals. For the Wehrmacht it's the same. People tend to forget thatbthise Generals lost their battles, and the war, at the end.

brailsafe 3y ago
I don't even know much about the U.S civil war, but are you saying you don't understand how a great leader could be fighting for an unlikely victory?
- hef19898 3y ago
  No, I am saying that there os a narrative around Generals of the loosing side being "better" than those on the winning side. Which, more often than not, is just plain wrong.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> The only decent one would be Lee. Lee had a habit of couching orders as if they were suggestions or requests. The South's most effective general may have been Jackson. For the first half of the war, the Union's top general in the east was McClellan, who was useless. [Edit] McClellan didn't fight in the west. And I spelled his name wrong. [Edit 2] Lee overruled Longstreet, who wanted to flank the Union's right. Lee insisted on a frontal assault. That decision led directly to Picket's disastrous charge. I don't understand why some generals are so averse to flanking actions. Is it because they are somehow considered cowardly, or "just not cricket"? Flanking actions are often decisive, and sometimes even the threat of a flanking action can critically disrupt enemy operations.
- pdonis 3y ago
  Not just McClellan, but also McDowell, Pope, Burnside, Hooker...all failures. (Meade at least gets credit for holding back the Confederacy at Gettysburg, but even there he failed to follow up the victory by pursuing Lee's army, instead allowing it to escape back across the Potomac.)
bee_rider 3y ago
I suspect the losing side often ends up with “better looking” generals because they end up fighting defensively. If you lose long enough you end up in familiar terrain, with a sympathetic populace, and your supply lines get shorter! Eventually the war gets truly hopeless. Without any feasible objectives to go for, the loser has incredible latitude to try and stay alive and inflict harm. Never any need to take a tactically disadvantageous battle for strategic reasons if there’s no strategic hope, after all!
pdonis 3y ago
> Which Confederate General was actually better? The only decent one would be Lee. Not at all. Longstreet, Jackson, Forrest, Stuart, Early (and that's just off the top of my head)...all of them routinely outperformed their Union counterparts in individual battles and smaller engagements for the first couple of years of the war. Until Grant came into his own and was able to properly empower others like Sherman and Sheridan, the Union didn't really have any competent generals (although Meade does deserve recognition for holding the line at Gettysburg). The reason the Union still won was, first, logistics--as the saying goes, battles can be won by generalship but wars are won by logistics, and the Union had superior logistics (for example, running rail lines on the fly to support its armies). And second, the fact that the Confederacy failed to follow up key victories: for example, after the first battle of Bull Run, Washington, DC was pretty much there for the taking, but the Confederacy never tried. I suppose one could put that down to generalship, but I think it's more a matter of overall policy as regards the goal of the war: the Confederates weren't trying to conquer the Union, they were just trying to be independent from it. (Similar remarks could be made about the Wehrmacht generals: no, they didn't lose all their battles, they actually won quite a lot of them, but because of the insane overall leadership they were under, and because once the war became protracted they were at a disadvantage in logistics, they ended up losing the war.)
- hef19898 3y ago
  Wars are won on logistics, absoluteoy. And guess who is responsible for that? Hint, it isn't Corporal Smith.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    Generals play a role, sure (and that includes generals who don't play a battlefield role at all), but they also need proper support from their government. Much of the credit for the Union logistics effort has to go to Stanton, the Secretary of War. The Confederates had nobody even close in their government, and didn't really see the value of it until it was too late.
    - hef19898 3y ago

brailsafe 3y ago

I don't even know much about the U.S civil war, but are you saying you don't understand how a great leader could be fighting for an unlikely victory?

hef19898 3y ago
No, I am saying that there os a narrative around Generals of the loosing side being "better" than those on the winning side. Which, more often than not, is just plain wrong.

denton-scratch 3y ago

> The only decent one would be Lee. Lee had a habit of couching orders as if they were suggestions or requests. The South's most effective general may have been Jackson. For the first half of the war, the Union's top general in the east was McClellan, who was useless. [Edit] McClellan didn't fight in the west. And I spelled his name wrong. [Edit 2] Lee overruled Longstreet, who wanted to flank the Union's right. Lee insisted on a frontal assault. That decision led directly to Picket's disastrous charge. I don't understand why some generals are so averse to flanking actions. Is it because they are somehow considered cowardly, or "just not cricket"? Flanking actions are often decisive, and sometimes even the threat of a flanking action can critically disrupt enemy operations.

pdonis 3y ago
Not just McClellan, but also McDowell, Pope, Burnside, Hooker...all failures. (Meade at least gets credit for holding back the Confederacy at Gettysburg, but even there he failed to follow up the victory by pursuing Lee's army, instead allowing it to escape back across the Potomac.)

bee_rider 3y ago

I suspect the losing side often ends up with “better looking” generals because they end up fighting defensively. If you lose long enough you end up in familiar terrain, with a sympathetic populace, and your supply lines get shorter! Eventually the war gets truly hopeless. Without any feasible objectives to go for, the loser has incredible latitude to try and stay alive and inflict harm. Never any need to take a tactically disadvantageous battle for strategic reasons if there’s no strategic hope, after all!

pdonis 3y ago

> Which Confederate General was actually better? The only decent one would be Lee. Not at all. Longstreet, Jackson, Forrest, Stuart, Early (and that's just off the top of my head)...all of them routinely outperformed their Union counterparts in individual battles and smaller engagements for the first couple of years of the war. Until Grant came into his own and was able to properly empower others like Sherman and Sheridan, the Union didn't really have any competent generals (although Meade does deserve recognition for holding the line at Gettysburg). The reason the Union still won was, first, logistics--as the saying goes, battles can be won by generalship but wars are won by logistics, and the Union had superior logistics (for example, running rail lines on the fly to support its armies). And second, the fact that the Confederacy failed to follow up key victories: for example, after the first battle of Bull Run, Washington, DC was pretty much there for the taking, but the Confederacy never tried. I suppose one could put that down to generalship, but I think it's more a matter of overall policy as regards the goal of the war: the Confederates weren't trying to conquer the Union, they were just trying to be independent from it. (Similar remarks could be made about the Wehrmacht generals: no, they didn't lose all their battles, they actually won quite a lot of them, but because of the insane overall leadership they were under, and because once the war became protracted they were at a disadvantage in logistics, they ended up losing the war.)

hef19898 3y ago
Wars are won on logistics, absoluteoy. And guess who is responsible for that? Hint, it isn't Corporal Smith.
- pdonis 3y ago
  Generals play a role, sure (and that includes generals who don't play a battlefield role at all), but they also need proper support from their government. Much of the credit for the Union logistics effort has to go to Stanton, the Secretary of War. The Confederates had nobody even close in their government, and didn't really see the value of it until it was too late.
  - hef19898 3y ago