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> 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

by 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
    To make a story that covers whole libraries, logistics, supply chains and war industry, really short: Government, during war time, sets the priorities and policies, industry put those policies in place. This results in output, guns, uniforms, tanks, horses, ammunition, boots, food, planes, ships... How said output is used on the battlefields, and more importantly how it gets to said battlefields, is the Generals thing (including theirs staff, the general staff, high command...). Also, the civil war was one of the first semi-indistrial wars. And those cannot be won without a proper industrial base, which the South never had. And no single person can change that.
cafard 3y ago
OK. How about Braxton Bragg (Chattanooga), Pickett (less for Gettysburg than for his role in the Pig War), and John Bell Hood (marched his troops all the way to Nashville to be defeated by a numerically superior, well-rested, well-equipped force. (Well, the ones he lost attacking well-prepared positions in Franklin didn't make it to Nashville.)
- pdonis 3y ago
  I didn't claim that all of the Confederate generals were superior. I was simply pointing out that there were plenty of them that were, and that the defeat of the Confederacy was not primarily due to "their generals weren't as good".
acdha 3y ago
I live a few blocks from one time they tried to hit DC later - the only time a U.S. President has come under enemy fire was when Lincoln came out to inspect the situation and some Confederate sharpshooters tried to hit him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Stevens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Stevens To your point about logistics and follow-up, they failed because Early had been pushing his troops too hard for too long. It’s hard for us to appreciate just how much effort travel was even in the early railroad era, where basic things like food decided battles. It also didn’t help that the troops decided to recuperate with some looted whiskey at the Blair mansion.
- cafard 3y ago
  One should also credit Lew Wallace and his troops for their delaying action at the Monocacy.

by pdonis 3y ago

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
  To make a story that covers whole libraries, logistics, supply chains and war industry, really short: Government, during war time, sets the priorities and policies, industry put those policies in place. This results in output, guns, uniforms, tanks, horses, ammunition, boots, food, planes, ships... How said output is used on the battlefields, and more importantly how it gets to said battlefields, is the Generals thing (including theirs staff, the general staff, high command...). Also, the civil war was one of the first semi-indistrial wars. And those cannot be won without a proper industrial base, which the South never had. And no single person can change that.

cafard 3y ago

OK. How about Braxton Bragg (Chattanooga), Pickett (less for Gettysburg than for his role in the Pig War), and John Bell Hood (marched his troops all the way to Nashville to be defeated by a numerically superior, well-rested, well-equipped force. (Well, the ones he lost attacking well-prepared positions in Franklin didn't make it to Nashville.)

pdonis 3y ago
I didn't claim that all of the Confederate generals were superior. I was simply pointing out that there were plenty of them that were, and that the defeat of the Confederacy was not primarily due to "their generals weren't as good".

acdha 3y ago

I live a few blocks from one time they tried to hit DC later - the only time a U.S. President has come under enemy fire was when Lincoln came out to inspect the situation and some Confederate sharpshooters tried to hit him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Stevens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Stevens To your point about logistics and follow-up, they failed because Early had been pushing his troops too hard for too long. It’s hard for us to appreciate just how much effort travel was even in the early railroad era, where basic things like food decided battles. It also didn’t help that the troops decided to recuperate with some looted whiskey at the Blair mansion.

cafard 3y ago
One should also credit Lew Wallace and his troops for their delaying action at the Monocacy.