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The historical record is clear. Grant fought against the best generals and all the major armies of The Confederacy.
Best generals?
Ft. Donelson- Floyd & Pillow
Vicksburg- Pemberton
Chattanooga- Bragg
Grant was actually defeated by Gideon Pillow at the Battle of Belmont...
...and by Pemberton in three assaults against Vicksburg.
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New York Times, 27 September 1861
Last edited by Battalion : 10-11-2007 at 11:23 AM.
You forgot A.S. Johnston, considered by many in the south to be the best general officer in the confederate army, at the time. Beauregard, fought the 2d Day at Shiloh and Had to retreat.
Unlike many southerners, I am assuming that those in command of the confederate forces, knew what they were doing and had the best man available in command of their armies. IF they did not then it wqas no fault of Grants that he did not face the 'first' team.
Grant took on and defeated all the confederacy sent against him, if they weren't good enough, perhaps it was because, the south had no one 'better'. After all he did beat the (supposed) best the south had; Robert E. Lee.
You forgot A.S. Johnston, considered by many in the south to be the best general officer in the confederate army, at the time. Beauregard, fought the 2d Day at Shiloh and Had to retreat.
Unlike many southerners, I am assuming that those in command of the confederate forces, knew what they were doing and had the best man available in command of their armies. IF they did not then it wqas no fault of Grants that he did not face the 'first' team.
Grant took on and defeated all the confederacy sent against him, if they weren't good enough, perhaps it was because, the south had no one 'better'. After all he did beat the (supposed) best the south had; Robert E. Lee.
You left another big-name Confederate commander, Joe Johnston, off the list.
Joe Johnston had been in charge of both Bragg in Tennessee and Pemberton in Mississippi (and Pemberton was also highly regarded right up to the moment Grant got around him at Vicksburg) in the first part of 1863. Once Pemberton was besieged, Johnston came to Mississippi to command the force gathering to relieve Vicksburg. Grant turned on him on July 4; Johnston retreated rapidly before Sherman's advance, and Grant took Jackson once again.
In other spots, Grant had faced Price and Van Dorn (Iuka and Corinth campaigns). When it comes down to it, Grant had beaten everybody he met in any serious fight or campaign.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Agreed Trice; I mentioned Johnston in my original post; merely noting that he made sure to retreat rather than face Grant directly.
The Gamecock's fine sense of weighing the real odds, probably served him well in that instance.
Lot's of talk about the year it took Grant to force a surrender of the AoNV. It took him forty days to fix Lee at a place Lee couldn't leave. At Petersburg, there was no longer a reason to pay the cost of dislodging and crushing Lee's army. Grant had learned, at Vicksburg, the high cost of rushing the inevitable.
So he approved Sherman's plan to make Georgia howl, and he allowed Sherman to beg off from taking water transport to Virginia. Lee wasn't going anywhere. Sometimes the magic works, but I still won't call either "best."
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Best generals?
Ft. Donelson- Floyd & Pillow
Vicksburg- Pemberton
Chattanooga- Bragg
They were the best the Confederacy had in place.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
To call either "best" is fun fodder for discussion, but I don't believe the question can be conclusively decided.
To illustrate how this can be argued, there are thre great British military historians/analysts in the last 150 years or so: G. F. R. Henderson, J. F. C. Fuller, and B. H. Liddell Hart. All had strong opinions on the American Civil War and the generals who fought it. All were decorated combat soldiers.
Henderson got his start with a study of Fredericksburg, became an important teacher at the British military academy, ran the staff operation that beat the Boer's in 1900. He adored Jackson and Lee. Most British officers in 1890-1914 did as a result, because Henderson dominated the teaching of military history in that period of the British Army.
Fuller and Liddell-Hart were both brought up through his teachings. WWI left scars on them both. They turned to a study of the Union victory in search of a way to avoid the horrors they had experienced on the Western Front in 1914-1918. They were leading teachers and theorists in the period before WWII, responsible for much of the changes that came about.
Liddell-Hart became enamored of Sherman and the theory of the "indirect approach". This is obvious in his biography on Sherman and his other work.
Fuller began by being convinced that Lee was the great general and Sherman was an innovator, while Grant was just a "butcher" who used weight of numbers to win. Twenty years of study and 300 books of reading later, he was convinced that Grant was the best commander of the ACW: better than Lee, better than Sherman. He says so in his book on Grant.
Liddell-Hart and Fuller had a friendly (well, at least mainly courteous) battle in the military journals over this, with each reviewing the books the other produced.
So there you have it: 3 great military historians and analysts, all combat veterans, who come to three different opinions on the matter. Why think we can solve the riddle?
To some extent, this is like arguing centerfielders in New York in the 1950s. Who was better: the Dodgers' Duke Snider, the Giants' Willie Mays, or the Yankees' Mickey Mantle? Can you really go wrong no matter which one you pick in those days?
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
You can tell the young guys from the rest of us. This was posted: "To some extent, this is like arguing centerfielders in New York in the 1950s. Who was better: the Dodgers' Duke Snider, the Giants' Willie Mays, or the Yankees' Mickey Mantle? Can you really go wrong no matter which one you pick in those days?"
From a fielding perspective this was really not a contest. Snider was never known for his glove. Mantle had such bad wheels that he was really never a factor in the outfield. Mays wins, hands down. The greatest fielder perhaps of all time. At the plate, Mantle gets the edge, at least in drama and speed before his legs went bad.
__________________
Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
' can agree with you up to a point, Ole, but I think there is objective proof that Grant was the best army general produced in the CW.
The fact that he faced and defeated most of what is considered the best confederate army generals, not to mention facing the largest and best armies produced by the confederacy throughout the war. All would seem to provide enough historical proof of who was the best.
P.S. There 'may' be some question, if we measure all generals, whatever their commands, against each otheir at some specific point in time during the war i.e., I am prepared to accept that Thomas May have been Grants equal as a Army commander, but as he did not face the variety of terrain, opposition and quality of opposing commanders that Grant did, makes such a claim less sure than that of Grant, whose record of accomplishments as a general and as a commanding general are much more extensive than Thomas'.
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