Leadership Ratings for Civil War Generals

[bschulte]

I've recently been involved in a project where I need to rank Civil War generals at a certain battle on a scale of 0 (worst) to 6 (best) in several important features, including:

1) the ability to rally troops who are disrupted or routed
2) the radius of command a leader has to effectively control his men
3) the ability to keep unit cohesion high (i.e. keep men in their units and fighting
4) leadership (the ability to give units in the vicinity a boost to their morale)
5) leader style (i.e. aggressive, normal, George McClellan)
6) combat experience.

In addition to reading about the performance of each leader (brigade and above) at the battle in question, I've come up with several other factors to use when calculating these ratings. These include:

1) age at the battle: I thought a particularly old or young leader might be marked down in some areas for physical disability or inexperience.

2) West Point (or equivalent) graduate or attendee: I realize that many West Pointers turned out to be dismal generals and that some civilians turned into excellent combat officers, but this is one that could be used as a general guideline.

3) number of battles leading his current type of formation (brigade, division, corps, army): The idea here is to see how much practical battle experience the leader has at commanding this number of men. A leader recently promoted to a higher level might struggle a bit with cohesion until he gets used to handling a larger number of men.

4) number of battles the leader has been with his current unit (or a lower subunit of the current unit): This is basically familiarity. How well do the men know this commander. A long term leader is probably going to function more efficiently leading a unit rather than someone just placed in command of a new unit.

5) wounds prior to the battle and possible adverse affects on the leader in question: This is what I'll call the "Hood rule". The laudanum usage has proven to be a myth, but losing a leg and losing most of the use of one arm has to affect you in some large ways. Another example is Winfield Scott Hancock after his Gettysburg wound. He was never the same and was ultimately forced from command of the II Corps by this wound.


Does anyone else have any ideas on factors to consider and how they would apply them to the six features listed at the top of this post? I find this sort of research fascinating and I'd love to hear from those of you who have any opinions on this one.

[gary]

Charisma.
Fingerspitzengefeul. Rommel had it and so did Patton. Forrest certainly had it as did Benedict Arnold (at Saratoga).

BTW, from what you've listed, Howard would do pretty poorly considering what happened at Chancellorsville. So would Floyd & Pillow.

Are you designing a conflict-simulation (wargame)?

[bschulte]

Originally Posted by gary

Charisma.
Fingerspitzengefeul. Rommel had it and so did Patton. Forrest certainly had it as did Benedict Arnold (at Saratoga).

BTW, from what you've listed, Howard would do pretty poorly considering what happened at Chancellorsville. So would Floyd & Pillow.

Are you designing a conflict-simulation (wargame)?

Gary,

Thanks for the idea. Charisma should certainly be considered. Some leaders just had a certain "something" that others didn't. To answer your question, yes, this project is in part for a future wargame, but not one designed by me. Sorry I can't be more specific than that. I do plan to discuss this and other game design topics on the game in question on my blog after it has been released.

[gary]

Strategy & Tactics magazine use to have ratings of generals for both strategic thinking and tactical leadership. You might want to find an old board wargamer and see if he still has any of his old magazines. That was a terrific magazine for its time but the computer killed it.

[johan_steele]

Avalon Hill, Talonsoft and other gaming systems usually had a A-F rating. I have a couple books floating around that rate the various Generals at Gettysburg. When I get home next week I'll take a look see and try to find them for you.

[67th Tigers]

ISTR A-H rates troops not Generals, with most Union troops being rated D....

I had to come up with ratings for Generals for a PBeM game I never ran, and used "The Civil War". It rates most of the DCs and above...