Better General: Longstreet or Jackson?

Some times the Lord takes his favorites first. What is your point?

My point is, we get to VERY thin ice when we assume the Lord is on our side.

Perhaps the Lord judged old Stonewall and his cause:

Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
 
Point taken, do you not assume the Lord is on your side as well?

No, I do not. I humbly hope that I am on the Lord’s side, though I know I cannot fathom what the Lord intends and also know, I may be wrong. One who assumes that the Lord is on their side also assumes that they are correct and righteous, after all, the Lord can’t be wrong.
 
No, I do not. I humbly hope that I am on the Lord’s side, though I know I cannot fathom what the Lord intends and also know, I may be wrong. One who assumes that the Lord is on their side also assumes that they are correct and righteous, after all, the Lord can’t be wrong.
Good reply, let us leave it at that.
 
My point is, we get to VERY thin ice when we assume the Lord is on our side.

Perhaps the Lord judged old Stonewall and his cause:

Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Sorry some how how I missed "Perhaps the Lord judged Stonewall and his cause" Stonewalls cause was defend his state of Virginia
 
but the common belief is that Longstreet was the better defender and Jackson the attacker.
There is nothing to support this idea...
Jackson first became famous for his defense at 1st Manassas
He defended against at 2nd Manassas... until Longstreet could conduct one of they few battle wining attacks of the war.
Jacksons attack a Chancellorsville didn't win him the battle.. and he was killed doing something he should have let a low ranking staff officer do.
Longstreet had very effective attacks at both Gettysburg and The wilderness. And a battle wining one at Chickamauga.


But you simply can't ask "who is better" Better at what?
If I was a army general and could decide on their use I would prefer Longstreet as my 2nd in command and as a corp commander with my army.
And Jackson should be send off with a smaller independent command when that was needed.

And Lee clearly wanted Longstreet as nr. 2.
 
If I had to assign one to an independent command, I'd choose Jackson over Longstreet based on his track record any day of the week. If I had to choose one to execute my orders in a subordinate command role, to be honest, one would be as good as the other provided that Longstreet was on board with what I wanted to carry out. His attacks at Chickamauga and Second Manassas were every bit as masterly as Jackson's flank assault at Chancellorsville.
 
I say Longstreet. The Wilderness and 2nd Bull Run stand as outstanding generalship. Longstreet did not want to conduct the Knoxville campaign, but was ordered by Bragg and Richmond. He fought as well as he could being severely outnumbered. I am sure if Longstreet died at Chancellorsville he would have been immortalized as well.
 
Hi,

The answer lies in two levels. On the "operational" level, it can be argued that Jackson was usually (not always) better than Longstreet.

However, on the "tactical" (or battlefield) level, there was no comparison between these men's performances. Longstreet was far far better, BOTH on the offensive and on the defensive.

Regards,

This is exactly my answer. I would lean slightly towards Longstreet overall. Jackson had a lot of issues with subordinates over the years in the war. Longstreet had similar issues at Knoxville, but Jackson seemed to want to to arrest a commander after nearly every battle after 1st manassas.

I also would agree with a previous poster that we look back at the Valley Campaign as a genius one, but lets not forget Old Jack got a lot of aid from the 3 bumbling commanders he was facing.

Longstreet delivers 4 of the largest scale hammer blows of the war: 2nd mansassas, gettysburg, wilderness and chickamauga.
 
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