Most Overrated General?

[OpnCoronet]

We talk a lot about who was the best general of the war or who was the worst general of the war. Here's a question I haven't seen on the forum, though. Who is the most overrated general of the war? And I'm speaking from the standpoint of history, not from the standpoint of what contemporaries thought.[/QUOTE]



IMO, most CW Generals have been, more or less, i.e., within acceptable limits of human frailty,, properly evaluated by todays historians.
To me, the only glaring dificulty(and it has more to do with the general public perceptions, rather than historians) is the general tendency to ascribe the descriptive 'genius' to the generalship of Lee. In that description, I do believe he has been overrated.

 

[wilber6150]

I noticed one of the things that made Rhea's work outstanding was his attention to detail and the willingness to do really hard work verifying data. There's always new information surfacing and not necessarily out of somebody's attic. My old pal Nelson, for example - many documents and letters were locked up for international security reasons and only in the last couple decades have been released. The late Colin White, the foremost Nelson authority, literally stumbled onto piles of new information simply by cleaning out and re-ordering the museum and archives at Portsmouth! Got almost a whole new admiral out of it.

Letters from Nelson locked up for secuitry reasons? What the heck were they afraid of?

 

[KeyserSoze]

I don't know how much digging Rhea did.

What makes you say that?

 

[KeyserSoze]

Letters from Nelson locked up for secuitry reasons? What the heck were they afraid of?

Nelson's personal life was, shall we say, messy.

 

[diane]

Letters from Nelson locked up for secuitry reasons? What the heck were they afraid of?

Yes. Part of it was Queen Victoria's making him the symbol of the British Empire and some of it was his personal life - which didn't go along with that image! - and part of it was relations with France and other countries.

 

[Rebforever]

Have you read his books?

Yep. All 5 of them.

 

[Rebforever]

Meade threw a temper tantrum in May. As a result of that, Grant allowed him full control for Cold Harbor until Grant stopped things.

http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/cold-harbor-myths/

Wonder who wrote the blog?

 

[wilber6150]

Yep. All 5 of them.

Then it should be easy to see how much digging and attention to detail that he put into them...

 

[Rebforever]

What makes you say that?

Just because he wrote in detail doesn't mean other authors have not. It all depends on what one wants to write about I would guess.

 

[cash]

Wonder who wrote the blog?

One of the best Civil War historians alive today.

 

[ole]

Can we stop now please? I started reading at page 13 and there were 15 pages. I read page 13 and, voila!, there were 16 pages. Read page 14 and there were 17 pages. I ought to be out and doing something useful, but no, you people insist that I sit here and read.

 

[Billy Yank]

But for the proximity limitations of the internet, a re-enactment of the caning of Sen. Chas. Sumner by Rep. Preston Brooks would seem imminent.

 

[Elennsar]

Interestingly, if one is going to refer to Foote, his exact words:

"Eventually the doleful tally showed tha twhile Lee was losing something under 15000, killed and wounded in the course of the day, Grant lost better than 7000, most of them in the course of those first eight minutes."

McPherson "The Yankess suffered 7,000 casualties this day, the Confederates fewer than 1,5000." But again, not broken down into either the great assault or any firing later in the day.

I only have the abridged copy of Lee's Lieutenants (I've checked the others out from the library at various times, but I only own a copy of the above), but in it:

"Eight minutes sufficed to show the men of three Union corps that farther advance would be suicide. At the price of not more than 1,500 casualties, the Army of Northern Virginia had killed or wounded 7,000 of Grant's men."

No mention of the fact that "eight minutes" was not the whole of the fighting that day or even of the main assault (As documented by Rhea).

So while I'd like to see Cash be more specific in his recommendations, I would also point out that the implication that Grant lost seven thousand men in eight minutes is - in the three books besides Rhea I have copies of - only presented by the author most known to be an ANV proponent.

Whether Foote was a Lost Causer or not, even his figures refer to "The day" on the whole, not to the grand assault (which as Rhea's work illustrates in his extremely detailed analysis of causalities, was not very grand at all).


Grant was given Hell by people who heard that excessive casualties were suffered. But to judge whether or not the analysis by Rhea is true based on something that has not done such analysis is the wrong way to go about it.

 

[Rebforever]

I guess it would cut down to who's book I would want to believe.
It is a wonder someone has not challenged Rhea's figures.

 

[diane]

Shelby Foote wasn't a Lost Causer, rather he scoffed at that ideology. He said he was simply telling the story of the Civil War from the Southern viewpoint. He was trying to add balance - Bruce Catton was slanted toward the North, as he said himself. Some confuse a Southern perspective with the more militant Lost Cause.

 

[Billy Yank]

Union casualty figures tended to be more accurate than Confederate. Why? That's just the way it was. Be that as it may, when in doubt about information, it is probably safe to collect as many credible sources as possible and arrive at an average. Just my method.

 

[Elennsar]

I guess it would cut down to who's book I would want to believe.
It is a wonder someone has not challenged Rhea's figures.

So this is a matter of "belief" and not evidence now?

Well, this would explain why even documenting that the OR figures of 12,738 refer to the entire period between June 2 and June 15 (and include 6th Corps's losses on June 1) has not made any impact on those who insist on disregarding Rhea's analysis because of claims without sources by other historians.

 

[Elennsar]

Union casualty figures tended to be more accurate than Confederate. Why? That's just the way it was. Be that as it may, when in doubt about information, it is probably safe to collect as many credible sources as possible and arrive at an average. Just my method.

How do we determine "credible sources" for this sort of thing?

 

[Billy Yank]

How do we determine "credible sources" for this sort of thing?

That's generally a judgement call (for me), LtC. Elennsar. I gather as much information on a particular subject as I possibly can. I prefer accounts from the common soldier, but I realize their limitations. I am skeptical of commanders as they tend to be self-serving and legacy enhancing. I throw-in time-tested historians, professors and authors. Then I throw-out the obvious highballers and lowballers. Put the rest of them in a bag. Shake-it-up, and construct a consensus or average. It may not be 100% infallible, but it works for me.

When folks start throwing-out #s like: 10,000, 8,000, 13,000, etc., I'm "OK" with a 10.3k average. I know that it is a heckuva lot more than 100 and substantially less than 50k. Too much analysis can result in paralysis, it is said. I get the general picture. To me, it's not that important whether Mr. Lincoln wore boxer shorts or jockey shorts.

 

[Billy Yank]

That's generally a judgement call (for me), LtC. Elennsar. I gather as much information on a particular subject as I possibly can. I prefer accounts from the common soldier, but I realize their limitations. I am skeptical of commanders as they tend to be self-serving and legacy enhancing. I throw-in time-tested historians, professors and authors. Then I throw-out the obvious highballers and lowballers. Put the rest of them in a bag. Shake-it-up, and construct a consensus or average. It may not be 100% infallible, but it works for me.

When folks start throwing-out #s like: 10,000, 8,000, 13,000, etc., I'm "OK" with a 10.3k average. I know that it is a heckuva lot more than 100 and substantially less than 50k. Too much analysis can result in paralysis, it is said. I get the general picture. To me, it's not that important whether Mr. Lincoln wore boxer shorts or jockey shorts.

There are instances, I know, where specifics and precision matter a great deal. One has to know which is the wheat and which is the chaff, no?