--- Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't know enough about the non Civil > War/Revolutionary War generals > to have an educated opinion, but having read the > McPherson, Shelby Foote > and some of Caton's stuff, I have to wonder on what > merits you rate > Grant so highly. Tactically I'd have to rate > Sherman and Stonewall > Jackson higher. Grant seems to have been more of a > bulldozer than > anything else and Cold Harbor is a very troubling > episode, IMO. > Doug
Well, my assessment of Grant starts with John Keegan's The Mask of Command. It's surely worth something that Keegan picked Grant as his exemplar of democratic military leadership. Beyond that, however - and granting you the disastrous mistake of Cold Harbor - I think that Grant's reputation as a bulldozer is wildly overstated. Grant's ability to make up for his initial mistakes at Shiloh - mistakes born, I think, of inexperience - strikes me as being quite remarkable. Even more impressive to me is his Vicksburg campaign, where his decision to abandon his lines of supply was a daring gamble in violation of all accepted military wisdom, redeemed by the fact that it worked (shades of Tommy Franks, I guess :-) His strategic concept of the war is, to me, the most impressive part of his accomplishments. Grant understood, as only Sherman and Lincoln did as well, that the obliteration of the Southern Army was the path to victory. That seems simple, but how many of his predecessors were able to figure it out? Finally, I think that Grant's reputation as a bulldozer isn't really substantiated by his results. His casualty rates were far below those of almost any other General in the war - far below Lee's, for example, and I think only Sherman among major Union officers did better by that critical metric. I agree with you on Stonewall Jackson's extraordinary tactical abilities, but he never (so far as I can tell) seems to have developed a strategic concept of how to win the war to go with them. It may not have been his place to do so, but that's why I didn't list him in the top rank with the others, all of whom did display that understanding, something which is, imo, the single most important attribute of a commanding general. All else - even operational skill - is secondary. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
