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.
Sounds like a must read... it's in the (ever lengthening) queue.
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 :-)
I agree that Vicksburgh was brilliant - his most outstanding achievement and probably what got him the command. Foote tells of a relapse of his alcoholism during the siege, IIRC, but Foote definitely has a (slight) Southern bias and I haven't read anything else about the incident.
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.
Not to lionize Lee, but direct comparisons probably aren't a good metric. One has to consider the North's considerable advantages in battle a few of which were greater numbers, better technology, and the superior condition of its troops. The one advantage the South had was that it was consistently on the defensive in its own territory.
Even so, Grant did not always win the war of numbers. In the Wilderness campaign, despite outnumbering Lee 5-3, Grant lost something like 17% while Lee lost less than 13% This was followed by Spotsylvania where Grant lost an incredible 33% to Lee's 18%. Subsequently, at the lopsided Cold Harbor Grant lost 12% (7,000 in under an hour), Lee 4%.
This series of battles in May 1864 is probably where Grant gets his "bulldozer" reputation. Union Casualties for the month were ~52,000 while the Confederates suffered ~23,000.
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.
True, but I still have to wonder how well he would have done had he rather than Lee succeeded the wounded Johnson (not that he was even considered by Davis). Jackson had just completed his fantastically successful Valley campaign and though I haven't read anything that states this, I've always wondered if Jackson didn't resent not being chosen after proving himself so worthy. The historians I have read attribute his inexplicably poor performance in the peninsula campaign shortly thereafter to lack of sleep, but I didn't find their arguments very convincing.
Doug
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