Lee lost to a sloppy drunk. It's like losing to Jim Lahey.

How would one gauge the effectiveness of a general? Like what metrics? The first one that comes to mind for me is Eisenhower, and that’s because I know very little here.

Victories, contributions towards war goals, influence upon later militaries, innovation. Grant revolutionized strategy and logistics.

Lee was never actually a General for the US though right?

I thought everyone had watched Checkmate Licolnites a dozen times... Atun Shei Films clearly proved that in an episode, at least in regards to the Civil War

Ike very arguably modeled himself on Grant.

Ike certainly had nothing but effusive praise for Grant.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDS...

Reading U.S. Grant's memoirs is riveting (I finished them this month) - he was an amazing general. Strategically and tactically outstanding, and some tremendous wisdom about his generals and opponents.

Grant is straight up the American von Moltke, around the same time even.

Just finished the Lee episodes today on my quest to catch tf up on bastards/ it could happen here.

The Granites will have much to say about this

Better general but I have complicated feelings toward him as a human being, sure he was an abolitionist by the end of the war but he made Sherman his secretary of war and enacted a genocidal policy towards native Americans

Grant was an abolitionist long before the war. His father in law gifted him a slave when Grant was at his lowest point and broke. Instead of exploiting the man for free labour, he emancipated him. His father in law LOATHED Grant.

His wife continued to keep slaves well into the civil war since slavery was legal in the border states until the passing of the 13th amendment, I really can't see someone being an abolition and continuing to be married to a slave owner. Source: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unra...

Alcoholic son of a tanner defeating "no demerits at West Point" guy puzzles some

"Thats a mighty fine uniform you got there but have you considered that I could just glass you with this here whiskey bottle? Now shut the fuck up and sign the damn paper." -Grant at Appomattox, probably

It’s the same delusional classism that leads to anti-stratfordians. “But how could the POOR do it!? He doesn’t even have a lineage! It can’t be that family background is meaningless to ability because then my entire worldview must be mistaken”

Colin Woodard wrote a book called "American Nations" where he breaks down regional character by who, when and where this or that European group colonized the US. The South is very feudal in their imported history. Lineage is important to them.

Exactly this!

Grant was the general who most understood the importance of when not to be sober.

General Sherman a close second

Given the next 150 years of US Military escapades...... Checks out. WW2 was resource management and overwhelming numbers made manifest.

When your stragety is bad / when your stragety is good

I know jackshit about the civil war in terms of the battles fought. But using some helpful context clues like how I live in the United States and not the Confederate States I feel comfortable in making the claim that Grant was probably better. Pretty sure they even let that guy be president for it.

"If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other." Ulysses S. Grant

“There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter.” - Ulysses S Grant

Grant. I like Generals who win wars.

find someone else that's won a civil war with a BAC never dropping below .2, you can't

The impresssion I had from the Chernow biography is that he was almost always sober, and just disappeared for a few days a couple of times on benders

He was pretty sober it was his haters spreading rumors. Lincoln told them if he could win him some battles he'd send him his favorite bottle.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read the biography, and Chernow may have given too much credence, but “pretty sober,” fits what I meant, sober with one or two short relapses, and I should have mentioned that it never endangered the army. And to hell with the haters; traitor and copperheads all

The haters included McClellan if I remember right. I read it a long time ago in Lincoln and His Generals. Great read to understand the Union high command during the war.

Definitely included McClellan

"I am the liquor"

I only wish he could be with us today to do stuff like this youtu.be/9jyPh77dDTI?...

This is a delight, thank u

Johan Banér got pretty close

Grant was sober for almost the entire war. He slipped once during the campaign for Vicksburg, but that was two years before the war was won.

Lee was at best (and this is overly generous) an average military commander. A century of propaganda by southern racists has made the dude a legend when in fact he benefited from shit leadership on the union side and above average corp commanders like Longstreet in his army. And im not saying

Longstreet or Jackson were amazing either, they were just far more effective in their roles than most of their union counterparts. Grant while not a perfect human being (far from perfect), was infinitely a better man than Lee and tactically is very very underrated as a general.

Everybody talks about Jackson at Chancellorsville but stays awfully quiet about Jackson in the Seven Days.

The Vicksburg campaign is one of the greatest military campaigns in history. It's a campaign that someone like Lee couldn't have ever dreamed of accomplishing.

I'm from Atlanta. I'm kinda partial to Sherman

Imagine losing a war to a guy that’s drunk all the time.

Omar Bradley?

There's the "logistical genius" who won WWII

Oh, you mean Gen. Georgy Zhukov?

Imo you're both wrong. No singular genius did the thing. US aid to USSR and diplomacy played a big role too.

The Soviet Union nearly destroyed itself by declaring war on military expertise. Zhukov owed his rise to the Terror.

Zhukov was great but nothing he did compared to Overlord.

Battle of Stalingrad? The battle that turned the tide against the Nazis? It is easy to say that the Western Front was tactically brilliant. They had time to plan and build up forces. Meanwhile 2 million Soviets were dying to save the world from the Nazis. And they did.

To be fair, the Russians were dying to save Europe from the Russians too At least after fighting Germany the Russians were only strong enough to take over half of Europe and mostly the crappy parts

Seelowe Heights and Rhzev were also Zhukov. He was the best overall Soviet general but he had huge fuckups none of the Western generals matched. Operation Mars was simultaneous with Stalingrad and a gruesome WW1 style failure.

Marshall? He'd be my choice.

Eisenhower

Eisenhower!

When you're fighting a global war of production and attrition, the officer who came up with the idea of a national highway system, in his spare time, might just be your guy

Hey Marshall built up the Army and Officer corps from a force approximately the size of Portugal's to one of the largest armies in the world capable of fighting a two front war while expanding industrial production.

sounds like good work

Its why I put him above Eisenhower in terms of logistics but I rank Eisenhower #2 for the US in WW2 due to his abilities as a diplomatic general in terms of keeping his subordinates from killing each other/breaking the allies.

Fair

“Was Lee or Grant a better general?” Well…

Accepting Lee’s surrender was Grant’s greatest blunder, tho.

Lee benefited most by continually facing George McClennon.

There were other dummies, but McClellan was the worst.

Burnside’s repeated attempts to assault Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg, for example.

For both Grant and Sherman, the meteoric ramp up from obscurity to deftly commanding gargantuan armies is bafflingly hard to grok.

Someone once said that Lee wasn't even the best general named Lee who fought a civil war in the 1860s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hong...

Since a lot of people are seeing this, I should add that I write stuff, like this piece here : medium.com/@ohgodscrewt...

He wasn't even the best Virginian general who fought a civil war in the 1860s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...

Sherman told a great anecdote about Thomas being a kickass patriot.

I think there's an argument for Marshall, but he also never directly commanded a battle, "only" ran most of the Allied war effort spanning the globe from his office in DC while also juggling the egos genuinely great generals who thought even more of themselves, and MacArthur too.

How does Sherman compare?

Always looking for an excuse to repost this: bsky.app/profile/vapo...

probably still the nicest thing I’ve ever read about Custer

To this I will add: 7. Criminally incompetent: Whoever promoted this person was clearly a wrecker. Example: Pope

“Postwar career: Forum avatar” I’m dying.

IMO a better strategist but not as consistently good on operations or tactics

Marshall.

Scoreboard

Fuck me, I never realised that his initials spell the name of the country.

his birth initials spelled "hug"

Fun fact: he got the full phrase out successfully once but died while repeating it!

Wrong.

what about Electric

Idk if it's apocryphal but there's that joke that Lincoln asked what brand of whiskey Grant drank so he could send a barrel of it to all of his generals

Never a finer bit of maneuver warfare in US History than the Vicksburg Campaign

yall should visit r/shermanposting www.reddit.com/r/shermanpos...

As someone with an unfortunate blood connection to Lee, I was incredibly pleased by your well researched and extensive character assassination of that useless waste of skin and breath.

That's why we named the country after him

Eisenhower had to deal with De Gualle AND Churchill.

True, but Grant has better photos.

True. And he did let Sherman burn everything down…

Sherman and Grant are the reasons I will forever be too stubborn to leave Ohio, regardless of how progressively more fucked it gets. Those dudes fucking rocked. I will die on the hill that Ohio should be a place for people that want to burn racists and traitors.

I've often thought about putting a Sherman statue up in my yard (which is in Ohio) because statues of Civil War generals are, according to some people, a great way of teaching history. Or possibly just as a middle finger to all the idiots still flying confederate flags.

🫡

I will live anywhere north of the Ohio River except Indiana and absolutely nowhere south of it.

“Ohio has saved the nation” has been revoked until you guys stop voting Trump.

A major underappreciated factor here is that too many of Ohio's anti-trump voters keep abandoning the rest of us that are still here.

Writing off a whole state/region/whatever bc they "voted wrong" will never be fine. There will always always be innocents harmed by that attitude. Those kids that froze to death in Texas didn't vote for Ted Cruz. And we need every brave and concerned citizen we can get for the fight.

As much as I want to believe it's from being gerrymandered to fuck and back.. nah we do suck. That's fair.

I mean we turned the country's nickname to honor him U.S.

Winning isn't EVERYTHING

If we're never going to put anyone who isn't a dead white man on the money, at least swap Jackson and Grant. Grant deserves far more notice than he gets and Jackson far less.

General Purpose

Winfield Scott. They guy who taught Lee and Grant.

would have been nice if he didn’t engage in the single largest act of state-sponsored blatant antisemitism in american history, though. but eh he’s certainly better than the alternative (slaver fucks)

What’s notable is that in later years he spent a lot of time communicating with and apologizing to the US Jewish community and became extremely popular with them.

Wow, I'd never heard about this!

grant was not a perfect man but for the time he was very progressive when he made errors he often tried to make up for them not to say i dont think he was bigoted in any way, but to be essentially an antislavery feminist president of the united states in that century? and he's hot? im a fan

jewish-history.com/civilwar/usg...

In the words of @atunshei.bsky.social... Sherman is but the apprentice, he (Grant) is the master.

Winfield Scott created the modern US army, organized the greatest amphibious invasion in history pre d day, spent the last moments of his career being old and fat in DC and pointing at the map and yelling about how to turn off Confederate international shipping

Honestly I thought it was Texas boosterism promoting Lee as some brilliant general.

I would like to suggest Major General Smedley D. Butler.

General Disarray was kind of a mess

He was pretty good, I'll Grant you that.

Grant was a troubled and complicated man... and Lee was a garbage, moron, violent, slaving piece of shit.

Also, general or president, hands down the finest horseman

No mention of George Thomas yet? At least for the Civil war, he beats Grant, who does have Cold Harbor to answer for.

Lee lost. Grant won.

Show him some respect

Lee is an overrated traitor, puffed up by 100+ years of Lost Cause bullshit.

True, the greatest ever general - Slim - was British.

The forgotten commander of the Forgotten Army.

honorable mention goes to Gavin who cucked Hemingway

*Coughs* JOSHUA L CHAMBERLAIN

One of them killed slavers, the other defended slavers. What makes a general greater than leaving a trail of dead graycoats behind him?

Ah but his grades weren't as good unfortunately

Alas too many demerits

I beg to differ, good sir!

Patton?

Massively overrated

Pretty good movie, though...

Is he? I'll admit to not being well informed about him.

He had enough political clout to get all of his requests met which helped make him look successful. He was abusive to his subordinates and diverted resources from the main effort to attempt the rescue of politically important POWs.

Grant slander is infuriating for many reasons but it is also objectively horseshit the man was a great general by any standard and should be held up as such

A thing I picked up reading history was, Lee is a "great general" even though he lost his war, while Grant and Washington are not-great generals even though they won. Washington, of course, evolved on the question of slavery. Grant - well, we know. All part of the "Lost Cause", I'd later learn.

That is to say, I'd find my observation verified by more informed sources than I. Grant was a pretty cool guy - mostly. If I was offered a chance to hang out with any historical figure, he'd be my choice.

He was also tbh a pretty good guy for the time

Confederates been coping for over 150 years trying to find a retort to the simple question "but who won?"

the war absolutely does not end in April 1865 if the Vicksburg Campaign is a failure

Well, only one of them got an iconic car named after them, so...

I suspect half of it has roots in the aesthetics of the men too. Grant conducted himself as an everyman instead of a stern aristocrat like Lee.

Another part is that Lee lost a war that was materially unbalanced against him, much like Germany in WW1 and WW2 and why you find a similar cope in interwar Germany and by wehreboos about WW2 Germany. Fact is, while they definitely had material disadvantage, their generals were also just bad.

Its easy for people to cope if the winning side also had more manpower, better weapons, better logistics, and communication (union had far more factories, more people, more rail networks, and a complete telegram network back to the White House. the losers did not).

But in my opinion, that is nothing but cope. A good general should realize that they have no chance to achieve victory and instead seek an alternative route, either through diplomacy or an insurgency, not draw out the inevitable and waste lives for nothing.

Related: The Civil War is extremely formative to the US approach to war in a way that went away from the European established approach (decisive battles convincing one side to give up). The US model was broadly "deny all alternatives to surrender", a model developed by the Sherman/Grant "total war".

Lee carelessly losing the one resource he couldn't afford to lose—manpower—did him in, more so than a difference between mareriel.

yes, but it wasn't just that. The war was already lost by that point, due to all of the other factors. Lee was being pointlessly stubborn drawing out the inevitable. And its not just a hindsight thing, they knew they were beaten long before.

I'm a Sherman gal myself, but grant rocked

Sherman served up the appetizer to Grant's main course.

Sherman noted many ways he was better than Grant, but said: "I'll tell you where he beats me though and where he beats the world. He doesn't give a damn about what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell."

Sherman’s real gift was in strategy, and dogged determination to see that strategy out. His enormous, excoriating March was practically bloodless. Just an astounding feat.

Immediately preceding that quote was "I am damned smarter man than Grant. I know more about military history, strategy, and grand tactics than he does. I know more about supply, administration, and everything else than he does." I tend to think he was right.

I think Grant probably knew more about supply and administration from his time as a quartermaster and I think the Vicksburg campaign is some good evidence, but then Sherman does have his march to the sea. Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan are probably among the greatest team of generals in history.

Before they were following Sherman's path, my 3rd GGrandfather's infantry regiment was under Sheridan during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign-- Opequan, Cedar Creek, all that. I need to get back to the book on Montgomery Meigs-- *the* quartermaster.

What unit was he in? I thought those campaigns were basically concurrent.

28th Iowa. They spent time in Georgia May-July 1865. I tended to say "mopping up after Sherman" ehich is not quite accurate. www.nps.gov/civilwar/sea...

No need to inform me of the full quote. I am a fangirl. One of my prized possessions is a framed Sherman photo complete with autograph. The gents in my Round Table were very envious!

My 3rd Great Grandfather was in the 28th Iowa, and after operations in the Shenandoah Valley, they basically followed Sherman's route through Georgia. Sherman told the South before, during and after the war they were fools. Favorite General for me, also.

You mean the march that was George Thomas's idea?

The march was devised after a cavalry raid during the Vicksburg campaign proved living off the land was possible. (And that wrecking railroads was fun!) explorethearchive.com/shermans-mar...

Broadwater's bio of Thomas:

Huh, fair enough. The inspiration was definitely Streight’s raid, though. Can’t argue that timeline.

Sherman can only viewed positively if you ignore everything he did after the Civil war

Bsky stuffed up. Replied 2 ur post by accident.

General Sherman, what is best in life?

Grant talking about Sherman

Also a world-historical wife guy, one must salute the guy who lost his first army career bc he missed his wife.

What about Smedley Butler?

Well he ultimately didn't have a very high opinion of his own service. If anything he was better once he was OUT of the military.

lee was never a general in the us army, so there's that

And when you tell certain whitepeople this they get so upset lol

Gonna start saying things like "Colonel Lee" and "the General Lee was a Dodge Charger."

And a drunker president

What about General Motors

They didn't start a tank division until 1950. Then it got bought up by General Dynamics Land Systems in 2003. Then GM restarted the program in 2017. As far as car companies making tanks goes, uh, GenDyn's better.

Lee was just a colonel who got a wartime promotion, as I'm possibly misremembering.

I mean MacArthurs mom used to dress him up in girls clothes, so there’s that

I keep a little sticker of Grant on my car to remind my fellow Southerners to keep their shit in check.

And that’s how he performed while regularly getting drunk off his ass and teetering on midlife crisis! I love Grant, and I love how much he makes Lee look like an absolute clown.

Nathanael Greene or Henry Knox, maybe?

And the one general for whom there's a plausible argument (Eisenhower) is effectively just "Grant with air support and allied countries' forces"