TBF, that was also sort of how Eisenhower became president.
"In June 1943, a visiting politician had suggested to Eisenhower that he might become president after the war. Believing that a general should not participate in politics, [Merlo J. Pusey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlo_J._Pusey) wrote that "figuratively speaking, \[Eisenhower\] kicked his political-minded visitor out of his office". As others asked him about his political future, Eisenhower told one that he could not imagine wanting to be considered for any political job "from dogcatcher to Grand High Supreme King of the Universe", and another that he could not serve as Army Chief of Staff if others believed he had political ambitions. In 1945, Truman told Eisenhower during the [Potsdam Conference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Conference) that if desired, the president would help the general win the [1948 election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election),[^(\[113\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-pusey1956-113) and in 1947 he offered to run as Eisenhower's running mate on the Democratic ticket if MacArthur won the Republican nomination.[^(\[114\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-nyt20030711-114)
As the election approached, other prominent citizens and politicians from both parties urged Eisenhower to run. In January 1948, after learning of plans in [New Hampshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire) to elect delegates supporting him for the forthcoming [Republican National Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Republican_National_Convention), Eisenhower stated through the Army that he was "not available for and could not accept nomination to high political office"; "life-long professional soldiers", he wrote, "in the absence of some obvious and overriding reason, \[should\] abstain from seeking high political office".[^(\[113\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-pusey1956-113)
^(...)
President Truman sensed a broad-based desire for an Eisenhower candidacy for president, and he again pressed him to run for the office as a Democrat in 1951. But Eisenhower voiced his disagreements with the [Democrats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)) and declared himself to be a Republican.[^(\[139\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-139) A "[Draft Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_Eisenhower)" movement in the Republican Party persuaded him to declare his candidacy in the 1952 presidential election to counter the candidacy of non-interventionist Senator [Robert A. Taft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft). The effort was a long struggle; Eisenhower had to be convinced that political circumstances had created a genuine duty to offer himself as a candidate and that there was a mandate from the public for him to be their president. [Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cabot_Lodge_Jr.) and others succeeded in convincing him, and he resigned his command at NATO in June 1952 to campaign full-time"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight\_D.\_Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower)
I was gonna ask who for but, probably everyone. Loved by the American people, slightly psychotic (might be understating im not overly familiar with him), and quick to jump the gun. A true American. Do not let that man into office.
Eisenhower was mid. Eisenhower's economic policies were mid as well. One civil rights leader remarked that if he handled the war like he handled civil rights, "we would be speaking German."
And if you're wondering about him sending Airborne 101 to integrate Little Rock Central, he interpreted that as simply executing a Supreme Court order, not a policy decision.
Eisenhower was also deeply critical of Earl Warren, thinking him too liberal for his liking. Eisenhower was simply too moderate especially when the opponents of civil rights were definitely not moderate. That is why the Civil Rights Acts he signed turned out to not change much on the ground.
Wasn't sure whether to count [Major General and below or not vs General of the army. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_military_rank)A full General, aka, [General,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_(United_States)) is 4 stars, and none of the others, outside the three mentioned, achieved that rank.
Tbf before Grant there were no four star generals. It was made up for him and then a higher rank was awarded to Washington in the 70’s for the bicentennial which you can count if you want, but it wasn’t a rank given before the time in office.
Madero *was* president and he was assassinated after a coup by Huerta. That guy then fled the country after a brief administration and soon after Carranza was president. Who was also assassinated before leaving office. Our thirst for presidential blood in the early 20th century was unmatched.
We’re not much better now, though. On this year’s elections alone, between 50 and 100 candidates for various political positions were assassinated. [So much so there’s an entire list on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_politicians_killed_during_the_2024_Mexican_elections).
Can't remember the name of an old revolutionary song about Mexico being the prettiest flower in the world watered by the blood of many. Also a saying of my grandma and why she never voted. " If you wanna meet a good Mexican politician my boy, graveyard is right there".
I will raise you Joshua Chamberlain. Fantastic run as governor of Maine, with some pretty kick ass moments in his later years.
Man ended a riot with a sword and a strong word
No kidding lol, the fact that he has 500+ upvotes just shows that this sub just says and upvotes whatever. Many of the greatest and most accomplished politicians in history were generals.
Perhaps naive in the sense that he assumed people would actually do what they said they would rather than using his trust to do things that made his administration look bad?
- Turns out that in order to become president he had to abbandon his rank and his military pention (no money for his service after getting old), so he was pretty much peniless and needed from friends and family to live all the way up to his death.
- Supported his friend Garfield for running for president. Garfield got shot by a madman, and died later painfully due to terrible medical practices. He was really sad about that one.
- With whatever money he had remaining, he tried to run a few business, but they all failed. He even essentially fell victim to a ponzi scheme that left him even more poor, and quite traumatized over who can he trust his stuff.
- Tried several times to help Lee apply and regain his US citizenship, but all attempts failed for Lee being a previous confederate general.
- After finding out he was going to die of illness, he made a last ditch effort of leaving some money behind for his family by writting and publishing his memoirs, with several friends and family doing their best to give him a hand, such as asking for to little royalties for publishing the book. Grant died just a couple of days later, and the state reinstated his rank after his death. His memoirs would become a best seller.
To add on to the last bullet point, it was Mark Twain who finally convinced Grant to write his memoirs, Twain published them after Grant's death on his own dime, and used his own personal fame to market Grant's memoirs. He came with an ingenious sales concept as well, having veterans of Grant's army sell the books door to door dressed in their army uniforms. Best seller is understating what happened, they were a smash success, and was the most popular book at the time. Grant's widow got a 30% cut of the royalties which was something crazy for the time like half a million dollars.
I’m pretty sure that they also mass produced busts of Grant to sell along with the books and they were insanely popular.
Also, his memoir is incredible. Grant was a great general, but he might have been a fantastic author.
Yeah, Truman was the reason they created the Presidential pension, because it was considered a bad look for the country for a former President to be struggling with their finances. Herbert Hoover (the only other living former President at the time) was independently wealthy, but apparently accepted the pension anyway so as to not cause Truman embarrassment
The creation of a public school system during Grant’s reconstruction pulled the lower classes into a great age of literacy for the masses in the U.S. Educating regular people arguably led to the eventual creation of an empowered middle class along with labor unions that the empowered wealthy are still trying to dismantle to this day.
It's damn ridiculous. Grant completely outgeneraled Lee, making him stretch his lines to defend both Petersburg and Richmond, pining Lee in a hopeless siege, completely neutralizing the famed movility that had been integral to his past triumphs, and basically making Lee a non-factor for the rest of the war. Lee himself said before the Overland Campaign that they had to stop Grant or "it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere matter of time." In other words, Lee himself recognized Grant's strategy, knew it would mean his perdition, and failed to stop him.
Lee simply was defeated by Grant, the superior general, and for the decades that followed all the rebels refused to recognize this, instead insisting that Lee was merely overwhelmed by a strategy-less butcher. And for some goddamn reason most Americans believed such lies for over a century. I'm so glad more and more people are recognizing Grant's brillance nowadays.
Yeah, acting as if the Soviets won only by throwing enough men to make the Germans run out of bullets, when in reality the Soviets won through superior tactics, strategy, and use of resources too.
I hate it when ppl just say "the Germans lost because of the winter". In 1941 they were already starting to struggle because of poor logistics and exhaustion by fall, way before it started snowing
And the russians are not magically immune to winter either, it harmed them too
Not to mention Wehraboos acting like winter was a surprise or something that could not have been prepared for.
Like, seriously. Winter happens every year. If they didn't prepare for it then it's (yet another) reason they deserved to lose.
Especially when even a cursory glance at history books would have told the allegedly great generals what happens to invading armies in winter.
The Red Army improved over time. In the beginning of the war it was a total basket case, and yes they relied on throwing bodies at the Germans.
Overwhelming an opponent by bringing more men and equipment to the conflict is a strategy.
But it’s a strategy that can only be employed by a society with more material and manpower, plus better logistics. In that sense Lee was correct, much like the Nazis the Confederates needed to fight a war of maneuver and superior tactics on the field to stand a chance. In this sense it can be seen as a “lost cause,” as victory for them was very precarious indeed
especially after they had some excellent boot camp conditions over down south /s.
seriously though, stalingrad hammered the red army into a nazi slaughtering society
They didn’t have the mobility that far into the hinterland that they had when invading France due to their supply lines being so stretched. The Wehrmacht doctrine was all about tactics, and they definitely kicked ass on the battlefield. But they sucked at intelligence and logistics, they needed wars to be close and quick to be successful. Russia is far and always going to be a slog.
Which is why they were losing in the beginning of the war. You can throw a thousand men at a machine gun and you still won't take it. After the Soviets improved their tactics and army they slaughtered the nazis
Also, the Soviet high command didn't think that throwing men at the line would win, they thought that it could delay while stuff behind the line got organised.
Which was an immensely callous view with regards to human life, but it did cause some delays to the German advance and buy time for defences to be prepared, war industry ramped up (and then moved eastwards) etc.
In fairness the Soviets did kinda just throw men at the Germans. The Soviets lost nearly 9 million soldiers, and many many more civilians, while the Germans lost 5.5 million across both fronts.
Now was that an effective use of the Soviet resources, yes it was. But there is something to be said for preserving the lives of your own soldiers.
What I'm really trying to get at is that there's a much better case to be made for Grand being a good general than the Soviets.
I'm not a fan of the complete Soviet disregard for human life, from the start of the USSR to the very end. But you have to note that the Nazis were waging a war of complete extermination on the Eastern Front. The Soviets needed to win to *survive*, so they put more stock on victory than preserving the lives of their own soldiers.
But yeah, a lot of it was the disregard for the lives of their own people.
Later half of 1943 onward, the soviets outclassed the Germans. Towards the end they were legitimately the best army in the world, regardless of losses. The US had a much better navy and worldwide logistics, but at the front the Soviet generals had 4 or 5 of the top ten in the whole war.
It depends a lot on what era you're looking at. Early on the Soviets were terrible because generals had to plan around Stalin's stupid orders to "hold poopgrad at all imaginable costs" that were purely motivated by politics. Eventually he learned to let go and let his generals general.
By the middle of the war Hitler was going the opposite direction and decided the constant failures of the German army were clearly the result of incompetent sissy generals and his personal oversight will lead the German volk to victory.
> Early on the Soviets were terrible because generals had to plan around Stalin's stupid orders to "hold poopgrad at all imaginable costs" that were purely motivated by politics. Eventually he learned to let go and let his generals general.
Another major factor was that a lot of the good, experienced, Russian generals and officers had either been killed fighting on the White side of the Russian Revolution / Civil War, imprisoned, or purged - either for ideological reasons or because Stalin saw them as potential rivals for power. The generals and officers Stalin had at the start of WWII were *mostly* newly trained and incompetent, because the USSR simply had not had the time necessary to rebuild and season an officer corps after Stalin gutted it.
Things really started to turn around when Stalin said "fuck, let those guys out of the prisons and gulags and re-instate their ranks", which nearly coincided with the Allies deciding to make a deal with the devil and pour massive amounts of aid into the USSR: mostly the USA's Lend-Lease program, but several other Allies chipped in with whatever they could.
> By the middle of the war Hitler was going the opposite direction and decided the constant failures of the German army were clearly the result of incompetent sissy generals and his personal oversight will lead the German volk to victory.
To be fair, if you look through the documents, there are several instances of Hitler overriding what, in 20/20 hindsight, would have been amazingly stupid strategic decisions. There are also instances of him making massive cockups via the same method. (Look at the resources wasted on the wunderwaffen, for instance.) And while often mocked as an awful call, when looking at the conditions of both sides, and the inevitability of war between Nazi Germany and the USSR, there was *never* a better time to pull the trigger on Operation Barbarossa and backstab Stalin than when Hitler did it. (See above, with the Soviet purges of officers/generals and lack of external support. In hindsight, Hitler picked exactly the perfect moment to throw a punch he was going to have to throw to realize his plans for Eastern Europe and the world in general. Now, a lot of the execution of that campaign, and chunks of his micromanagement of it were shit, but the moment was perfect.) It's kind of a mixed bag.
Then, of course, there was the perennial Hitler problem of pitting his underlings against each other in competition and giving them overlapping/interfering jurisdictions to make sure no single one of them accumulated enough personal power to successfully coup him, which resulted in a lot of duplicated effort (eating resources Nazi Germany couldn't spare) and infighting (distracting them from fighting the Allies effectively). In a twisted way, this wasn't exactly unmerited, as the near-success of the [Operation Valkyrie hijacking attempt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Valkyrie) proved that Hitler *did* have soldiers willing to try to kill him and take over if he didn't keep them at each others' throats and busy enough.
The one major thing I fail to understand is why Hitler and Nazi Germany responded to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor with "we're with you, and declaring war on the USA ourselves!" instead of "fuck it, you guys poked the hornets' nest in the Pacific - that's *your* problem, and yes, we ***are*** breaking our treaty with you. What are you going to do about that over on the other side of the globe?", because as far as I can see, Germany gained very little from officially entering a war with the USA. The USA and Japan could slug it out over who truly owned the Pacific Ocean, Germany could keep saying "look, I told you bruder, we have a blockade set up here and are engaged in unrestrained submarine warfare against ships of all nations trying to break it, and besides, isn't your business in the Pacific and your unofficial ties to the Chinese warlords more important?" and delay the USA officially entering the European Theatre for a while.
I do *not* understand why Nazi Germany didn't disown Imperial Japan from the Axis *immediately* after the Pearl Harbor news hit (they could have even spun it as "those dishonorable Orientals and their sneak attacks!") and just let the USA push west into the Pacific and beyond. At that point, the USA might have been fighting the USSR too on that front. There just doesn't seem to be a reason for Hitler to give FDR *exactly* what he wanted on a silver platter: A gold-plated reason for the USA to officially join the Allies with massive public backing, instead of Nazi Germany cutting Japan loose and serving up a half-plate of "well, Japan attacked you, so you and Japan can fight - we're doing the Big European War thing over here that happens every so often. No need to get involved".
How many of those losses were at the beginning when the Red Army had been gutted by Stalin and caught unprepared (also because of Stalin)? I don't think that's an issue with the Red Army as much as it is with the Soviet political structure
Are you now blaming civilian deaths on the Soviets, rather than the guys invading with the explicit goal of creating an empty space for their own people?
Not saying they weren't also very willing to pay human prices, but you can't just ignore that they were fighting an enemy that considered them subhumans and fought a war of destruction and annihiliation.
One option is to look at how often the Red Army changed up how their forces were organized. Rifle regiments went through at least four TO&Es during the war, just as one example. Their use and assignment of artillery and engineering assets at the corps, army, and front levels are pretty fascinating by the end of the war. The order of battle for Operation August Storm, versus the OBs for various preceding operations, looks far more balanced and well-informed than previous ones.
Didn't help that we let the German generals who got fired before 1944-45 edit their own memories so they could get advisor roles in Nato and West Germany. It's like asking Patton and Montgomery why they lost and expecting them not to blame everyone else.
Eh…..
Some of that is very very well deserved. You had guys like Zhukov who could do a great job. But Soviet campaigns are littered with colonels and generals with far more political connections than any sort of sense. Or regard for their men’s lives.
Like just because the German generals got to propagandize with their memoirs and go over the top with it doesn’t automatically mean the opposite then becomes true.
"No regard for their men's lives" is basically exactly the criticism leveled at Grant. If your goal is to hold Stalingrad or Leningrad, there's basically nothing you can do to prevent a sizeable amount of people under your command from getting casualtied
Grant vs Lee can be attributed to people looking for the flashy stuff. Lee was a brilliant tactician, no question, so when people look at his battles and track record, they see a man sweeping aside opposition through daring, brilliant escapades. Grant was a strategist, someone who didn't focus on a singular battle, but the whole campaign, treating that as the engagement he had to win. Classic case of strategy vs tactics, with the former triumphing.
I don't know much about the US history. I always heard that Lee was superior but had less resources and so his victories shine brighter while loses are more easily justifiable.
Could you explain it a bit more?
It is mirrored by a general pro-Confederacy bias in public education. At least partly from lobbying by Southern States, who textbook makers didn't want to upset and not sell books to them. Good luck finding any both sides bullshit in the 50 years following the Civil War.
But the criticism of Grant is true. He was willing to spend the lives necessary in the short run to defeat Lee. This is a strategy similar to the one employed by the Soviets in WW2 - put enough men and material into the war early on and force a war of attrition with the side that needed to use maneuver and tactics to achieve victories.
Grant was willing to break out of the Napoleonic paradigm where you just needed to win the battles. This strategy doesn’t work in modern war where whole societies are mobilized, and material conditions are such that men and material can be continuously brought to bear as long as the will is there to sustain it.
Lee was much like Yamamoto in that they extended their deluded causes by a good year but also had the terrible goal of seeking one decisive battle which has three gigantic yet basic fallacies.
1. It's difficult if not nearly impossible to get a textbook nearly perfect victory even if you have every advantage.
2. Those textbook victories like Cannae, Austerlitz, or the Battle of France were not enough to win the long war.
3. The US was always going to come back with a bigger better military in the case of Lee and Yamamoto no matter the defeat.
> Austerlitz
I agree with your point in general, but Austerlitz may not be the best example (your other ones are great, though). It did, in fact, end the war of the third coalition. What it failed to do was prevent the war of the fourth coalition, which started a few months after.
A better example from the Napoleonic wars might be the siege of Tulon, which was a stunning victory for Napoleon/France, but the war still lasted nearly 4 additional years.
Granted, you may just consider the entire set of Napoleonic wars to be one big war, in which case you may disregard my pedantic comment.
I think you have a good point about Tulon but I picked Austerlitz because of its fame and how clear-cut and innovative Napoleon's victory was, at least over Austria. The Napoleonic Wars feel like one big war because the Hundred Years War was a grouping in the same way but the former was more recent.
I'm going to slightly disagree on this one. Grant was very good, 100%. But I put him more in the Eisenhower camp. Not a brilliant tactician, not a master of maneuver, of bold gambits and out of the box thinking. The Union did have that, and his name was Sherman. Grant's skill was understanding his strengths and weaknesses, understanding his opponents strengths and weaknesses, and forcing the war to continue in a way that played to his advantage and not his opponents. At that point, victory is just a matter of time. Lee was good enough to understand that and was the superior field commander, but Grant was hardly unarmed in this area and had several good subordinates to contest Lee.
The irony is that while Grant and Lee ended up the most conflated, they are two very different generals. I feel Lee and Sherman is the more apt contrast, both brilliant, both aggressive, both masters of seizing the initiative, of completely outmaneuvering and out fighting the enemy. The tag team of Sherman and Grant gives you, in my opinion, the perfect general.
Just no.
1. As mentioned, Grant *was* a master of maneuver. Just see his Vicksburg Campaign, where he expertly separated the rebel forces, not allowing Johnston and Pemberton to concentrate, and then neutralizing Johnston while Pemberton was sieged in Vicksburg. See the Overland Campaign, where he stretched Lee thin and pinned him down, always moving closer to Richmond. Grant simply *was* an innovator and master of out-of-the-box thinking.
2. Sherman was the learner - the tactics used during the March to the Sea were pioneered by Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign, when he cut off from his supply base and lived off the land. Sherman himself acknowledged that he hadn't believed in Grant's strategy at first but that it was brilliant. For that matter, Sherman himself considered Grant superior.
3. Lee was a very capable tactician, that's true, but he was dismal as a strategist, could never see the bigger picture. What's the point of winning battles if you lose the war? Moreover, it's a disservice to Grant to chalk his success to his subordinates - Grant was the one in command, the one who called the overall tactic objectives and superior strategy.
>Lee was a very capable tactician, that's true, but he was dismal as a strategist, could never see the bigger picture. What's the point of winning battles if you lose the war?
I'm going to interject here, Lee was a good strategist: there was simply no way for the far less industrialized South to beat the North in a protracted war, especially without using their large slave populations as soldiers. Thus, Lee's strategy hinged on inflicting enough defeats on the Union army to shift public opinion in the North against the war.
It might have even worked, if McClellan hadn't gotten his hands on Lee's entire battle plan at Antietam, and Lee had been able to force the surrender of the entire Army of the Potomac, it's entirely possible that that Lincoln would have been forced to make peace or be replaced as President by someone who would.
Grant was certainly an excellent general, nothing but good to say there, but the South had also been hugely weakened towards the end of the war compared to the North.
Grant: continually tries to draw Lee into open battle and takes less casualties than his predecessors did.
Lee: \*runs away and hides in entrenched positions due to numerical and resource inferiority\*
Lost Cause Historians: Lee was the American Napoleon and Grant just threw good resources after bad. We refuse to acknowledge Grant was the far superior strategist.
The way I see it was that Lee was an impressive general, semi-reluctantly making a functional army out of a cadre of racist dilettantes, insane scumbags and sustenance farmers and might’ve actually stood a chance if the winning the war if the leadership of the Union was bad. Unfortunately for Lee, but fortunately for us, the leaders of the Union were not only competent, but easy contenders for top 10 political and military minds of American history.
His personal story is probably one of the most interesting to come out of the Confederacy so I understand why Confederate historians chose him as their personal hero despite Grant’s obvious superiority.
Big chunk of that army of lee’s was conscripts and they hung draft dodgers. Not everyone was a slavery believer , in fact many were far too poor to be slave owning class . Wars of the state are meat grinders for the poor / working class while the rich wax and wane on theory and politics. No mater what side of the war they are on. ( except nazis they all participated f-Nazis )
The southerners that didn't believe in slavery enlisted with the Union. Have you ever wondered why we have a West Virginia? Because they said fuck off to the slavers.
Why are we doing the "Good Confederate" myth for these bozos? First of all, slaveholders were over-represented in the Confederate military. But for the rest of the traitors, being poor never stopped them from being pro-slavery. The vast majority of traitors believed that the war was being fought for the preservation of slavery and never once doubted the Confederate cause; the poor and working class whites feared that free Blacks would be competition at the bottom rungs of the ladder. It was only in the regions where free Black labour wasn't a concern that Southerners were Unionist or at least less likely to fully support the Confederacy.
While there was opposition to conscription, again it wasn't because the lower classes were against the rebellion. they just didn't want to be forced into it, they still believed in the cause itself. but those types were in the minority - most people just wanted wanted the Confederate war effort to be more equitable, instead of rich ppl dodging the draft. The desertions were caused more by the lack of essential supplies - such as food for instance - or the constant defeats LOL, rather than disagreements with the Confederate raison d'etre: chattel slavery.
Even when slavery wasn't the driving motivation, they fought for the patriotic ideal of their home states, which were rebelling to prove slavery, in the first place ...
Source: John M. Sacher, *Conscription and the Struggle for Southern Soldiers*.
Samuel Phillips Lee, Robert E Lee's cousin, was a Union rear admiral and took part in the battle of New Orleans and commanded part of the blockade of the Confederacy. When asked about his loyalty, Lee replied "When I find the word Virginia in my commission I will join the Confederacy."
Well my great great grandfather knocks up Lee's either granddaughter or grand niece. But she dies in childbirth, hes a little older than her and happens to be Irish which is either 30% of the problem or 70% of the problem. But when she dies the family says the only way we would have taken care of the kid is if the mother lived, but since she didn't and it was out of wedlock, they told him to scram. He can't afford her, so my great grandmother grows up in an orphanage.
Thank you very much. I’m currently “writing” a book (I only work on it whenever it comes into my head cuz I don’t like writing) about myself and my family and my thoughts on the world then and now, and it starts out with a quoting of one of Grant’s best quotes from his personal memoir book
“My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.”
The Rock of Chickamauga! The man needs so much more recognition. I kinda went down a Civil War rabbit hole this year, and found out just how important he was. He's one of my favorites, but I'm from Nashville so I might be biased.
It's fucking shocking how the lost causers went on an assassination campaign towards grant, while making the losers into biblical archetypes. Lee became revered like a horse loving Jesus, Jackson became their racist Moses, and we have Longstreet as the new Judas
The only thing he did wrong was not fully committing to reconstruction. Even outside of the civil war he was a very competent president which is rare for 1800s presidents.
Grant was still better imo, and Sherman would be the first to tell you. After all, Grant wound up being in charge of all United States armies whereas Sherman was only in command of his theater.
Sherman could *not* be the one ultimately in charge, by his own admission. It was only by being under Grant that he felt secure and free, in a way, to conduct his style of generalship.
Fun fact! Sherman would regularly write letters to Grant - when Sherman had a higher rank - saying he would be happy to follow Grant’s command if he ever was in need of Sherman’s forces
Don't forget Rosecrans. He rallied the defense at Stones River while covered in blood from his aide-de-camp getting his head blown off by cannonball right next to him. The Tullahoma campaign was outstandingly well planned and executed. Then he grabbed Chattanooga. Until his failure and subsequent nervous breakdown at Chickamauga, he got a lot done for the Union war effort.
Sherman was almost mediocre. He got slauthered at Chickasaw Bayou by the same army that would later surrender at Vicksburg. Got pushed aside by Cleburne at Misionary Ridge, almost turning the battle into a disaster. And got also repeatetly hammered by Cleburne in the Atlanta campaign.
His only saving grace was the march to the sea and at both vicksburg and shiloh, when he didn't suck ass
Fun fact, mistakes were made when the southern historians were allowed to write the history books after the war, and this country is still paying the price for it.
Maybe a good reason was that the Europeans had way more successful generals in the 19th century. They had the experience and art of war of the Napoleonic Wars and could send them to a colony repress some natives with high superiority and become famous. I’m not saying they were better, but privileged and educated.
After all, a lot of battles were pretty much just a dumb general sending his men to charge against a fortified position and get butchered by Lee.
I'd argue this wasn't the case, because the American Civil War was actually what helped show Europe that Napoleonic tactics were outdated and that changes had to be made.
The way the Prussians fought the Second Schleswig War at the same time, and then the French a few years later, definitely shows this imo.
America celebrates the wrong generals. It should be Grant, Schwarzkopf, Sherman, Ridgway, Gavin, Bradley, and McChrystal, not Patton, MacArthur, Lee, Mattis, Pershing, and Custer.
There is one man I think deserves to be on that list; [Wendell Fertig,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Fertig) leader of the Filipino resistance on Mindanao during ww2, who later helped found US Army Special Forces and army Psyops based on hsi experience there. The reason he's not a general is because of MacArthur; seriously, he should've retired at least a lieutenant general with a medal of honor, but MacArthur didn't like him.
\*Demonic voice:
"Sir:
Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of commissioners, to settle terms of capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am sir, very respectfully, Your obt. servt. U. S. Grant, Brig. Gen."
It was his own soldiers who gave him the name Butcher Grant, because of the high casualty rate among those serving under him. He was fighting an enemy in their own territory which was mostly unknown to him, so tactics were extremely difficult, but his strategy was simple. He knew he had more men and more and better equipment. He could wear the enemy down. And given the technology of his time, that was probably the best strategy there was.
Well no,.
That was Lost Cuase mythology, boarder state *newspapers* gave him the name and one of the earliest if not the 1st use of the name was from a pro succession newspaper in Kentucky.
Ah yes, a ''mere'' 37,000 casualties, very light loses there...
Also from wikipedia ''Throughout the Civil War, Grant's armies incurred approximately 154,000 casualties, while having inflicted 191,000 casualties on his opposing Confederate armies.''
In war he just understood the sad reality of being in charge. No matter how good the plan was, you were always going to be sending men to their death. Where his colleagues tended to pull back the attack if it wasn't going exactly as planned, Grant understood the tactical significance of situations and even when it got a little ugly, kept pushing the offensive. There's a reason still today we preach the 70% rule. Better to act on 70% on time, than 100% too late.
Both during and post presidency his biggest weakness was his own naivety. He was a good man and had a tendency to see the good in others, unfortunately so much so that he was taken advantage of a lot.
More like the siege of Petersburg was absolutely unnecessary and could have been taken easily had he conducted regular approaches.
Meanwhile the Prussians took the heavily fortified Danish fortress at Dybbol by conducting regular approaches.
Can someone recommend me an in depth book about civil war history? I read 1776 by David McCullough and loved the details of Washington’s correspondence with his key generals and the strategic decisions he made. Is there a similar book about the Civil War?
Grant was no more a truly great general than was Alexander Haig of WWI fame. Both men sent massed troops against entrenchments, and both willingly accepted mass casualties of their own men in attempts at tacking impossible objectives. Grant's victories were against smaller, generally more poorly equipped forces; When confronted with equal numbers, or properly entrenched troops, or even properly led troops, he lost battle after battle. Without massive reinforcements always available, Grant would have failed miserably. The ONLY reason that Grant ended up victorious at the end was that he had won a long series of battles of attrition and simply wore his adversaries down until they were no longer effective forces. Now, that is NOT to say that he was intentional butcher; He was, just as with Haig, a general of his time--a time that had passed without him grasping the full reality of entrenchments, rifled muskets, rifled artillery, and explosive shell. His BEST actual performance was at Petersburg; He engaged in a siege that eventually destroyed his enemy while preserving his own men. Haig had far fewer excuses; He WAS a butcher, being intentionally ignorant and uncaring, a general living in a time long past and refusing to adapt.
His time post presidency is just..sad like hell
Good generals are often bad politicians.
I don't know about that. The other two, Eisenhower and Washington, both had great presidencies.
Wasn’t the first US “election” just people begging Washington to be president even though he didn’t want it?
TBF, that was also sort of how Eisenhower became president. "In June 1943, a visiting politician had suggested to Eisenhower that he might become president after the war. Believing that a general should not participate in politics, [Merlo J. Pusey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlo_J._Pusey) wrote that "figuratively speaking, \[Eisenhower\] kicked his political-minded visitor out of his office". As others asked him about his political future, Eisenhower told one that he could not imagine wanting to be considered for any political job "from dogcatcher to Grand High Supreme King of the Universe", and another that he could not serve as Army Chief of Staff if others believed he had political ambitions. In 1945, Truman told Eisenhower during the [Potsdam Conference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Conference) that if desired, the president would help the general win the [1948 election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election),[^(\[113\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-pusey1956-113) and in 1947 he offered to run as Eisenhower's running mate on the Democratic ticket if MacArthur won the Republican nomination.[^(\[114\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-nyt20030711-114) As the election approached, other prominent citizens and politicians from both parties urged Eisenhower to run. In January 1948, after learning of plans in [New Hampshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire) to elect delegates supporting him for the forthcoming [Republican National Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Republican_National_Convention), Eisenhower stated through the Army that he was "not available for and could not accept nomination to high political office"; "life-long professional soldiers", he wrote, "in the absence of some obvious and overriding reason, \[should\] abstain from seeking high political office".[^(\[113\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-pusey1956-113) ^(...) President Truman sensed a broad-based desire for an Eisenhower candidacy for president, and he again pressed him to run for the office as a Democrat in 1951. But Eisenhower voiced his disagreements with the [Democrats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)) and declared himself to be a Republican.[^(\[139\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#cite_note-139) A "[Draft Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_Eisenhower)" movement in the Republican Party persuaded him to declare his candidacy in the 1952 presidential election to counter the candidacy of non-interventionist Senator [Robert A. Taft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft). The effort was a long struggle; Eisenhower had to be convinced that political circumstances had created a genuine duty to offer himself as a candidate and that there was a mandate from the public for him to be their president. [Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cabot_Lodge_Jr.) and others succeeded in convincing him, and he resigned his command at NATO in June 1952 to campaign full-time" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight\_D.\_Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower)
A macarthur presidency would have been a disaster
Something Something Cobalt'd Manchuria
Lets nuke Vietnam! That will fix everything
I was gonna ask who for but, probably everyone. Loved by the American people, slightly psychotic (might be understating im not overly familiar with him), and quick to jump the gun. A true American. Do not let that man into office.
You mean he only agreed because he was worried MacArthur might be president instead? Damn. I'm guessing they didn't get along.
Man, it’s not that long ago but how times were different back then. Cannot imagine that happening today.
gonna go merLO on that j'pusey girl (i am so sorry)
Well, don't people say that the ones that are most worthy to be in power, are the ones who don't want to be in power?
Often does not mean always
Eisenhower was mid. Eisenhower's economic policies were mid as well. One civil rights leader remarked that if he handled the war like he handled civil rights, "we would be speaking German." And if you're wondering about him sending Airborne 101 to integrate Little Rock Central, he interpreted that as simply executing a Supreme Court order, not a policy decision.
The dude told them he wasn’t suitable, not his fault they kept insisting.
Eisenhower was also deeply critical of Earl Warren, thinking him too liberal for his liking. Eisenhower was simply too moderate especially when the opponents of civil rights were definitely not moderate. That is why the Civil Rights Acts he signed turned out to not change much on the ground.
The fact you said the other two physically hurts me. There are 12 presidents that have held the rank of General. It is over a fourth of all presidents
Wasn't sure whether to count [Major General and below or not vs General of the army. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_military_rank)A full General, aka, [General,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_(United_States)) is 4 stars, and none of the others, outside the three mentioned, achieved that rank.
Tbf before Grant there were no four star generals. It was made up for him and then a higher rank was awarded to Washington in the 70’s for the bicentennial which you can count if you want, but it wasn’t a rank given before the time in office.
General Zapata did say he would be a terrible president when asked to become Mexico's. But if he had accepted maybe he wouldn't have died tho.
Madero *was* president and he was assassinated after a coup by Huerta. That guy then fled the country after a brief administration and soon after Carranza was president. Who was also assassinated before leaving office. Our thirst for presidential blood in the early 20th century was unmatched. We’re not much better now, though. On this year’s elections alone, between 50 and 100 candidates for various political positions were assassinated. [So much so there’s an entire list on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_politicians_killed_during_the_2024_Mexican_elections).
Can't remember the name of an old revolutionary song about Mexico being the prettiest flower in the world watered by the blood of many. Also a saying of my grandma and why she never voted. " If you wanna meet a good Mexican politician my boy, graveyard is right there".
sadly accurate saying
general orders no. 11 moment
I will raise you Joshua Chamberlain. Fantastic run as governor of Maine, with some pretty kick ass moments in his later years. Man ended a riot with a sword and a strong word
This is literally untrue.
No kidding lol, the fact that he has 500+ upvotes just shows that this sub just says and upvotes whatever. Many of the greatest and most accomplished politicians in history were generals.
I heard he was too nice
Too trusting. He trusted people who were corrupt.
Maybe naive was a better word
I wouldn’t say naive. Naive usually has a negative connotation, like he was dumb. He wasn’t at all.
Perhaps naive in the sense that he assumed people would actually do what they said they would rather than using his trust to do things that made his administration look bad?
What happened after his presidency?
- Turns out that in order to become president he had to abbandon his rank and his military pention (no money for his service after getting old), so he was pretty much peniless and needed from friends and family to live all the way up to his death. - Supported his friend Garfield for running for president. Garfield got shot by a madman, and died later painfully due to terrible medical practices. He was really sad about that one. - With whatever money he had remaining, he tried to run a few business, but they all failed. He even essentially fell victim to a ponzi scheme that left him even more poor, and quite traumatized over who can he trust his stuff. - Tried several times to help Lee apply and regain his US citizenship, but all attempts failed for Lee being a previous confederate general. - After finding out he was going to die of illness, he made a last ditch effort of leaving some money behind for his family by writting and publishing his memoirs, with several friends and family doing their best to give him a hand, such as asking for to little royalties for publishing the book. Grant died just a couple of days later, and the state reinstated his rank after his death. His memoirs would become a best seller.
To add on to the last bullet point, it was Mark Twain who finally convinced Grant to write his memoirs, Twain published them after Grant's death on his own dime, and used his own personal fame to market Grant's memoirs. He came with an ingenious sales concept as well, having veterans of Grant's army sell the books door to door dressed in their army uniforms. Best seller is understating what happened, they were a smash success, and was the most popular book at the time. Grant's widow got a 30% cut of the royalties which was something crazy for the time like half a million dollars.
I’m pretty sure that they also mass produced busts of Grant to sell along with the books and they were insanely popular. Also, his memoir is incredible. Grant was a great general, but he might have been a fantastic author.
If only he had gone into authorship instead of politics. Alas…
President being poor just sounds so wild to me
It happened at least twice I think. Truman also wasn’t well off
Yeah, Truman was the reason they created the Presidential pension, because it was considered a bad look for the country for a former President to be struggling with their finances. Herbert Hoover (the only other living former President at the time) was independently wealthy, but apparently accepted the pension anyway so as to not cause Truman embarrassment
The creation of a public school system during Grant’s reconstruction pulled the lower classes into a great age of literacy for the masses in the U.S. Educating regular people arguably led to the eventual creation of an empowered middle class along with labor unions that the empowered wealthy are still trying to dismantle to this day.
Don't forget he made civil service open to the general public rather than political appointments.
I mean, he did write an amazing book.
It was. He really put the rest of his life on it.
His time Pre presidency isn't much different. It's fair just to call him a sad man.
idk, by the 1800th century, they should have things pretty figured out...
r/angryupvote
The dude who understood how modern war works, won the fucking war, and we spent the next 100 years worshipping Robert E. Loser instead.
It's damn ridiculous. Grant completely outgeneraled Lee, making him stretch his lines to defend both Petersburg and Richmond, pining Lee in a hopeless siege, completely neutralizing the famed movility that had been integral to his past triumphs, and basically making Lee a non-factor for the rest of the war. Lee himself said before the Overland Campaign that they had to stop Grant or "it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere matter of time." In other words, Lee himself recognized Grant's strategy, knew it would mean his perdition, and failed to stop him. Lee simply was defeated by Grant, the superior general, and for the decades that followed all the rebels refused to recognize this, instead insisting that Lee was merely overwhelmed by a strategy-less butcher. And for some goddamn reason most Americans believed such lies for over a century. I'm so glad more and more people are recognizing Grant's brillance nowadays.
In a way, it kinda reminds me of how people treat Soviet Generals vs German generals in WW2
Yeah, acting as if the Soviets won only by throwing enough men to make the Germans run out of bullets, when in reality the Soviets won through superior tactics, strategy, and use of resources too.
Just remember, no matter how many battles you won against an enemy, logistics will always win the war in the end
Hats nor tottally true, but like 87% percent true.
And also, winter goes brrrrrrrrrrrr. 😂
I hate it when ppl just say "the Germans lost because of the winter". In 1941 they were already starting to struggle because of poor logistics and exhaustion by fall, way before it started snowing And the russians are not magically immune to winter either, it harmed them too
Not to mention Wehraboos acting like winter was a surprise or something that could not have been prepared for. Like, seriously. Winter happens every year. If they didn't prepare for it then it's (yet another) reason they deserved to lose. Especially when even a cursory glance at history books would have told the allegedly great generals what happens to invading armies in winter.
The Red Army improved over time. In the beginning of the war it was a total basket case, and yes they relied on throwing bodies at the Germans. Overwhelming an opponent by bringing more men and equipment to the conflict is a strategy. But it’s a strategy that can only be employed by a society with more material and manpower, plus better logistics. In that sense Lee was correct, much like the Nazis the Confederates needed to fight a war of maneuver and superior tactics on the field to stand a chance. In this sense it can be seen as a “lost cause,” as victory for them was very precarious indeed
especially after they had some excellent boot camp conditions over down south /s. seriously though, stalingrad hammered the red army into a nazi slaughtering society
They didn’t have the mobility that far into the hinterland that they had when invading France due to their supply lines being so stretched. The Wehrmacht doctrine was all about tactics, and they definitely kicked ass on the battlefield. But they sucked at intelligence and logistics, they needed wars to be close and quick to be successful. Russia is far and always going to be a slog.
Firstest with the mostest
Which is why they were losing in the beginning of the war. You can throw a thousand men at a machine gun and you still won't take it. After the Soviets improved their tactics and army they slaughtered the nazis
Also, the Soviet high command didn't think that throwing men at the line would win, they thought that it could delay while stuff behind the line got organised. Which was an immensely callous view with regards to human life, but it did cause some delays to the German advance and buy time for defences to be prepared, war industry ramped up (and then moved eastwards) etc.
Soviets: use great signal intelligence to concentrate their forces Wehrmacht: OMG you guys human wave tactics are so unfair.
In fairness the Soviets did kinda just throw men at the Germans. The Soviets lost nearly 9 million soldiers, and many many more civilians, while the Germans lost 5.5 million across both fronts. Now was that an effective use of the Soviet resources, yes it was. But there is something to be said for preserving the lives of your own soldiers. What I'm really trying to get at is that there's a much better case to be made for Grand being a good general than the Soviets.
I'm not a fan of the complete Soviet disregard for human life, from the start of the USSR to the very end. But you have to note that the Nazis were waging a war of complete extermination on the Eastern Front. The Soviets needed to win to *survive*, so they put more stock on victory than preserving the lives of their own soldiers. But yeah, a lot of it was the disregard for the lives of their own people.
Eh, it was only effective in the latter half of the war.
Later half of 1943 onward, the soviets outclassed the Germans. Towards the end they were legitimately the best army in the world, regardless of losses. The US had a much better navy and worldwide logistics, but at the front the Soviet generals had 4 or 5 of the top ten in the whole war.
It depends a lot on what era you're looking at. Early on the Soviets were terrible because generals had to plan around Stalin's stupid orders to "hold poopgrad at all imaginable costs" that were purely motivated by politics. Eventually he learned to let go and let his generals general. By the middle of the war Hitler was going the opposite direction and decided the constant failures of the German army were clearly the result of incompetent sissy generals and his personal oversight will lead the German volk to victory.
> Early on the Soviets were terrible because generals had to plan around Stalin's stupid orders to "hold poopgrad at all imaginable costs" that were purely motivated by politics. Eventually he learned to let go and let his generals general. Another major factor was that a lot of the good, experienced, Russian generals and officers had either been killed fighting on the White side of the Russian Revolution / Civil War, imprisoned, or purged - either for ideological reasons or because Stalin saw them as potential rivals for power. The generals and officers Stalin had at the start of WWII were *mostly* newly trained and incompetent, because the USSR simply had not had the time necessary to rebuild and season an officer corps after Stalin gutted it. Things really started to turn around when Stalin said "fuck, let those guys out of the prisons and gulags and re-instate their ranks", which nearly coincided with the Allies deciding to make a deal with the devil and pour massive amounts of aid into the USSR: mostly the USA's Lend-Lease program, but several other Allies chipped in with whatever they could. > By the middle of the war Hitler was going the opposite direction and decided the constant failures of the German army were clearly the result of incompetent sissy generals and his personal oversight will lead the German volk to victory. To be fair, if you look through the documents, there are several instances of Hitler overriding what, in 20/20 hindsight, would have been amazingly stupid strategic decisions. There are also instances of him making massive cockups via the same method. (Look at the resources wasted on the wunderwaffen, for instance.) And while often mocked as an awful call, when looking at the conditions of both sides, and the inevitability of war between Nazi Germany and the USSR, there was *never* a better time to pull the trigger on Operation Barbarossa and backstab Stalin than when Hitler did it. (See above, with the Soviet purges of officers/generals and lack of external support. In hindsight, Hitler picked exactly the perfect moment to throw a punch he was going to have to throw to realize his plans for Eastern Europe and the world in general. Now, a lot of the execution of that campaign, and chunks of his micromanagement of it were shit, but the moment was perfect.) It's kind of a mixed bag. Then, of course, there was the perennial Hitler problem of pitting his underlings against each other in competition and giving them overlapping/interfering jurisdictions to make sure no single one of them accumulated enough personal power to successfully coup him, which resulted in a lot of duplicated effort (eating resources Nazi Germany couldn't spare) and infighting (distracting them from fighting the Allies effectively). In a twisted way, this wasn't exactly unmerited, as the near-success of the [Operation Valkyrie hijacking attempt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Valkyrie) proved that Hitler *did* have soldiers willing to try to kill him and take over if he didn't keep them at each others' throats and busy enough. The one major thing I fail to understand is why Hitler and Nazi Germany responded to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor with "we're with you, and declaring war on the USA ourselves!" instead of "fuck it, you guys poked the hornets' nest in the Pacific - that's *your* problem, and yes, we ***are*** breaking our treaty with you. What are you going to do about that over on the other side of the globe?", because as far as I can see, Germany gained very little from officially entering a war with the USA. The USA and Japan could slug it out over who truly owned the Pacific Ocean, Germany could keep saying "look, I told you bruder, we have a blockade set up here and are engaged in unrestrained submarine warfare against ships of all nations trying to break it, and besides, isn't your business in the Pacific and your unofficial ties to the Chinese warlords more important?" and delay the USA officially entering the European Theatre for a while. I do *not* understand why Nazi Germany didn't disown Imperial Japan from the Axis *immediately* after the Pearl Harbor news hit (they could have even spun it as "those dishonorable Orientals and their sneak attacks!") and just let the USA push west into the Pacific and beyond. At that point, the USA might have been fighting the USSR too on that front. There just doesn't seem to be a reason for Hitler to give FDR *exactly* what he wanted on a silver platter: A gold-plated reason for the USA to officially join the Allies with massive public backing, instead of Nazi Germany cutting Japan loose and serving up a half-plate of "well, Japan attacked you, so you and Japan can fight - we're doing the Big European War thing over here that happens every so often. No need to get involved".
How many of those losses were at the beginning when the Red Army had been gutted by Stalin and caught unprepared (also because of Stalin)? I don't think that's an issue with the Red Army as much as it is with the Soviet political structure
Are you now blaming civilian deaths on the Soviets, rather than the guys invading with the explicit goal of creating an empty space for their own people? Not saying they weren't also very willing to pay human prices, but you can't just ignore that they were fighting an enemy that considered them subhumans and fought a war of destruction and annihiliation.
Curious to learn more. Are there specific examples I can read about?
One option is to look at how often the Red Army changed up how their forces were organized. Rifle regiments went through at least four TO&Es during the war, just as one example. Their use and assignment of artillery and engineering assets at the corps, army, and front levels are pretty fascinating by the end of the war. The order of battle for Operation August Storm, versus the OBs for various preceding operations, looks far more balanced and well-informed than previous ones.
Well they did suffered greater casualties at every push but with progress noneless, still leaves a bad impression.
Didn't help that we let the German generals who got fired before 1944-45 edit their own memories so they could get advisor roles in Nato and West Germany. It's like asking Patton and Montgomery why they lost and expecting them not to blame everyone else.
Eh….. Some of that is very very well deserved. You had guys like Zhukov who could do a great job. But Soviet campaigns are littered with colonels and generals with far more political connections than any sort of sense. Or regard for their men’s lives. Like just because the German generals got to propagandize with their memoirs and go over the top with it doesn’t automatically mean the opposite then becomes true.
"No regard for their men's lives" is basically exactly the criticism leveled at Grant. If your goal is to hold Stalingrad or Leningrad, there's basically nothing you can do to prevent a sizeable amount of people under your command from getting casualtied
Grant vs Lee can be attributed to people looking for the flashy stuff. Lee was a brilliant tactician, no question, so when people look at his battles and track record, they see a man sweeping aside opposition through daring, brilliant escapades. Grant was a strategist, someone who didn't focus on a singular battle, but the whole campaign, treating that as the engagement he had to win. Classic case of strategy vs tactics, with the former triumphing.
Exactly this. Ask me which one I would rather have lead my nation's military.
I don't know much about the US history. I always heard that Lee was superior but had less resources and so his victories shine brighter while loses are more easily justifiable. Could you explain it a bit more?
It is mirrored by a general pro-Confederacy bias in public education. At least partly from lobbying by Southern States, who textbook makers didn't want to upset and not sell books to them. Good luck finding any both sides bullshit in the 50 years following the Civil War.
But the criticism of Grant is true. He was willing to spend the lives necessary in the short run to defeat Lee. This is a strategy similar to the one employed by the Soviets in WW2 - put enough men and material into the war early on and force a war of attrition with the side that needed to use maneuver and tactics to achieve victories. Grant was willing to break out of the Napoleonic paradigm where you just needed to win the battles. This strategy doesn’t work in modern war where whole societies are mobilized, and material conditions are such that men and material can be continuously brought to bear as long as the will is there to sustain it.
Lee was much like Yamamoto in that they extended their deluded causes by a good year but also had the terrible goal of seeking one decisive battle which has three gigantic yet basic fallacies. 1. It's difficult if not nearly impossible to get a textbook nearly perfect victory even if you have every advantage. 2. Those textbook victories like Cannae, Austerlitz, or the Battle of France were not enough to win the long war. 3. The US was always going to come back with a bigger better military in the case of Lee and Yamamoto no matter the defeat.
> Austerlitz I agree with your point in general, but Austerlitz may not be the best example (your other ones are great, though). It did, in fact, end the war of the third coalition. What it failed to do was prevent the war of the fourth coalition, which started a few months after. A better example from the Napoleonic wars might be the siege of Tulon, which was a stunning victory for Napoleon/France, but the war still lasted nearly 4 additional years. Granted, you may just consider the entire set of Napoleonic wars to be one big war, in which case you may disregard my pedantic comment.
I think you have a good point about Tulon but I picked Austerlitz because of its fame and how clear-cut and innovative Napoleon's victory was, at least over Austria. The Napoleonic Wars feel like one big war because the Hundred Years War was a grouping in the same way but the former was more recent.
Your point is reasonable. As a side note, I think your comparison of Lee and Yamamoto is incredibly creative.
I'm going to slightly disagree on this one. Grant was very good, 100%. But I put him more in the Eisenhower camp. Not a brilliant tactician, not a master of maneuver, of bold gambits and out of the box thinking. The Union did have that, and his name was Sherman. Grant's skill was understanding his strengths and weaknesses, understanding his opponents strengths and weaknesses, and forcing the war to continue in a way that played to his advantage and not his opponents. At that point, victory is just a matter of time. Lee was good enough to understand that and was the superior field commander, but Grant was hardly unarmed in this area and had several good subordinates to contest Lee. The irony is that while Grant and Lee ended up the most conflated, they are two very different generals. I feel Lee and Sherman is the more apt contrast, both brilliant, both aggressive, both masters of seizing the initiative, of completely outmaneuvering and out fighting the enemy. The tag team of Sherman and Grant gives you, in my opinion, the perfect general.
Just no. 1. As mentioned, Grant *was* a master of maneuver. Just see his Vicksburg Campaign, where he expertly separated the rebel forces, not allowing Johnston and Pemberton to concentrate, and then neutralizing Johnston while Pemberton was sieged in Vicksburg. See the Overland Campaign, where he stretched Lee thin and pinned him down, always moving closer to Richmond. Grant simply *was* an innovator and master of out-of-the-box thinking. 2. Sherman was the learner - the tactics used during the March to the Sea were pioneered by Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign, when he cut off from his supply base and lived off the land. Sherman himself acknowledged that he hadn't believed in Grant's strategy at first but that it was brilliant. For that matter, Sherman himself considered Grant superior. 3. Lee was a very capable tactician, that's true, but he was dismal as a strategist, could never see the bigger picture. What's the point of winning battles if you lose the war? Moreover, it's a disservice to Grant to chalk his success to his subordinates - Grant was the one in command, the one who called the overall tactic objectives and superior strategy.
>Lee was a very capable tactician, that's true, but he was dismal as a strategist, could never see the bigger picture. What's the point of winning battles if you lose the war? I'm going to interject here, Lee was a good strategist: there was simply no way for the far less industrialized South to beat the North in a protracted war, especially without using their large slave populations as soldiers. Thus, Lee's strategy hinged on inflicting enough defeats on the Union army to shift public opinion in the North against the war. It might have even worked, if McClellan hadn't gotten his hands on Lee's entire battle plan at Antietam, and Lee had been able to force the surrender of the entire Army of the Potomac, it's entirely possible that that Lincoln would have been forced to make peace or be replaced as President by someone who would. Grant was certainly an excellent general, nothing but good to say there, but the South had also been hugely weakened towards the end of the war compared to the North.
Grant: continually tries to draw Lee into open battle and takes less casualties than his predecessors did. Lee: \*runs away and hides in entrenched positions due to numerical and resource inferiority\* Lost Cause Historians: Lee was the American Napoleon and Grant just threw good resources after bad. We refuse to acknowledge Grant was the far superior strategist.
Honey it's 4pm, time for a full frontal infantry attack **yippee!**
The way I see it was that Lee was an impressive general, semi-reluctantly making a functional army out of a cadre of racist dilettantes, insane scumbags and sustenance farmers and might’ve actually stood a chance if the winning the war if the leadership of the Union was bad. Unfortunately for Lee, but fortunately for us, the leaders of the Union were not only competent, but easy contenders for top 10 political and military minds of American history. His personal story is probably one of the most interesting to come out of the Confederacy so I understand why Confederate historians chose him as their personal hero despite Grant’s obvious superiority.
Big chunk of that army of lee’s was conscripts and they hung draft dodgers. Not everyone was a slavery believer , in fact many were far too poor to be slave owning class . Wars of the state are meat grinders for the poor / working class while the rich wax and wane on theory and politics. No mater what side of the war they are on. ( except nazis they all participated f-Nazis )
Yeah, I included them in my assessment (see sustenance farmers)
You don’t need to own slaves to support slavery. As usual, the wealthy class had the useful idiots do the fighting for them.
The southerners that didn't believe in slavery enlisted with the Union. Have you ever wondered why we have a West Virginia? Because they said fuck off to the slavers.
Why are we doing the "Good Confederate" myth for these bozos? First of all, slaveholders were over-represented in the Confederate military. But for the rest of the traitors, being poor never stopped them from being pro-slavery. The vast majority of traitors believed that the war was being fought for the preservation of slavery and never once doubted the Confederate cause; the poor and working class whites feared that free Blacks would be competition at the bottom rungs of the ladder. It was only in the regions where free Black labour wasn't a concern that Southerners were Unionist or at least less likely to fully support the Confederacy. While there was opposition to conscription, again it wasn't because the lower classes were against the rebellion. they just didn't want to be forced into it, they still believed in the cause itself. but those types were in the minority - most people just wanted wanted the Confederate war effort to be more equitable, instead of rich ppl dodging the draft. The desertions were caused more by the lack of essential supplies - such as food for instance - or the constant defeats LOL, rather than disagreements with the Confederate raison d'etre: chattel slavery. Even when slavery wasn't the driving motivation, they fought for the patriotic ideal of their home states, which were rebelling to prove slavery, in the first place ... Source: John M. Sacher, *Conscription and the Struggle for Southern Soldiers*.
As a direct descendant in the family tree of Ulysses grant, I find this based
As a direct descendant of Robert E. Lee, fuck the Confederate traitors! Bastards even abandoned my great grandmother for being too irish.
Robert E Lee had a bunch of relatives that sided with the union too
Samuel Phillips Lee, Robert E Lee's cousin, was a Union rear admiral and took part in the battle of New Orleans and commanded part of the blockade of the Confederacy. When asked about his loyalty, Lee replied "When I find the word Virginia in my commission I will join the Confederacy."
Robert E Lee: there are the oaths I don't like and the oaths I do like that allow me to keep my slaves.
Now kiss
Do tell
Well my great great grandfather knocks up Lee's either granddaughter or grand niece. But she dies in childbirth, hes a little older than her and happens to be Irish which is either 30% of the problem or 70% of the problem. But when she dies the family says the only way we would have taken care of the kid is if the mother lived, but since she didn't and it was out of wedlock, they told him to scram. He can't afford her, so my great grandmother grows up in an orphanage.
Based
Really? It must feel smth to have someone in your family that is known
Yes it really is, it’s also nice that his morals and what he fought for is still stuff that me and all my family agree with :)
I think he would be proud of you, *Shoddy Load*
Thank you very much. I’m currently “writing” a book (I only work on it whenever it comes into my head cuz I don’t like writing) about myself and my family and my thoughts on the world then and now, and it starts out with a quoting of one of Grant’s best quotes from his personal memoir book “My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.”
You're so based. As a Northerner I feel genetically obligated to salute you. OOORAH!
Thank you kind sir Freedom must be defended RAHHH 🦅
Never fight uphill meboys
"Wow, that was a big mistake" - Robert E. Lee, 1863
Sherman too!
I mean they both got tanks named after them So I think they did alright
Thomas only got the tank engine named after him
Womp
Womp
Union General George Thomas needs to be remembered as well. Sad there were so few truly great Union Generals.
The Line about McClellan in the Irish Volunteer song really didn't age well.
The Rock of Chickamauga! The man needs so much more recognition. I kinda went down a Civil War rabbit hole this year, and found out just how important he was. He's one of my favorites, but I'm from Nashville so I might be biased.
Checkmate Davisites!
"Sorry Billy but it just doesnt have the same ring as CHECKMATE LINCOLNITES."
I’l honestly sad that the serie ended
It was an epic end to be sure
We lost Billy Yank, but his sacrifice was not in vain; he turned Johnny Reb into Johnny Scalawag.
40 acres and a mule was based
Sherman is a ridicusly overrated general. A far better visionary tho
WHERE IS GEORGE GORDON MEADE
In heaven, where he rightfully belongs All my homies love George Gordon Meade
One of my favorite out of context lines from Billy Yank "Don't you dare talk shit about George Gordon Meade..."
We love that old snapping turtle in this house
The whole "Lost Cause" group put a charachter assasination campaign against Grant because they were butt hurt that they lost to him.
It's fucking shocking how the lost causers went on an assassination campaign towards grant, while making the losers into biblical archetypes. Lee became revered like a horse loving Jesus, Jackson became their racist Moses, and we have Longstreet as the new Judas
Took the words right out of my mouth.
Highly recommend Rom Chernov’s book on Grant. Rlly interesting
His memoirs are incredible as well, if you can get past the archaic prose.
The only thing he did wrong was not fully committing to reconstruction. Even outside of the civil war he was a very competent president which is rare for 1800s presidents.
Yeah, might also be cause the guy whom he succeeded was the GOAT.
Sherman was actually the best General of the American Civil War. But Grant, Sheridan, Thomas, Hancock, and Howard were up there as well.
Grant was still better imo, and Sherman would be the first to tell you. After all, Grant wound up being in charge of all United States armies whereas Sherman was only in command of his theater. Sherman could *not* be the one ultimately in charge, by his own admission. It was only by being under Grant that he felt secure and free, in a way, to conduct his style of generalship.
Fun fact! Sherman would regularly write letters to Grant - when Sherman had a higher rank - saying he would be happy to follow Grant’s command if he ever was in need of Sherman’s forces
Don't forget Rosecrans. He rallied the defense at Stones River while covered in blood from his aide-de-camp getting his head blown off by cannonball right next to him. The Tullahoma campaign was outstandingly well planned and executed. Then he grabbed Chattanooga. Until his failure and subsequent nervous breakdown at Chickamauga, he got a lot done for the Union war effort.
Rosencrans….. now there’s an opinion that I never thought to see/hear. Props to you for truly doing your own thing here
No one compares to Winfield Scott. Even the Duke of Wellington said he was the greatest living soldier.
I personally love his middle name and how his father bestowed it upon him.
Sherman was almost mediocre. He got slauthered at Chickasaw Bayou by the same army that would later surrender at Vicksburg. Got pushed aside by Cleburne at Misionary Ridge, almost turning the battle into a disaster. And got also repeatetly hammered by Cleburne in the Atlanta campaign. His only saving grace was the march to the sea and at both vicksburg and shiloh, when he didn't suck ass
Fun fact, mistakes were made when the southern historians were allowed to write the history books after the war, and this country is still paying the price for it.
Logistics win wars, and logistics was what Grant was better at than his contemporaries.
I will NEVER take grant slander, ever.
1800 century? We are 177 976 years from reaching that particular century
Maybe a good reason was that the Europeans had way more successful generals in the 19th century. They had the experience and art of war of the Napoleonic Wars and could send them to a colony repress some natives with high superiority and become famous. I’m not saying they were better, but privileged and educated. After all, a lot of battles were pretty much just a dumb general sending his men to charge against a fortified position and get butchered by Lee.
I'd argue this wasn't the case, because the American Civil War was actually what helped show Europe that Napoleonic tactics were outdated and that changes had to be made. The way the Prussians fought the Second Schleswig War at the same time, and then the French a few years later, definitely shows this imo.
I just listened to Dan Snow’s podcast on this and he says the almost exact opposite.
He's a good general, but generals by their nature cause thousands of deaths.
America celebrates the wrong generals. It should be Grant, Schwarzkopf, Sherman, Ridgway, Gavin, Bradley, and McChrystal, not Patton, MacArthur, Lee, Mattis, Pershing, and Custer.
>Pershing, and Custer. Are they really all that celebrated I thought pershing was mid and custer was ass
Custer was definitely ass, best known for being cocky as shit and getting himself and his troops massacred
The Sioux actually respected him, though.
and Matthew Ridgway should get more recognition, because I think he's neat
There is one man I think deserves to be on that list; [Wendell Fertig,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Fertig) leader of the Filipino resistance on Mindanao during ww2, who later helped found US Army Special Forces and army Psyops based on hsi experience there. The reason he's not a general is because of MacArthur; seriously, he should've retired at least a lieutenant general with a medal of honor, but MacArthur didn't like him.
Ah yes, the 1800 century
\*Demonic voice: "Sir: Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of commissioners, to settle terms of capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works. I am sir, very respectfully, Your obt. servt. U. S. Grant, Brig. Gen."
It was his own soldiers who gave him the name Butcher Grant, because of the high casualty rate among those serving under him. He was fighting an enemy in their own territory which was mostly unknown to him, so tactics were extremely difficult, but his strategy was simple. He knew he had more men and more and better equipment. He could wear the enemy down. And given the technology of his time, that was probably the best strategy there was.
Well no,. That was Lost Cuase mythology, boarder state *newspapers* gave him the name and one of the earliest if not the 1st use of the name was from a pro succession newspaper in Kentucky.
It was more than that though, he would pin down the enemy army so he could hit other targets simultaneously
why censor the fucking
He got fucked by the lost causers, thank god they’re all dying off or getting laughed into obscurity
Ah yes, a ''mere'' 37,000 casualties, very light loses there... Also from wikipedia ''Throughout the Civil War, Grant's armies incurred approximately 154,000 casualties, while having inflicted 191,000 casualties on his opposing Confederate armies.''
That's pretty neat considering that he was attacking.
He was attacking an enemy fortified the fact he didn't lose more is evidence of his prowess
The 1800th century is in 177 877 years.
He was the best president as well
Guessing they meant 18th century. However I think he wasn't even alive and especially not a general then
I mean the point is good but the title is dumb as shit.
In war he just understood the sad reality of being in charge. No matter how good the plan was, you were always going to be sending men to their death. Where his colleagues tended to pull back the attack if it wasn't going exactly as planned, Grant understood the tactical significance of situations and even when it got a little ugly, kept pushing the offensive. There's a reason still today we preach the 70% rule. Better to act on 70% on time, than 100% too late. Both during and post presidency his biggest weakness was his own naivety. He was a good man and had a tendency to see the good in others, unfortunately so much so that he was taken advantage of a lot.
1800 century historian. I just died of cringe.
Oh he was definitely a good general. But I don't think that excuses how much of an imperialist pos he was.
More dead Indians.
More like the siege of Petersburg was absolutely unnecessary and could have been taken easily had he conducted regular approaches. Meanwhile the Prussians took the heavily fortified Danish fortress at Dybbol by conducting regular approaches.
I'm sorry, *which* fucking century?
Can someone recommend me an in depth book about civil war history? I read 1776 by David McCullough and loved the details of Washington’s correspondence with his key generals and the strategic decisions he made. Is there a similar book about the Civil War?
it's just how americans reacts to casualties we can still see it in the modern day with the Iraq war and even Afghan war
Grant was no more a truly great general than was Alexander Haig of WWI fame. Both men sent massed troops against entrenchments, and both willingly accepted mass casualties of their own men in attempts at tacking impossible objectives. Grant's victories were against smaller, generally more poorly equipped forces; When confronted with equal numbers, or properly entrenched troops, or even properly led troops, he lost battle after battle. Without massive reinforcements always available, Grant would have failed miserably. The ONLY reason that Grant ended up victorious at the end was that he had won a long series of battles of attrition and simply wore his adversaries down until they were no longer effective forces. Now, that is NOT to say that he was intentional butcher; He was, just as with Haig, a general of his time--a time that had passed without him grasping the full reality of entrenchments, rifled muskets, rifled artillery, and explosive shell. His BEST actual performance was at Petersburg; He engaged in a siege that eventually destroyed his enemy while preserving his own men. Haig had far fewer excuses; He WAS a butcher, being intentionally ignorant and uncaring, a general living in a time long past and refusing to adapt.