The Greatest American General of All Time?

YellowSnow

RaceBannon

Grant

Hard to go against the Father of the country but Grant helped save it

YellowSnow

Grant

RaceBannon said:

Hard to go against the Father of the country but Grant helped save it

Washington’s greatest achievement as a general was keeping an Army in the field which alone makes him one of the greatest figures in history. But his greatest triumph over the Brits took a lot of luck and French help.

Grant to your point, pretty much single handed saved the Union and was both a brilliant tactical general and master grand strategist. Lee was former, but not the later.

DerekJohnson

Worshington

RaceBannon said:

Hard to go against the Father of the country but Grant helped save it

Grant ain't walking back through that door anytime soon

YellowSnow

Grant

DerekJohnson said:

RaceBannon said:

Hard to go against the Father of the country but Grant helped save it

Grant ain't walking back through that door anytime soon

Well yeah. That kinda life story doesn’t happen anymore. People don’t go from selling cordwood in St Louis to POTUS in the span of a decade anymore.

YellowSnow

Grant

Honorable mentions...

Phil Sheridan
Winfield Scott
Omar Bradley
Black Jack Pershing
Storming Norman
Zachary Taylor

Mad_Son

Sherman

Write in for the sweatpants general.

Tequilla

Patton

Patton was the definition of talking shit and his boys backing it up

DerekJohnson

Worshington

Mad_Son said:

Write in for the sweatpants general.

@koopdog

biak1

Worshington

Washington dammit. The other guys really just had to not fuck things up and they’d eventually win with manpower/materiel/resource advantages.

As college football shows us you still get credit for not fucking things up. But GW won independence and popped off.

HFNY

Ike

biak1 said:

Washington dammit. The other guys really just had to not fuck things up and they’d eventually win with manpower/materiel/resource advantages.

As college football shows us you still get credit for not fucking things up. But GW won independence and popped off.

True though someone like Ike had much more complicated logistics and headaches of humans (such as Montgomery and De Gaulle). Eisenhower's brilliance was also in taking action while not feeling the need to show off tactical genius. He wasn't afraid to sack under-performing lower generals either.

Still I think you're right in that GW's odds of success were so low yet he miraculously found a way to get the job done strategically and tactically.

Grant was excellent too, GW and he were both considered the best horsemen of their respective times.

pawz

Worshington

The top 3 became POTUS rather easily.

1. Worshington
2. Ike
3. Grant

the rest ...

5. Profit

Purple_Pills

According to this, it’s Lee.
Grant.

My vote is for General Motors or General Mills.

Purple_Pills

YellowSnow said:

Honorable mentions...

Phil Sheridan
Winfield Scott
Omar Bradley
Black Jack Pershing
Storming Norman
Zachary Taylor

Nathanael Greene.

GrundleStiltzkin

Purple_Pills said:

According to this, it’s Lee.
Grant.

My vote is for General Motors or General Mills.

General Unrest making a push.

Swaye

Stonewall Jackson

You people are mostly idiots. I'm right, because I'm usually right.

Ridgeway is a close second.

CFetters_Nacho_Lover

Ike

Swaye said:

You people are mostly idiots. I'm right, because I'm usually right.

Ridgeway is a close second.

Jackson was brilliant at getting his men to fight in places where his opponents didn’t think he could get to. Compared to the top 3 though, he really only had to deal with tactical considerations. As I went through this list, I went back and forth between Jackson, Grant and Ike.

Swaye

Stonewall Jackson

CFetters_Nacho_Lover said:

Swaye said:

You people are mostly idiots. I'm right, because I'm usually right.

Ridgeway is a close second.

Jackson was brilliant at getting his men to fight in places where his opponents didn’t think he could get to. Compared to the top 3 though, he really only had to deal with tactical considerations. As I went through this list, I went back and forth between Jackson, Grant and Ike.

That was really my consideration - tactical mastery of warfare. By that measure, I think Jackson is hands down the best. I will grant there are other measures - adeptness at managing a war effort (Ike and Grant), instilling fighting spirit and a will to win (Washington), etc. So, kind of depends on what measure you use to evaluate the choices. For sheer kick ass tactical battle planning, Stonewall has no American equal, though Ridgways work with the 82'nd Airborne in WWII and halting the Chinese offensive in Korea is legendary shit.

Swaye

Stonewall Jackson

YellowSnow said:

RaceBannon said:

Hard to go against the Father of the country but Grant helped save it

Washington’s greatest achievement as a general was keeping an Army in the field which alone makes him one of the greatest figures in history. But his greatest triumph over the Brits took a lot of luck and French help.

Grant to your point, pretty much single handed saved the Union and was both a brilliant tactical general and master grand strategist. Lee was former, but not the later.

I never find this to be a fair comparison. Lee seems to not be a grand strategist, but Lee had no real industry supporting him, no Navy to support his field positions, and no railroad of any note to support him from land. I had a lecturer at the National War College once tell me "Lee's grand strategy WAS tactical mastery of specific battles and campaigns." He had no choice. He knew he could not win a long sustained strategic war. It was a "be better than the other guy for like 2 years and kill their will to win, or it's over" strategy.

RaceBannon

Grant

By WW2 the American military was like Secretariat, a tremendous machine. Generals were CEOs and @Logistics was on a global scale. There were thousands of staff doing the grunt work

Washington and Grant et al were more of a one man show

YellowSnow

Grant

Swaye said:

YellowSnow said:

RaceBannon said:

Hard to go against the Father of the country but Grant helped save it

Washington’s greatest achievement as a general was keeping an Army in the field which alone makes him one of the greatest figures in history. But his greatest triumph over the Brits took a lot of luck and French help.

Grant to your point, pretty much single handed saved the Union and was both a brilliant tactical general and master grand strategist. Lee was former, but not the later.

I never find this to be a fair comparison. Lee seems to not be a grand strategist, but Lee had no real industry supporting him, no Navy to support his field positions, and no railroad of any note to support him from land. I had a lecturer at the National War College once tell me "Lee's grand strategy WAS tactical mastery of specific battles and campaigns." He had no choice. He knew he could not win a long sustained strategic war. It was a "be better than the other guy for like 2 years and kill their will to win, or it's over" strategy.

Lee’s grand strategy of tactical victories worked until it didn’t. Ultimately his jerb was to keep a confederate army in the field until the north lost the political will. He got fucking greedy after Chancellorsville and thought he was invincible and then bet the house at Gettysburg. Major blunder here. Following that he got caught in Grant’s meat grinder and his army withered away.

I do give Lee a tremendous amount of credit for doing the right thing at the end which was to surrender and not go full on VC the hills of Appalachia.