Part I here.
Now, onto more specific evaluations. (Deep breath) I’m going to eliminate Washington. He is the greatest American statesman, for what he did as a general and leader in the Revolution and what he did as a Founding Father and first President.* As to being the greatest general, he made a number of spectacularly correct decisions during the Revolution, but he was nearly zero for his career in terms of battlefield victories. That’s just too much to overcome.
 |
| Scott |
Next, Winfield Scott. Scott has a remarkably strong case for being the greatest American general. In fact, I’m not sure he wasn’t. In double fact, I think I would say he was the greatest American general in career terms. He started spectacularly well in the War of 1812 (“Those are regulars, by God!“), continued impressively in the Mexican-American War (his capture of Mexico City made both the Mexicans and Zachary Taylor look like blithering amateurs) and finished strong in the early stages of the Civil when, obese and suffering from gout, “Old Fuss and Feathers” nonetheless proposed the strategic plan that, with some modifications, strangled the Confederacy. That’s three wars (in three different eras) in which Scott faced an enemy comparable to the United States, was the most important general in two out of three, and critically important in the third. That’s a career.
And yet.
 |
| Grant |
If there is career value, and if Scott is the victor there, there is also peak value, of how absolutely valuable one general was at any moment.** On this stage arrives Ulysses S. Grant, whose achievements really center on the three and a half years from August 1861 to April 1865. He had some minor accomplishments in the Mexican-American War, but he was otherwise a pre-Civil War nonentity. His presidency after the war did not go well, though the domestic nobility of his fight to finish his memoirs and bring financial security to his family before cancer took him does him much credit. No, it was the years of the Civil War that made him, and what years they were. Meade won Gettysburg, but at the same moment, Grant was capturing Vicksburg (after a deft maneuver campaign), a strategic victory that was perhaps the most important of the war. His Overland Campaign against the Army of Northern Virginia was a crushing victory against someone who is in the discussion for greatest tactical general of the 19th century (post-Napoleon division), and Grant broke him and broke the Confederacy in 1864-65. When Grant turned the Army of the Potomac south after the Wilderness (drawing here, go to picture 30), he redefined the war in the east from a tactical one (where Lee had the advantage) to a strategic one (where Grant, Lincoln, and the Union had the advantage). In the most important campaign of the most important war in American history, Grant triumphed.
Who to pick between Scott and Grant? I could wimp out and simply anoint them both, one for career value and one for peak value. But, heck, this is an artificial and unfair exercise anyway, so there’s no point in stopping short. I choose Grant. Scott was an amazing general, but his opposition was not. Neither of the British officers Scott fought in the War of 1812 ever really held command again, something of a comment on their abilities. Santa Anna in the Mexican-American War was not a particularly astute commander. In addition, Scott’s performance in the Civil War, post-Anaconda Plan, did not go well.
Grant, by contrast, fought Robert E. Lee, and there are no doubts that Lee, while flawed in many ways, nonetheless ranks as one of the greatest generals of the 19th century. Grant fought for Abraham Lincoln, the greatest war leader in American history, and not a President to suffer foolish generals gladly. Grant commanded in the essential war of American history. On the brightest stage, with the best opponents, with the harshest audience and director, Grant shined.
He had his problems and his mistakes, but there in his “rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private,” Sam Grant saved the United States.
—
*I wouldn’t argue for him as the greatest President ever, however, as so much of his awesome George Washington-ness comes from prior to his two terms. I think that competition for greatest President ever is down to Lincoln and FDR, and I’ll let my co-bloggers fight that one out.
**The concepts of career and peak value are stolen from sabrmetrics.
67 comments
December 22, 2011 at 2:06 pm
politicalfootball
As Colonel Tu would say: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”
December 22, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Anderson
Glad you didn’t go all contrarian on us, and I can’t think of a 20th-century American general any greater than Grant.
December 22, 2011 at 3:26 pm
ari
This was exactly what I was going to say.
December 22, 2011 at 3:27 pm
JWL
Per your criteria, it seems to me that even Grant can’t pass muster to enter this contest. The North-South death match was no where near as equitable a fight as you would have it.
Sherman spoke a simple truth to his Louisiana friends before heading North in December 1860. He told a small gathering of southern colleagues that in the history of warfare, industrialized societies have invariably triumphed over agrarian based opponents.
Had he attended that farewell party for Sherman, Grant would have concurred.
December 22, 2011 at 3:36 pm
ari
Had he attended that farewell party for Sherman, Grant would have
concurredbeen so drunk that he would fallen asleep in his soup and drowned.Fixed that for you. You’re welcome.
Also, the extent to which a number of comments in these posts seem to suggest that the South never really stood a chance against the big, bad Union industrial juggernaut? No offense, but they sound a lot like iterations of the Lost Cause myth to me. Which is to say, you do all realize that the Union nearly lost the war, don’t you? On at least three or four occasions that I can think of without thinking at all.
December 22, 2011 at 4:23 pm
JWL
Ari, you ignorant, straw-argument loving, instigating slut.
Off the top of my head: Railroads, and the reinforcement and relief of the siege of Chattanooga.
“Iterations of the Lost Cost myth”? Aren’t you aware that Sherman’s engineers carried their own spare tunnels during the Atlanta campaign?
December 22, 2011 at 5:10 pm
eric
silbey, given that you’ve said this is a completely arbitrary exercise with unfair decisions in it, this seems about as decent an outcome as one could expect.
December 22, 2011 at 5:16 pm
silbey
eric, I think any such exercise has to be arbitrary and unfair, so mine’s hopefully a reasonable average exemplar of that.
@JWL: Joe Stalin and the Soviet economy of 1941 would like to have a chat with you.
December 22, 2011 at 5:28 pm
sleepyirv
How were their head-to-head stats?
If we’re only focusing on battlefield prowess, does it really matter if on a strategic scale the sides are unequal? If, for example, George Patton always faced an equal German army does it matter if the USA and Germany were wildly uneven?
December 22, 2011 at 5:31 pm
John Healy
Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t a general, but his son Ted, was. Brigadier General Ted Roosevelt won the Medal of Honor at Utah beach, on June 6, 1944. The first General ashore there, and the first General to go from shore to St. Mere Eglise; the initial objective. He’s disqualified form the list for never making past Brigadier, and for WWII. He was about to be promeoted to Major General, that next month, but died of a heart attack in his tent.
December 22, 2011 at 5:43 pm
silbey
@John Healy And played by Henry Fonda in The Longest Day, which was about an hour longer than a good movie.
December 22, 2011 at 5:54 pm
JWL
“Joe Stalin and the Soviet economy of 1941 would like to have a chat with you”.
How many T 34’s were produced within Mother Russia that year? Have you ever heard the tape recording of a conversation between Mannerheim and Hitler, just months before Finland bowed out of the war? In it, Hitler freely acknowledges having underestimated Russia’s industrial capacity.
December 22, 2011 at 6:00 pm
silbey
In 1941? About 2800. That doesn’t change the fact that the Soviet Union was still an agrarian-based economy facing an industrialized one. Sherman does not appear to have predicted the future all that well.
December 22, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Western Dave
“Abraham Lincoln, the greatest war leader in American History” other than FDR, you mean.
December 22, 2011 at 10:00 pm
TF Smith
Thanks for the gift, even though it is sort of reindeer games crossed with Calvinball.
Could offer Bolivar or San Martin or Arthur Currie, I suppose, but somewhat more seriously:
Given the vastly different authority and circumstances of the Revolution vis a vis the conflicts when the US actually was a nation state, I think Washington is in a category by himself…and Scott is as well, for somewhat different reasons.
So a perhaps more straightforward set of questions could be who was the :
1) Most effective US commander-in-chief?
2) Most effective US military/naval commander at the senior admininistrative level of command? (ie, Army chief of staff or Navy CNO, etc.)?
3) Most effective US theater level commander?
My selections:
1. FDR and Lincoln (tied – try to quantifiy the differences between global coalition warfare aand civil war, and gthe leadership required to prevail in either. Seriously.
2. Marshall, with King close second; neither really had an opposite number in the Civil War, but both were much more effective than their opposite numbers, whether Allied or Axis;
3. Eisenhower; Nimitz and Grant tied for a close second – the scope of work for all three is vastly different, but DDE and Nimitz were the definitions of calculated risk takers, and Grant was truly indispensable in a unique role.
Best,
December 23, 2011 at 8:50 am
Charlieford
Shouldn’t there be some mention–following Weigley–of Scott’s general reticence to adopt annihilationist strategies? Of his sense that while maximum killing gets the job done, it also embitters the defeated, leading to further problems down the road of history? I don’t know if today’s Southern partisans would be any less belligerent and deranged if Scott’s plan (which wasn’t politically feasible) had been adopted, but the results haven’t been anything that calls him into doubt. Grant I have much affection for–ca anyone watch his post-war career, especially his dying, and not feel sympathy for him?–but he was a hired gun who used any means necessary bring on a quick victory. Not a bad object in itself, but he seems to have given no thought to the consequences–it wasn’t his place to think about the consequences–his thoughts would have been ignored anyway. So he did what he did. Still, doesn’t Scott deserve some props for advocating a different way?
December 23, 2011 at 9:02 am
silbey
Random responses: @Western Dave: I like my formulation. @TF Smith See paragraph 2-3 of my original entry. Your questions (and answers) are just as arbitrary and unfair as mine. For example, they prejudice the selection in favor of the era of the big military, which is partly why your answers are largely of people from WWII. @Charlieford I’m not sure that starving the south into submission would have produced any less bitterness, and I’m not sure there _was_ actually another way to win beside Grant’s. Weigley’s distinctions are fascinating, but problematic (I’m pretty sure that Native Americans would have been surprised to learn that the US did not practice annihilationist strategies pre-Civil War)
December 23, 2011 at 9:08 am
ari
Not to mention, Charlieford, Grant did pay attention to the aftermath of the war. But only after it was effectively over. He was very generous to Lee and his men at Appomattox, for instance. Again, though, that generosity only surfaced after he completed job one: winning. Also, there’s no evidence, from before, during, or after the war, that treating fire-eating Southerners with generosity makes not a whit of difference in how they approach national politics, which I take to be your (gentle) assertion.
December 23, 2011 at 9:17 am
Charlieford
No argument on any of those points (except the last, in which you substitute the US for Scott). My point was more, shouldn’t Scott’s philosophy of war, as it were, be mentioned? Yes, it was going the way of the dodo, perhaps inevitably. Still, it’s worth remembering him for that, too.
December 23, 2011 at 9:18 am
Charlieford
Ari: very true.
December 23, 2011 at 9:30 am
silbey
(except the last, in which you substitute the US for Scott)
Except Scott was certainly part of the genocidal wars against the Native Americans (like the Cherokee removal). I do certainly agree that he was much more maneuver oriented than the later Grant, but he never faced the general Grant faced.
December 23, 2011 at 9:40 am
Charlieford
But also against the Seminoles, in which he was not successful–perhaps because he wasn’t willing to go all genocidal?
December 23, 2011 at 10:21 am
eric
silbey, Western Dave clearly wants to remind you of this.
December 23, 2011 at 10:24 am
eric
treating fire-eating Southerners with generosity makes a whit of difference
Well, to the contrary – the oeuvre of Michael Perman says it makes a big difference by making them less tractable, doesn’t it?
December 23, 2011 at 10:26 am
silbey
Time for my “Greatest American War Leaders, Parts I & II” Lincoln is first. Roosevelt is eliminated in the first round.
(No, not really)
December 23, 2011 at 10:28 am
ari
I meant to say, eric, that it makes NOT a whit of difference. That said, yes, Perman argues that generous treatment only makes the fire-eaters more intransigent.
December 23, 2011 at 11:34 am
Anderson
“How were their head-to-head stats?”
The time is ripe for a U.S. Fantasy Army. Dibs on Patton — let’s see how he does at Chickamauga!
December 23, 2011 at 11:40 am
eric
Yglesias has a “which is the greatest nation in history” post that is also arbitrary.
December 23, 2011 at 2:40 pm
TF Smith
More the “era of strategic complexity” but either way…YMMV
Actually, the point was to try and compare like to like in terms of responsibilities and assignment; “best combat commander” at the tactical and/or grand tactics/operational level is a very different assessment than “best strategic commander” which is also different than “best commander-in-chief”…
Grant was a very impressive combat commander, from the battalion (regimental) to army group level, and he was excellent at the theater level as well. Compare him at the strategic command level with Marshall (both as mobilization architect/leader and strategist-in-chief)/command assigner and it is a different question.
Scott served as a combat commander (battalion to corps-equivalent), as a theater commander, and as a general-in-chief, but he stacks up in vastly different ways to the “competition” in those varying comparisons.
Best,
December 23, 2011 at 4:23 pm
silbey
Actually, the point was to try and compare like to like in terms of responsibilities and assignment
Sure, but that’s an arbitrary and unfair choice as well. Grant (and certainly Scott) never had the chance to do the things Marshall did.
December 24, 2011 at 12:41 am
Bruce Ross
I am not a historian, but apropos of Washington, reading McCullough’s 1776 a few year’s back was eye-opening. Nowadays, General Washington would have never kept his job after such a string of defeats and retreats.
December 24, 2011 at 10:11 am
TF Smith
Silbey –
Granted, they were in different eras, but both Grant and Scott had the general-in-chief billet, which is about as close as the job got in the Nineteenth Century to Chief of Staff…Grant took over mid-war, so his arena was limited in comparison to Marshall, but Winfield Scott was G-in-C when the balloon went up in both 1846 and 1861…so how they handled their respective mobilizations and the issue of the use of the RA personnel within a volunteer/conscript army is presumably a valid point of comparison,
Of course, Scott had to deal with Polk and Lincoln as C-inCs, which also speaks to how unque his service was….
Now, if the frame is that the scope of the US was too different in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries to make any sort of comparision valid, I will agree with you there.
Hugh L. Scott, Bliss, March, Marshall, Collins, and HK Johnson are a reasonable cohort for comparison; Vuono and Shinseki, since they both post-dated Goldwater-Nichols, is probably another.
Powell and Myers are an interesting comparison, as well.
Best,
December 24, 2011 at 10:44 am
Ralph Hitchens
Great discussion. We’ve had our share of great generals and it’s extremely difficult to choose one from among them as the greatest. I’d stick with Washington as first, Grant second, and Scott a close third. But I wouldn’t argue to strenuously with Silbey’s ranking, either.
December 24, 2011 at 10:53 am
silbey
Now, if the frame is that the scope of the US was too different in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries to make any sort of comparision valid, I will agree with you there.
The frame is that cross-era comparisons are difficult, and so the criteria shouldn’t exaggerate that difficulty. I think yours do.
December 24, 2011 at 12:17 pm
TF Smith
Well, here’s the converse – Washington and Scott could have conceived of, and carried out, each other’s duties. Tougher for either of them to do what Grant had to do, given the vastly different technical environment (horseflesh, sails, and smooth bores vs. steam power and rifled weapons as the standard, for example)…Grant presumably could have functioned well in Washington’s era, however, once he got used to the technical, communication, and transportation limits. Actual small unit tactics weren’t that far apart.
However, none of them could have done what Marshall, HL Scott, Bliss, March, etc had to do – and vice-versa, I’d suggest…i/c engines, real-time communications, and modern artillery (much less automatic weapons, especially small arms) make the 20th Century pretty close to an alien environment for anyone who prefessionally came of age much before 1890-1900…
One can compare Washington, Wellington, and Blucher, since they functioned in the same era, and it is somewhat like to like – but I don’t really think you can compare any of them with Patton, Montgomery, or Rommel, or vice-versa, in any meaningful way, however.
Be like trying to compare Samuel Ringgold with HH Howze.
Or Nelson with Slessor…
Best,
December 24, 2011 at 12:52 pm
silbey
However, none of them could have done what Marshall, HL Scott, Bliss, March, etc had to do –
There’s no way to know that, for sure, so it’s not really worth invoking as evidence.
December 24, 2011 at 1:08 pm
TF Smith
I don’t know – trying to compare George Washington and George C. Marshall would appear to be on the same level as comparing Edward Gibbon and Fernand Braudel as practitioners…
Best,
December 24, 2011 at 1:09 pm
silbey
Thus the disclaimer at the start of the first post.
December 24, 2011 at 3:08 pm
TF Smith
It is indeed, your case.
Best
December 24, 2011 at 5:47 pm
silbey
It is indeed, your case
It is, and one I’m quite pleased with. Thanks!
December 24, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Colin Danby
Is there a more specific argument about working in time and space lurking here? I know nothing about this stuff … but I did read Grant’s memoir the other year, and what impressed me were (a) the way he thought in theater terms (admittedly, aided by hindsight) and more importantly (b) his discussions of timing, especially when maneuvering against Lee. He seemed to have a fine-grained sense of how and at what pace the enemy would be getting intelligence and acting on it, and how to pace his own actions accordingly. So is there a kind of generalship that is only effective when communications are slow?
December 26, 2011 at 9:36 am
Frank Smithson
This post is so annoying. The headline promises great things, but the post itself, by its eligibility criteria, refuses to consider most American generals.
December 26, 2011 at 10:52 am
ari
What a helpful comment, Frank. Happy holidays!
December 26, 2011 at 11:19 am
ari
Also, Silbey? You should have written a post without any limiting factors, you jerk. I want you to compare Genghis Khan to Napoleon to George Washington’s dicks* to Rafael Semmes to MacArthur to Aragorn. Until you reveal how the Mongol Horde would have fared against the Army of the Dead, this post is bullshit. Oh, wait, I also want to know about the Transformers. Add them too, okay?
* I’m linking because there’s a chance that someone hasn’t seen this video. Yes, yes, it’s a small chance, I’ll grant you, but in the event that such a person, unfamiliar with the internet’s many traditions, should happen upon this comment and click this link, they’ll experience a Christmas miracle. So back off, Scrooges!
December 26, 2011 at 5:14 pm
JazzBumpa
I’m linking because there’s a chance that someone hasn’t seen this video. Yes, yes, it’s a small chance . . .
I am that person. Well, I was three minutes ago.
JzB
December 26, 2011 at 6:50 pm
silbey
@Frank You’re aware that ranking people involves using criteria, correct? @Ari Geo Washington beats everyone, of course, and that video is _already_ linked in one of my footnotes! Great minds.
December 27, 2011 at 8:05 am
Walt
I used to think the video Ari linked to maked the definitive case for Washington, but new historical research makes a compelling case for JFK.
December 27, 2011 at 10:40 am
Frank Smithson
Silbey. Sure. But the criteria I mention were not used to rank, but to exempt many from ranking, If the title of the post had been “The greatest generals in a limited period of our history and a even more limited number of our wars,” that would have been accurate.
Also, Ari: Since we are talking about American generals, Genghis Khan and Bonaparte need not be involved. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a post about the greatest general in American history to venture beyond 1918.
December 27, 2011 at 10:55 am
Anderson
But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a post about the greatest general in American history to venture beyond 1918.
(1) Did you miss the first post?
(2) Silbey doesn’t think any American generals beyond 1918 were on a par with Washington, Scott, or Grant. I don’t see any reason to think he is mistaken.
December 27, 2011 at 11:05 am
silbey
@Frank: The goal of the post was to rank the greatest general, not the top-10 or top-100. _Everyone_ but that general was going to be eliminated (not exempted) by the time I was done. The WWII generals just got eliminated earlier.
Also, what Anderson said.
December 30, 2011 at 8:18 am
TF Smith
Given the criteria, aren’t you almost making the argument that no military commander of a given nation state in the 20th Century can equal the record of the nearest equivalent in the Ninteenth Century or earlier?
Napoleon or Foch?
Marlborough or Haig?
Moltke the elder or Moltke the younger?
Best,
December 30, 2011 at 8:29 am
silbey
No, I’m not making that argument. For example, if we look at WWI, French and Haig fulfill the criteria for the British. If we talk about the French, then Joffre and Foch. If we talk about the Germans then Moltke and a range of other folks. If we move to WWII, then a variety of German and Russian generals match up.
December 30, 2011 at 8:59 am
TF Smith
Except since you are also arguing results in the case of Grant (i.e, your summing up that “he saved the United States”), how could the results of any of the WW I-era commanders (or WW II, for that matter) match their 19th Century equivalents?
The game was played very differently among the professionals between say, 1861-65 and 1914-18, obviously – a chief of staff or even general-in-chief was not really an operational commander in 1914-18, as the general-in-chief position was in the Nineteenth Century and before, because the professional practices had changed so much because of technology and its impact on society, especially in terms of politics and state organization.
An earlier example the “monarch as military commander” – it was close to the default for a long time in human history, and then it was not, generally because of technology’s impact on politics.
But would you argue that Gustav II Adolf and Gustav IV Adolf (for example) functioned in a similar enough universe to be judged as such?
Best,
December 30, 2011 at 9:29 am
silbey
Except since you are also arguing results in the case of Grant (i.e, your summing up that “he saved the United States”), how could the results of any of the WW I-era commanders (or WW II, for that matter) match their 19th Century equivalents?
I could make the same argument for Zhukov in WWII, or Foch in WWI. I do see your point about the increasing levels of specialization for generals of the two World Wars (interestingly not since 1945, though). I should note, though, the WWII generals were eliminated by criteria that was not affected by the specialization issue.
December 30, 2011 at 10:09 am
TF Smith
Zhukov is something of a special case, I think; in the 20th Century, it has been pretty rare for a chief of staff to go to an operational command (and back again); same for Foch, in comparison to Grant as GIC – at the Marne, Foch was an army commander (French 9th); his promotion to supreme allied commander went by way of army group (Northern), expeditionary force (French in Italy), and then chief of staff, prior to the supreme commander’s post, IIRC.
The equivalent to Zhukov’s back-and-forth in the US would have been if Marshall had been given the ETOUSA command, rather than (eventually) Eisenhower, after having served as cArmyhief of staff
If FDR had been willing to part with Marshall’s services as CSA, however, and he had led the Allied effort in Europe in 1943-45, then how would he stack up in your criteria?
Interesting counterfactual there: Marshall goes to the ETO, McNarney moves up (giving the AUS a chief of staff who was an aviator in 1942-43); McNair moves up to the Deputy CSA post, and someone (Krueger seems like the best choice) fills McNair’s billet as Chief of AGF. In turn, I’d expect Eichelberger to get the Sixth Army and, if and when a second Army-level headquarters is needed in the Pacific, then Richardson, Buckner, or Patch could have been likely choice.
Best,
December 30, 2011 at 10:12 am
silbey
Uh, well, sure. “Special case” describes exactly the kind of general that the criteria is designed to produce.
If FDR had been willing to part with Marshall’s services as CSA, however, and he had led the Allied effort in Europe in 1943-45, then how would he stack up in your criteria?
Since he didn’t, no idea.
December 30, 2011 at 10:24 am
TF Smith
Well, okay, flip it the other way – Grant doesn’t go east in 1863 and remains as C-in-C in the West. His billet as G-i-C is filled by Meade after Gettysburg, with Halleck as chief of staff.
Does Grant garner the same place you have given him?
December 30, 2011 at 11:33 am
silbey
Since he didn’t, no idea.
December 30, 2011 at 2:33 pm
TF Smith
Okay, but doesn’t that simply make the point that your criteria are sort of self-selecting?
I mean, I could suggest that the greatest, I dunno, admiral in American history would have to be one who took over a severely weakened command within weeks of a devasting defeat AND was facing an enemy that was actually operationally stronger than the available American resources…and we’d all know the answer to that one…
Best,
December 30, 2011 at 2:52 pm
silbey
I don’t understand how relying on actual history makes the criteria self-selecting. Throwing counterfactuals in is argumentation without meaning. If George Patton had faced space aliens and defeated them single-handed then, yes, I would be inclined to anoint him the greatest American general ever.
He didn’t. He (and Eisenhower) was part of an effort (but only part) that pushed back the Germans in a secondary theater. Grant, by contrast, faced the main enemy, commanded by their greatest commander, and forced their surrender.
The criteria are, in my opinion, the most important measures of a general across various eras. They were not designed to pick a particular person, they were designed to pick out generals that faced the greatest challenge and did the most with it. It did that. You seem to me to making a special pleading for the WWII generals, a pleading that is now requiring the invention of imaginary details for them.
December 30, 2011 at 3:31 pm
TF Smith
Wait, how is Chester Nimitz’s record as CinCPAC/CinCPOA in 1942-45 a counterfactual?
Actually, my point is that if Grant is the greatest general because he “faced the main enemy, commanded by their greatest commander, and forced their surrender…” then I’d suggest your criteria basically do not allow consideration of anyone else but Grant…
I mean, what other military commander in US history was even in a position to meet your three criteria?
The forces led Washington (and Rochambeau) faced those led by Cornwallis and forced his army’s surrender (with the aid of DeGrasse’s fleet, of course) – one could argue that delivering such a victory in coalition is actually more of an achievement than doing so in a conflict without alies, but then I suppose the question is whether Cornwallis was the British Army’s “greatest commander”of the day…in comparison to Burgoyne, probably so. Howe? Clinton?
Of the other contenders, Scott never faced Wellington, for example…or Lee, for that matter.
Best,
December 30, 2011 at 3:45 pm
silbey
Wait, how is Chester Nimitz’s record as CinCPAC/CinCPOA in 1942-45 a counterfactual
Wait, how is the part where I excluded Admirals and Air Force Generals not something you’re aware of?
You’re also cognizant, I assume, of the counterfactuals you were suggesting earlier in the thread?
Actually, my point is that if Grant is the greatest general because he “faced the main enemy, commanded by their greatest commander, and forced their surrender…” then I’d suggest your criteria basically do not allow consideration of anyone else but Grant…
1. That doesn’t meant the criteria are wrong, 2. That is incorrect, as they allowed the consideration of quite a few other people. 3. You’re aware of the second paragraph of my first post, right? 4. I’m really quite interested to know that you don’t think that criteria that involve “the main enemy, greatest commander, forced their surrender” is not a reasonable way of measuring the greatest general. 5. Well, yes, Scott never faced Wellington or Napoleon. Shall I give him some points to make up for that? This isn’t the “Who was a pretty good general in American history” this is “Who was the greatest general in American history” and, guess what, sometimes that leads to judging based on things that the general had no control over. That may be unfair, but see point 3.
Please don’t bring up points that I’ve already mentioned in one of the posts as if they’re new. It’s annoying and derails the discussion.
December 30, 2011 at 6:03 pm
TF Smith
Actually, my question re counterfactuals was because I interpreted your point at 2:52 as a reference to this:
“I mean, I could suggest that the greatest, I dunno, admiral in American history would have to be one who took over a severely weakened command within weeks of a devasting defeat AND was facing an enemy that was actually operationally stronger than the available American resources…and we’d all know the answer to that one…”
But beyond all that, I don’t see much of a discussion other than the point that Grant is the only possible answer to the questions you pose – akin to Nimitz being the only answer to the equally limited question I pose above.
Which, with all due respect, makes clear the probitive, educational, and conversational value of both…
I will offer that some might consider building an army, and its organic air forces, that could be carried and sustained (thanks to joint and combined operations) at transoceanic distances against not one but two maritime powers, and which could prevail on the offensive against not one but two of the toughest enemy armies ever faced in combat by the armed forces of the United States, both of which were fighting defensively on ground of their own choosing and in theaters where the odds were most definitely “even” more often than not, to the point that each of these enemies ended up surrendering unconditionally after said American forces had either conquered or destroyed the industrial heartlands of each enemy – and in a coalition – and simultaneously – might be worth considering as an example of great generalship.
Which was a tougher opponent – OB West or the ANV? Or the IJA, for that matter?
And as far as theater/field commanders go, Von Rundstedt et al or RE Lee?
Or even Ushijima? My guess is that in terms of percentages of those engaged, Marse Robert at his best never inflicted the sort of casualties on the AoTP that the 32nd Army and its supporting commands did on the 10th Army and its supporters…
Best,
December 31, 2011 at 11:50 am
silbey
TF, you are in the position of pointing out that any ranking of American generals, especially the top one, is likely to have elements of unfairness to it. That is extremely true. So true, in fact, that I mentioned it extensively ten days ago, in my first post.
What you seem to be doing instead is excavating all the ways that the rankings might be unfair and holding them up as if they’re something new and damaging. Well, no, see “mentioned it extensively ten days ago.” You also don’t seem aware of the fact that the revised suggestions you make bring in other levels of unfairness (eg weighing the issue of fighting at transoceanic distance is unfair to Grant as he never had that chance).
Do you have something to add besides the fact that the rankings are unfair?
December 31, 2011 at 1:02 pm
TF Smith
Obviously not, doctor.
Best
December 31, 2011 at 1:34 pm
silbey
Then you’ve stated it quite clearly.
January 2, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Vance Maverick
[boring anonymous personal insult deleted]