Was Robert E Lee as good as people think he was?

[quincannon]

Over the last week my family has been visiting with me here in Colorado. My son stayed longer than the rest and has just left to go back to Virginia. As normally happens when we get together the late evening subject matter turned to talk of the American Civil War. 

One subject that came up and was discussed late into the night was Lee. Was he really as good as he was made out to be at the time, and later, or was he the excuse for failure on the part of the Union Army, specifically timid and incompetent generals in that Army? We see much the same in the early days of the Pacific War. Yamamoto was made out to be a genius, and that is why we failed at Pearl Harbor, and those early naval battles.

I think an objective look at Lee provides us the answer. Lee was poor as a strategic thinker, and fairly ordinary as a tactician. What he did have going for him is better than average subordinates at the division and brigade level, much better than the opposition, with a couple of very combative exceptions like Phil Kearney, Winfield Hancock, and Joe Hooker.. I'll probably hear a little flack on that last name mentioned.

Lee never won an offensive campaign. His first against MacClellan was an unmitigated disaster, of poor staff work, and unrealistic plans. He should have been completely crushed with his back to the Potomac, and would have been, had he not been fighting MacClellan. His second, at Gettysburg, was marked with the same mistakes made the previous year in Maryland. Had he been fighting Grant instead of Meade, the war in the east would have been over about the 10th of July 1863.

Objectively, if we look at his defensive campaigns, I don't think he was all that hot either. He lost a lot of people he did not have to on the Peninsula, and damned near destroyed his Army at Malvern Hill, leaving Richmond wide open as a result, but MacClellan was running the show on the other side of the hill. At that point Daffy Duck, was the tactical superior of Little Mac, so Lee and his Army survived when by rights it should not have.

Was Second Manassas a masterpiece, or was it a masterpiece created by John Pope? Second Manassas was what tacticians, ordinary tacticians, do, seek the flank, get in the rear, and pee in your opponent's corn flakes. That is just what Lee did, the ordinary out of the book pee in the corn flakes maneuver, and his timing was still a bit askew. Jackson could have been destroyed before Longstreet arrived, had Jackson been caught by anyone but John Pope. Even Old Bugs Bunny would have eaten Jack's carrots and turned on Longstreet, but no John Pope did not have the tactical awareness of the rascally rabbit, and Lee dodged another bullet.

Chancellorsville, a tactical masterpiece. Bull shit. What idiot divides his army send half of it more than a hundred miles away, then fails to concentrate before spring when the grass is up, the weather becomes warm, and the combative juices start flowing again after a long winter. Lee did, and damned near got his ass whipped by maneuver alone, until Hooker, a very good fighting division commander and an indecisive Army commander, let him get away with his mistakes again. Joe had so many choices at Chancellorsville and decided to take none of them. That was his bad, not Lee's good.

Then finally for this particular tome, there is Bristoe Station, where A P Hill, on Lee's order, walked his corps across the front of a Union Corps and wrecked his corps in the process.

There are several more examples, but I think the point has been made for now. Lee was no better than those that opposed him. He just had much better people working for him, and as they became combat losses, Lee showed more and more of his ass to history.

Love to hear what you all think about this.

[miker]

Tactically I would rate him average.
Strategically he as sub standard.

He should have stood on the defensive. Conducting offensive operations into the north with poor supplies and little industry.


Tactical offensive - Strategic Defensive is the ticket. Perhaps the Japanese should have done so.

Washington I think had it almost right.

[quincannon]

Substantially agree. All he had to do is not lose his army.

In many ways Lee was full of himself. I do not think there is any doubt that he was the best of the Southern Commanders at Army level command, but when you look at it that is not saying very much. In the west they were all miserable. Once the Mississippi River was lost to the south, it was as my grandmother used to say - all over but the shouting - from a military standpoint.

That made Lee the only hope the south had. Had he been able to avoid defeat until the Fall of 1864 Lincoln may have been defeated at the polls, and the Union, grown tired of war, may have settled for a peace, a peace that could not last, but peace for those who cannot see beyond their nose. The great experiment, the vision of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams ground asunder into dust. and at least two. possibly more, third rate nations take its place.

The only take away is that God somehow takes care of drunks and stupid ass Americans

[miker]

Another over rated general was McArthur. More modern over rates: Schwarzkopf, patters, McCrystal, and the guy who commanded CENTCOM for Iraq II and Afghanistan, who was not helped at all by having to work with Rumsfeld.

[miker]

Patreus

[quincannon]

To some extent all general officers are overrated. Then again just as many are underrated.

Problem as I see it is there is no common yardstick possible to measure them. Case in point. I mentioned Joe Hooker. Hooker was very well thought of as a division commander. He could fight, would fight, and fight very well. He was miserable as an Army commander. Had he stayed a division commander he would have been right up there in people's minds with Hancock and the rest of the top tier of later war Union generals. Instead, his name is more associated with working girls, and has become a joke

Patreas was another joke, a legend of his own manufacture. MacArthur was a momma's boy, a pink pants pu**y, who was long past his sell date in 1941. Schwartzkoph was a mean bully, a pig of a man, in temperament and actuality.

[yanmacca]

1st Duke of Marlborough

Duke of Wellington

Field Marshall Bill Slim

[quincannon]

I'm not sure what you are saying by listing these three names Ian. Are you saying they are overrated, underrated, or my opinion of them. Assuming it is the latter I would say that there were few in world history that were any better, maybe Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar but none other come to mind

John Churchill, Arthur Wellesley, and Bill Slim were masters of the trade. The first two received what they richly deserved an immortal place in British and military history that will last until the end of time. Bill Slim, unless you are a student of the art form, is largely unknown outside Britain, but still one of the Great Captains. That only goes to reinforce the point I was trying to make. Slim of Burma. Had he been Slim of North Africa, or Slim of Northern France, people would have been saying Monty Who.

[yanmacca]

I rate them, I had relations who fought in the far East under Slim.
Marlborough and Wellington have great records I am not sure if between them they won all their battles, maybe Wellington lost a seige battle somewhere in Spain, but still you get judged by your victories and the two dukes certainly did that.

Slim spent nearly all his military career in either the middle east and the far east, for some reason these campaigns have been sadly over looked in terms of the campaigns in Europe.
The XV army was known as the forgotten army, which makes Slims efforts all the more impressive.
Ian

[quincannon]

Could not agree more. Slim's "Defeat into Victory" offers some clues to the answer to your question of why Burma was overlooked. Slim did not self glorify, like Monty, Patton, and Bradley. He just fought.

Another guy I really admire was Wingate, although he was as weird as a three peckered goat. He ushered in a new kind of warfare, or at least if not ushering in brought it to a scale, where the bumbling ninnies could understand it. I mean come on, who walks around his headquarters stark naked with an alarm clock strapped to his wrist.

Wellington in Spain was a tour de force of maneuver. At Waterloo, he was simply wise enough to let Napoleon beat himself. Churchill, all you ever need to say about him is one word ---- Blenheim

[yanmacca]

Wingate, yes another officer who served abroad most of his career, like Slim, he served in both the middle east and far east. He won the praise of Slim;

“The number of men of our race in this war who are really irreplaceable can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Wingate is one of them. The force he built is his own; no one else could have produced it. He designed it, he raised it, he led it, inspired it and finally placed it where he meant to place it—in the enemy vitals.”

John Churchill was always able to get his troops in the right place and adapt to the situation on the field, but like you QC, he fully appreciated the importance of logistics with supple dumps to keep the men fed and rested.

All four officers here have one thing in common, they fought mainly on foreign soil and commanded troops from many different nations, which is difficult now, imagine how hard it was in Churchills or Wellingtons day with no radios etc.
Ian

[quincannon]

I had never heard of Wingate or the Chindits until I picked up a copy of Master's "Road Past Mandalay" at the public library when I was about fourteen. He was an amazing man, and those who served with him on both campaigns, and including the 5307th Composite Unit of the U S Army, were man for man the finest soldiers both our nations produced in World War II. Their only rival was the 1st Special Service Force from the U S A and Canada.

There were others of course, Rangers, Commandoes, LRDG, PPA, Special Boat Service, SAS, and the Alamo Scouts, but most of them were in and out guys, whereas the Chindits, the Marauders, and 1st SSF, went in and stayed in. There is a passage in Ogburn's "Marauders" that describes what "scouts out" was to those who fought in the Burma jungles. It meant going twenty miles in front of the main force. Can you imagine that, and what it must have been like?

[yanmacca]

I knew who the chindits were, but not who commanded them I found that out from the tv series "the world at war" but I got a lot of stuff from the ww2 vets when I was a kid, the pub where I lived was full of them, army and navy, but there was a lack of RAF guys, in fact I don't think any of them was RAF.

But the only airforce guy I knew was a retired USAF officer who served at Burtonwood airbase and married a Widnes girl, his name was Noel and he and my dad got along like s house on fire.

I guess being in close proximity with the enemy is bad enough but in a jungle setting would be horrific, made worse if you are out on a limb well away from support.

Ian