dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Feb 6, 2017 2:39:06 GMT
As we have chewed all the "goody" out of the Custer Attacked Ford D thread, I thought we might have a little fun naming the worst Generals of the ACW, just for you QC, as there are many qualified candidates for this honor.
To make it fair for all I have taking the 2 lowest of the hanging fruits off the board. One from each side showing how impartial I am: 1) Benjamin Butler Union 2) Gideon Pillow Confederate.
I would encourage all to defend your choice as I will show below.
Brigadier General James H. Ledlie, US Army, gained his selection by his terrible behavior and performance at the Battle of the Crater during the Petersburg Siege in July of 1864. His command, 1st Division of the IV Corps, was to follow the explosion of the Confederate lines and breach their defenses. He failed to inform his commanders of the battle plan and they allowed their troops to mill around the crater and not spread out and capture the Confederates. To compound his ineptness he took shelter in a bomb shelter drinking hard liquor while his command was decimated by the recovering Rebels. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2017 3:45:09 GMT
It's no contest. The guys that lost were the worst and the guys that won were the best.
That will not win me the prize of Miss Congeniality I am sure, BUT facts are facts, and the facts are that:
Military operations are a team endeavor , executed by teams, and no one individual can cause a war to be lost, nor can any cause a war to be won. Teams win and are judged the best, not generals, and the losing side in any conflict by definition is not as good as the side who wins.
The simple fact is that the Confederacy lost and the United States won, and that is the end of the story.
The question you pose tries to oversimplify a most complicated subject, For instance any objective rating of the two commanding generals at Saratoga would have the British commander being far superior to probably the worst American general officer ever commissioned by Congress, yet the Brits lost badly, and the Continentals won in spite of the two commanders. They won because the American team, was on those few days far better than their adversary, in spite of the guy who commanded them.
You spoke of the Crater. You accurately portrayed the fault of the commander, but what about the leadership beneath him. They were the ones standing with their thumb up their ass. Dynamic junior leadership could have made the difference, so you must rightly conclude that it was a team failure, just as it was a team failure at LBH.
Good officers build winning teams at every level. Good officers make decisions based on the situation they see, despite what they may or may not have been told.
Now I am going to hopefully illustrate my point that you are oversimplifying the process.
My nominee for the worst Confederate General Officer is none other than Robert Edward Lee. In case there were two so named I will be even more specific, the one who lived in Arlington House.
I can back up my nomination by stating that he never decisively won any battle he ever fought in his entire tour of command, where he had an even or better than even chance of success. He failed at every turn, Seven Days, Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. The written record bears all this out. He never met his objectives. Not once.
Now after you recover from a near terminal case of the vapors, either examine the written record, or simply ask me why he would be my nominee, and I will be more than happy to tell you. By the way he was also up against a bunch of second string bench warmers, and he still could not meet the objective he himself set
My nominee for the best Union general officer would be George Brinton McClellan. The reason being that he alone accomplished what was necessary for victory in the eastern theater.
After you recover from vapors relapse, I will be more than happy to tell you the reason for that nomination as well
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Post by chardvc on Feb 6, 2017 10:25:35 GMT
Why Mr Q - your choice of best Union officer reveals your true identity - you are George Armstrong Custer and I claim my £5.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 6, 2017 12:26:21 GMT
Chuck,
George Brinton McClellan, was ill used, or used himself in a poor fashion. He delegated poorly to better field commanders and hesitated when he should not. Having said that, had he been in charge of the 7th Cavalry they would have been the best organized and trained Regiment on the plains. The problem is he may have waited until the 28th or 29th of June to attack! After Terry was damaged beyond repair. On the other hand he may have followed his orders completely and come across the Rosebud battle site.
Dave,
Butler would have made a better prison warden, if that, a vindictive bastard.
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Post by Beth on Feb 6, 2017 12:45:38 GMT
Don't you think that McClellan's worse aspect was his ego? I understand that Generals need a extreme helping of ego but McClellan let his get into his way. As a commander of an Amry, he might have been great but as the type of General who could move through the politics of war he wasn't so good. He didn't suffer fools lightly but he also didn't understand he wasn't dealing with a fool.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 6, 2017 14:40:41 GMT
What about general john b Floyd.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2017 15:22:15 GMT
Since you all seem to have taken on my nomination of McClellan first I will elucidate.
Any discussion of who was the best and who was the worst revolves around what is important to you, me, or the next guy. What do you value colors who you pick for either title. In short you have blinded your own objectivity.
I have talked on the phone so many times with Tom that I fear I have shown my hole card to him. His statement at the midpoint of his post betrays the fact.
George McClellan accomplished something no other general officer on either side accomplished during the course of the ACW, and frankly I can think of none who had the personal skills to do so. He is the man who forged the tool that was the instrument of victory. He organized the Army of the Potomac into a well trained, well organized, well equipped, well fed fighting machine, and the western armies soon followed the example he set. You, all of us, remember the man who wields the hammer effectively, but give little thought to the man who invented the hammer.
McClellan's experience in and out of the army gave him the organizational skills and methodology to gather this raw material together and form a war winner from it. Without McClellan there would be no later successes by Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and others. He was the essential organizational man, from whom all else came.
A great big cigar to you Thomas of Bowling Green. Well done.
But the point here folks that this is just my opinion, based upon those things I value, for there cannot exist a scale to determine worst and best. There is no universal unit of measurement.
By the way Beth, the best general officer that I personally know, and I know quite a few, has no outwardly discernable ego at all. He is a West Point graduate, has several masters degrees, is a three war combat vet, an accomplished civil engineer, and were you to know none of this you would think him better suited to the role of field hand than general. When there is work to be done he stands beside the most humble among us setting the example of work ethic, and not too good to swing an axe or drive a nail. In fact if you should call him General, he would soon set you straight.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 6, 2017 16:07:09 GMT
Well, you got my point neither Marshall nor Eisenhower saw much of the bullets flying during WWII. However without them the management of that war would have surely been different.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 6, 2017 16:16:56 GMT
Chuck can also tell you about these things. My favorite CO was a fighter pilot during WWII, based in England, but, he was a lacking administrator, but beloved by all. He knew about his weakness, thus he surrounded himself with very detail and loyal minions. One of those minions was a guy named Cardwell, Chuck knew him. Oh and by the way he was also a top notch aviator. Play to your strengths and cover any and all weaknesses with the right people.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2017 16:22:15 GMT
Actually I thought that it was you Tom that got my point, but it does not matter.
Marshall last saw combat in 1918. Eisenhower never was engaged in direct combat in his entire career. Without Marshall, like without McClellan there would have not been an army developed upon organizational lines, that became a war winner. He forged the hammer. Without Eisenhower there would have been no victory in Europe in 1945. Without him the war would have lasted at least two and probably three more years. He brought order and direction to a debutant dance of prima donnas.
Ian asked the other day on the founder's PM thread about the combat power melded into the 1944 SS battalions, and I suppose he was wondering why the Allied Armies did not do something similar. I can't answer for the Brits, but I can for the U S Army, that answer being that we did not need to. We did not need to because of the organizational concepts and skills of Leslie J. McNair, under Marshall's direction. We had the absolute best system of fires and fire direction and control on the planet, backed up by the most modern means of transportation, communications, and supply. That's why we didn't need to, and the did not need started with Marshall and McNair at the Infantry and Artillery Schools in the early 1930's.
Anyone with the basic leadership skills, could take Marshall's book written in the early 1930's and apply its lessons, and become a successful commander of an Infantry company, battalion, or regiment. McNair did similar work, but McNair's ideas would go nowhere without Marshall's guidance.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Feb 6, 2017 17:07:11 GMT
QC
You obviously are accusing "Marse" Robert of being an inept general officer to get arise from members. The South would never have lasted as long as it did if Joe Johnston had never been wounded and continued as Commander of the ANV even though Shelby Foote said: "Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee as commander."
The purpose of this thread was education for those members, such as myself, who desire to increase their knowledge of leaders who thrived or failed in the cauldron of war. Ignorance is not a sin failing to educate oneself is. I had hoped that military veterans such as your self could offer some obscure generals who were failures and why they missed the mark. If you choose to not participate I understand but our discussion will be the poorer for your absence especially with you encyclopedic knowledge of the of the ANV and its leaders.
Yan's suggestion of John B. Floyd is an excellent example of a man with nor morals. ethics, talent or courage leading brave soldiers who deserved better. Great suggestion Ian and a worthy topic regarding this man's actions at Ft Donelson.
If others feel as QC, then back to extrapolating, cogitating, speculating, excogitating etc on the Custer Went North thread for them and enjoy the continued study of the minutiae of the actions of one leader and 5 separated units over an extended period of time without testimony of any survivors, soldiers, containing over 100 pages and growing.
I am going to keep this thread for awhile on the off chance others might be interested. Regards Dave
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Post by Beth on Feb 6, 2017 17:17:42 GMT
Dave I know that you will argue the point but a General who allowed the South to last so long didn't do the people of the South any favors.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 6, 2017 17:46:38 GMT
Dave, we could take your thread to focus on Kansas and Missouri. Major General David Hunter, Sterling Price, Quantrill(while not a general) were an interesting bunch. Then again we could go after Pope, N.P. Banks, and other such notables,
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2017 17:58:01 GMT
Oh my.
You are looking only at the superficial Dave. On the surface, and for the immortal ages Lee will be considered THE general, and what I am saying is not that he was not a fine tactician and much better than average operational commander, he was. But, that when push came to shove he failed at everything he set out to do, and what he set out to do was by the standard that he himself established.
In nearly every book you read, and included in that are his own collected war time papers, you see where the standard he set was to wage a second Cannae, a battle of complete destruction. Only a complete destruction of the Union Army of the Potomac, done in both a decisive and dramatic fashion would influence the north to seek peace, despite Lincoln. He was correct, but he could never pull it off. He never possessed that extra punch that was required to turn a tactical victory on his part into that Cannae.
He failed in the Seven Days, by expending so much of his combat power in the first six that he was unable to destroy McClellan at Malvern Hill, even though he had him with his back to the river. McClellan got way.
He failed at Cedar Mountain, in that while he possessed the battlefield at the end of the day, his subordinates let a looser like Banks get away to fight another day.
He failed at Second Manassas because he used up too much of Jackson in the early fighting, to the point where when Longstreet conducted his attacks into the Union flank he had no follow up to push through to destroy Pope before he got over Bull and Cub Runs. One more fresh division would have done the trick, and he didn't have it. That was his fault.
He failed to draw out and trap the AoP during the Sharpsburg Campaign. He drew them out allright, but his own hubris made him greedy, he split his forces much to far, and could not gather them together fast enough to spring the trap he anticipated. That was his fault.
He failed again at Fredericksburg. He bled the AoP for two days badly, had their backs against the river, but expended far to much in men and material resources to destroy tem. That was his fault.
He had Hooker completely snookered at Chancellorsville. He made the best flanking maneuver in recorded American history. He put Hooker in a pocket, but again could not stop Hooker from getting away. Longstreet's divisions would have spelled the difference, but he didn't have them. Who ordered Longstreet away to Tidewater? He did, and the reasons do not matter. It was by his direction.
He failed to once again trap the AoP away from its bases at Gettysburg, and once again a battle that did not need fighting was fought, brought on at least for the second and third days by Lee's hubris, nothing else.
While my best U S general was busy organizing an Army, Lee did not even bother to organize himself out of a nominal span of control of one to nine until October 1862. Yes he grouped those divisions into two provisional Army Corps, but those two commanding generals never had any staff support to make their obvious talents into a seamlessly efficient military organization. Once they did have the authorization for a sufficient and workable staff set up to support the ANV and subordinate corps operations, he once again split them from two to three after Chancellorsville, and again the staff work so suffered as to resemble poverty row. That was his fault
McClellan on the other hand formed more, but smaller and more manageable corps within the AoP, made sure they were up to snuff with a proper staffs at every level brigade and above. In short he created a better hammer, that others would use.
So from my perspective Lee failed in his organization for battle. He never had that follow up punch because of his organizational construct and ill attention to the details of staff work.
There comes a time when, if you organize correctly, and you pay great attention to the nuts and bolts of staff work, your victory on the battlefield is a self fulfilling prophesy. Lee did none of this, nor did he have the skills to realize that this was his Achilles Heel. He was old school where these things did not matter all that much, but they did, because 1862-63 was not 1815 or 1846. He was a self inflicted wound of not being current in the continuing evolution of military affairs.
He was a fine gentleman, loyal to a fault, an inspirational leader, but if you reject the tools tha mae you a battle winner, then you will fail. He failed.
Postscript:
There are two additional considerations that need mentioning when determining the best and worst. Neither of them are subjective.
Of all those mentioned above, from Gideon Pillow to Benjamin Butler, there would have been no notice taken if they had lived or died, been a success or abject failures. None of them met the standard of criticality of presence and importance of position. So there must be a scale of importance, or criticality of existence. Both Lee and McClellan mattered based upon the positions they occupied. Their success or failure then mattered. There were others as well, Grant, Sherman, Bragg and a very few others. These were the men of influence, where all the rest were still important but in a mre minor role. When one of them failed it had immeasurably more impact than with others of lower positions did. And the same was true when they met success. They must be judged to the higher standard of essential men.
Yesterday most of us witnessed the finest and most remarkable comebacks in the history of the game of football. That did not happen by accident, and it is applicable here. That game was not won exclusively on the field. It was won just as much in the team front office and on the training field as it was in Houston. The better organization won the battle. The team tested by trial won the battle. The inspirational leaders and star performers were not there by accident. It was a team of teams. Teams that trained together, were properly organized based on skills and capacities. Teams so constructed never give up in the face of adversity and setbacks that would send lesser mortals into tail spins. Teams so organized always have one more trick in the bag and the fortitude to pull out all the stops to reach their goals.
Armies are like football teams, where the word team contains no "I". Successful commanders build successful teams, but it is also true that people who are not all that successful on the field as individuals can also mightily contribute to overall success by those unsung skills they do possess. Just the same is true for the star performer who is unable to infuse his team with a lasting organizational star quality.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2017 21:59:12 GMT
Anyone interested go to Wiki or any number of other sources and read the tale of Special Order 191, ANV, 9 September 1862.
Then tell me about chain of command, span of control, and efficient staff work on the part of a trained competent staff.
Those not familiar with it will have their eyes opened, and those that share the profession will just shake their heads.
Along with the Cooke note, 191 becomes a prime example of how not to do it.
You will note when you see the document there is not even the basics like Copy Number___ of ___ Copies. There is also no notation of DUPLICATION PROBIBITED. In addition there did not exist any register of who got what copy, nor is there any documentation of the recipient signing for the order, acknowledging receipt. All of these simple very ordinary staff procedures were violated, and there is only one man ultimately responsible.
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