Racist Poster

[Docfeelgood]

Which just goes to show, even a complete idiot can see that the South had lost the war by then.

But then Doc goes and contradicts himself in his next post anyway, since a stalemate = Southern victory, so there ya go. He's back on your side.

Gettysburg was lost before a shot was fired, due to Lee's supreme incompetence in picking where he was going to fight. Longstreet warned him repeatedly not to engage there, but he didn't listen.

this part

[Arrian]

Lee: inspired at times (Chancellorsville, holy ****) but he's deified in a way that makes him overrated by many. He was not a good offensive commander, and the whole concept of the Gettysburg campaign was fatally flawed (Longstreet had it right: go West. That's where the war was really won/lost). Many of the Union generals look bad in part b/c they had a fundamentally tougher job - offensive operations in hostile territory. Many times they had a numerical (and supply) advantage, particularly later in the war, so it might balance out overall, but not every time, particularly early on IMO.

Grant was not brilliant or inspired (he'd never have pulled off something like Chancellorsville, and he nearly got severely ****ed up at Shiloh), but he understood the underlying calculus of the war in a way that most of these guys didn't seem to get. The Union general who had flashes of brilliance was McClellan, but he was timid. He would put himself in a good position and then lose his nerve, constantly asserting to his superiors that he was faced with overwhelming enemy forces (usually his estimates of Confed strength were almost exactly double what they really had). The Penninsula Campaign was just incredible (in a bad way).

Sherman seems to have been pretty good. People ***** about (or get hard thinking about) the March To The Sea, but his campaign from Chattanoga to Atlanta was pretty impressive in its own right. Dude knew what he was doing. Also, regarding his supposed barbaric nature, Joe Johnston seemed to think he was a good guy. Ghengis Khan he was not. Thomas and Meade both strike me as solid generals. The flipside is that the Union had guys like Butler, Burnside, Hooker... the list goes on and on. Guys just totally out of their depth.

The Confederates may have had more talented generals, but it's hard to tell. One of their big names got killed at Shiloh, fairly early on (AS Johnston). Others were underutilized because Jeff Davis didn't like them (Joe Johnston, Beauregard).

-Arrian

p.s. Arguing with Sloww on this (or anything, really) is like arguing with the physical manifestation of pure emotion. Good luck with that.

[Boris Godunov]

p.s. Arguing with Sloww on this (or anything, really) is like arguing with the physical manifestation of pure emotion. Good luck with that.

Having been born and raised in the South, I saw it often. It's difficult for them to accept the fact that they got totally crushed, so they have to invent a myth that the war was somehow close, that just "one more charge" would have saved the CSA, that Lee was some sort of messiah... it's kinda sad, really.

[Tupac Shakur]

Were I to rank the best Civil War generals, they would be:

1. Sherman (He's the only one that had the foresight of what modern warfare would become)

You are a scholar and a gentleman, sir.