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Best Generals in US History? - HerbS - 10-12-2012 08:54 AM
Now that we have discussed the worst war in US History.Let's hash out who we think were the best Generals in US History.My picks-1-Lee-2-Stonewall Jackson-3-Patton-4-Ike-5-Sullivan and Washington[AM Rev]-6-A.Jackson-7-Grant-8-O.Howard-9-Pershing-10-Longstreet! And many more are still out there!
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Gene C - 10-12-2012 09:10 AM
I'm going to disagree with you about Lee being first, but he was good. He just happened to pick the loosing side.
In addition to your top 10, and for your consideration: George Crook, civil war and indian fighter;
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/crook.htm
and Omar Bradley of WW II
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Laurie Verge - 10-12-2012 09:51 AM
Being raised by a WWII vet, Patton and Bradley are my first choices, followed by Eisenhower. As for the Civil War, I vote for Lee, Grant, Chamberlain, and Jackson. I'm debating other wars.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - LincolnMan - 10-12-2012 10:08 AM
U.S. History-have to go with George Washington at #1.
Other picks would include: Grant, Lee, Jackson (Stonewall), Patton, Bradley. Of course, what do you mean by "best?"
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Thomas Thorne - 10-12-2012 11:14 AM
Pre Civil War-Winfield Scott-The Duke of Wellington was an avid Scott fan.
Civil War-Robert E Lee-I decided he was slightly better than Grant after doing a thought experiment on what would have happened if Lee and Grant had assumed each others' job in March 1864.
20th Century-George Patton-His German enemies who were the masters of the operational arts of war believed him to be the most dangerous Allied general.
Tom
RE: Best Generals in US History? - BettyO - 10-12-2012 11:49 AM
I'm going to name:
General Lee
General Stonewall Jackson
General Grant
General Pershing
(And although my father personally hated him) General George Patton
RE: Best Generals in US History? - JB Banning - 10-12-2012 02:54 PM
I think that Gen. George "Pap" Thomas has to be included in any list of the best generals. He stopped the rout at Chickamauga, it was his men who refused to stop the charge at the base of Misionary Ridge and went on to take that ridge and he utterly destroyed the western army of Gen. Hood at Nashville. He is not well known today because he refused to build himself up after the war.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Bill Richter - 10-12-2012 03:26 PM
I agree with Thomas Thorne in his choices and reasoning (a shock to both of us!): Winfield Scott, RE Lee, and Patton. I have a little feeling for MacArthur for the Inchon Landing in Korea, a brilliant battlefield maneuver, and his governance of Japan, and I like NB Forrest because he was a total SOB, just like me.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Laurie Verge - 10-12-2012 03:37 PM
Bill,
I almost put Forrest down as a choice because I think he was one of the few who had a concept of what war is really all about (unlike McClellan), but I figured I would get booted off the forum. I listed Grant, however, for the very same reason. To heck with spit and polish, let's get the job done. Patton was the same way. I had an uncle who served under Patton and would have followed him through the fires of hell.
Tom - I also thought of Winfield Scott, but failed to type him in. Sometimes I think he is tragically overlooked because he was past his prime when the great challenge of our Civil War came along.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Gene C - 10-12-2012 03:42 PM
(10-12-2012 02:54 PM)JB Banning Wrote: I think that Gen. George "Pap" Thomas has to be included in any list of the best generals.
I agree, and he was also from VA. He was also instrumental in the Battle of Stones River (Murfreesboro, TN) in holding the union center and preventing a southern victory.
And I want to add "Stormin Norman" Schwarzkopf to the list.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Bill Richter - 10-12-2012 04:48 PM
Just for the heck of it, I will also nominate William S Rosecrans. He suffers because he and US Grant got into an argument over Iuka, Miss, that plagued him after Chickamauga, but from a theoretical viewpoint, using the theories of the Baron Jomini, allegedly the real theorist behind Civil War Generals through his analysis of the Campaigns of Napoleon I, Rosecrans maneuvered Bragg out of Middle Tennessee to below Chattanooga in the 1863 Tullahoma campaign without hardly firing a shot. That was the essence of a good textbook Civil War general and why most generals were like McClellan. As Lincoln put it, they all "had the slows." It is also why we remember Grant, Lee, Jackson, Forrest, and the real fighters--they were really rare, especially early in the war. It also speaks to the fact that the Germans never feared any British or American general but Patton--he was daring and fought in a true blitzkrieg style. As for Scott, he was brilliant in every war from 1812 to 1848, as evidenced in the Duke of Wellington's praise for his campaign on Mexico City, and smarter than Lincoln and McClellan would have liked to admit in 1861.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - JMadonna - 10-12-2012 04:48 PM
General George C. Marshall hands down. Truman called him "the man who won the war" and he did it on the European and Pacific fronts at the same time! No other General comes even close to that accomplishment.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - Bill Richter - 10-12-2012 05:57 PM
Great choice, Jerry! Excellent.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - L Verge - 10-12-2012 06:37 PM
I should have added George Marshall also - another hero of my father. Ironically, during the end of WWII, my father was "asked" to consider being a "double" for General Marshall. They looked that much alike. I'm not sure why it never came to be unless it was because my dad had a wife and very young me...
I don't know that much about diplomatic history following WWII, but I have always heard that Marshall and his plan were very successful in the economic and political recovery of Europe.
RE: Best Generals in US History? - JMadonna - 10-12-2012 06:59 PM
(10-12-2012 06:37 PM)L Verge Wrote: I don't know that much about diplomatic history following WWII, but I have always heard that Marshall and his plan were very successful in the economic and political recovery of Europe.
Isn't politics something? Our money has the faces of two generals Jackson and Grant, who as Presidents had disastrous economic records. Yet the man who won the biggest war in history and helped plan the economic recovery of Europe gets no lasting recognition and is probably unknown to the majority of the country.