Who Did Theodore Roosevelt Think Was the Best Civil War General? 

the mother died first and the wife the next day

First of all, Nathan Beford Forrest never served under Lee so there is no way that Forrest could have been Lee's best commander. Forrest served in Tennesse and the western theater and was never in the Army of Northen Virginia. Secondly, that alleged quote has never been authenticated. Third. Lee wouldn't have said that about a man that he probably never even met.

​@luciusjulius8320 nobody said he served under Lee. Lee was asked that when he was president of the college he served at. I forgot which university it was. Nevertheless if you are in denial of Forrest's exploits then you need to read his biography. There is more than one.

Read the post again. That's precisely what was said. Try a remedial English class.@@kentkippes5773

YEPPIE.

He was a butcher who murdered unarmed black prisoners. Before the war, he was a slave trader.

Yes! Eisenhower had 4 portraits in his office & one of them was Lee. Imagine the woke snowflakes melting with outrage of that happened today. 😂

No, he DID not in the context of a field commander. Grant was a much better general.

@@peterbellini6102yes, o agree, from what I’ve read Grant was a much better strategist, much more forward thinking then Lee. Though, in the end, I don’t think it could be argued that Lee was was certainly forward enough thinkling that he knew of he continued to fight, they couldn’t win and didn’t want to unnecessarily waste any more of his men’s lives when he decided to sign the treaty.

@@peterbellini6102 It's easier to be better on the field when you outnumber the enemy 5 to 1, have unlimited resources and replacements, and wage a war of attrition. To paraphrase Jubal Early, the Army of Northern Virginia was not beaten. It was utterly worn down to its final destruction. Lee's Confederates were starving scarecrows with no food and little ammunition, numbering a little over 30,000 at the end. My gg-grandfather John Strebeck, 13th Mississippi Infantry, was one of those starving scarecrows surrendered at Appomattox. Grant was the first industrial-age general fighting an army composed of primarily small-scale farmers.

Roosevelt was a New York trust fund baby who actually molded himself into being a man’s man. He backed up his bluster and fought his own. battles. Above all Teddy cated about the working class and fairness for Black people.

He also won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Ah yes, committees. The only known lifeforms with three or more bellies and no brain.

He created Progressivism with the Bull Moose Party

Teddy Roosevelt is one of my favorites, an intellectual jock. We've really sunk to a new low in our choices of politicians.

Lee often said he could have done so much more with a professional army. The Confederate Army started out as an armed mob.

or his country. The Civil War turned the United States of America into the United State of America, and ushered in big centralized government.

Traitor

@@tombecht926yee old ‘traitor’ comment. How uneducated of yee.

Thomas was fighting Braxton Bragg, a most incompetent, and hated, general. So if Thomas had been fighting Lee the result might have been different. Bragg threw away many opportunities with his subordinates begging him to move.

Your Opinion Is Mine! When Thomas Was In Command, He Never Lost. He Was The Consummate Professional Soldier.

@@tomjackson4374 fair enough. Lee certainly was pitted against world class military geniuses with the likes of McClellen, Burnside, Hooker, etc.

@@williamashbless7904 Did you kind of leave out Grant? You missed him in the mix? McClellan could see the watch towers of Richmond when Lee took command, yet Lee forced him back. Name me another general who could have done that. The only way Grant could beat Lee was a war of attrition. Lee was the underdog in every battle yet he almost won. So spare me the irony.

@@tomjackson4374 McClellen was a fine strategic thinker. He had no taste for combat. Lee was forced to do something to defend Richmond. His ‘all out’ assaults drove Mac off. It cost Lee nearly 30,000 men. Pretty much anybody who attacked Mac would find easy goings. Lincoln sacked him for cause. Why he was rehired for the Antietam Campaign is a head scratcher. He stopped Lee in that campaign, but had Lee’s strategic plans and should have utterly destroyed him. He didn’t. I didn’t mention Grant because Lee never beat Grant. Lee almost won? Seriously? He invaded the North twice. Both attempts wrecked his army and he crawled South with his tail between his legs. Lee won defensive battles on home soil. That’s not how you win wars. Grant won his war of attrition because Lee would not face him in open battle during the Petersburg Campaign. Lee was fortified to defend Richmond and drag out the war until the election where he hoped McClellen would defeat Lincoln and sue for peace. Grant was a brilliant strategist and only fair tactician. He also was not afraid to fight. Lee’s strategic abilities bordered on incompetence. He was a very capable tactician and a gambler. Gambling against lackluster opponents is likely to be rewarding.

File him with George Patton in a later era. But great fighters

I thought Cleveland did.

Did some wrong, but so much rite.

Gave back what flags?

Good thoughts, but I am going to intrude with some modern thoughts, when fighting a numerically superior and better equipped opponent, the key to victory is to preserve the corpus of your army. There is no doubt Lee knew this intellectually but he was hampered by his experience. Thus, Lee knew the key to a Southern victory lay in the first year, after that, facing a better equipped and larger army, he could only hope to force the North to negotiate. We see this in the South's string of first year victories but also with the diminishing hopes in years three and four. Grant also knew this, and was willing to spend his resources more freely keeping Lee's attention on the Potomac while the March to the Sea cut through the heart of the South. Lee maneuvered while the South burned. All in all, while Lee is my sentimental favorite, I believe Grant was more effective.

@@normsti000 Grant had overwhelming resources behind that effectiveness, while Lee's resources were not really adequate. Swap places with Lee and Grant, and Grant would have lost to Lee, and Grant may not have been even able to last up to April, 1865 as Lee did. Not taking sides, but looking at the Civil War as a purely tactical exercise, the South lost in 1861 with the decision to fight a conventional war. Without a large Navy and with meager Industrial capability, the South could not win a conventional war. Had the South practiced unconventional war, using fast moving mounted "Dragoon" units similar to those commanded by John Singleton Mosby, Nathan Bedford Forest, William Clark Quantrill, etc. the South may have had a chance at winning. But such tactics would have been brutal, as hundreds or thousands of Southern Dragoon units would have had to invade the North to rapidly destroy the Federal and State political structures, killing Lincoln and his cabinet, State Governors and advisors in their, offices, the Congress, State Legislatures, the Federal and State Judicial officers. Such tactics would have made the hundreds or thousands of roving Southern Dragoon Units, effectively roving outlaw gangs of murder and destruction. The sole mission of these Southern Dragoons would have been to decapitate the Northern Political Structure, Federal, State, Local as rapidly and as brutally as possible, then move to destruction of transportation, communication and resources. Kill the farmers in their burning fields, the sheriff in his office, the policeman on the street. Burn the towns. Ride in behind the Army in the field and kill the command staff in their tents. Decapitate the Northern society, and destroy their ability to produce and have them starving in the first 18 months of the war, would have been the South's only method to victory. Such brutal tactics would have prevented the North and South from ever reconciling, as the hatred would have transcended generations. So I'm glad no one in the South ever considered such a plan.

Lee knew the south would lose the war and said as much early on. He was intelligent enough to know that the south could not win the war of attrition that the north would ultimately fight. His only hope was a victory on northern soil (Gettysburg) that might shift northern attitudes and cause them to sue for peace.

Good posts here. I believe Grant’s overall plan in the west was spot on after reading and visiting the battlefields there. When Tennessee fell the Confederacy lost imho.

Yea, that's right, it wasn't Gen. Lee at Chancellorsville, or Manassas. That must have been somebody else. But Gen. Lee often said there were many things he could have done with a professional army that he simply could not do with the Confederate Army as it existed. His orders many times were failed to be carried out.

The civil war was the war that changed warfare. The tactics taught at Westpoint were outdated. The generals that recognized that weapons had advanced beyond tactics .

The only two "Offensive" losses I recall for Lee were Sharpsburg and Gettysburg. At Sharpsburg, Lee's order of battle was compromised and because of the intel failure he was doomed. He was possibly lucky to get out of there at about an even decision. The Union "won" Sharpsburg because Lee left, not because he was wiped out. Gettysburg was a combination of things, particularly the absence of General Thomas Jackson. But I can very well understand Lee's decision process. The war had been very long and tough on the South, on Lee and on his troops. The South needed a victory such as the opportunity in Gettysburg would provide, after they had the victory. Lee's resources were dwindling. It took a great many bits of fortune for Lee to be in Pennsylvania, and it was unlikely to happen again for a year or more. I suppose Lee may have figured he wouldn't get this chance again and he gambled it all on a victory at Gettysburg at the end. Since the South was going to lose, it was better for them to lose there and then suffer the steady decline to the end rather than a more prolonged decline over four or five more years of war. It is good that slavery ended, and in many ways it ended at Gettysburg.

Sharpsburg aka Antietam and Gettysburg were Lee's only major moves towards the north and both ended up as major failures.@@eddarby469

George Thomas at Chickamauga. "The Rock"

You got it! There is simply no other major general with his capacity for training, logistics, strategy, operations, innovation, intelligence, and combat. And there is no other important general with a record completely free of major blunders.

Ol pap.

Wasn't he related to Churchill?

Yes, Winston was related to him.

The Brits are always thought of as being sea fighters, which draws attention away from Marlborough and Wellington, who are inner circle greats. Not to mention all those fighting Kings.

@@williamcurtin5692 Their entire colonial empire was created and sustained by the army.

Grant? Yes, this may reflect the thoughts of Roosevelt, hands down the greatest general of the American Civil War was General Sherman.

To be fair, there are also pictures of Washington & Lincoln in the library so maybe they were favorite presidents.

Yep, his wife Mary was a grand daughter of Washington's. Arlington house, now the national cemetery.

Its very rare in military history to see two armies numerically even. In the great battle in PA the armies were very close in size with each other.

Lee did have an advantage. He fought on friendly ground and relied on counter attacks. Both of his invasions in the North were failures. Grant asVicksburg waged the greatest offensive campaign of the war

Lee had a significant numerical advantage at Gaines Mill. He suffered heavy casualties and was unable to rout Porter, who withdrew at nightfall. Porter continued to beat Lee over the course of the Seven Days, ultimately whipping him at Malvern Hill.

The Union side with Lee, Jackson, Longstreet and Stuart as their commanders would have won the war by Christmas 1862

@@exposethenwo6491Not if they were facing Thomas, Grant, Curtis, and Grierson. Lee, Jackson, and Stuart were all romantics, very capable in certain capacities, but none of them with the strategic vision and organizational capacity to prosecute an offensive war. Longstreet was the only clear-eyed realist of the bunch.

GHT. The Rock!

No, he name George McClellan as the best that he faced.

And John B. Gordon.

Hancock

Absolutely spot on and the proof was in the field and the admiration of their men, leaders are in front, politicians stay on the hill watching through field glasses!!

And never lost a battle

Grant simply realized he didn't have to win any battles with Lee - he only had to keep fighting and win the war through attrition. Stalin did the same thing with Germany.

You've got it backwards. It's the study of Lee that's changing attitudes toward him. People are finally looking beyond the Lost Cause hype.

@@aaronfleming9426 Sounds like you're looking beyond his military exploits. Those have _nothing_ to do with the Lost Cause myth. You're attitude is exactly what I'm concerned about. His excellence as general on the battlefield needs to continue to be studied by people training to be officers in the military today.

@@bevinboulder5039The Lost Cause myth absolutely does color the traditional view of Lee's generalship. The Lost Cause needed saints, and Lee was the greatest of them all. That meant that criticism of him was taboo. But you can't study a man as a military figure if you can't look at him honestly and critique as well as praise. The fact is the Lee had a number of excellent traits as a general. There's no denying his brilliance as an engineer, his ability to motivate fighting men, or his excellence as a "past-master" of operations, as JFC Fuller called him. And I cite Fuller and his outstanding book "Grant and Lee: A study in personality and generalship" particularly because 1. he was a Brit who had no particular interest in American politics and 2. he wrote well before the more recent movement to dismantle the Lost Cause. Besides Lee's obvious strengths, Fuller also points out Lee's weaknesses - and they are considerable. He failed to develop an effective staff, for example. He did not continue to develop a cadre of rising officers. His orders were often vague or even self-contradictory. Once battle was joined he actually tended to stop writing orders, partly out of his pious notion that God would decide the course of the battle and Lee's work was complete simply by getting his army to the battlefield. He never had a clear strategic conception of the war, causing him to launch one bloody battle after another for little to no strategic purpose other than a vague hope of achieving an Austerlitz or Cannae. Antietam - perhaps his greatest blunder - he seems to have fought for no reason other than personal pride: he went to Maryland seeking battle and did not intend to leave until he had one. You'll note that none of that has anything to do with him being a slave owner, or the legal questions of secession, or anything else political. It's just pure factual historical military analysis. So you see that the recent changes in attitude toward the Civil War are actually enabling a more accurate study of Lee's generalship. At the same time, the receding of the Lost Cause mythology is creating a wholesome reevaluation of generals like Longstreet and Bragg and Johnston, who were targets of the wrath of Lost Causers. We have far more to learn from them now that they're not cartoon-character Lost Cause bad guys. On the Union side, there's also been a rethinking about generals like Grant and Thomas. Thomas of course had languished as an evil Virginian who fought for the Yankees. Grant was nothing but a butcher. But when we put aside the Lost Cause biases we get a much more accurate analysis of their military capabilities. NOW we just need to get the Righteous Causers to de-saint Sherman so we can realize what a pathetic battlefield general he was and de-mythologize the supposed awesomeness of his march to the sea.

An objective view of his record indicates that he was a romantic who didn't understand the war he was fighting and consequently committed several major blunders that contributed to the loss of the war. Though he clearly faced significant disadvantages, he also had several significant factors in his favor, which he failed to leverage. Also, Lee was not an American general any more than Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was an American general.

I'm not sure Stonewall wasn't the best of the war of 1861. Lee's success dropped precipitously once Stonewall was no longer with him.

MacArthur gets my vote. He won!

@@daviddougan6961 Poor attempt at being a droll troll

I think that George Thomas greatly needs a serious reassessment. His emphasis on scouting meant he was never surprised like Grant at Shiloh. His defensive skills are obvious, i.e. Chickamauga. But can you name another General who completely shattered an enemy army in the field? I'll wait but won't hold my breath!!!!😁

Winfield Scott is the most underrated of American Generals. His campaign in Mexico has to hold him as one of histories greatest.

@erikschultz7166 From a historical standpoint, Winfield Scott just simply gets overshadowed by the generation of officers that fought the Civil War on both sides unfortunately. The very generation that comprised the junior officer's corps when Winfield Scott was the man. Perhaps that is part of his greatest legacy? Look how many of his subordinates went on to become some of the greatest names in American military history? But arguably Winfield Scott's greatest contribution to American military history was what he did pretty much quietly and from behind the scenes during the Civil War counseling Lincoln and devising the over all strategy that would ultimately win the Civil War for the North?

@@FuzzyWuzzy75 The Anaconda plan.

@erikschultz7166 I believe Operation Anaconda was the brainchild of Winfield Scott but it was devised long before 1861. The War Department had similar plans laid out for every region of the country because they knew secession was inevitable in one part or another of the country. They also knew that potentially the western territories may revolt and try to form independent nations. There were contingency plans drawn up for nearly every possible scenario there long before 1861. Even the over all war strategy that was used to fight the Japanese in WWII had been drawn up as far back as the 1880s, obviously with some adjustments being made as technological changes updates to warfare would require.

I agree with you completely

@@conradnelson5283 I don't. Lee fought for four years a war that should have lasted six months. Lee is one of the best generals that ever lived. And Thomas fought in the West. He fought Bragg, an idiot. If A. S. Johnston hadn't been killed at Shiloh Thomas would not have been able to take a pea patch.

@@tomjackson4374We have absolutely no evidence that AS Johnston was a good general. On the contrary, his one battle was a chaotic mess, and he was killed while acting like a brigade commander instead of doing his job, which was army commander. The evidence we have is that he did not understand his role and was unprepared to lead an army. Thomas' first battle, however, was quite different. Outnumber 6:4 at Mill Springs, he defeated the rebel army and drove it so hard and so fast that it was forced to abandon every single piece of artillery, all its transport, most of its baggage, and even small arms. The rebel army essentially dissolved and ceased to exist, giving Thomas what was arguably the most complete victory of the war.

@@aaronfleming9426 AS Johnson was part of the professional army and had a long career of qualified service before the war. He died when he sent his surgeon to tend a wounded Federal and bled out from a leg wound. And at Mill's Springs, not only did the Confederate General, Zollicoffer, moved his army into a vulnerable position but Thomas was aided by a flank attack by Gen Albin Schoepf. Kentucky was lost but the real battles were in Tennessee and northern Mississippi, where Bragg performed poorly. But compared to Gen. Forrest at Brice's Crossroads, Thomas couldn't pull that off on his best day. That battle is still studied at West Point.

@@tomjackson4374When evaluating AS Johnston it is important to remember that before the war he - like almost every other active duty officer - actually had very limited combat experience. The largest formation he had led in battle was a small division at Monterrey, a battle in which the whole American army was a mere 6,000. He led the 2nd Cavalry on frontier duty, and commanded the Department of Texas, but again that entailed frontier duty and limited action against Comanche fighters. It is a far cry from leading those sorts of small formations to leading an army of 40,000+. Over and over we see in the Civil War that skillful leadership at one level did not necessarily indicate potential in larger commands. John Bell Hood is probably the most obvious example of a general who was a fantastic brigade and even division leader, but who was in far over his head commanding an army. So, while AS Johnston enjoyed a phenomenal reputation from his pre-war service, there is nothing in his actual Civil War service to justify the high hopes held for him. Meanwhile, Ulysses Grant was a disaster in the peacetime army and had no reputation at all. He turned out to be an outstanding strategist, was highly skilled in operations, had a tremendous organizational capacity, made other officers flourish under him, and could coordinate not only a full-sized army but could coordinate armies across theaters like no one else in the war.

The north did have obvious manpower and materiel advantages, but they prevailed because they had strategic thinkers who understood the war and acted accordingly. The south - starting with Jefferson Davis but certainly including Davis' most important general, Robert E. Lee - never had a coherent strategy that suited their war aims.

lol

No, he was fighting Braxton Bragg, an expert at pulling defeat out of victory. Longstreet would have beaten him like a rented mule.

Yes George was indeed a very good General but we would never know how great he could have become because he turned down many promotions which would have given him command of larger armies and battles

​@@tomjackson4374Bragg's victory at Chickamauga came far closer to destroying a Union army than Lee ever got. Lee always had more men, more supplies, more guns, more ammunition than Bragg ever had.

@@aaronfleming9426 When the Union army was in full retreat, vulnerable to destruction, Forrest begged Bragg to attack and Bragg sat on his hands. I think that is when Forrest threatened to "slap his jaws" he was so disgusted. Whatever Lee had he never had as much as the Union.

@@tomjackson4374 You've really bought hard into the Lost Cause denigration of Bragg. The man certainly had serious flaws as a commander, but the bit about pursuing Thomas after Chickamauga is revisionist nonsense. It's understandable that Forrest felt what he felt in the heat of the moment, but the facts are that Thomas' retreat from Horseshoe Ridge was relatively orderly, and he prepared firm defensive lines at Rossville. If Forrest had flung himself full-tilt after Thomas, he would have gotten his own jaws slapped. You need to stop and consider how hard Thomas kicked the rebels' butts at Chickamauga. He whipped the hell out of the right wing of Bragg's army all morning, and then in the afternoon when the right wing under Rosecrans disintegrated, Thomas cobbled together a scratch force on Horseshoe Ridge that kicked the hell out of Longstreet all afternoon - and Longstreet commanded the full left wing of the Army of Tennessee, including some of the absolutely best divisions Lee had. In essence, Thomas' 30,000 man wing of the Army of the Cumberland took the full brunt of Bragg's 65,000 man army, beat it to a standstill, and finally retreated in good order to a strong line at Rossville, then to Chattanooga, where he kept the army together until reinforced by Grant.

Hancock the Superb.

2 thoughts. 1. His father had a business to run and a big family reliant on him. 2. Teddy's southern belle mother was terrified that if he went, her husband might kill her beloved brothers who fought for GA.

Yes, that's correct. I like your perspective. Would be interesting who he might have selected later in life. Would his choice still be Lee? Or perhaps someone else?

The Confederacy did not have a large supply of arms or ammunition and hoped to import the necessary tools of war from Europe. Most Confederate soldiers brought their own guns to war. The South also lacked factories for producing clothing or shoes, and by the middle of the war, soldiers were in desperate need of both. Given the circumstances, it's truly an amazing feat that Lee kept the Confederate Army alive and kicking for so long, even in the face defeat. He was definitely no stupid man, just horribly unequipped and still managed to put up a formidable fight. It's easy to see why so many see Lee as one of the best Generals the U.S has ever had. Just imagine if he had accepted Lincoln's offer of commanding the Union Army with an endless supply of equipment at his disposal, would've been one Hell of a quick war.

@@Zer0fuksLee was never a U.S. general.

Yep, Grant had Lee's number. He saw the end state and ground Lee inexorably towards that.

Meade was commander of the Army of the Potomac. The press hated Meade and he them. They never gave Meade the credit he was due.

Grant was so amazing-a great general and a good man. One of the few who wasn’t intimidated by Lee

Grant all the way. It is not even a question.

Grant used tactics emulated by the Soviets and now Russians in Ukraine....send men to their slaughter, but win the war. Effective, if you have the superior population, but ruthless verging on inhumane to your own troops. Expect similar tactics from the Chinese Communists.