re: History Debate: Ulysses S. Grant vs. Robert E. Lee

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Knowing the situation you have to stand in awe at Lee's accomplishments.

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His accomplishments were admirable but his admirers tend to forget just who he was going up against his first year in command. From June 1, 1862 - June 28, 1863, roughly his first year on the job as the commanding officer of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee faced the following Northern commanders: George McClellan, John Pope, McClellan again, Ambrose Burnside, and Joseph Hooker. Let's examine each one of these generals individually:

George McClellan - A brilliant administrator but one of the worst battlefield commanders in U.S. history. Timid. Cautious. He was constantly under the assumption that Lee outnumbered his army by 2-to-1 odds. Had he shown just an ounce of aggression at Antietam, the war would have ended in 1862 instead of 1865.

John Pope - An incompetent battlefield commander who was overly aggressive to the point of stupidity. It was Pope who had his army completely routed from the field at Second Manassas. He ignored every indication that Confederate reinforcements had arrived on his flank, instead sticking to the belief that if those forces were indeed there, they were there to support Stonewall Jackson's retreat from the field. Instead of supporting a non-existent retreat, those newly-arrived Confederates (30,000 troops under the command of Longstreet) plowed into Pope's left flank and drove his army completely from the field.

It also must be noted that 70,000 additional reinforcements under the command of McClellan were in the immediate vicinity but McClellan, who wanted to see Pope fail, decided to take his time in carrying out his orders to march to the aid of Pope's army.

Ambrose Burnside - The worst battlefield commander in U.S. Army history and one of the worst battlefield commanders in the history of warfare itself. Burnside took nearly 8 hours crossing Antietam Creek during the Battle of Antietam. He had 13,000 men attacking 500 Confederates. Nearly three months later, now as commander of the Army of the Potomac, Burnside ordered assault after assault on a near impregnable position at the Battle of Fredericksburg. The battle went down as the worst defeat in U.S. military history up to that time. It would not be surpassed until 1942 with the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines.

Joseph Hooker - The most competent of Lee's early opponents, "Fighting Joe" Hooker was regarded as an excellent corps commander and a no-brainer for the role as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Problem was, the leap from corps to army command isn't that simple. Hooker came up with a brilliant plan to entrap Lee's army, but completely froze up and lost his nerve when Lee advanced on him at Chancellorsville. He also ignored report after report of a large Confederate column moving through the forest in front of the Union lines on May 2, 1863. This was Stonewall Jackson's flanking column that would completely collapse the Union right flank that afternoon. He had a chance to salvage the situation numerous times on May 3. However, Hooker's heart was no longer in the fight and he ordered a retreat to the river despite more than half of his army having yet to participate in the battle.


But what did all of these successes give Lee or the Confederacy? Simply put: stalemate. The North still controlled much of northern Virginia and Lee continuously failed to push the Union army back from the Rapidan-Rappahanock River line. His two ventures into the North ended in unmitigated disasters. He lost 33% of his army during the Maryland Campaign of September 1862 and a further 25% of his army during the Pennsylvania Campaign of June/July 1863. When Grant went up against him in 1864, it took the Northern general just two months to completely immobilize Lee by pinning him within trenches around Petersburg.