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

quote:

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"To preserve is easier than to acquire

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In a normal circumstance this would be true. unfortunately that was not the case here. Lee lacked the resources to keep them out. This is where his brilliance comes in. Knowing the situation you have to stand in awe at Lee's accomplishments.

Also...I'm not saying that Lee was a steaming pile of shite. He was anything but. He won his fair share of victories but let's not pretend he was going up against the best of the best. McClellan, Pope and Burnside were three of the worst battlefield commanders in U.S. history.

All I'm saying is that Grant is probably the most underrated general in U.S. history and was, at least in my opinion, the best general of the American Civil War.

In summary, here's why:

- Grant's first major offensive at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson opened Alabama and Mississippi to Union invasion and produced the largest victory won on U.S. soil up to that time. It was also the first time in U.S. military history that an entire army surrendered to a single general.

- At Shiloh, he took a seemingly no-win situation and turned it into a resounding victory.

- At Vicksburg he masterfully deceived his enemies, defeated two separate forces numerically superior to his own, and captured both Vicksburg and the Confederate army defending it.

- At Chattanooga he came into another seemingly no-win situation and turned it into a near flawless victory.

- During the Overland Campaign, Lee tried to destroy Grant's army in the Wilderness and failed. Within a two month period, Grant moved the war south of the James River and besieged Lee's army at Petersburg.

- Once he became trapped at Petersburg, Lee's goose was cooked. Grant's grand design for 1864 cost the Confederacy its last major rail hub, its capital, as well as pinned in and systematically destroyed Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginia.

To summarize:

Grant never lost a campaign and had three different armies surrender to him. It would be 1945 before an enemy army surrendered to a U.S. general again. Not one army or general ever surrendered to Lee.

Grant had both Lee's audacity on the field and the better grasp of strategy. Lee was good, Grant was better.