re: History Channel's 'Grant' Is a Timely Reminder of Which General Actually Won the Civil War

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so it's easy to forget that he commanded the losing side in the Civil War

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Might be one of the dumbest statements I've ever read

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Inb4 drunk

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But he was.

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just sacrificed his men to overwhelm Lee

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Maybe, but that doesn't take away from the fact he still won. War is hell, and you do what you need to do to win.

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not as good of a general as Lee,

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Lee was a better General when it came to tactics and strategy...by quite a bit. But Grant didn't need to be a better General to win. He just needed to leverage the logistical advantage the Union had over the Confederacy, which he did.

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Which General Actually Won the War of Northern Aggression

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FIFY

Well not just the logistical advantage but the follow through.

Lee should have been defeated many times but was allowed to retreat time and time again. The civil war in the East is sometimes almost like a perverse inversion of the Fabian Strategy.

It took men like Grant to put and end to that.

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Lee was outmatched.

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After Gettysburg Lee had no chance. Grant never got Lee at his best. Meade had already beaten a weakened Lee(no Jackson or Stuart) and all Grant had to do was finish him off. Frankly I wonder why it took Grant so long. He had a huge advantage.

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Lee was a better General when it came to tactics and strategy...by quite a bit. But Grant didn't need to be a better General to win.

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I disagree with this a bit. A good General sees the shortest path to victory and takes it.

That's what Grant did. Any other strategy would have been wrong for the situation.

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Lee was a better General when it came to tactics and strategy...by quite a bit.

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People say this, but I don’t believe the difference was that great.

Grant recognized early on the war would be different. The telegraph and train had made much of what was prior military doctrine obsolete. Grant had a clear vision of how he wanted to fight, and the strategic innovations of waging war year-round, which represented a major departure from typical warfare, when warfare was done as the seasons permitted. His other innovation was the sheer tempo of his operations, which mitigated the South’s defensive advantage and taxed their supply lines. He was able to implement this strategy and operations across 3 major theaters of the war, theaters where his armies were victorious.

The fact that Grant could conceive that this war would be fought differently is extremely underrated. It was visionary, in fact, to understand how the war would be fought, and then implement that understanding into operations which achieved those aims. That is strategic and operational thinking exhibited at a high level. His tactical work is underrated too, as his frontal charge at Missionary Ridge was predicated on weakening Bragg’s flanks. His Vicksburg Campaign was nothing short of brilliant as well, and gets little attention in the mainstream.

I highly recommend the very thick but highly readable bio “Grant” by Chernow. It changed my view about him, from thinking he was a drunk butcher to a thoughtful strategist with a conscience.

Lee’s overconfidence after Chancellorsville was his undoing. The Gettysburg campaign was not well thought out and the decisions to attack the Union position on Days 2 and 3 are the two worst decisions of the war. I have been to Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. It amazed me how Lee thought he could take the Union positions on Days 2 and 3 after he destroyed the Union attack at Fredricksburg. The Conf’s Fredricksburg position was much less daunting than the Union’s Gettysburg position. Lee should have simply marched to the south side and then east of the position. He could have forced Meade to attack him. He could have also threatened DC, Phil or NY from this position (even if the threat was weak). He let his ego take over.

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Lee should have simply marched to the south side and then east of the position. He could have forced Meade to attack him. He could have also threatened DC, Phil or NY from this position (even if the threat was weak). He let his ego take over.

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That's easier said than done. For one...in order for Lee to have successfully accomplished such a move, he would have had to have withdrawn from Gettysburg via the western approaches, taking his army back behind the Blue Ridge. Such a maneuver would have given Meade all the time in the world to re-deploy his army before Lee could get around him.