re: Ulysses S Grant is the Undisputed GOAT US General

Stonewall Jackson was the best. Only ignorant people say otherwise. It's not even close.

Grant understood that he had advantages of resources, weapons, logistics, and manpower. He also had zero regard for the lives of his men. Those things in combo made him unbeatable.

I still think Grant would have taken him in a head on fight. Grant was an intense fighter who would not back down to anyone. Jackson had the advantage especially in his Valley campaign of not going up against professional generals. Even against McClelland in the peninsula campaign he was average .At that time, in that theater he was very good but the talent was out west with Grant,Sherman,Buell, Thomas and Farragut

My inlaws live across the street from the City Point, VA manor where he had his headquarters after he left Vicksburg, where the Appomattox and James Rivers meet.They live in the Union officer's hospital which now their home and my father inlaw has Robert E Lee paintings throughout the home.

Holy fricking shite!! I love these troll threads! My favorite thing to do is scroll to their responses, pure comedy gold!!!!????

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Stonewall Jackson was the best.

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At the end of page three you will find a decent summary written by me on why this isn't the case. Jackson was good but has assumed almost mythic proportions to the point where he is vastly overrated. Of Lee's corps commanders, I'm of the opinion that Longstreet was the best of them all.

The adage that "history belongs to the victor" never rang more true.

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the score was 360k to 258K.

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For what? Grant's total casualties during the war were 154k.

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His campaign into Virginia was not sophisticated or clever.

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It couldn't have been. Grant had two options for attacking Lee's army in Virginia:

A) Try to outflank Lee to the west in the more open and flat terrain at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains. This would have allowed the Union army to use its vastly superior numbers in manpower and artillery to pummel Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the open. To do this, however, would force them to abandon secure lines of supply and communication. It would also open up Washington, D.C. to attack.

B) Try to outflank Lee to the east by moving quickly through the area of Virginia known as the Wilderness en route to the more open terrain around Spotsylvania Court House. This would protect Washington as well as give them secure lines of supply and communication. However, the wooded terrain would make a fight more advantageous for Lee and his army and there was less room for maneuver. The rivers also flowed east-west in this part of Virginia which meant, unlike his counterparts out west, Lee could entrench behind these rivers and await Grant's coming.

Despite the tactical disadvantages associated with Option B, this is the one Grant and his subordinates went with because it was the safest option for protecting their capital and supplying their army.

It also must be remembered that while this battle has traditionally been known as Grant vs. Lee, Grant wasn't the commanding general of the Union army that faced off against Lee in Virginia in 1864-65. It was George Meade. Grant was General-in-Chief of ALL Union forces. So while he was fighting Lee in Virginia, he was also coordinating offensives in Georgia, offensives in the Carolinas and along the Alabama coast; while also keeping a close eye and coordinating Union efforts in the Shenandoah Valley and the Virginia Peninsula. He was doing ALL of that while, at the same time, supervising Meade's efforts against Robert E. Lee.

Lee only had to worry about Lee. Grant was worried about the whole war effort while facing off against Lee.