[stainlessbanner]

Grant the butcher knew it was a numbers game and he had more bodies. Grant lost tremendous numbers at Spotsylvania and the Wilderness. Sherman recklessly drove Union men to their deaths at Cheatam Hill.

No way the US could win another war using the "more men, more resources" strategy.

[wideawake]

Grant the butcher knew it was a numbers game and he had more bodies.

That's a discredited thesis.

Grant's strategy was not to sacrifice men, but to turn the tables on Lee by giving him battle consistently: his predecessors (McClellan, Hooker, Meade) were famous for taking as much time as possible between campaigns - dillydallying that allowed Lee time to regroup and take the strategic initiative.

Grant's plan was to hammer at Lee again and again and rob Lee of the extra time that his predecessors had continually given Lee.

In the Overland Campaign - the one in which Grant undeservedly got the "butcher" title - he lost 7,600 killed in 12 major battles or engagements.

In the same period Lee lost 4200 killed - more than half Grant's number, despite the fact that much of these battles were fought with Lee on the defensive.

If one terrible command decision had not been made at Cold Harbor, that number would have been more like 6400 killed for Grant and 4500 killed for Lee.

Lee lost 1700 men killed at Chancellorsville.

In other words, Lee according to a deliberate plan that was masterfully executed lost almost as many men at Chancellorsville as Grant lost at Cold Harbor - which is famous as Grant's worst bloodbath and worst-executed plan.

Another comparison: Gettysburg was Lee's worst disaster. He lost 4700 killed at Gettysburg. That is more than twice as many men as Grant lost at Cold Harbor.

If Grant is to be called a butcher, then he is an apprentice butcher to Lee the master butcher.

You make reference to Sherman's abortive attack at Cheatham Hill in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Sherman launched that assault believing that he had found a thin and breachable point in Johnston's line - the scope of the losses his command sustained in that engagement was completely unanticipated.

A just comparison might be the actions of John Bell Hood, the Confederate commander who made a similar assault at Franklin that cost him almost the identical amount of men killed as the Union endured at Kennesaw Mountain.

[arrogantsob]

Grant’s “butchery” does not approach that of Lee’s at Gettysburg and his continuation when it was clear the war was lost. Nor does it approach that imposed by the defenders of a dead economic structure.

Whining is not a very convincing argument.

[Pistolshot]

Grant changed the face of war. Instead of fighting, retreating, regrouping, and fighting again, he got a hold of the Confedrate army and didn't let go. His orders went out to destroy crops, leave no sanctuary for the Confederacy to feed itself or supply itself.

Since the Civil War, the American way of war has been to break things and kill the enemy, and husband the lives of our troops.

Today, the anti-war protesters have helped the military so efficient in technology that the losses of Americans in battle has been reduced dramitically.

[LS]

We did a good job of it in WW II, esp. in Europe. Fact is, Confederate commanders, supposedly playing defense, never should have lost higher % of men than the Union, but they did almost every time. Says something about southern leadership, which is that it wasn’t as great as it was cooked up to be. “The butcher” Grant lost a lower % of men than any general he faced.