Posted on 06/22/2018 11:46:12 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
That was according to my 8th grade history teacher-retired military. The only one who came close was MacArthur. That brings up the politics of the left. If it is true that Lee was a great General isn't it at least worth acknowledging? This tearing down of statues should stop. Educated persons should acknowledge the truth. It's the left that's the intelligent ones as they would have us believe. I see no conservatives standing up for this truth. The Senate GOP candidate in Virginia should start an 'intellectual' conversation on Lee and let the left react. Don't wait for a baiting reporter to to knee-jerk him into a quick response that they can interpret their own way.
You are a nut.
The guy you’re thinking of won his war and was the father of his nation.
You can say that again. And I’ll have another...
The city, state, or man? Winning battles and winning wars are two different things.
Lincoln invaded the south? I don’t know where you went to school but you probably should try to get your money back.
Yep - he’s as American as Iva D’Aquino, Benedict Arnold, the Rosenbergs, or Jane Fonda. He abrogated the oath he took as a United States Army officer and took up arms against what was once his nation. Traitor - period.
Now I have those numbers in front of me, and can see why you wish to focus exclusively on the Overland campaign, where Lee was on defense and Grant on offense.
Lee suffered 33,000 total casualties, Grant 53,000 or 60% more.
But even there, where Lee's numbers look best compared to his opponents, over a dozen individual battles Lee suffered 50% irreplaceable casualties, Grant only 43% quickly replaced, and Grant won the campaign.
Lagmeister: "Try dealing with the facts at hand.
No way in hell can Grant explain away his horrific losses because of his Overland Strategy.
No way you can explain it away."
Nothing to "explain away".
A dozen battles, Grant on offense won with 43% casualties, Lee on defense lost with 50% casualties.
More important, Grant's losses were soon replaced while Lee's forces continued to dwindle.
Lagmeister: "Stop trying to suggest that in the Overland Strategy that Grant inflicted more casualties on Lee than he suffered.
Hell, Lee didn't have that many men in his entire army."
I never mentioned the Overland Campaign, but can easily see why you wish to focus on it, excluding everything else.
Lagmeister: "Stop trying to go back to 1862.
Both men had completely different challenges."
Of course, since that makes Grant look so much better and Lee so much weaker, why would we ever want to discuss that?
Why not just stay focused on the Lost Causer myth of "Grant the butcher", "Lee the genius"? </sarcasm>
Lagmeister: "Grant butchered almost as many of his own men in a few months than the number of casualties that Lee suffered in the years of his entire command.
In short: it took Grant months to lose what Lee lost in over three years."
Nonsense, and now that you've expanded the scope of our inquiry beyond just the Overland Campaign, let's look at those other years too, shall we?
We'll start with Lee.
In cumulative total, during his major campaigns, Lee commanded about 600,000 troops, of whom 120,000 were killed or wounded = 20%.
For comparison, Bragg's losses were 19.5%, Hood 19.2% and Beauregard 16%.
Now Grant.
In Grant's western campaigns he commanded a cumulative total of 221,000 troops of whom 24,000 were killed or wounded = 11%.
In his eastern campaigns, on offense against Lee, Grant commanded a cumulative total of about 400,000 troops, of whom 71,000 were killed or wounded = 17.6%
So Grant's overall total is 622,000 troops commanded, 94,000 killed or wounded = 15%.
We've already reviewed the Overland campaign, which Grant on offense won with 43% casualties, Lee lost with 50% casualties.
But what about when Lee was on offense, i.e., Gettysburg against Mead?
Including his retreat, Lee lost 33,000 = 49% of his force, while Mead lost 24,000 = 23% of his force.
Chancellorsville, victory against Hooker?
Lee lost 13,000 = 22% of his force, Hooker lost 17,000 = 13% of his force.
Antietam, loss against hapless McClellan?
Lee lost 11,000 = 29% of his force, McLellan lost 12,000 = 14% of his force.
2nd Manassas victory against Pope?
Lee lost 10,000 = 20% of his force, Pope lost 14,000 = 18% of his force.
7-Days victory against McClellan?
Lee lost 16,000 = 17% of his force, McClellan lost 20,000 also 17%.
In summary, Grant won every campaign in three theaters, forcing three Confederate army surrenders for 94,000 total casualties.
Lee won some battles but lost the war for a total of 121,000 casualties = 29% more than Grant.
Bookmark
DoodleDawg: "May I ask your source for that please? "
Different sources use different numbers, different methods of calculating -- for example, are we talking about just killed or killed + wounded or killed + wounded + captured + missing?
And if you are not super-careful, it's easy to get them confused ending up comparing apples to oranges.
Another example: in my opinion, the Gettysburg campaign should include Lee's retreat, where he lost another 5,000 soldiers on top of the 28,000 lost in the battle itself.
Why were they lost?
Certainly not because Mead chased them down & killed them, because he didn't, much to Lincoln's frustration.
No, those have to be losses suffered at Gettysburg but not fully tallied until later.
Finally, my source in post #467 is this, but it matches up to the numbers reported here, for example.
POT.KETTLE.BLACK.
How did Lincoln not invade the South? The majority of battles were fought in the South. The whole first year of the war was mostly Union forces invading VA. The only reason the South even tried invading the North (only two major campaigns) was to force them to end the war, not to capture territory.
The Corwin Amendment would make it impossible to even bring it to a constitutional amendment.
Because one can remain passionately neutral on the question of further enshrining slavery into the US Constitution.
I agree The story I liked about GW was when he gathered his officers right after the war, they pressured him to march on Philadelphia and take over the continental congress. He quieted them. The next day, he rode to Philadelphia and surrender his sword to the head of the congress to show that the military was submissive to elected authority.
Patton was so feared the Germans were sure the rest of the war centered around him. They spied on him in england where he was used as a decoy to the real D-Day effort.
I would say George Washington our first President.
Maybe Patton or Eisenhower?
I believe it was Massachusetts that also threatened to secede. I think New York incorporated into it’s ratifying statement something along the lines of being able to resume it’s seceded powers if it so chose, as did several other states.
They South was separating from the Union. Now tell me where in the U.S. Constitution does it say you can’t leave the Union?
You need to understand too. The Federal government back then was like the U.N. today and States were like your home country. Gen. Lee was offered command of the Union by President Lincoln, and he said no because his loyalty was to his State which was like a country back then.
At the time Gen Lee was Commandant of West Point.
Again where does it say in the U.S. Constitutio?. This is why the South called it the war of Northern Agression. The war was about economics and not freeing slaves. The slaves being freed was more of an auxiliary issue.
That's probably because they left out the part about Lincoln sending Warships (8 ships altogether) to fire on the Confederates surrounding Sumter. I count the sending of those warships with those orders as the initiation of hostilities.
I also do not believe that the South ever requested to negotiate terms of their secession with the Congress before acting.
One does not need to negotiate the terms of exercising a right asserted by the Declaration of Independence. One simply exercises the right.
Had Lincoln done anything other than what he did to try and keep the Union together, he would have been unfaithful to the Oath of Office that he took.
That's just spin. Lincoln was willing to trade Ft Sumter for assurances from Virginia that they would remain in the Union. What part of the Oath of Office allows that?
His oath was utterly binding on whatever he wanted, and utterly breakable on anything he didn't want.
There is a section of the constitution that absolutely requires fugitive slaves to be returned back to their owners. It doesn't give you an option to not do so, it doesn't have an "exception clause" for owners who are in rebellion, it explicitly says they have to go back.
Lincoln ignored that, and ordered his entire army to ignore that.
West Virginia. The US Constitution explicitly states that a state cannot be created from the territory of another state without the approval of the state legislature from the originating state.
Ignored that too.
How about "Freedom of Speech, and of the Press?"
Major-General John A. Drx,Commanding at New York:
Whereas there has been wickedly and traitorously printed and published this morning in the New York World and New York Journal of Commerce, newspapers printed and published in the city of New York, a false and spurious proclamation purporting to be signed by the President and to be countersigned by the Secretary of State, which publication is of a treasonable nature, designed to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States and to the rebels now at war against the Government and their aiders and abettors, you are therefore hereby commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers, and all such persons as, after public notice has been given of the falsehood of said publication, print and publish the same with intent to give aid and comfort to the enemy; and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission for their offense. You will also take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce, and hold the same until further orders, and prohibit any further publication therefrom.
A. LINCOLN.
Lincoln even acknowledges that he broke constitutional law, but he said he did so to save the greater good. (Which is what dictators always say.)
So when you can pick or chose the parts of your "Oath of Office" which you want to support or deny, it really isn't about the Oath of office anymore, is it?
Whatever claim you make, you must square it with the actions of the Founders. If they had the right to break from the United Kingdom, so too did states have a right to break from the United States.
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