[agincourt1415]

Col. Hackworth is right on, except for the unfortunate reference to General U.S. Grant, an aggressive but poor General, who lost more troops to causalties in the last three months of the Civil War than the entire number of Confederate Troops under command of General Robert E. Lee.

[lentulusgracchus]

General U.S. Grant, an aggressive but poor General, ...

Lincoln wanted aggressivity (which was Lee's standout trait), and he found it in Grant. Took him 2-1/2 years to find him.....wonder if we have that long to shake the deadwood out?

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I'd have to disagree with you on General Grant.  He has been consistently underrated, and in point of fact, realized that he had to hang onto Lee's tail to win the war.  Fancy manouevering would have gotten him into serious trouble, since the south did that far better than the north.  Grant was a great leader because he realized his limitations and used his strengths to defeat his enemy.  And this in spite of Lee desperately doing all he could to distract Grant (such as sending Jubal Early on a rampage towards D.C.).

[Seydlitz]

Calling U.S. Grant a "poor general" achieves little but to betray poor knowledge of military history. Grant may have suffered a lot of losses in the 1864-65 campaign, but he achieved in 8 months what no Union general had managed in the four years prior to that: The destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia. Moreover, Grant's earlier campaigns, especially Vicksburg, are bold and worthy of emulation.

A great general like Lee, with good troops like those of the Army of Northern Virginia, cannot be defeated without a willingness to incur losses. Furthermore, great generals are often very aggressive, and are sometimes over-bold and take heavy losses as a result. You will see this phenomenon abundantly present in the campaigns of Frederick, Napoleon, Rommel and Lee (for example, Pickett's charge and Malvern Hill).