Lee was a great general. His greatest mistake was Gettysburg’s.
Grant was relentless, and in my humble opinion, a greater General than Lee. We as Americans our fools if we deny our past and history, good or bad, politically correct or not. We as Americans must understand our past to move forward. Trump proves once again that he is politically incorrect, but wise. We are all Americans, except those who will not accept the Constitution and rule of law......or should I just have said Democrats.
Well, he did win. But, as time passed, Grant also had far greater resources, too.
[Grant was relentless, and in my humble opinion, a greater General than Lee.]
Until 15 years ago every American who went to school knew Lee was a great general. In Trump’s speech he made the statement about Lee to emphasize how great a general Grant (a local Ohio boy born 40 miles from Lebanon) was. Of course any modern journalist will tell you both generals were horrible human beings since they were straight, white, Christian men. In reality Lee was much the better general but Grant had the men and the will to feed them into the meat grinder which was necessary to defeat Lee.
Lee lost a few very small battles before he started to win. So much so that they originally called him Granny Lee.
Grant never lost a battle. At Cold Harbor after Grant made that hellish mistake both side stood their ground. Funny thing is, Grant made the same exact mistake Lee made at Gettysburg.
The sad part of that battle was that neither Lee nor Grant would send out a white flag to collect the men fallen in the field. So much so that Lee refused to negotiate to terms for a cease fire to do that. By the time they agreed, they collected very few still alive on that battlefield. It manifested itself at the very end of the war in VA when Grant reached out to Lee to discuss terms. Nearly every Union General, remembering Cold Harbor, took a stand to utterly destroy Lees army. Grant said no, and the rest is history.
Did Grant drink? Yes, when there wasnt anything going on he’d hit the whisky. But when things were lively, he never touched the stuff and to be honest, he never drank anymore than any of some of the other military leaders in our history-like Patton. Problem was, it took hardly anything for him to get drunk.
Grant and Sherman were the fathers of modern warfare. The Germans TO THIS DAY, study their tactics. Lee was stuck back in the old Napoleon style warfare and that was his downfall.
And if the South had won? What would this country look like now?
Gettysburg and the loss of Jackson were huge turning points.
I’ll argue Lee was a better General than Grant because of the differences of resources at their disposal. Grant had enough soldiers and materiel that he could just keep putting more into the fight. Lee has to be much more tactical with limited resources that could not be replaced. That the war went on as long as it did with the disparity in resources is a testimony to the better use and application of those resources, and likely the better generals in the field of the CSA....IMHO. From a historical perspective, I’ve always wondered if Lee kept a defensive posture and just sought to defend the Confederacy from northern invasion, and not make any forays into the north (Gettysburg), if they could have held out longer and the north would have eventually sought peace.