National Review asks: Who was the best American general?

[Galileo Galilei]

Of course! If Jackson had been leading his old corp at Gettysburg, Cemetery Hill would've been taken on the first day and the Lee-Jackson tag team would've racked up another brilliant victory. Washington would've been evacuated in a panic and the Old Republic might yet live.

and better yet, the battle would not have been fought. The situation favored the North. Jackson would have gone and ransacked a major city and industrial supply areas.

 

[Galileo Galilei]

While I have tremondous respect for Jackson , I feel , also , that Cemetery hill was an easily defensible position . In fact , due to General Buford arriving early and securing the high ground , there was little chance for a Southern victory , best I can tell.

Here is how the South could have won and why Stonewall Jackson was the greatest general:

How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat [Hardcover]
Bevin Alexander (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/How-South-Could-Have-Civil/dp/0307345998

Here is an excerpt from the books that explains this in more details:

Three men more than any others determined the outcome of the American Civil War—the Confederacy’s president, Jefferson Davis, and two generals, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Jackson figured out almost from the outset how to win the war, but neither Davis nor Lee was willing to follow his recommendations. It was the fundamentally different views of warfare of these three men that settled the fate of the South—not the seemingly overwhelming power of the North, and not the actions of Union commanders and their armies.

Davis was opposed to offensive action against the North. He wanted to remain on the defensive in the belief that the major European powers would intervene on the Confederacy’s side to guarantee cotton for their mills, or that the North would tire of the war and give up. Even after it became plain that no European nation would come to the South’s aid, Davis adhered to his conviction that the Northern people would grow weary of the war.

Lee, on the other hand, was focused on conducting an offensive war against the armies of the North. He did not see the war as a collision between the Northern people and the Southern people. He saw it as a struggle between the governments and the official armies of the two regions. Thus he wanted to confront the Union armies directly, not to strike at Northern industries, farms, and railroads, except as they served Federal armies. Without a doubt Lee was an extraordinary leader, inspiring remarkable devotion among his men and embodying the traits of honor, courage, and dedication to a cause. As a field commander, too, he was vastly superior to all of the Union commanders who came against him.1 His mastery of battle tactics, in fact, was what permitted the South to endure four years of brutal war. But Lee’s overall strategy—his insistence on frontal assaults—led to inevitable defeat. No matter how skilled a battle leader Lee was, he could never win the war by pitting the far-weaker resources of the South against the tremendous economic and military power of the North. This was particularly true because revolutionary advances in weaponry had made direct assaults far more difficult to pull off, and far more dangerous. Casualties in the Civil War were staggering.

Recognizing the need to adapt to the new kind of war in which they were immersed, Jackson developed a polar opposite approach. He proposed moving against the Northern people’s industries and other means of livelihood. He wanted to avoid Northern strength, its field armies, and strike at Northern weakness, its undefended factories, farms, and railroads. His strategy, in short, was to bypass the Union armies and to win indirectly by assaulting the Northern people’s will to pursue the war. He proposed making “unrelenting war” amid the homes of the Northern people in the conviction that this would force them “to understand what it will cost them to hold the South in the Union at the bayonet’s point.” Significantly, William Tecumseh Sherman won the war for the North by employing precisely the strategy that Stonewall Jackson had tried but failed to get the South to follow: he conducted “unrelenting war” on the people and the property of Georgia in his march from Chattanooga to Atlanta and from Atlanta to the sea in 1864. This campaign broke the back of Southern resistance.

Failure to recognize the realities facing the South and disagreement over strategy are what doomed the Confederacy. That it took four bitter years of the hardest war and the most casualties in American history is due primarily to the brilliant battle leadership of Lee, Jackson, and a host of dedicated Southern officers. But wars are not won by heavy losses heroically sustained. Wars are won by ingenious plans correctly implemented. Jackson, among others, offered the South plans that would have succeeded. Davis and Lee—except at Chancellorsville—refused to carry them out.

http://bevinalexander.com/books/how-the-south-could-have-won-intro.htm

Jackson > Lee

 

[oyarde]

The thing about all this strange frontal attack with Inf and arty , manuever ( if & when you can ) and terrain or geography along with supply lines , is this ; These Generals , and men were to be judged, basically by superiors , newspapers & governments on the basis of success . Meh , give me a rifle, tomahawk & knife and I will make my own success .

 

[jdcole]

Smedley Butler - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Chesty Puller - http://www.nettally.com/jrube/chestpul.htm

Gen. Mattis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mattis
"Chaos" (Call Sign)
"Warrior Monk"
"Mad Dog Mattis"

"I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all."
- After the invasion of Iraq -and after sending his tanks and artillery home- Mattis sent this message to the Iraqi leaders in every area his men served in

Lemuel C. Shephard - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuel_C._Shepherd,_Jr.

 

[wrestlingwes_8]

NONE OF THEM!!

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction