ORIGINAL: spruce
And also what about the general accepted fact that confederate generals were better then Union generals?
Spruce, I have heard this argument before, but I think the validity of such an approach is difficult at best because of the numerous factors that must be invested in proving this hypothesis. However, many military leaders (Generals Clark, Rommel, and Patton to name three) and historians (Paul Calore and John Cannan to name a couple) have all made these claims.
ORIGINAL: Oldguard
This is "generally accepted"? From whom? Any study of the relative performance of Union vs. Confederate generals must take into consideration the political landscape on each side as well. In that respect, it would be true that the North had slightly more political chaos going on than did the South (though only a little - the South's governors were independent barons). Radical abolitionists and power-hungry Congressmen were the bane of Lincoln's existence, and Lincoln was in turn the bane of McClellan's.
Excluding the political climate, Oldguard, and as many veterans already know, the military has only four management systems. From company grade officers to general officers, the management of personnel, maintenance, equipment, and supply are the four primary areas of responsibility for every officer. Therefore, the success or failure of most officers is evaluated across these four management systems.
I do think most will agree that all generals who served on either side during the Civil War were expected to win. With this being said, I think it is also reasonable to assume that the Confederate generals were expected to do much more with much less. Most will also agree that those numbers across all four areas of management – personnel, maintenance, equipment, and supply – were consistently much more inferior for the South. As such, most of the battlefield engagements found the Confederate generals with inferior equipment, fewer men, less supply, and shoddier maintenance.
Under these conditions, I think the Confederate leadership, as compared to the Union, was forced to improvise and develop more innovative methods on the battlefield – and these were tactics generally outside of the usual Napoleon strategies they were taught. In comparison, I would argue that leading a unit into battle that is well supplied with excellent maintenance, quality equipment, and functioning at full strength would be much easier than leading a similar unit functioning with substandard equipment, 75% strength, poor maintenance, and a 40% supply rate (to include equipment parts replacement). The strategy of Forrest at Brice’s Crossroads during the Civil War is just one excellent example of this hypothesis and the tactics of Miltiades at Battle of Marathon (non-civil war) is another.
Doing more with less is perhaps some of the very reason, that many of the tactics and strategies of Confederate generals are studied much more than those of Union generals by military generals (Patton, Franks, Montgomery, Rommel, Guiterman, and Swartzkopf to name a few) and taught more in world Military schools.
ORIGINAL: Oldguard
However, I would put the likes of Reynolds, Grant, Sheridan, Hancock and Buford up against any equivalent set of Confederates in terms of generalship and warcraft any time.
Your list above echoes solid leadership on the battlefield.
