Was he a cowardly cuck or the unsung hero who saved the Union?

Was he a cowardly cuck or the unsung hero who saved the Union?

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Sherman was the only hero of the American Civil War

That's a strange way to spell Robert E. Lee.

That's a strange way to spell H.U.G.

You should read his letters, they're seriously hilarious.

> “Those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly & that it was a masterpiece of art.”

Nobody in the Gray can be a hero. go back home johnny reb, we're out of laurel wreaths. We gave them to real americans.

>The President is no more than a well-meaning baboon. I went to the White House directly after tea, where I found "The Original Gorilla", about as intelligent as ever. What a specimen to be at the head of our affairs now.
Based af.

Would've been a great logistician- just keep him away from command. He's a coward who was terrified of shattering his own fabricated reality. His ego didn't allow him to ever really "fail", so fleeing the battlefield and blaming everyone else was the the 2nd best thing he was good at, after building an army.

Whoops, left a name on.

Both. His drilling and training built the army into a functioning military machine, but if he hadn't been relieved of command with a harder driving general that army would never have been decisive enough to win the war.

Regardless of where in America you're from there is no denying Robert E. Lee is the single greatest American general.

The guy had unreliable intelligence from the pinkertons. With better intel regarding confederate troop strength and overall army capability McClellan would probably have done much better then he did historically.

>there is no denying
I deny it. He lost a fucking war for independence

Well who do you think is better? Who could've done better with the same odds Lee had?

I doubt it. There were times where he held al the cards and still fucked up. Antietam should have destroyed the Army of NV. Despite having Lee orders and Lee's army being strung out across a few rivers while the Army of the Ptomac is concentrated, McClellan can barely manage a tactical draw

>Sherman
>Hero
His entire campaign was a huge joke.
>Burns down cities
>Kills his fellow americans
>Burning down cites that held union PoWs
>Even after this he his still held as a hero to edgy /po- i mean edgy Veeky Forums

>His drilling and training built the army into a functioning military machine
This.

Literally built the Army of the Potomac out of nothing.

Taught them how to march, fight and feed themselves.

Couldn't lead them very well, but he was the master organizer.

A man who suffered and had a mental breakdown knowing what would be required in order to end the war quickly. He had been commanded to do so, and if he failed to break the Southern hold-outs, slave-owners, and free-staters, the war could go west and stay dug in for years longer, hundreds of thousands of dead more, perhaps a foreign peace brokering and splintering of the sacred experiment.

He is the only the hero and the only villain of that war, a man chosen by God to ensure the success of the Republic.

>kills his fellow Americans
Name a general in the civil war that did not do this

Ike
Patton

Lincoln on McClellan after the battle of Antietam

>"I came back thinking he would move at once, but when i got home he argued why he aught not to move. I peremptorily ordered him to advance. It was 19 days before he put a man over the river, and nine days longer before he got his army across, and then he stopped again"

>/pol/
>Liking the union
what's going on here

I've never seen Patton spelled like that before

>"That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war"
>Grandfather was a rebel

He didn't like sending his men into meatgrinders like Grant and Lincoln did.

he had to though, the southern strategy was(other than their two invasions of the north) stay on the defensive

they were relying on winning the war by way of attrition
the reason why Grant did so well against Lee was because even though he may have lost a battle here and there Grant kept advancing and not giving Lee enough time to plan, and keep Lee throwing away men he couldn't replace.

had McClellan been more aggressive he could have destroyed Lee's army on several occasions

this meme...ugh.

Grant was freaking master of maneuver out West and did a great job keeping his army out of the blood-bath battles with the exception of when AS Johnson "rage attacked" him at Shiloh.

Out East he really didnt have that option. Lee and Grant faced each other over a relatively small amount of territory bisected by numerous large rivers.

The Eastern theater was destined to be a terrible war of attrition.

Again, someone who would have won the war. Lee actually had very good odds but he chose to squander them on careless invasions and overly aggressive tactics, which led to unnecessary casualties in a war effort already starved for man power. He also severely underestimated the importance of the Western theater, where the heart of the Southern economy lay because he was more concerned with defending his home state than anything else.

he could have literally spared the army from getting sucked into the meat grinder that was the last year of the war had he 1) actually went on the offensive in richmond 2) acted on the intercepted messages that told him EXACTLY what Lee's plans were, thereby annihilating the Southern army which was trapped between McClellan and a river and 3) failing to annihilate Lee after Antietam. He has so many chances to win the war in one stroke but he utterly failed. That said, I do give him credit for training the army of the Potomac.

>Lee actually had very good odds

What? How?

He went aggressive, because he understood that a prolonged war would only favor the Union more. The Union had more men, money, and guns. He (correctly) understood that in order for the Confederates to have the best chance at winning they needed to win important, decisive engagements.

Not to say he didn't make mistakes, but he knew a Fabian strategy based on a war of attrition was a losing bet for the South. He fought to win the war and lost. Which is better than fighting to not lose a war and losing anyway, because that takes much longer and likely ends in even more dead soldiers.

just aswell its not pol then isnt it.

Then how come Sherman couldn't beat Confederate armies?

>because he understood that a prolonged war would only favor the Union more.
I simply don't believe it. When Lee stood on the defensive against Grant, he was able to inflict double the casualties on the Union army than his own forces took. Had he simply entrenched himself he would have had a massive advantage. And without his realizing, he could have still eked out a victory at the end of the war. In the last phases of the war in the East Lee was inflicting such horrific casualties that Union men began to disobey their commanders when they ordered futile charges on the Confederates. The newspaper reports of these casualties absolutely sapper morale on the home front. Had Grant kept sustaining casualties without anything to show for it, some sort of ceasefire would have had to have been negotiated. The South might yet have been able to get British support had it conformed to British demands to emancipate the slaves, which Jefferson Davis began to countenance as a last-ditch resort.
Lee's aggression at glance seems to make sense but as he recognized and we now clearly see in hindsight, his invasions of the North brought him enormous casualties and no gains. Gettysburg and Antietam were blunders. Moreover, the whole offensive mentality was very much a holdover from the Napoleonic era when huge armies slogged it out on the battlefield in line formations. But the offensive doctrines of the early nineteenth century were obsolete by 1860. Changes in warfare favored the defensive. Sure, the Southerners were always desperate for supplies but defense would have allowed them to conserve equipment and manpower which was so essential to the war. Lee also placed way too much faith in his men's morale when, in fact, his offensive mentality, with the losses it entailed, is what led his men to despair in the end.

>his invasions... were huge risks that would...*

>confederaboo this easily triggered by Sherman

Friendly reminder of what happens when you rebel from the U.S.

washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-defense-of-mcclellan-at-antietam-a-contrarian-view/2012/09/06/79a0e5cc-f131-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html?utm_term=.a837a0de52f3
Hero who saved the Union.

.t idiot.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Campaign

Until the war is lost on the other fronts, like it would be historically, as soon as the confederate offensive threat in northern Virginia was contained. You know, kind of like how the war historically went.

>In the last phases of the war in the East Lee was inflicting such horrific casualties that Union men began to disobey their commanders when they ordered futile charges on the Confederates.
[citation needed]

>The newspaper reports of these casualties absolutely sapper morale on the home front.
Until Atlanta fell, and things swung around again.

>Lee's aggression at glance seems to make sense but as he recognized and we now clearly see in hindsight, his invasions of the North brought him enormous casualties and no gains
First off, the casualties they sustained weren't much more than what he was taking on defensive battles. Secondly, as pointed out above, they brought him a chance to actually force a decision before the war was lost elsewhere.

>If [Abraham Lincoln] were alive in the time of the Savior, Judas Iscariot would have remained a trusted member of the fraternity of Apostles

>Until the war is lost on the other fronts, like it would be historically,
That's because, as I mentioned, Lee utterly neglected the Western theater. Anyway, had the confederates dug in in the east they would have freed more troops up against the west and against naval landings.

>[citation needed]
Last 100 pages or so of Battlecry of Freedom

>First off, the casualties they sustained weren't much more than what he was taking on defensive battles
That was because he never prioritized the defensive because by temperament and training he disdained being on the defensive.
>First off, the casualties they sustained weren't much more than what he was taking on defensive battles
At the end of the war, yes.
>Wilderness (sort of defensive)
>Spotslyvania
>Cold Harbor
>2nd Petersburg
>The Crater

> Secondly, as pointed out above, they brought him a chance to actually force a decision before the war was lost elsewhere.
The war being lost elsewhere only because Lee and Davis failed to recognize the importance of the West.

>That's because, as I mentioned, Lee utterly neglected the Western theater.
Lee had nothing to do with the Western theater. He had no power there. He was only general of the army of northern virginia.

I remember reading in Battle Cry of Freedom to the effect that Lee refused to free up troops, had a hand in keeping Bragg as the Western General and continually maintained to Davis and the others that the war could only be won in the East. So, yes, his prestige (unearned) allowed him to dictate some of the grand strategy of the war.

>That's because, as I mentioned, Lee utterly neglected the Western theater.
Lee was not in charge of troop allocations, dunce.

>had the confederates dug in in the east they would have freed more troops up against the west and against naval landings.
Not really, no. Because it turns out manning a rather extensive set of fortifications needs quite a few men, especially if you need to defend multiple points.

>Last 100 pages or so of Battlecry of Freedom
So, in other words, you made it up? Because I can point to a random large section of a book to make a point too. Come on, really, where are you getting this from.

>That was because he never prioritized the defensive because by temperament and training he disdained being on the defensive.
That's just wrong. Hell, his first nickname in the Army of Northern Virginia was the "King of Spades" for how much fortification he had them doing.

>At the end of the war, yes.

>Wilderness, 11,000 casualties, 16% of forces committed
>Spotslyvania, 12,687 casualties, 20.1% of forces committed.
>Cold Harbor 5,287 casualties, 8% of forces committed
>2nd Petersburg, 4,000 casualties, 10% of forces committed.
>Crater, 1,491 casualties, 24% of forces committed

Compared to Antietam, 10,316 out of an army of northern Virginia of 51,800 or 19%, you actually don't have anything out of the norm. He wasn't taking significantly fewer casualties on the defensive than on the offensive.

>The war being lost elsewhere only because Lee and Davis failed to recognize the importance of the West.
And because they couldn't actually move enough troops out there, or deal with the vastly superior operational mobility the Union had, or muster enough forces to both defend in Virginia (like ,you know, Lee spent the overwhelming amount of the time doing) and defend in the west as well. I mean let's not forget, at the start of the Atlanta campaign, Johnson has more men in the Army of Tennesee than Lee does at Spotslyvania.

>Antietam
>bloodiest day in American history
>not a meatgrinder the way he conducted it
>or rather, neglected to conduct it


One can at least give him credit for organizational skills, which is more than can be said about Braxton Bragg...

>Lee was not in charge of troop allocations, dunce.
but as i said he was the most prestigious commander after richmond and so he had sway over the direction of the war.

>"King of Spades" for how much fortification he had them doing.
from wiki:
...While in Richmond, Lee was ridiculed as the 'King of Spades' for his excessive digging of trenches around the capitol. These trenches would later play a pivotal role in battles near the end of the war.[92]
He never used the trenches until the end. Ironically, in that very campaign he went on the offensive against McClellan instead of using those trenches...
also see pic related

>Not really, no. Because it turns out manning a rather extensive set of fortifications needs quite a few men, especially if you need to defend multiple points.
Does is really?

>So, in other words, you made it up?
check the next post

>Compared to Antietam, 10,316 out of an army of northern Virginia of 51,800 or 19%, you actually don't have anything out of the norm. He wasn't taking significantly fewer casualties on the defensive than on the offensive.
But the k/d ratio is around one confederate death for every two union deaths. That was my point

> And because they couldn't actually move enough troops out there, or deal with the vastly superior operational mobility the Union had, or muster enough forces to both defend in Virginia (like ,you know, Lee spent the overwhelming amount of the time doing) and defend in the west as well. I mean let's not forget, at the start of the Atlanta campaign, Johnson has more men in the Army of Tennesee than Lee does at Spotslyvania.
yes all good points. I simply cannot recall or do not know enough to argue here.

...

...

He wasn't even the greatest general in his own army senpai

Absolutely. People also forget that in the East in '64 and '65, Lee had the benefit of staying behind extensive fortifications with internal lines of movement and communications which Grant had to assault.

Meanwhile Lee takes twice as many absolute casualties as McClellan in the Seven Days Battles.