Hi De!
Your assumption was correct. Generalship.
Stonewall Jackson was an out of the box thinker and doer.
He fought and planned with only one thought in mind: Destroy the enemy.
It was JAckson who was directly responsibnle for the Victories at First and Second Mannases. (Bull Run) It was Jackson right after Fredericksburg, during the withdrawal from there and after Hooker repaced the bumbling, stumbling, blithering idiot Burnside as the Commander of the Unioin Army, That Hooker devised a great plan.
He would entrap LEE's army in between TWO superior numbered Union Armies in the forests .
Lee knew that this was not good and all Military teaching stated NOT to divide an already inferior nujmerical force
with a far superior force in front of you as well as Behind.
He met with Jackson alone late at night to dicuss strategy.
Jackson had come up with the dea to divide the army, and he would force march HIS Army around the flank of the Union army army all night long and surprise them .
THis attack of Jackson's led to major ROUT of The Unuion Army as Jackson rolled up one corp after another from the side and LEE attacked from the front. Imagine the supose and horror of the solders from the federal soldiers as Tens of thousands of Rebs came charging down their throats with that Reb Yell and guns blazing.
JACKSSON was Lee's most valuable asset and when stated he had lost his right arm after Jackson died from pneumonia as a result of having his arm amputated from being shot by his own men, he was not kidding.
Nothing went well for Lee after that.
Gettysburg was the next big battle after Jackson had died and it was downhill from there the next couple years.
JAckson WAS the STRATAGIST because he was unconventional in his thinking but purposeful in the outcome.
The Best General of the Confederate Army was Stonewall Jackson without doubt. Yes, Lee was the COmmander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and toward the end, became overall commander of all the southern forces, but without JAckson, Lee would not have had the successes that came early and often.
JAckson also did not stay behind when the fighting started. He led by example. Lee had to remind him constantly. JAckson believed firmly that when GOD's appointed time for him to die arrived, then thatw as when he would leave this world, and not before. Hence he felt safe in battle and secure in knowledge that only when God's appointed time for him to leave this world came, then and only then would he lay down his body...
WIlliam Tecumseh Sherman. Grant's right hand. A leader of his men. NOT a strategist. Sherman got the most out of his men and was effective in battle. NO doubt about it. I think he was an excellent commander. I do not think he was a thinker or a planner of long term strategy. He followed orders and accomplished the objectives he was assigned.
Few Union generals, Sheridan was an exception, were as successful as Sherman. Phil Sheridan was brilliant.
I totally missed John Pershing. We have a TANK named after him.
Grant. I personally do not like him. But I do not like him because he had no regard for the lives of those who did the actual fighting, bleeding and dying.
Hed had mnore men than the enemy and anunlimited supply. So it was a war of attrition to him. Sooner or later Lee was going to run out of soldiers and supplies.
THAT was why Grant eventually won the war. He should have been a MINER. He loved to dig trenches and have seiges.
Petersburg Virginia is a fine example as well as Vicksburg, Mississippi.
I believe Phil Sheridan was the best overal General of the union army. He was a calvary man first and then a major force after that...
He simply won. and he did not have the loss of life that Grant had.
Anyway, interesting discussion and thinking. Thanks!
micro....
| 
