"ACW Worst Generals." Topic

Interesting list here…

link

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks Armand.

Woefully incomplete at just 10

Every Southern one – a group of LOSERS!!! Meade was by far the best of the war.

What a group! Yes, it does seem too short. Sad to say, since their men paid the price for their leaders' incompetence.

Yeah, the list is too short.

I must say, while Pillow richly deserves his place on the list, he was the only high-ranking officer at Fort Donelson who was adamant about attacking. Too bad there wasn't someone competent to execute the plan.

Howdy,

I disagree with Rosecrans on that list. He did well in West Virginia. He won at Stones River, and the Tullahoma campaign was well done. But for Chickamauga he is pilloried.

Ponder on,

JAS

Misses a string of bad Confederate Generals with just two on this list.

No Earl van Dorn, John Pemberton, John Bell Hood, et al?

Butler may not have been a good general, but like McClellan he was a fine administrator.

I'm only surprised given the Southern bias that Uncle Billy and Phil Sheridan didn't make the list.

Confederate General Sibley should be on this list

I question the methodology here. How does earning a death warrant from Jeff Davis for training black soldiers in Louisiana earn one the #1 place on the worst generals list? If you must bash Butler, point out his poor generalship at Bermuda Hundred or Fort Fisher. Sheesh.

BY

Glad you enjojed it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

Billy Yank's analysis of why Butler deserves to be at the top of the list is better than the authors.

McClellan's record as field commander of the Army of the Potomac was poor, but he did build a first class force that took pounding and even occasional poor leadership, without breaking. He had previously done a good job building the army in Ohio that chased the Confederates out of northwest Virginia. This mixed record argues for a lower spot on the list.

Banks' record was not particularly good. He did however extract his command from a messy situation in relatively decent shape after Jackson hit Front Royal, and again after his defeat in the Red River Campaign. Cedar Mountain was actually a near victory for him. This should make him no worse than Hood or Pemberton as an independent commander, and arguably better.

Then you have to wonder about any list of bad ACW commanders that does not have Floyd on it.

Seems to be a little one sided.

Butler figured out how to get reinforcements to DC after the Baltimore gangs shut down the railroad. Not great generalship but common sense that was sorely needed right then.

Butler might have done better at Bermuda Hundred if not actively sabotaged by his West Point-trained subordinates.

The description of him as a fascist is absurd and the reference to the Gestapo is just plain offensive.

Does this guy even know anything about history? Rosecrans should not be on this list.

"His flawed strategy during the Tullahoma Campaign only succeeded due to the drastic mistakes of his opponent. Rather than consolidate his position in Chattanooga, he opted to move through the passes in Lookout Mountain. "

The Tullahoma campaign and the wide swing to Manchester and McMinville was brilliantly executed. And does the author realize the plan to go through the mountain passes across the Tennessee River was executed simultaneously? Roseccrans didn't just capture Chattanooga,and then just decide to go through the Sand and Lookout Mountain passes.

Click bait by a hack writer.

I can't agree with many of them, except Bragg, Pillow and Butler (tho Butler doesn't deserve No. 1). Oh, and maybe Buell.

Other than being a fine administrator in building the Army of the Potomac, my opinion of McClellan's generalship could not be lower. He is without excuse for not ending the conflict at Sharpsburg. No other commander was presented with such an opportunity. Switch up the scenario and see how quickly a Lee or Grant would have accomplished a war-winning victory. How many perished and what destruction over the next two and a half years because of his failure?
On top of that, he was a perfectly odious individual.
Whew…feel much better now.

I'm not at all an ACW expert, but I seem to recall reading how Leonidas Polk was a popular commander but not at all successful. Don't know if he belongs among the worst or not. Who can tell me more?

Leonidas Polk, along with William Hardee, did much to undermine Braxton Bragg. Would Bragg would have been a better general without these two is hard to say. They certain damaged the Army of the Tennessee in every campaign they fought in.

Bragg is at the top of my list. Forrest should have shot him.

Hood should be on that list somewhere. Hood was an able brigade and division commander but he was promoted beyond his abilities.

Burnside Is often considered a poor General, but his record says differently. He was fine at Bull Run help cover the retreat of the Union ARMY. He organized the invasion of North Carolina, and took one of the first Southern cites, New Bern. At Antietam He was the only Corps commander that obtained his objectives. His Army commandeer Lit'Mac lied about when he sent orders to attack the Bridge.
He out marched Stonewall and got to Fredericksburg before Jackson. Its true the battle in in Fredericksburg was a defeat but did not Lee launch frontal assaults also?
Burnside captured Knoxville and defeated Longstreet when he attacked Burnside.
He tried to mine the forts at Petersburg ,but Grant and Meade took away the troops Burnside had trained causing a defeat.
He was not a great General , but not one of the worst.

I agree about Burnside: not great but not terrible. His main problem seemed to be that if his first plan didn't work, he kept trying it anyway. Grant was persistent, Burnside was stubborn. There's a difference.

I also agree that I would add Polk to the list. He thoughtlessly "invaded" a neutral Kentucky, driving it into the Union camp, and constantly undercut Bragg. As one of his men observed, he was a very nice old man, but useless as a commander. (No, I can't name the source right off hand.)

I might consider adding Joe Wheeler to the list. I'd certainly rate him lower than Kilpatrick (who, while not great, wasn't all that bad).

Also gotta agree about McClellan; his victories in WVA were mostly won by his subordinates, and he was in way over his head as commander of the Army of the Potomac. He was a good organizer, and had some good strategic ideas, but he was way too cautious, too slow, and too egotistical. But, as Grant once remarked, he might have done better if he could have started at a lower level and worked his way up.

nice review.but there are more

This list is to be taken with a huge grain of salt. The context of it is misleading, it paints too broad of brush strokes.

As was said several posts above, there is NO way that Rosecrans should be on this list. He was capable and competent if not spectacular, and held his own in a difficult theater of the war with challenging terrain and logistical problems.

And how can any worst ACW general list not have the infamous Ferrero and Ledlie, the villains of the Crater disaster?

These two guys are easily at the top two spots if not right behind them. Grant's months-long plan of designing and digging a tunnel beneath the confederate lines at Petersburg and using explosives to breach a giant hole, and hoping to rush through it and break the stalemate of the siege.

At the critical moment of the attack, these guys were in the rear drunk in their headquarters/bunkers while their troops, upwards of two division's worth of men, went forward uncoordinated and unsupported.

Absolute incompetence and cowardice at the highest level, with some alcoholism thrown in for good measure. Pathetic footnotes of history.

You grow up the list well boys!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

McClellan might have made an excellent chief of staff or Quartermaster of the Army, perhaps, given his organizational skills and ability to motivate his troops even in poorly conceived operations. As a field commander, his talents seem to have been of little use in crunch time.

I think it's a list of General's the public may of heard about.

There's no way Rosecrans, Bulter, Burnside and McClellan would rate among the top ten worse for all their indvidual shortcomings.

Let's be honest the competition is way too stiff for them to feature!

A poorly conceived bit of poorly written clickbait. And heavy on blue, light on grey. There were some truly wretched generals on both sides, few of whom make the list, while some folks are there apparently because the writer could spell their names.

Drop down to the Brigadiers and you can really find some incompetence.

Iverson and Dole for the Confederates were BAD.

Kim

It was a tough gig as a Brigade commander, good, bad or indifferent, staying alive was the biggest achievement!

Steve1865 wrote:

"His Army commandeer Lit'Mac lied about when he sent orders to attack the Bridge."

Nope. Everyone involved bar Burnside prettymuch placed the order at 0800. Even the rebels the other side noted that the attack itself began around 0900 (an hour before Burnside claimed to have received the order.

See: link

What no General Ledlie? Somebody didn't bother to do their research.

Of course there are so many bad general to choose from. How does one come up with the bottom ten?

Baranovich it was not Grant's plan. The whole idea came from Burnside! It was Grants idea not to let the Black troops who had trained for the attack not to do it. If they had attacked it is quite possible that the attack would have succeeded.