"Reading ever changed your mind about a general?" Topic

When I was a wee lad (55 years ago). I read a book called "The Grenadier." IIRC it was written about 1902. Marshall Lannes came out pretty well in the novel. I have liked him ever since and everything I have read about him reinforces the opinion – my favorite marshall.
Conversely, the more I read about Omar Bradley, the less impressed I am. Seems he kept being promoted because he was a "Good ol' boy" rather than because he was such a great general.

MacArthur

Zhukov

Phillip II and Montgomery. 1st improved and is better than his more famous son, but the second …

About Presidents – Truman and Tyler. One I have become more and more impressed with while the second became much, much worse.

General Benjamin Butler. While his ACW battlefield record was not the best, he spent significant amounts of his personal wealth taking care of his troops.

Sir Douglas Haig – reading about the constraints he had to struggle with in terms of political masters/demands of allies/evolving technology I am more sympathetic than when I was an unforgiving lad

Also Davout – while reading "The Iron Marshal" about him I liked him more and more – for Bernadotte it has kind of been less and less

Korvessa, if you watch the movie "Patton," check out the credits--Bradley was the military adviser, and comes out rather well.

79thPA--Butler was not a great general and was probably not the sort of person I'd want to invite over for tea, but his role in establishing runaway slaves as "contraband of war" raised him in my eyes.

Grelber

I had a vaguely poor opinion of Mark Clark but reading about his command of Fifth Army gave me concrete reasons to despise him.

Montgomery, on the other hand, I gained respect for. I had thought of him as being very competent but perhaps overrated and too full of himself. Deeper reading revealed that he really was a great general, but also full of himself. However, part of that was playing into the propaganda angle. I'm not saying it was a stretch, but he had to embody the public image of a confident and victorious leader. Patton did the same and was praised for it. Conversely, Bradley played up the "GI general" shtick. Montgomery was also almost certainly neurodivergent. I am normally loathe to entertain retroactive diagnoses, but the sheer amount of evidence available from his public and private writings and interviews, accounts of subordinates, superiors, and family, etc., make it clear that it was moe than just "personality quirks".