Civil War: Generals before Grant.

[parsifal]

In talking up the accomplishments of the Southern armies one needs to be a bit mindful in my opinion. In TOs outside Virginia, the Confederacy was not particulalry successful or outstanding. Grants River campaigns, the fighting into Kentucky and beyond to Atlanta, does not paint the average reb in too good a lightas compared to the Union. Grants and Shermans campaigns respectively are pretty impressive when you examine them, whilst the souths camapigns around St Louis are very ordinary in my opinion .

In Virginia things were different, but once lee tried to move north into Maryland, he ran into real trouble and did not look so good. Lees campaign in the ozarks before he took command of the Army Of Virginia is also only mediocre in its achievements

 

[renrich]

Why do you think Lee did not look good in Maryland. He fought McClellan to a standstill with less than half his force. The fact that the Union had a copy of his plans was not Lee's fault.
The Confederate soldiers fought very hard at Pittsburg Landing and Grant was probably saved by the reinforcements that arrived by boat the second day, not to mention the untimely death of AS Johnston.

JE Johnston did some good work with the Army of Tennesse though always heavily outnumbered. That Army aided by Longstreet's Corps gained a signal victory at Chickamauga. The choice of Hood later was a poor one as he was probably over his head at anything above a corps commander but he was only a shell of a man by then and made incoherent by drugs. N B Forrest, of course, made fools of the Yankees more than once. They were right to fear him.

Except for good luck for the Union, the campaign in the Southwest by Sibley could have been a success.

The fact is that the Confederate Armies everywhere were almost always laboring under significant handicaps, yet they made as much chicken salad out of chicken feathers as any army in history.

It always amuses me that the detractors of Lee always seem to ignore the masterful way he led his army on defense in 1864.

No question however that the South had some leaders in the "west" who were below par. Bragg being one.

 

[Messy1]

Thanks for all the great info guys! Learning alot.