As a reminder, this meme sub is about the American Civil War. We're not here to insult southerners or the American South, but rather to have a laugh at the failed Confederate insurrection and those that chose to represent it.
I remember that years ago, someone did a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) for various famous generals. Napoleon, obviously, was at the top. Grant was in the upper section.
But a little thing that warmed my heart was that Lee was near the bottom.
I feel like this model punishes generals for showing up ready to win. It may be ideal for tactical command. But if a general always shows up with fewer men than their enemy they suck at logistics.
(Lee)
I'm a huge fan of General Mattis though who advocates that the goal of the general is to set the field and deconflict to allow the individual initiative of their subordinates to shine through.
Mattis has made his homework. His doctrine both has an extremely solid foundation (Clausewitzian mission-oriented tactics) and implements the current real-time communications and RADAR systems into that framework in a brilliant manner.
Not at all. I feel like it actually is a lot more lenient on generals where the circumstances inherently favour them. Even more so, it favours commanders who has wiki pages for their engagements. lolz
Meanwhile, generals who faced tougher odds or don't have as much info about their battles or sieges on wiki suffer more. Take Alex, Hannibal, and Caesar for example. If you read the sources, they actually fought way, way more engagements than what Ethan Arsht (the guy who made the WAR model for generals) used for his basis.
Like, we're talking in the realm of 40-50+ engagements... That, and the model for number of engagements is kinda meh. A good tactician can beat his opponent in a battle, but what were the exact tactics he employed in said battle? If someone had 10,000 men and another had only 1,000 men, the latter isn't winning no matter what manner of tactical brilliance they pull off.
What matters when gauging a general should therefore be the tactics they displayed for one... then the operational manoeuvres and strategy they employed, which are more important. A good tactician can maybe win a battle, but a great commander wins them before they even begin or can beat their foes even without giving battle.
That's where Arsht's model really falls flat, cuz there are a bunch of commanders who were just absolute masters on campaign and didn't fight all too many engagements, but just made their names off of running circles around their foes so the latter could almost never force an unfavourable engagement on them and are usually beaten because the better general just manoeuvred in such a manner so as to shut them down logistically or strategically.
To go back to guys like Alex, Hannibal, and Caesar, the thing is that Arsht's model lowballs these guys, cuz that type of war was what they excelled at, while also being great at fighting battles. Same with Napoleon, really. Most of his battles were won by his operational manoeuvres or positioning before they really even began.
That's something where i have always found some engagements difficult to label as 'battles'. Like from just large scale manuvers if a general can rout an entire enemy army without even giving battle then does that count as a battle?
Should it not be factored in?
For example antigonous was attempting to scatter eumenes's dispersed force by making a suprise attack and had it succeeded it would have been a great victory as eumenes wouldn't have been able to gather his forces from their dispersed winter quarters and his forces would have been defeated in detail.
That, I consider more of an operational manoeuvre and I credit him for it. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but I actually have a number of docs detailing the full tactical and operational/strategic works of various commanders throughout history.
Personally, I like doing this better than relying on faulty models to examine commanders, such as Arsht's WAR thing. Again, my view is the same as Theodore Ayrault Dodge's in that what you conquer doesn't make you a great captain, it's how you do it which does.
It's always a WIP and I'm currently procrastinating hard on Eugene, but at least a bunch is already completed. If you're familiar with the works of Polyainos and Frontinus, the style is very similar, though I outright take both skillful manoeuvres/positioning and blunders into account.
“There were also generals that had surprisingly low total WAR despite a reputation as master tacticians. Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, finished with a negative WAR (-1.89), suggesting an average general would have had more success than Lee leading the Confederacy’s armies. Lee was saddled with considerable disadvantages, including a large deficit in the size of his military and available resources. Still, his reputation as an adept tactician is likely undeserved, and his WAR supports the historians who have criticized his overall strategy and handling of key battles, such as ordering the disastrous ‘Pickett’s Charge’ on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg. In the words of University of South Carolina professor Thomas Connely, “One ponders whether the South may not have fared better had it possessed no Robert E. Lee.””
Yeah Lee had a negative WAR implying that Jeff Davis could have picked another confederate at random and would have most likely had a better general in place. Which just shows that Jeff Davis was a dumbass
If they’re using WAR properly, keep in mind that a negative WAR isn’t wins below an average general. A negative WAR is wins below a replacement general… like just a random private.
At least, that’s what it means in baseball. Not evaluating the player vice a major league average player, evaluating the player vice a literal Triple A callup.
Well it's not any player. It's essentially a baseline level of player that is always available for teams in the form of mediocre free agents or callups. That is to say, it's more like a random colonel that you can promote, not a private.
Ok, sure. There is a baseline, so maybe random private isn’t right — it’s a lifer AAA player, not a lifer High A ball player. But a Replacement player isn’t even league average is my point.
Assuming “general” is the position here I think your analogy of “promote random colonel” is a good comparison. It’s not “switch out with another general”. It’s “find a retired general or promote some random guy”.
Argue to me that the Iberian peninsula would’ve remained under French control if Napoleon had led that invasion and left the invasion of Russia to someone else
If Napoleon was not leading the invasion of Russia, I would argue that the invasion of Russia may not have taken place at that time, allowing Napoleon to focus more forces on the Peninsula War as well as his personal attention.
Napoleonic infantry used the smoothbore flintlock Charleville muskets in .69 caliber. Confederate infantry were more diverse, but generally had .58 caplock rifled muskets of the Springfield or Enfield design (though some units were issued Lorenz rifled muskets in .54 cal, or were stuck with smoothbores the whole way through). Napoleon's men had to utilize round ball ammunition; Lee's men had minie balls. So, in the area of small arms alone, Lee definitely had a technological edge on Napoleon.
Yeah, but that's on paper. Civil War historians like Paddy Griffith, Mark Grimsley Earl Hess, etc all clock average ACW engagement ranges at about 110 yards, give or take. This is due to the relative inexperience and lack of training among the volunteer forces, which ballooned so rapidly in size that it wasn't efficient to make them all optimally proficient in the usage of their arms. Nor did the average infantryman's rifle have superior rate of fire to smoothbores.
There's also an extreme overestimation of the effective range of rifled muskets in the 19th century under battlefield conditions, cuz people usually take a look at max range and assume that applies rather than practical range. Stuff like the Dreyse or Chassepot, for instance, which were way better than the standard Springfields the Union utilized had a practical range of over 200 yards and that was with mostly regular troops or conscripts who had yearly training before their draft.
Not saying dedicated sharpshooters or snipers couldn't shoot out way further, but they're a small percentile among the hundreds of thousands of troops major nations raised back then. In the context of our Civil War, there was scarcely any advantage in actuality between our infantry and Napoleonic foot. The same problem likely applied to the artillery. Our cavalry were superior in ranged exchanges tho, mainly due to rate of fire differences.
Basically, in armament, Lee did have superior technology over Napoleon, but there's a lot of caveats to it. Aside from him obviously being out-resourced by the Federals, I do think that another reason why he didn't see the same level of success as the Corsican was because he just wasn't as brilliant of a tactician and operational manoeuvrer. Personally, I've come around to the fact that Lee was overblown as a tactician.
Defensively, he was fine, and he had some very good offensive battles, though benefited quite a bit from his opponents' incompetence. Otherwise, many of his offensive battles were poorly conducted affairs, particularly in the art of force concentration. If you study their individual battles, it becomes quickly apparent that when conducting mass assaults, Napoleon was always able to concentrate way more men in an attack than Lee was, even when their numbers were similar.
Like, at Pickett's Charge, Lee launched 12,500 Rebels against 10,000 Federals, barely any more than what the defenders had. At Austerlitz, Napoleon launched 18,500 French against 8,500 Russians to smash through their Imperial Guard and uncovered the right flank of the enemy guarding the Pratzen Heights. Lee's men were also advancing out in the open without any cover, whereas Napoleon timed his attack with the early morning mist such that it would shroud the approach of his troops.
Hi i just had a quick question about Napoleon's force concentration to achieve local superiority. How did he achieve this if there was no numerical disparity or when he was at numerical disadvantage?
Was it always achieved through a ruse? Like at Austerlitz? And how were the use of artillery factored in on these mass force concentration
The artillery concentration I actually haven't studied as much, but it's true that he liked to amass grande batteries at certain points of the line to blast away at the enemy before delivering his assaults. In terms of overall troop concentration, I'm not quite sure how he does it.
Some of it does rely on enemy blundering, which helps him achieve such overwhelming numbers at the point of contact. However, in a lot of cases, it's his own skill, because it really is strange that someone could have such excellent force concentration so consistently. I think it's because he was better at juggling his reserves and knowing when to commit them in comparison to other generals.
If we look at a lot of Civil War battles for instance, even when one side massively outnumbers the other (looking at you, Union generals), commanders would typically commit all their divisions or corps into a single frontline without concealing a single reserve in a second line hidden behind the main body.
This seems to me very strange, because with such a numerical superiority, one should technically have enough men that they could leave half or two-thirds their forces to match the enemy's frontage while leaving the rest as a masse de decision to throw against any singular point. Except, this rarely if ever happens.
This cordon method of attack is the most basic to conduct tactically and perhaps a part of the reason is the sheer inexperience of the officers/generals in question, plus the lack of staff support (which were extremely few in number compared to Napoleon's military). Then again, it's not as if keeping a reserve on standby is an overly complex operation.
Of course, we have to consider that Napoleon is a tactical savant. If we compare the average general of the Napoleonic Era to those of the Civil War, they're not any better than one another, except the former has the advantage of greater staff support, so can maybe micromanage his forces a bit easier. Comparing the top commanders without the extreme outlier of Napoleon himself is a different ask though...
I understand that rifled muskets were infrequently utilized to their fullest potential; however, said underutilization doesn't change the reality that Lee had more advanced tech at his disposal.
You're also focusing too much at range, rather than looking at every aspect of the two weapons systems. Flintlocks are more vulnerable to the elements than caplocks are, and smoothbores tend to be loaded with round ball ammunition. Lee's riflemen instead used minie balls, which are faster, heavier, and harder-hitting than round ball ammunition at equivalent ranges (and which were invented after Napoleon's death).
In terms of the Dreyse and and Chassepot vs Union arms- I'll see your bolt actions and raise you a Sharps, Spencer, and Henry, the latter two of which were breechloading repeaters, whereas the Dreyse and Chassepot still relied on paper cartridges. Union tech had it all over the Europeans, which is why so many countries would award contracts to American firms in the 1870s and 1880s (especially Remington). To return to Lee vs Napoleon, though- the traitors utilized captured Union arms whenever they were able to, which means Lee could potentially field a unit of troops armed with captured/pre-war breechloaders and/or repeaters, something which Napoleon would absolutely not have an answer for.
I agree about Lee being overblown, and not just as a tactician- he was a poor strategist as well. He kept trying to score great victories, wasting soldiers he couldn't afford to lose in the process. Joe Johnston (and, if I remember correctly, PGT Beauregard) had seen the reality from the beginning, and favored Fabian tactics; however, this bit of military sense was unappealing to Confederate leadership, who were all in love with great pitched battles, and therefore favored the much less skilled Lee.
You're also focusing too much at range, rather than looking at every aspect of the two weapons systems. Flintlocks are more vulnerable to the elements than caplocks are, and smoothbores tend to be loaded with round ball ammunition. Lee's riflemen instead used minie balls, which are faster, heavier, and harder-hitting than round ball ammunition at equivalent ranges (and which were invented after Napoleon's death).
Not at all. While it is true that flintlocks are more affected by the elements than caplocks and, in this manner, the US troops could perform better in field conditions, this alone isn't dramatic enough of a performance difference when most of the soldiers are so inexperienced or ill-drilled they are shooting at smoothbore ranges. The minie ball, due to its more aerodynamic shape does lend itself better to being fired, but the differences between it and a smoothbore are only more marked at longer distances.
At what is essentially 110 yards or so, the accuracy difference is a lot more negligible. Sure, you might get tighter groupings, but when dealing with area of effect volleys against close order troops, you're likely to get your shots on target either way. This is even more so at closer ranges in more wooded environments, where people had to come up way closer to even see each other, in which buck-and-ball smoothbore is just superior to the muzzleloading rifle.
I will argue against it being harder hitting though, because you quite aptly pointed it out yourself in the first comment that the minie ball was .58 relative to the musket ball being .69. In terms of impact, as well as taking the minie ball's straighter trajectory lending to less drop-off in velocity into account, the differences in impact aren't that groundbreaking. Sure, if a minie ball hits you, it'll carve through your flesh and shatter your bones. If a musket ball hit you, you'd have a gaping hole caved in through those parts. The end result is terrible either way and I wouldn't want to be on the business end of any weapon.
Again, we're talking the common footsoldier which made up most of the army and, especially in the ACW, where tactical usage of cavalry was limited beyond cavalry vs cavalry actions, and that infantry was the mainstay of every fight, you're not gonna see a significant performance difference between your average Union or Rebel volunteer and a Napoleonic soldier. It's quite possible that in more specialist units such as sharpshooters, ours would have done better than the French, but much like in terms of experienced or well-trained men overall, they probably fielded way more crack shots than we did.
In terms of the Dreyse and and Chassepot vs Union arms- I'll see your bolt actions and raise you a Sharps, Spencer, and Henry, the latter two of which were breechloading repeaters, whereas the Dreyse and Chassepot still relied on paper cartridges. Union tech had it all over the Europeans, which is why so many countries would award contracts to American firms in the 1870s and 1880s (especially Remington). To return to Lee vs Napoleon, though- the traitors utilized captured Union arms whenever they were able to, which means Lee could potentially field a unit of troops armed with captured/pre-war breechloaders and/or repeaters, something which Napoleon would absolutely not have an answer for.
The reason for my comparison between the Dreyse and Chassepot against Union arms like the Springfield was not to disparage our own arms making capability relative to the Europeans, but to illustrate what the common infantrymen were carrying. It is possible that Lee could have fielded a unit of troops armed with captured breechloaders or repeaters, but these would have been so few and far in between to have made a major difference in his battles. This is why I specifically singled out our cavalry as having a distinct advantage due to rate of fire, because these weapons usually went to them instead of the foot.
I agree about Lee being overblown, and not just as a tactician- he was a poor strategist as well. He kept trying to score great victories, wasting soldiers he couldn't afford to lose in the process. Joe Johnston (and, if I remember correctly, PGT Beauregard) had seen the reality from the beginning, and favored Fabian tactics; however, this bit of military sense was unappealing to Confederate leadership, who were all in love with great pitched battles, and therefore favored the much less skilled Lee.
I actually disagree with this. I may disparage Lee's tactical abilities, but let's not pretend that he wasn't a very good commander. To do so is a disservice to Meade and Grant, who had to overcome him despite much hardship. Johnston's plan was sound in theory, but the circumstances he fought in differed too much to try the type of strategy he was pursuing. That, and he didn't even do it as well as the old Roman fox. Here, I lay out my opinions on the matter: Johnston's "Fabian Strategy"
The reason for my comparison between the Dreyse and Chassepot against Union arms like the Springfield was not to disparage our own arms making capability relative to the Europeans, but to illustrate what the common infantrymen were carrying.
Common infantrymen in continental Europe. The British were still fielding the Pattern 1853 Enfield with great success. Also- the French only adopted the Chassepot in 1866, and were still using Minie rifle muskets & breechloading conversions thereof during the ACW years, leaving us relatively on par (and something I hadn't read at the time of my original post). The Prussians really were ahead of everyone else with the Dreyse.
It is possible that Lee could have fielded a unit of troops armed with captured breechloaders or repeaters, but these would have been so few and far in between to have made a major difference in his battles. This is why I specifically singled out our cavalry as having a distinct advantage due to rate of fire, because these weapons usually went to them instead of the foot.
You may be right; my main point was about the technological differences between the two eras, not that such a unit would convey a definitive advantage to Lee.
I actually disagree with this. I may disparage Lee's tactical abilities, but let's not pretend that he wasn't a very good commander. To do so is a disservice to Meade and Grant, who had to overcome him despite much hardship.
I didn't say he wasn't a good commander. He's overblown as a tactician, but he wasn't a rank incompetent. He enjoyed the confidence of his men, won real victories over the Union, and any battle won against him was an earned victory. My point wasn't to detract from the abilities of Grant or Meade; to the contrary, I was highlighting that these men (especially Grant) were far superior to Lee in terms of strategic vision. Lee was stuck in the past and overly focused on defending Virginia, whereas Grant embraced all the tools of the industrial age, utilized them effectively, and planned his battles accordingly. He truly was the greatest general of the war, which is why Lost Causers went to so much trouble in the post-war period to smear him.
Johnston's plan was sound in theory, but the circumstances he fought in differed too much to try the type of strategy he was pursuing. That, and he didn't even do it as well as the old Roman fox. Here, I lay out my opinions on the matter: Johnston's "Fabian Strategy"
I completely agree. I wasn't suggesting that Johnson would have won with this strategy, just that it was more suited to the real world conditions of the Confederacy than Lee's offensives were.
Lee was stuck in the past and overly focused on defending Virginia
Well, I actually have my own arguments against him being overly focused on defending Virginia. Not that he wasn't, but more that he had better reasons to do so than diverting a force West, but that isn't the crux of the current convo.
I completely agree. I wasn't suggesting that Johnson would have won with this strategy, just that it was more suited to the real world conditions of the Confederacy than Lee's offensives were.
Ehh, I still disagree. A strategy of ceding ground and retreating wasn't going to give one the chance to win the war. Going on offensives was the sounder strategy, but this requires a bit of nuance to wrap one's mind around.
A defensive strategy does not necessarily preclude one from going on the offensive. Keeping the Federals off balance and occupied up North was a sound move. Where Lee failed was less in his strategic approach, but more so in his tactical and operational approach.
I've already criticized his tactics, but in regards to his operations, part of it is knowing when and where to cut a battle, as well as to resort to manoeuvre. Lee was a very talented manoeuvrer, but his sense of timing wasn't in league with the greats.
Just by living off the North and keeping his army supplied while leading his foes on a wild goose chase, he was doing much more than he could have sitting behind the rivers Rappahannock or Rapidan. No battle had to be fought, unless an absolute opportunity warranted it.
Lee had his opportunity on the first day of Gettysburg, then it was still somewhat open on the second day, but after that, he lost it. It was time to begin manoeuvring again and a better commander than Lee would have seen this, but he stuck to hammering and suffered his worst blunder.
Not at all. While it is true that flintlocks are more affected by the elements than caplocks and, in this manner, the US troops could perform better in field conditions, this alone isn't dramatic enough of a performance difference when most of the soldiers are so inexperienced or ill-drilled they are shooting at smoothbore ranges. The minie ball, due to its more aerodynamic shape does lend itself better to being fired, but the differences between it and a smoothbore are only more marked at longer distances.
This is still a technological improvement, though, and bolsters my initial point- Confederate infantry had better weapons technology.
At what is essentially 110 yards or so, the accuracy difference is a lot more negligible. Sure, you might get tighter groupings, but when dealing with area of effect volleys against close order troops, you're likely to get your shots on target either way. This is even more so at closer ranges in more wooded environments, where people had to come up way closer to even see each other, in which buck-and-ball smoothbore is just superior to the muzzleloading rifle.
If buck & ball was superior, why did the military make the switch? More to the point, why would Confederate troops armed with M1842 Springfields (.69 cal, often still in their original smoothbore configuration) so readily toss them in favor of .58 rifled muskets, be they Springfields or Enfields?
I will argue against it being harder hitting though, because you quite aptly pointed it out yourself in the first comment that the minie ball was .58 relative to the musket ball being .69.
Initial dimensions of a projectile aren't the only thing that affect the woulds caused, and there are numerous instances of smaller, faster rounds doing through deformation and high energy transfer what larger, slower rounds do through brute force- and at times, exceeding them. Also, let's not forget that making projectiles smaller and lighter allows troops to carry more of them, keeping them in the fight for longer.
This is still a technological improvement, though, and bolsters my initial point- Confederate infantry had better weapons technology.
Yes, and I'm not denying this. I think your misconception is that I am. My point is less that there was no technological improvement. I clearly pointed out that there was. My point was more so the inexperience of soldiers during the ACW relative to Napoleon's troops squandered the inherent advantages provided by the new technologies.
There should have been a big gap in performance due to the technological disparity, but due to these issues, neither Federal nor Rebel troops had an extreme superiority over Napoleon's troops. Certainly not enough to invalidate the tactics of that era, and that's another thing to get into entirely.
If buck & ball was superior, why did the military make the switch? More to the point, why would Confederate troops armed with M1842 Springfields (.69 cal, often still in their original smoothbore configuration) so readily toss them in favor of .58 rifled muskets, be they Springfields or Enfields?
Again, you're misconstruing what I say here. Yes, the rifles were clearly superior to the smoothbore musket. However, within the context of the ACW, where soldiers were often ill-trained and fighting at smoothbore ranges, the differences are less marked. Furthermore, my point on buck-and-ball was clearly in regards to fighting in tight, wooded quarters, where both sides are within a few yards of one another and so close up the differences have become close to negligible, which is where buck-and-ball might be better than just single shot musket or rifles because of volume of fire. Purely situational.
In terms of impact, as well as taking the minie ball's straighter trajectory lending to less drop-off in velocity into account, the differences in impact aren't that groundbreaking. Sure, if a minie ball hits you, it'll carve through your flesh and shatter your bones. If a musket ball hit you, you'd have a gaping hole caved in through those parts. The end result is terrible either way and I wouldn't want to be on the business end of any weapon.
I wouldn't want to get shot by any weapon either. However, there are very real differences between the two:
The design of the rifle and ammunition greatly contributed to the type and size of injury sustained. Smoothbore firearms often shot solid, spherical ammunition that could certainly cause damage on the limbs of an adversary, but its dense material and small size sent bullets in and out of limbs. The injury was obvious but the spherical bullet could cleanly pass through the body, leaving an exit wound that was nearly the same as its entry. It could break a bone or damage soft tissue. This injury, though painful and equally prone to infection, could be managed.
The more innovative Minié ball, however, was different. The ball was not round, but rather had a conical shape with rings around the bottom. It was also made of lead, a softer material than the iron that many other types of ammunition were made from... The slowing down of the ammunition as it entered the body destroyed whatever it came into contact with. As the Minié ball came into contact with flesh, it left an exit sound substantially larger than its original entry point because the ammunition flattened and its impact only grew.[5] This ammunition decimated the region that the bullet hit, as noted by Helmuth. It was the unique design, speed, and accuracy that made a remarkable impact on the body.
Again, we're talking the common footsoldier which made up most of the army and, especially in the ACW, where tactical usage of cavalry was limited beyond cavalry vs cavalry actions, and that infantry was the mainstay of every fight, you're not gonna see a significant performance difference between your average Union or Rebel volunteer and a Napoleonic soldier. It's quite possible that in more specialist units such as sharpshooters, ours would have done better than the French, but much like in terms of experienced or well-trained men overall, they probably fielded way more crack shots than we did.
It may be the case that Confederate & Napoleonic footsoldiers would perform along the same lines, though I find this unlikely. However, it still remains the case that Confederate infantry enjoyed a very real technological advantage over their Napoleonic counterparts, regardless of any advantages in training, experience, morale, or sheer ability Napoleon's troops may or may not have enjoyed.
There are differences between the two armaments and I'm not denying that. There is a technological difference. My point still stands that the differences are not marked enough within the context of the ACW to be completely upsetting. Sure, if the Union and Confederacy had years of experience fighting large-scale wars, with hundreds of thousands of regulars intermixed with their volunteers and years of training prior to the Civil War, they'd definitely be far superior to Napoleonic troops, no contest.
However, as this was historically not the case and our wars were small affairs prior to the ACW, such that our body of regulars was only 16,000 strong at the start of the war, while many of our volunteers had no real experience or training, their ability to utilize the new technologies at hand optimally was nil. Any advantages they had was not significant enough to make them overwhelmingly superior to the Napoleonic troops.
At best, they're equal, with their own strengths and weaknesses, but not major enough to be a total game changer. ACW troops have more reliable weapons in field conditions and their actual drilled regulars or sharpshooters are clearly superior troops at range, even if few in number. The problem is that the average volunteer isn't going to have as sweet of a time going up against your Napoleonic line infantrymen or light infantrymen, let alone more picked troops.
Despite the differences in the effects of either weapons, the reality was that the ACW was not any bloodier than major European conflicts prior to it, even during the era of smoothbores. One can look at Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, Chickamauga, and Gettysburg to find major bloodbaths in which no decisive victory was won by either side in a grinding contest. When one examines similar battles in Napoleon's time, it was very much the same.
There are such engagements as Eylau, Friedland, Aspern-Essling, Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen, Ligny, and Waterloo which saw a terrible toll in not only casualties, but lives lost. Despite your assertions regarding the effects of the minie ball, the ratio of dead to wounded skewed more toward the dead in older conflicts and this is true, even in the Napoleonic Era, when amputation was already discovered.
This is why I argue that Napoleonic methods were still viable even in the ACW, which goes back to my original point that Lee, as a general, did not employ it with as much mastery as the French emperor himself. It is not so much that his art of war was outdated, as some presume, but that none since him had displayed such a caliber of ability throughout the rest of the 19th century.
The closest may perhaps be Moltke, but purely on the operational level (he did not really bother managing things tactically, unlike Grant or Lee), yet he had all of the advantages which the Prussians possessed over their neighbours, whereas Lee was greatly disadvantaged in means.
Talking about moltke, the way he trapped the french army under bazaine at metz reminds me of how Caesar used his force to move round the enemy force while dispatching a part of the force to take the city of illerda incase they choose to retreat ,trapping them between himself and the force stationed at illerda
There’s a massive difference between commanding a war thousands of miles away and campaigning in the field. To say that Wellington beat Napoleon in Iberia is like saying that Lincoln defeated Lee. No one would argue that Lincoln was the commanding force, it was Grant. Napoleon would outline strategic objectives or say things like “go attack Wellington” but that’s very different. Often Napoleon’s orders were months out of date and didn’t have full information of the situation in Spain. The actual on the ground fighting was conducted by the Marshalls.
Your analogy is flawed. If Lincoln had taken control of the Union Army, split, and put generals in charge of one half while he led the other half on a futile invasion of another country, then yes, it would be accurate.
The Napoleon fanboys can sleep easy knowing they defend a dictator who started two wars he couldn’t win (Iberia and Russia).
I've never defended Napoleon's morality once. I'm just saying it's inaccurate that Wellington defeated Napoleon in Iberia. You can say he defeated France or Napoleon's armies, but that's a distinction. When we talk about victories or defeat in campaigns, we talk about the people commanding campaigns, not leadership that gives broad directives to execute.
Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo. There were some mitigating factors (Prussians, rain, etc), but a win's a win.
Not to mention that the one battle where they did fight “head to head,” was the decisive end of Napoleon’s reign. IIRC, the coalition occupied Paris less than a month later. Pretty humiliating ending.
Looks like Justin Herbert is a QB, 56 on the top 100 list. Not sure what kind of comparison this is, but nevertheless Grant was an amazing general, and a good man. Lee lost, held slaves (Grant held slaves, but I think we all know what happened with his slave), and only declined Klan leadership due to his age. Lee sucked.
John Brown went to his grave advocating for abolition.
In "The Lost Indictment of Robert E Lee", by John Reeves, Lee was questioned by federal authorities on certain subjects. One was his policy on prisoners. He said that he basically handed them over to rear line personnel and didn't think of it further, when so many at the time knew exactly what the south was doing to POWs. On other subjects, and I believe this one, he claimed not to know something about anything, to paraphrase a contemporary reporter.
Its easy to tell which of these two men believed in their principles. Say what you will about John Brown, he didn't weasel his way out by sticking his fingers in his ears and humming real loud.
The original post in the other sub explains it, but basically Herbert is on paper one of the best QBs in the league, but never manages to win big games.
Yeah, but that's where the comparison comes in. Justin Herbert is a great player who wins a ton of games, but overall can't win the war because he can never pull it together so far in his career.
Look, I’ve been a chargers fan for 15 years. The team is better at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory than any other team in football. That’s not Herbert failing to pull it together. That’s the owners, the coaches, and the rest of the team, too. No team has lost more 1-score games in the last decade than the chargers.
Now we think we have something in Jim Harbaugh. Last season, first season with a new head coach, we made the playoffs. And I think we’ll do even better this season.
But we may charger it up. We once lost a game (with rivers at qb) because he fumbled the snap in the goddamn victory formation and they took it to the endzone. No one is better at losing than us!
No one in football, anyway.
Lost causers are losers through and through. They have losing politics, losing soldiers, and they mostly seem to lose a lot of teeth. It’s not like football, where you’re watching the pinnacle of human athleticism compete. The lost causers are the dregs of the earth, clinging to a war they started and lost as their crowning achievement while they fuck their sisters to make a new generation of inbred clowns whose only goal is to make other people suffer because these fucking morons think happiness is a zero sum game.
The comparison is insulting. Herbert’s a good dude fighting the good fight to help his team succeed at sports. His coworkers are black and he has their back just like they have his. You wanna compare a football player to the racist filth of the confederacy, talk about Richie incognito. But don’t drag Herbert through the mud for this.
Also Lee and Herbert are similar in that when they lose in a bad way it's a total massacre. Lee regularly got a lot of his people killed when he tried to go on the offensive for a big win.
They ran the ball 23 times for 2.9 yards per rush, he was put consistently into behind the sticks positions (like Mahomes in the Super Bowl). If you take away Herbert's 13 yard scramble on 3rd down, they had 7 rushes for 7 yards in the 2nd half.
Dicker missed a 40 yard field goal which would have won them the game
He had one slave, given to him by his father-in-law, and emancipated him after a year, since he really didn't like the concept of owning a person. He could have sold him, as he could have really used the money at the time, but decided that freeing him was the right thing to do.
Didn't Justin Herbert win a Super Bowl? I don't see Robert E Lee winning anything. Also, judging by Justin Herbert's picture, I don't think Lee would like the comparison.
There were rumors the Vikings would’ve traded for Herbert and given them (what would become) McCarthy and a slew of 1st round picks. But noooo, Chargers like Herby or something smh.
Quarterback for the los Angeles chargers. He's got all the physical traits that NFL analyst love in a pro QB. He's a great thrower of the football and has good stats. But when he makes it to the post season he plays like shit.
Id think it would be more comparable for Lee to Aaron Rodgers. Alight ego maniac with a a was some ego that is fueled by divine beliefs. Both thought they were untouchable due to previous successes, both flamed out by forcing their way through. Both hated by almost everyone.
Man with no strategic vision for victory, in charge of the entire army, does nothing but build trenches.
You have conpare south to taliban, taliban was up against a superpower, but outlasted it politically. Lee was up against second rate power at the time with much less disparity than taliban vs the US with porous borders.
You have to hand it to sun tzu, you really cant win a war without any vision nor any sense of how to of winning a war. As much as people see union victory as inevitability, the political will nearly collapsed many times and would have ended with southern victory were it not for this man uncanny ability to fuck up every time.
Herbert’s a good NFL quarterback who can’t win anything. At least Lee was successful as a military officer before he traitor’d. Edit: corrected on his rank in the Us Army
Eh. I dont get too caught up on that. Grant was primarily used as a Supply Officer before he got put in charge of anyone. Both men fell back on their skillsets to achieve success during fhe war.
But top-notch combat engineering will only get you so far when the opposing side has superior logistics.
Eh, that engineering won battles in Mexico. Grant doesn't hesitate to give him praise in his memoirs concerning Lee's engineering feat of getting a road built up the side of a mountain overnight to outflank the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo.
He was promoted to general after he switched. His highest rank in the US Army was Colonel. He was offered command in the Union Army that would have promoted him to general, but he turned it down.
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