I grew up in Greensboro, NC, which was named for him. I think an outting to see the yearly reenactment of the battle of Guilford Courthouse was a mandatory family event.

When you look at the way that battle was fought, and how Greene pried strategic advantages from a situation he knew was a loser before he even fired the first shot, I think it's pretty evident it's THE textbook example of the American way of fighting during the Revolution, from the tactical all the way to the strategic level.

The one thing you hear from historians all the time in Greensboro, but rather infrequently anywhere else, is that Yorktown wouldn't have happened without Guilford Courthouse. Perhaps part of the reason it gets so little attention is that we're not really sure how the battle progressed along the field that day. We know it was essentially a fighting retreat, but somewhere between 1781 and 1880, we confused the azimuth by about 20 degrees, give or take. I'm not sure why that makes a difference, but people seem to shy away from things they can't be certain about. You can be sure Cornwallis looked around after the end of the day and wondered where the heck all his soldiers were-- he lost a few thousand chasing Tar Heels through the woods.

There's also a (unconfirmed) story about how Greene got down from his horse and began to help troops stack rocks to make a wall when one of them made a snide remark about how Generals were too good to do real work. So he's got his "Soldier's General" cred, too.

There have been other underrated combat commanders in American history, but none of them were as important to the wars in which they fought as Greene was. The United States would still have been on the winning side of World War II without Allen, Simpson, Smith or McCain; it might not exist as a country had it not been for Washington and Greene.

Maybe since he didn't make anyone's list it might make him the most forgotten general. I think his tactics and victories would still be relevent to todays conflicts (although civil war buffs would know more about that than I). When I presented this to some friends they mentioned he might have more in common with today's Gen McChrystal and hence unpopular with the victorious North...just some ramblings.

The Godfather of COIN and modern asymmetric warfare.

Well, I stand by my list of yesterday which included Nathanial Greene who was a vastly more competent battlefield commander than Washington.

In no order of preference and sticking with Tom’s rule of being under appreciated:
1. Roy Geiger
2. Lucian Truscott
3. Pat Cleburne, CSA
4. George Thomas
5. Nathanial Greene
6. Pete Quesada
7. O. P. Smith
8. Bob Eichelberger
9. Matt Ridgeway
10. Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA

Andrews gets some recognition. Andrews AFB is named for him of course.

Andrews' strong advocacy of the B-17 (when we only had a few dozen) got him relegated to the same sunset station that Billy Mitchell went to some years previously. He was rescued when Marshall became CoS.

Had Andrews not been killed in a plane crash he probably would have commanded Overlord.

"Andrews was a strong and vocal proponent of the heavy bomber and advocated the purchase of the Boeing B-17 in large numbers. The Army General Staff disagreed with him and the purchase of limited numbers of B-17s in 1939 and 1940 became known as "Andrews' Folly." The Army believed large numbers of light and medium bombers (in particular, the Douglas B-18) could do a better job than smaller numbers of heavy bombers. The B-18 proved to be an inferior aircraft and by the beginning of 1941, the Army was procuring large numbers of B-17s.

Andrews was assigned as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations in the summer of 1939, the first airman to head a War Department general staff division working under Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. In 1941, the general became the theater commander of the Caribbean Defense Command in charge of defending the southern approaches to the United States including the vital Panama Canal. Andrews was also the first airman to command a joint forces overseas command in 1941-42, creating the model for later commands in the Middle East and Europe.

In 1943, he became theater commander of U.S. forces in the European theater of operations, responsible for direction of the American strategic bombing campaign against Germany and planning the land invasion of occupied western Europe.

On May 3, 1943, while on an inspection tour of his command, his B-24 crashed while attempting to land at the Royal Air Force Base at Kaldadarnes, Iceland. Andrews and 13 others were killed in the crash. Only the tail gunner survived.

His legacy is the crucial role he had in the evolution of the Army air arm into a separate service. The wartime numbered Air Forces, built on the GHQ Air Force foundation were the basis of the early postwar Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command and Air Defense Command. When a separate Air Force was established in 1947, the functions of the GHQ Air Force were transferred to the chief of staff of the new U. S. Air Force."

http://www.af.mil/information/heritage/person.asp?dec=&pid=123006443

Walt

Again, going with the "underappreciated" theme. . .

. . . Benson Bobrick's biography of Thomas makes a debatable but thorough argument that Thomas did more to win the war than many of the other senior Union generals, who then after the war actively campaigned to destroy his reputation.

That sounds "underappreciated" to me. Nobody knows who the man is today, and he was one of the true giants of the war.

Cleburne, Quesada (the man Patton called "a jewel,"), Greene, and others are certainly underrated, but in terms of significance, I feel like all except for Greene pale in comparison to Thomas. This isn't about military history nitpicking - there will always be somebody convinced that MG So-and-So, if only he'd had the opportunity/better luck/whatever would have been better than Caesar - this is about underrating, underappreciating, and forgetting a truly great American general. Signifcance should be a factor and that means Thomas.

Matt

In the broad sweep of American military history, I'd vote for Winfield Scott as the most underappreciated. Sure, he usually gets his props in the history books for the Mexican War. But he was also a great hero during the War of 1812, literally wrote the tactics manuals used by the Army throughout the frist half of the 19th century, did more to establish the Army instutionally than anyone, even George Washington, and developed the strategy that ultimately beat the South during the Civil War. He was, without a doubt, the most influential and important American military commander of the 19th Century and that is not reflected by posterity. Most Americans have no idea who he is. There are no current military installations or major weapons systems named for him. I can't think of any nationally known memorials or monuments in his honor. There is a barracks at West Point named for him - and that's about it.

I'd say George Thomas and Nathanial Greene round out the top three.

Good call on all the exceptional commanders from World War II who generally don't get their due. Allow me to add MG Maurice Rose, commander of the 3rd Armored Division. One the best division commanders of the war. Only division commander killed in combat. Highest ranking Jewish officer in the Army at the time of his death. Largely unknown to non-history buffs.

To list some of the names bandied about here:

1. Thomas
2. Ridgway
3. Gavin
4. Greene
5. Cleburne
6.Charles Lockwood - the man who destroyed Japan
7. Quesada
8. Geiger
9. Smith (O.P.; Howlin' Mad's inclusion is beyond bizarre)
10. Kenney

Any nominations for recent Generals? Fred Franks was out there, how about Gordan Sullivan, Elizabeth P.Hoisington the first female GO...which can lead to another least, groundbreaking Generals (e.g. General Dunwoody or Benjeman Davis or even his son).
From a former post by Tom you always have William E. DePuy.

That is, he set out not to destroy the enemy directly, but to weaken him or make him irrelevant. Makes a lot of sense in the COIN world, but not to the dominant American military tradition. Given our current wars and our current economic squeeze, Greene is a good general to think about.

The most interesting section of David Hackett Fischer's "Washington's Crossing" is found in the appendix. He calculates that in the New York and New Jersey campaigns, the British suffered 4,397 casualties. The strength of British forces that winter declined from some 31,600 troops to just 14,000 effectives by spring. The tail-end of that winter became known as The Forage War. And it fits the description of Greene's campaign that you post almost perfectly.

It's not how we remember Washington, or the war. We're more likely today to think of Saratoga or Yorktown, large-scale engagements fought in conventional terms. But there's a very good case to be made that the winter of 1777 was when the British lost the war, even if it took some years after for the colonists to win. Fischer argues that the key to the strategy was the combination of boldness and prudence - gambles carefully designed to minimize the potential for casualties. Even then, being a democratic republic shaped the American way of war. We wanted to win, but to keep our troops alive. And that often meant smaller harassing actions combined with carefully-planned strikes, rather than pitched battles.

I don't disagree with the nomination of Greene. But he's not really a contrast to Washington. He followed his commander's lead on these matters.

I would have to suggest Joshua Chamberlain as most underrated general in US History. Commander of the 20th Maine at Little Roundtop and arguably stopped the Union's left flank from being rolled on the second day of fighting.

1782, the Kentucky/Ohio Frontier. Our larger war for Independence had sparked a proxy conflict with the tribes of that region. The Delaware Indians divided over whether to ally with the American settlers or the British. You couldn't tell who was friend and who was foe, and the tribes often played both sides for materiel support.

In the Coshocton/Gnaddenhutten area, COL Daniel Brodhead cut the ideal figure of a savvy COIN strategist. He was a fierce fighter against his enemies, and loyal and unbigoted friend to his allies. The problem was his own troops. Drawing from a crowd of local militia who'd suffered the trauma of their women and children being brutalized by Delaware raiders, Brodhead fought a constant battle to keep heads level. He was eventually called back east when someone ratted him out for misallocation of funds for militia pay in order to keep the storehouse full. The troops didn't realize he was trying to keep them fed through the winter.

Brodhead was replaced by LTC David Williamson, who placed much greater value on being loved by his troops. He loved them so much, in fact, that he didn't bother to stop them from massacaring an entire village of sympathetic Lenape Indians at Gnaddenhutten. The massacre wound up being the Abu Ghraib of the western campaign, with tribes later torturing American POWs by tying one end of their intestines to a tree and having them walk around it, thus winding their own guts out until they died. Oh, they lit their hair on fire beforehand. Incidents like this continued well into the early 1800's. I guess when you wear moccasins, throwing a shoe just won't cut it.

Brodhead, a close personal friend of Washington who always signed his letters to the general with "your excellency's most obedient servant", was acquitted of all charges. Williamson got elected county sheriff a few times, but wound up dying penniless.

I'll let you guys throw up names for current analogies. There are plenty.

Greene did good work but his victories were due in part to the fact that the British forces were not supposed to march beyond South Carolina and were in fact disobeying orders by doing so if I recall correctly.

In any case another name to put up would be Daniel Morgan who defeated Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens.

For a very different suggestion, how about Henry Halleck (Commanding General ,1862-1864)? He wasn't a great general, but probably doesn't deserve the degree of criticism he has recieved.

He managed to clear up the mess John Fremont made of the Department of Missouri early in the war, and may have helped set the stage for other early Union victories in the West. He was then promoted to Commanding General of all Union armies. Here, he seems to have done a good job organizing, supplying and administering the various armies. After Grant was promoted, he stayed on as Chief of Staff, where he did continued to do an excellent job ensruing that Grant had what he needed to finally defeat the Confederacy.

Halleck's biggest weakness was his inability to force a common strategy on the various army commanders. However Lincoln didn't really manage this either until Grant became Commanding General. Also, if the Union victory was due primarily to its superior resources, then Hallecks ability to organize these resources may have contributed substantually to the the Union victory.

Halleck is probably not the most underrated general. But, if the criteria is the gap between what the general achieved and how he is percieved, Halleck might make the top ten.

Crazy thought indeed; Halleck had some good administrating skills and that was about it . . .

As for Gavin, I think if you talk to veterans from WWII, no general was more beloved than Jumpin' Jim. Similar to Maurice Rose, actually.

Gavin never quite got the recognition that Ridgway (deservedly) or Taylor (undeservedly) got as paratrooper generals.

Gavin also was instrumental as Ambassador to France when he assured De Gaulle's government that rebelling French paratroopers landing in France on American installations would be fired upon. . .

Not quite a qualification for most underrated general, but certainly an interesting guy.