Nathaniel Greene definitely!

The author of this article is an idiot. Harsh words? nope... If Confederate generals weren't American, what were they? Russian? Canadian? Of course they were Americans, most graduated from West Point. So, they fought for the Confederacy? Confederate States of 'America.' There is that word again. And, after they war they became what? 'Americans.' Many even served where? In the US (American) Congress up to the end of the century. Fightin' Joe Wheeler, West Point graduate, US Army officer, CSA general, was what during the Spanish American War? An 'American' general and member of Congress. Hopefully I made my point...

Nathaniel Greene.

Second choice Grant, who is widely recognized, but also widely accused of being a clumsy butcher, when he was nothing of the sort. The 1864 Virginia campaign was bloody because (1) Lee was himself a master of maneuver, and (2) Grant was wielding an army with which he was not familiar, with questionable corps and division commanders, and which had been mistrained by McClellan et al to move and react very slowly.

I could make a dark horse argument for Jacob Devers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Devers, who was overshadowed by Eisenhower and Bradley but did a fine job with limited resources.

Yes, I concur with Greene. The one guy who might've even done better than Washington if he were in charge.

Can't vote for any Civil War generals as "underrated" since there's no shortage of Civil War buffs who pretty thoroughly study that topic.

What on earth is Halleck doing on this list?

On the 'idiot' comment have some respect for a writer. Casual insults are for children. As for the Confederates they were rebels and were fighting to establish a separate nation. It would make about as much sense to include them as it would a British general from the American Revolutionary War.

I concur with Truscott.

The fact that they were not recognized is the point of this. Compare Madame Curie to her husband if you will. There are some people who are doomed to be overshadowed by another figure.

seconded.

....why would an Indian chief?

Indeed, you may as well put forth Nobunaga or Fabius if you're going to mention First Nation leaders. Also he wasn't listed as a general which seems to be an important part of this.

I am aware it was a stretch Grant, but the word general is really an adjective by itself, as would be the word chief - both did (do) the same thing. I figured it worth a try, being a poor, ignorant, 1/2 Native American country boy that never loafed in front of the fort. At least I had an original idea - I noted you didn't have one?

I did suggest one in the post on Nathanael Greene. I suggested Daniel Morgan for his guerrilla tactics and his victory at the Battle of Cowpens. However either it was entered too late or Ricks decided it wasn't worth entering. On the point of Chief Joseph, while he was an intelligent leader you could also enter Tecumseh or Crazy Horse but none of them fought for the U.S so they don't count as unrecognized American* generals.

*American in the sense of being citizens of the United States of America which is a commonly understood way of referring to people who are citizens of the U.S.A.

Since we're talking about the best General in "American History," I'd say both Confederates and Indians count. Even though they both fought against the U.S. government, they are both a part of our history. By that standard, Chief Joseph certainly deserves at least a mention.

Joseph was a political leader, thrust into sharp action when the camp was over-run at Big Hole. But his finest hour may have been to use his clout to stop the slaughter and save his band, as the last of the war chiefs lay dying, short of the Canadian border.

Red Cloud strikes me as more of a strategic war leader among the Nations. He held his people's land thru position and maneuver, made peace on favorable terms, and kept it for a generation.

Ex-quaker Nathaniel Greene succumbed to the decadent charms of S. Carolina's slave-fed oligarchy after his war, which shouldn't take away from his rep as a commander. But we do like our heroes to be good. A freedom fighter's conversion from Quaker to plantation slaver is complicated, even if he did sell parts of the land grants to support his veterans.

I'll cast my vote for the iconoclast in the pith helmet on the war-mule, George Crook, who took a run at Phase IV reconciliation, and used his adjutant to fight a rear-guard action against war provocations and profiteers.

... Scott's definitely underrated. Best general between the Revolution and the Civil War.

But it was the B-17/B-24 bomber boxes with fighter escort that the Germans couldn't ignore and couldn't counter that cleared the GAF out of the picture prior to D-Day.

In both March and April, 1944, the GAF lost about 2,000 aircraft fighting the day bombers. That was decisive.

You might can say that without Quesada, Patton would not have able to run west to east as he did in August, 1944, but without whacking the GAF before D-Day, that would be a moot point.

Walt

Your point, and Volunteer's, are well taken - thanks. I guess I'm a Quesada fan in part because I admit I'm biased a bit toward the ground forces. But mainly, my bigger point is that the air forces only began to play a truly important, perhaps decisive, role in Europe once they got away from the belief (common before and early in the war) that the air forces would win the war alone, without WWI-style ground combat, and leave the ground forces with a little mopping-up and occupation duty. Only once they, and everyone, began to integrate the air and ground efforts toward a common goal could the allies hope to win. Whether it was the destruction of much of the Luftwaffe's fighter forces during and after the so-called "big week" raids of Feb-Mar '44, or the use of coordinated CAS to support advancing ground forces in NW Europe is hard for me to decide.
I think the battle between Eisenhower and the air bosses, for control of the heavy bomber forces for the "transportation plan" in the run-up to 6 Jun, shows that even that late in the war many air force leaders still clung to the belief that they could win the war mostly alone.

If Tom ever wants to have a poll on the most -overrated- general of all time, Arthur Harris must surely lead the parade.

Harris was vehemently opposed to the Transportation Plan. He even jiggered the data to show that Bomber Command was -less- accurate than it actually was to avoid being deployed against the French rail system. He was determined to win the war by wrecking Germany's economy.

Arnold and Spaatz were also determined to end the war through destruction of the enemy's economic ability to resist. Their goal was an independent air force.

Harris wanted to hit cities; Spaatz wanted to wreck the German synthetic and natural oil production through the "Oil Plan". The big heads figured that the most immediate aid to Overlord would be through the Transportation Plan and Spaatz was overruled. That was in March of '44.

The USAAF still cut deliveries of avgas to the GAF from 175K tons/month in the summer to less than 1K tons/month by October. The German army was also on short short rations by then.

Walt

Pap Thomas is NOT so underrated. Any general survey of the Civil War is going to cover his accomplishments. He is known by many as a great general. Not so much, O.P. Smith in his sphere, or General Andrews (my nominee) in his sphere. I mean, everyone (in this group any way) has heard of Andrews AFB. How many know that had he lived, he would have commanded Overlord?

I kinda feel the same way about Nathaniel Greene. Ask any teenager who can't name the 3 branches of government who Greene is, and you'll get a blank stare. Read any half decent book on the Revolution and his contribution is well shown.

Walt

"Underrated" is a sort of relative description. Given his excellence in command and contribution to the Union war effort, he was greatly underrated by both his contemporaries and by the majority of modern historians. He is rarely "in the conversation" with Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Longstreet, or even Meade, when talking Civil War generalship.

That is true.

Walt

If we are to include Henry Halleck, than we should also include little George B. McClellan, since his endeavors are seen as important in organizing, training and equipping the Union Army originally - besides, unlike Halleck, he left a legacy of having invented a saddle that critter soldiers sat their rumps upon for many years after, just as he sat on his rump, giving Abe a royal pain in his rump.

Though Halleck was seen as quite administratively capable, he is known to have given vague orders, and when things went south, had a propensity for playing the blame game, and probably maligned too many fellow generals, which is probably why when everyone was scurrying to write their place in history, he didn’t have many advocates to mention and applaud his own contributions?

Of whom Lincoln said, "Nerve and pluck all gone; not much more value than a first rate clerk"?

That Halleck?

Catton in one of his books says that if not for the interference of Halleck, the march to the sea through GA could have happened a year earlier.

Walt

First, yes we are refering to the same Halleck. At the same time, the more research I have done, the more convinced I am that we need to at least consider whether Halleck has been overly criticized.

Second, I want to be clear that I am not arguing that Halleck was a great general. He wasn't, and was actually a pretty bad field commander. At the same time, I think his contribution to the Union victory may have been a net positive, far different from his popular portrayal. The Union put 2.2 million men in the field (from only 16,000 pre-war), all of which had to be organized and supplied. That the Union was able to do this was, in my view, a major reason for its success. Whether this was because or in spite of Halleck, I don't know, but from what I have seen he was a capable administrater, and thus probably at least partly responsible for this success. It is also noteworthy that despite serious criticism he was retained in basically the same position from July 1862 through the end of the war (counting his time as Chief of Staff). Neither Lincoln nor Grant was particularly hesitant to fire generals, so this seems to indicate that they saw at least some benefit from Halleck.

Some of what I have said could also be applied to McClellen, but I think Halleck is much more underrated for three reasons. First, scale. McClellen successfully organized about 100,000 men, Halleck may have successfully administered 2 million. Second, McClellen's primary job was as a field commander, at which he failed. Halleck's primary job was as an administrater, at which he may have partially succeeded. Finally, McClellen generally does get points for organizing the Army of the Potomic, while Halleck seems to get few points at all.

Because of this, I think we do need to reevaluate Halleck's role in the war. Doing so may simply confirm what we already thought. Then again, it may not. For what it is worth, historian Mark Grimsley seems to agree on the need to relook at Halleck's career (http://warhistorian.org/wordpress/?p=609).

Didn't the AoP have a winter encampment in 1861/62 with deprivations similar to Valley Forge?

Walt

You are so right. My thinking precisely! Thank you for stating it more elequantly than I could have.