tagwyn wrote:Sherman was a heck of a good general!! McDowell, McClellan, Pope, McCllelan again, Hooker, Burnside, Banks, Fremont ad nauseum... Were NOt Good Generals. We are lucky the Brits decided not to intervene. I would hardly call Sharpsburg a victory. It was terrible!! Union shoud have destroyed the NVA. If McClellan had renewed the attack with the part of AoP that had NOT fought at all Lee is destroyed!!!
Actually, McDowell and Hooker were adequate (and in the case of Hooker superb) generals. McDowell commanded his army very well during 1st Bull Run, and it collapsed due to the unrealistic pressures of having this force assault a Confederate force of almost parity in size. The fact that the armies were completely green leads to the very difficult task of attacking (easier to defend with a green army, than attack). Frankly, McDowell nearly had his victory, and would have had it should Johnston not have arrived at the critical times of the battle.
Hooker was a military genious, yet in his one chance, he lost his nerve (a lot of other factors, which paralelled Lee during the Gettysburg campaign). Frankly, judging his entire career on Chancellorsville is limiting, since every other engagement he fought, as corps commander, and divisional commander, he was exceptionally proficient. Also, he was the one who reorganized and manoevered the Union army to its engagement at Gettysburg, with Meade taking over at the eve of battle.
Bunside himself was an enigma. His operations against Longstreet in the West were short of brilliant, and helped lead to the spectacular victory at Chatenooga.
Regarding McClellan, you are basing things on after the fact knowledge. We all know Lee was whipped after Antietam, but, due to false intelligence, McClellan was under the assumption he was up against superior numbers. In fact, when you take this into account, McClellan was exceptionally aggressive (if indeed he thought he was up against 100-200 000 rebels in the Peninsula and Maryland campaign). He held great responsibility, of holding the only force between the Rebels and Washington.
The Fact is, destroying a civil war era army in the field is easier said than done. Artillery, exhaustion, etc., all take their toll, and keep the enemy at arms length. Indeed, neither the Army of Tennessee or Army of Virginia was ever annihilated in the field, in fact, neither was the Army of Virginia, which suffered a spectacular defeat at 2nd Bull Run.
What do you have to say about Lee who was unable to defeat the Army of Virginia at the Battle of Chantilly? Just because he, like McClellan, couldn't destroy a field army, does not mean that they were incompetent.
The fact is, the North had a tougher job than the south. They had to invade and defeat a foe on their territory. The Confederates were born and raised on the ground that 90% of the battles were fought on. Frankly, the Federals fought substantially more successfully in enemy territory than any Confederate force did in Union territory. Every Confederate battle in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Kentucky was a defeat (Antietam was a defeat, regardless on what anyone says). The Federals not only won all their battles in their territory, but, a good number in enemy territory (Peninsula battles were generally Union victories, Grant was practically undefeated out West, etc.).
So, not only did the north have to fight in strange territory, they proved more than capable of out soldiering and out generalling southern contemporaries in a balanced manner (i.e., faced their share of victories and defeats). The South didn't have the ability, or will, to fight the same level of a campaign that the North did.