ECW Podcast: George H. Thomas (with Conrad Bibens)
“The Best General of the Civil War”–a bold statement by any measure. Author Conrad Bibens joins the Emerging Civil War Podcast to talk about his assertion.
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After the war he never returned to Virginia – his family wouldn’t have him. A good, solid, brave fighter – though I’d take Porter, Kearny, Reynolds, Hancock, and of course, Lee, Jackson, Stuart and A. P. Hill before I’d take Thomas.
Which Hancock — before or After July 3? With the exception of Lee, none of your choices held an independent command, which Thomas did more than once. Big difference between Corps command and Army command….
Jackson’s command in the Valley was essentially independent, although we was technically under Johnston’s command and benefitted from unofficial “suggestions” from Lee. That’s just me splitting hairs as a Jackson fanboy, though. 😉
I do agree with your premise, though, that there’s a huge difference between corps command and army command. Ask Jimmy Longstreet (whom I admire, so I’m not saying that to dog him).
One must take it in context. Thomas basically had small commands fighting quite small Confederate commands, who were always massively lacking in every logistic area one can imagine. Jackson’s Valley Army was independent and his tactics are still taught today at West Point. Lee also had him act independently with his Corps from the summer of 1862 to his death. Any of the Confederate Corps commanders I listed regularly whipped multiple Federal Corps that were near to or exceeded the size of Thomas’ force(s). For that matter, there is the quality of troops you are facing; Grant and his team laughed at the thought of facing Lee – until they faced him. Reynolds consistently proved himself the best Corps commander in the Army of the Potomac and thus was offered overall command. It’s sort of like baseball hot stove arguments; if a guy playing in an industrial league or minor league hit more home runs or had a higher batting average, by year or career, than Ruth, Aaron, Bonds, Cobb, etc. the marks do not prove he was better than those MLB stalwarts, because he wasn’t playing against the best pitchers in the land.
I know you’re a Jackson fanboy — and, yes, that is splitting hairs. Nor was his command ‘middle-of-the-war” big. AND, his subordinates all complained that they had not the foggiest I dea of what his plans were… Not good generalship.
With how careless with security people were, from generals down to privates, in the armies on both sides, I reckon not telling anybody anything until they needed to know was effective policy. Jackson’s results, notwithstanding the Seven Days – and there, Lee really should have sent staff officers to micromanage him – proved his point. I mean, look at today – we’ve had Chiefs of Staff telephoning China to tell them they had nothing to fear if they moved against Taiwan, or worse; the President and Commander in Chief would be disobeyed if he moved to protect the security of the United States or its allies. Keep ’em in the dark!
Please get the facts right: Milley was ORDERED to make that call by his civilian superior, and it had nothing to do with Taiwan. And, yes, the President would be disobeyed if he gave an unlawful order…check Nuremburg.
Realityville to Fantasyland: Correct fact – Milley’s “civilian superior” was the President, who never made any such order, and it had everything to do with all things China. Never forget – this is the guy who allowed – with his civilian superior’s full knowledge and agreement – a Chinese spy balloon over US territory for two weeks, sucking up information, and withheld it from the public until the public found out for themselves, then refused to shoot it down until his superiors in Beijing let him know that they’d gathered all the information they required. As for illegal orders, one need only examine the illegal orders that were obeyed in order to doubt the honesty and integrity of the officials involved, e.g. Robert Mueller killing, on Obama’s order, the investigation that revealed that Hillary Clinton had inveigled herself into the Uranium-1 deal, and sold 20% of our uranium to Russia – and pocketed a neat $146 million for this effort, as well as laundering billions of dollars for Russian oligarchs through her fake foundation; as for her fee, it was run through a fake company in Canada, laundered into the aforesaid fake Clinton Foundation as a “donation” – so as to avoid the IRS – whereupon 94.5% of it went into Hillary’s pocket. Mueller’s required response was to refuse Obama, and take the matter to Congress if Obama persisted. He never did. Then there was James Comey giddily obeying Obama’s orders to illegally surveil Donald Trump and do everything he could to wreck his campaign – including wiretapping the White House computers and lying in order to wreck Michael Flynn after Trump’s administration was in place. Comey’s required response was to refuse Obama, and take the matter to Congress if Obama persisted. He never did.
The argument, made in defense of illegal behavior by corrupt people who aggressively do not have America’s interests or national security at heart, is entirely invalid. You are correct to cite Nuremberg: People like Mueller, Comey and Milley were just like the German SS and Wehrmacht generals and soldiers who argued, “I had to do it because they were orders” – and like those men, they should have been hanged for treason. I guess you were sleeping on November 5: A very well-informed, very wise nation decided that Donald Trump had not been endangering America or giving illegal orders, but that Obama, Biden and their ilk definitely were, and in a staggering, overwhelming action, threw the filth out of office. And now it turns out that the FBI had 26 agents – don’t fall for the Obamaesque wordplay of “paid human sources” – in the J6 crowd…their actions caught on security camera footage…that Liz Cheney gleefully destroyed.
The case…is…most definitely closed.
Sorry…Milley’s Civilian superior was Mark Esper, SecDef who ordered the call be made. This is a Civil War site, not a MAGA , QAnon site.
Sorry, but you’ve got the facts wrong yet again. Esper was a mere functionary, such as the FBI is in the Department of Justice the Deputy Attorney General is technically the superior of the Director of the FBI, but that’s just housekeeping; the Attorney General is the boss of the FBI Director, and as he’s a Cabinet Secretary, he must answer to the President; what’s more, neither the AG nor Deputy AG can fire the FBI Director; only the President can; hence, the President is the boss of the FBI Director. If Esper gave such an order then he, too, broke the law, violated national security and committed treason.
The real reason Milley called the Chins is because they own him, lock, cock and asshole – just like they own Joe Biden. He was assuring them that their massive interference in the 2020 election, which nearly wrecked the US economy and cost 1 million American lives, had paid off – and would be secure. Witness the next four years of catastrophe in America – and on November 5 Americans said, “Enough!”
QAnon is a CIA operation. Wake up.
And there you go. I made no mention of MAGA; rather, you decided to make a post of outright lies, half lies and factual errors demonstrating your complete lack of knowledge of how the Federal Government works…then began screaming and flailing your arms about me saying something about MAGA. Classic move of liberals: commit a crime, hysterically blame the victim.
Thus, I must remind you: This is a Civil War site, not an Obama-Biden worship site. Their day is done, and they’ve been put out with the trash.