Given that one received the surrender of the other, we have one metric to measure who was the better general.
With that said, if you swapped their resources and roles (imagine US Grant a confederate general and Lee a union general), Lee would probably be victorious on the union side. Wars are won with logistics, not with daring and clever generals.
And just cuz I was curious, during their Wilderness Campaign in 1864, when they regularly fought head to head, Grant and Lee attritioned each other’s armies down by about 50% each. Grant reduced the Confederate fighting force from 60k --> 30k whereas Lee reduced the union forces from 105k --> 50k. Lee’s leadership did a better job killing union troops then Grant’s did killing confederate troops. Sure, defender’s advantage etc.
It’s not entirely dissimilar to the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. The Nazis killed a lot of Soviets with their “skilled generals” but weren’t skilled enough to not lose the war
Anytime you have to attack a defended, fortified position, you’re going to take more losses than the defender. This is especially true during the ACW, which was mainly trench warfare not at all dissimilar to WWI (which was why WWI was so awful). The strategy at the time was to dig trenches, which means the only way to overrun a trench in an era without tanks was to throw bodies at it.
Given that one received the surrender of the other, we have one metric to measure who was the better general.
With that said, if you swapped their resources and roles (imagine US Grant a confederate general and Lee a union general), Lee would probably be victorious on the union side. Wars are won with logistics, not with daring and clever generals.
And just cuz I was curious, during their Wilderness Campaign in 1864, when they regularly fought head to head, Grant and Lee attritioned each other’s armies down by about 50% each. Grant reduced the Confederate fighting force from 60k --> 30k whereas Lee reduced the union forces from 105k --> 50k. Lee’s leadership did a better job killing union troops then Grant’s did killing confederate troops. Sure, defender’s advantage etc.
It’s not entirely dissimilar to the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. The Nazis killed a lot of Soviets with their “skilled generals” but weren’t skilled enough to not lose the war
Anytime you have to attack a defended, fortified position, you’re going to take more losses than the defender. This is especially true during the ACW, which was mainly trench warfare not at all dissimilar to WWI (which was why WWI was so awful). The strategy at the time was to dig trenches, which means the only way to overrun a trench in an era without tanks was to throw bodies at it.