“Who was the greatest American general?”

“That’s a VERY large question. Robert E. Lee?”

“A lot of people think so. But I feel his reputation was damaged on the third day at Gettysburg, when he let Pickett and his men make that doomed charge.  More to the point, he didn’t win his war.”

“A recent historian says that Pickett’s disaster wasn’t General Lee’s fault. Lee expected General Jeb Stuart to attack the Union army from the rear.  But Stuart was beaten off by General Custer, something Lee learned too late to stop Pickett.”

“That’s an interesting theory but the fact remains that Pickett and his men were slaughtered.”

“General Ulysses Grant?”

“For  combativeness and determination, Sam Grant has no equal. But he too has a stain on his reputation, Cold Harbor, where he authorized a disastrous attack that had no chance of succeeding.  Without Lincoln’s backing, he would have been relieved like earlier Northern commanders.  Abe shuddered at Sam’s casualties but he realized how crucial it was to win the war as quickly as possible.”

“General William Tecumseh Sherman?”

“He’s certainly in the running.  Early in the war, he helped conceive the winning strategy—to attack the Confederacy from all sides, simultaneously.  His march through Georgia was brilliant.  But in 1862 he had some sort of breakdown.  He couldn’t deal with criticism.  His skin, as they say, was very thin.”

“Now that we’re talking about strategy, there’s another general in another war who rethought his nation’s strategy and rescued his army from disaster. One twentieth-century general called it ‘a brilliant change of strategy that enabled a weaker opponent to defeat a stronger one.’”

“Who might that general be?”

“I believe his initials are GW. Instead of trying to win the war in one big battle, as John Adams and his friends in Congress wanted you to do, you told them:  ‘We shall never put everything to the risk. Instead, we shall protract the war.’”

“I’m flattered but I’m also aware of my limitations.  I didn’t—or couldn’t—think on a battlefield like Benedict Arnold or Anthony Wayne.  That was a skill that I never mastered.  I’m glad you admire the decision to change our strategy.  I’m annoyed at some recent writers, who seem to think I dropped it after 1776.  It was used by me and applied by other generals throughout the war.”

“That leads me to ask what you think of your right-hand man, Nathaniel Greene.”

“He should be near the top of everyone’s list.  He summed up our strategy beautifully when he said:  ‘We fight, get beat, rise and fight again.’  He applied it superbly in the South.  In a year he reduced the British to an enclave around Charleston.”

“Where does Andrew Jackson stand?”

“Very high.  He had a gift that every great general needs, audacity.  His performance at the battle of New Orleans was superb.  Even better in some ways were the attacks he made before the final clash, in which he repeatedly threw the British off balance.”

“What’s your opinion of John J. Pershing in World War I?”

“Very high in certain areas.  His inspirational leadership skills were superb.  In little more than a year, he did an amazing job of creating a two-million man army out of virtually nothing.  He gave them spirit, style, pride.  But his grasp of tactics and strategy was second-rate.  He relied on too many old-fashioned ideas such as open warfare that the machine gun and long-range artillery had made obsolete.  The best decision Pershing made in World War I was handing over the command of the fighting army to General Hunter Liggett.”

“He didn’t look like a general.  Wasn’t he fat?”

“Liggett had an answer to that.  ‘There’s nothing wrong with fat,’ he said. ‘As long as it isn’t above the collar.’  He reminded me of Henry Knox, my artillery commander.  Knox was even fatter than Liggett.  But he too had a very shrewd brain.”

“It’s interesting how much stress you put on a general’s ability to think.”

“It’s crucial.  Winfield Scott was another keen thinker.  He never fought a battle without plotting his moves first.  His decision NOT to make a frontal assault on Vera Cruz, for instance, when he landed in Mexico, may have won the war.”

“What did he do instead?”

“He besieged the city and it soon surrendered. American casualties were miniscule.  His army remained intact and ready to march on Mexico City.”

“What about World War II?”

“In that war, generalship seemed to become divided.  Dwight Eisenhower had unique political gifts that enabled him to command a coalition army, part British and French as well as American.  Omar Bradley was a very clever strategist.  George Patton was a bravura leader on the battlefield. The war was so big and so complicated, maybe this division was inevitable.”

“How about General Petraeus in Iraq?”

“The surge was a brilliant change of strategy.  But so many other ideas had failed, it is somewhat overshadowed by these ghosts of strategies past.  Without a lot of help from President George W. Bush, Petraeus’s ideas might have never been heard.”

“Have we left anyone out?”

“Matt Ridgway in Korea.  He was a very good paratrooper general in World War II. But no one expected his amazing performance when he was thrown into Korea after our army had been badly beaten by the sudden appearance of a million well-armed Chinese soldiers in late 1950.  Our headlong retreat from North Korea was very close to a rout.  Bug-out fever infected the ranks.  Defeatism permeated the officer corps.”

“What did Ridgway do?”

“He went to the headquarters of the previous general, Walton Walker, who had been killed when his jeep overturned.  He asked a staff colonel to tell him the army’s plans for the future.  The colonel said they consisted of a withdrawal from Korea as quickly as possible.  What do you think Ridgway said?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“‘Aren’t there any plans for an attack?’  The colonel stared at him in amazement.  ‘Colonel,’ Ridgway said, ‘I want you out of Korea in twenty-four hours.  Don’t bother to pack your gear.  We’ll send it to you later.  I want everyone else on this staff to start planning an attack.’”

“What about the army’s endemic bug-out fever and defeatism?”

“Ridgway got in a small plane and started flying up and down the lines, landing on roads, often under enemy fire.  When he got out, he usually saw a sergeant rushing to greet him.  Almost always, Ridgway was able to say:  ‘Joe Kelly (or Sam Califano or whatever) how’s your wife Evelyn?  And those three great kids?’”

“How did he do this?”

“He’d memorized the names of over 4,000 sergeants and their family backgrounds.  He was a believer in the adage, sergeants make an army.  The pleased just-greeted sergeant led the general to his soldiers and introduced him as a friend.  Ridgway talked to them man-to-man.  He wanted to know their complaints.  They told him they hadn’t had hot food in weeks.  And they never got their mail. He told them from now on they’d have one hot meal a day and mail delivery every week—and he made good on both promises.”

“Did that cure bug-out fever?”

“He talked to them about that too.   He told them that if they stood and fought when they were overrun by a Chinese human wave attack, he would NEVER abandon them.  He would fight his way to their rescue. He delivered on that promise, too.  Then he told them why they were fighting, while most of their country was home having a good time.”

“What did he say?”

“He said they were fighting for their country’s honor—and their own honor, the way American soldiers had fought since the days of Lexington and Bunker Hill.  He described the enemy as men infected with an evil idea, communism, that would destroy freedom around the world unless they were stopped by the courage of free men.”

“And it worked?”

“In three amazing months, Matt Ridgway’s soldiers went over to the offensive and drove the Chinese communists back across the border into North Korea.  It was the most remarkable example of what a general can accomplish in our country’s military history—maybe even in the military history of the whole world.  That’s why he’s got my vote as the greatest American general.”

“He’s got mine too.”