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- 1/19/2002 3:36:00 PM

mogami

Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
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quote:

Originally posted by Pirate:
According to the History channel the worst general was Ambrose Burnside. He's actually more famous for inventing sideburns. He was a general in the Union army diuring the american civil war.
He's first stupidity happened when he wanted his army to cross a river. There was a crossing about 3 miles downstream but he prefered to cross on the bridge. The problem was that 400 confederates were guarding that bridge. So he sent wave after wave of his soldiers and they were massacred there. Then he was given a new army and ordered to take a city (don't remember the name). The city had few troops garisoning it. But instead of entering the city immidiately he waited until reinforcements arrived into the city and it was fortified. And then he attacked at the most well defended place in the city. The result: a second army was slaughtered. Then Linkoln relieved him of command but even after that he was given another army to do another battle. For his last battle he came up with a "brilliant" plan. He would dig a tunnel from his camp to go under the confederate camp, then place explosives in it and blow up the enemy camp. So he did it and there was an explosion but since the ground absorbed most of the shock waves few confederate soldiers actually died. But there was a huge (25x25x10 meters) crater created in the middle of his enemy's camp. Then Burnside ordered his troops to advance... right into the crater!!! Then the confederates simply gathered around the rim of the crater and gunned down all the soldiers in it. The result: a third army slaughterd.
Now there's a bad general.

Greetings. He is remembered for the bridge (Antietam)Where he commanded the 9th Corps but he got across with out too much loss in men (long delay in time) but that was not the main thing. Because of his slowness that day just as he was close to winning the battle A.P. Hill arrived from Harpers Ferry and came in on his flank. Had he moved in the morning the Union would have won long before Hill arrived. The city was Fredricksburg. He was now in command of the Army of the Potomac, he made a rapid march and arrived oppisite the city before Lee was aware he was even moving, but he was on the wrong side of the river and the pontoon boats did not arrive. A week passed, Lee moved into the town and fortified on the heights. Burnside should have called the whole thing off and started over but he was very stubborn. When the pontoons finally showed up he put several bridges across (after he had secured the other side by amphibious assaults) Then he charge the heights over and over but the attacks failed. The "Crater" was when he was once again in command of the 9th Corps (under Grant). The Army was laying siege to Petersburg (trying to cut the railroad into Richmond and severing it from communcations with the rest of the south). Actually the mine worked great and there was a forty minute period when the confederate defense was gone. Just prior to the explosion Grant had decided not to send the division of troops who had trained for the attack (a colored division) because he was afraid if the attack failed it would look like he used them because they were black and he did not care about them. Burnside was upset and replaced them with his smallest division and no one bothered to explain to the Officers involved what was going to happen. Then they got to the confederate lines (no one was there) and they all started sight seeing. Finally the confederates organized a defense, then Grant released the colored division and they charged into the mass of milling about union troops and they too stalled another fiasco followed. Burnside comes down to us looking pretty silly. But he was a loyal officer who recoginized his limits (even though no one else at the time seemed to) He had his good days. In Tennesse he did well, and early on he captured several island off North Carolina helping the blockage. He invented a breech loader before the war (but failed to get an army contract to produce it, but it was an excellent weapon for it's time) Along with sideburns he also sported a hat made famous in later years by the 'Keystone Cops'. Lincohn said after the crater "Once again Burnside has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory" But to be fair prehaps he rightly belongs in a list of 'unlucky' Generals rather then bad ones. (prehaps good generals are lucky and bad ones are not?).
But I feel a general on this list can not have had any note worthy success's and Burnside contributed to the Union victory in the war in several important battles. His 9th Corps was a good outfit and his troops liked him alot ( this has to count for something since soldiers don't forgive bad generals) He was govenour of the state of Rhode Island after the war.
He makes alot of worst general lists but I feel those who put him there are not really being honest and fair. He had spectacular failures but they always came about from his having a good plan but poor execution and then it was someone else blowing it and putting the blame on him. (the crater was his plan and his troops but the high command changed it.) The Bridge at Sharpsburg over Antietam creek was on off the ways McCellan tried to pass the buck onto Burnside. But Mac did no recon, the guides he sent did not know the terrian (Burnside was looking for a place to ford, he used the bridge because it was central to his position and led to his objectives. Mac should have been there early in the morning and told him to move as soon as Hookers guns went into action. Instead of the dawn attack Burnside wasted the morning while Hookers attack spent it's self. There was no one to oppose Burnside in the morning and Lee would have been crushed. Burnside was winning by his self when his attack was flacked by Hill, but Mac still had 2 fresh corps in reserve that he could have sent in to help so the fault is his not Burnsides. Also the Union cavalry was massed around HQ rather then out screening the army. (had they been used correctly Hill would not have been a suprise (had he been able to push the cav out of the way) But McCellan does make our list. I think he should head it.

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Post #: 31

- 1/19/2002 3:57:00 PM

Blackacre

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Joined: 1/19/2002
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I think the numbers should speak for themselves.... Haig, etc. during WWI....A special mention should be made of the horrible record of whoever was responsible for the U.S. merchant shipping losses in the Atlantic during WWII. Unacceptable....

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Post #: 32

- 2/19/2002 4:31:00 AM

BvB

Posts: 187
Joined: 10/7/2001
From: Pennsylvania
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American Civil War: McClellan - a good training general, but when it came to combat he always seemed to get cold feet, hesitated, feared the enemy was always larger than it really was.
WWI: Haig and others for considering such horrendous losses as acceptable. (like the german at Verdun, I can't think of the name maybe Falkenhain or something similar?)
WWII: I disagree with picking Petain: He took over France when things were already lost and did not really make any military decisions as the head of Vichy France to qualify as a general good or bad. On Mark Clark I also disagree in that any blame to him could also go to his higher - Alexander. Churchill is the one that insisted on an Italian campaign. Hitler screwed things up for germany and did get involved enough to qualify, but I somehow can't consider him a general.
In Korea I'd ping McArthur for the losses the US/UN took in Nov/Dec 1950.

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Enlisted during Nixon, retired during Clinton then went postal - joined the USPS, then retired from that during Obama.

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Post #: 33

- 2/19/2002 4:49:00 AM

Chiteng

Posts: 7666
Joined: 2/20/2001
From: Raleigh,nc,usa
Status: offline

I would say general Elphinstone.
His was the only battalion that routed at Waterloo. In addition the retreat from Kabul was a model
of how NOT to do things. He is followed very closley by Fremont, The Pathfinder.

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Post #: 34

- 2/19/2002 12:53:00 PM

Chiteng

Posts: 7666
Joined: 2/20/2001
From: Raleigh,nc,usa
Status: offline

Burnsides didnt want the job. He protested in writing that he was not qualified. Only when
Halleck told him that 'if' he refused the job,
it would go to Hooker, only then did Burnsides
accept the appointment. Blackmailing a commander
isnt the best way to ensure victory. He did steal a march on old Bobby Lee, something
very few men ever managed to do.

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(in reply to toundra)

Post #: 35