Lee

Lee kept a poorly supplied and equipped army on the field for three years against a superior opponent. Grant bludgeoned an inferior force with with his superior numbers until they ran out of soldiers. I'm going to go with Lee.

Sadaam!

Lee was the Union's first choice anyway. That alone suggests that even they thought he was better.

Lee. I never played gunboat with Grant, however, so I can't tell.

+1 to Tolstoy

Rock of Chickamauga, Gen. G. H. Thomas.

Lee. Hands down. And I agree. +1 Tolstoy.

This is kind of a silly question, like asking who is a better football coach, Nick Saban or Bill Snyder? They're good at different kinds of things. Lee was the better tactician, while Grant was the better strategist.

That said, I think Grant was better as a strategist than Lee was a tactician. Lee didn't understand the changes in military technology and technique, not to mention society, that were creating modern warfare; Grant did. I'd rather see Lee in charge of the America army in the war of 1812, Grant in WWII. During the Civil War, Grant's Vicksburg campaign is superior to Lee's accomplishments.

The real answer to this question, of course, is Sherman.

Booooo ckroberts! First, which NFL team did either of those coachesd take to the Super Bowl? Second, had grant been in charge during WWII our casualties would have been unbearable. Grant had the advantage of material and men.

The real answer is Stonewall Jackson.

Ooh, a comparison of NFL and college coaches is even better. Some coaches are great at one, some the other, because they're different skill sets.

Grant's causalities in the east were high because he knew it was the key to ending the war. If you inflict more casualties on an enemy who is less able to afford them, you will win. Grant worked differently in the west. Allow me to borrow from Wikipedia: "Despite his ultimate success in winning the war, historians have often considered Vicksburg his finest campaign—imaginative, audacious, relentless, and a masterpiece of maneuver warfare. James M. McPherson called Vicksburg "the most brilliant and innovative campaign of the Civil War"; T. Harry Williams described it as "one of the classic campaigns of the Civil War and, indeed, of military history"; and the U.S. Army Field Manual 100-5 (May 1986) called it "the most brilliant campaign ever fought on American soil.""

Great comments. This is what I enjoy about this forum.

Lee 100%

Lee :)

Grant, consdering he won, and Lee lost.

^--- lawl

i meant Gen. Lee.

double lawl

@Sbyvl ... if the South had nothing more than an even army as the North, it would have been over in a year.

@bo, but the South also had in a sense an easier task. They had fewer resources, true, but the North had to invade and conquer; all the South had to do was defend. The South also started the war with its best generals in place, while the North took a long time to get there. So, I guess what I'm saying is I agree, but that's not the whole story.

Based on Grant's leadership along with the other highly ranked men in the Union forces before him, I believe that it very well could have been the entire story. Strategically, the South had the easier task, but tactically, militarily, and morally, they were in the same situation as the North. The fact that they fought defensively does not make their task any easier.

It's also worth saying that it was the North that strongly believed in a quick resurrection of the Union and expected the war to be over in a year. That alone shows how much Lee and his companies truly brought to the Confederacy.

@Bosox: But they didn't. Lee had some good strategies, but considering he was in charge of the operation for the whole war, and with the North having some terrible generals early on, he should have been able to win by 1862. But the North won (Horray!) and the rest is history

Well, the South also expected the war to be over in a year. People thought wars were going to be like the old days, when you'd get your army and the other guy's and have a couple of goes and then that would decide it. Popular opinion made the same mistake in WWI, which the Civil War presaged in many ways.

To build on what you're saying, let's imagine that Grant was the Confederate commander from the beginning, and Lee the Union one. Would the war have lasted longer or been shorter? I'm not confidant with either answer. Lee's traditional tactics might have worked better as a Union commander, but he also declined some guerrilla-type tactics that might have made the war much more difficult for the invading Union forces. The South's long-term strategic situation was difficult: to win, it would have to wait out the Union and force a political victory (since conquering or even occupying for any length of time the North was beyond the power of any army in the world). But, the longer you wait, the more significant the economic-demographic advantages of the Union. Lee tried to solve this problem by winning straight-up battles against the Union army, to wear down northern opinion. That didn't work. Maybe Grant would have found the solution.

But probably not. Grant and Lee were both good, but they weren't geniuses like Napoleon or Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. A military victory for the South would have required that kind of brilliance.

General Lee obviously, but if we're discussing all American generals (who commanded units larger than a theater), Patton was one of the best with Winfield Scott up there as well.

In terms of smaller-than-theater commanders, Lieutenant General James M. Gavin (82nd Airborne, WWII) and General William T. Sherman both deserve a nod.

First of all, any head-to-head comparison is difficult because by the time Grant and Lee faced each other Grant had such an overwhelming superiority in men and materiel that it wasn't really fair - although lesser generals managed to botch that advantage. But, that being said, I'm a Grant man all the way. My arguments are as follows:

Grant's campaign in the rear of Vicksburg in May 1863 was indeed a feat of brilliance. First, he skillfully deployed his best cavalry commander, Grierson, in a smashingly successful raid the length of Mississippi. Obviously Grierson gets a lot of credit for the actual operations, but the strategic move was Grant's choice. Next, Grant did what Lee never managed to do in the whole war: conduct a successful offensive campaign. The terrain favored the South, weapons and tactics favored the defenders as they did through the whole war, numbers were roughly even when Grant crossed the Mississippi, and Grant cut himself loose from his supply bases, but Grant managed to fight and win 5 offensive battles in the span of two weeks, including the capture and destruction of a state capital. The end result was a major strategic victory and the capture of the 35,000 man Vicksburg garrison.

Grant's major strategic win at Vicksburg sealed the South's fate - unless Lee could manage a successful invasion of the North. Lee bungled badly by allowing his best cavalry commander to wander away from the main army, which allowed Meade to put his army in a strong position. Lee gave battle when he shouldn't have, and even with Sickle's colossal and insubordinate blunder on day two giving the South a chance to win, Lee couldn't get it done. Still, he tried to attack again on day three - talk about throwing men away - and got hammered. Lee's invasion ended with a terrible loss to a third-rate general. Which brings up the fact that his first invasion of the North was also a debacle and, if he had faced any general even slighly more intelligent or courageous than McClellan, the whole army of Northern Virginia would have been destroyed in 1862.

So my vote goes to Grant.

For a good read try..."Gone for Soldiers by Jeff Shaara, 2000. Robert E. Lee and Winfield Scott in the Mexican War struggling against the extraordinary tactics (and ego) of Mexican dictator Santa Anna, with a young cast of characters (Grant, Longstreet, Jackson) not yet famous for their future roles in the Civil War."

I didn't even realize this was a debatable issue, learn something new everyday, I guess. I think the answer comes down to numbers. Stats are from wiki, so not the most accurate, but you get the idea.
Grant's victories:
Vicksburg: Grant-77000 men Confederates-33,000
Petersburg (if you call being stalled for nine months a victory): Grant-67000-125000, Confederates: 52,000
Even at Shiloh, Grant would have lost, had not Beauregard's troops not been to exhausted to finish him off.

Lee's Victories:
Seven Day's Battles: Lee: 92,000 Union: 102,000
Second Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run): Lee: 50000 Union: 62000
Chancellorsville: Lee: 61,000 Union: 134,000

Lee had less men, less supplies, less everything except command talent. Orson Scott Card even references this in Ender's Shadow, and says that Lee was brilliant. Grant simply knew that if he threw x number of men at the Confederates, no amount of tactical brilliance could save them.
Had Lee been in command of the Union, would the war have ended sooner? Of course. Why else did Lincoln want him? The war would have ended at the First Battle of Bull Run.
That said, yes, Lee made mistakes. At Gettysburg he positioned poorly and didn't really have a shot at it. Although I disagree that Meade was "third rate", but that's another matter.
Also, his first invasion. Lee fought Antietam to what really was more of a tactical draw; he simply didn't have the men nor supplies to fight on at that point. What is truly amazing is that he did that when McClellan had his battle plan in his hands.
As far as Grant, his campaigns weren't that remarkable given his resources.
And Sherman was just a douchebag. Seriously.

General Fleischer

Neither are of the calibre of the Australian General Sir John Monash, whose meticulous planning and application of integrated warfare brought four years of trench warfare to an end in four hours at the battle of Ameins.

@Jetsfan - the stats for Vicksburg are stats for the seige. When Grant initially crossed the Mississippi in late April/early May he had about 50,000. He was opposed by Pemberton and Johnston who had a roughly equal number of troops. The real fighting took place while the numbers were still equal, and Grant whipped them soundly. Admittedly, Pemberton and Johnston were second-rate generals, and things may have been different if Grant had faced Lee in the west.

Or, what if Lee had dispatched a truly competent general like Jackson to command in the western theater? Jackson vs. Grant might have been a different outcome, and if Grant's army had been beaten while still cut off from supply bases the whole 50,000 man force would have been lost - the crushing victory the South needed so desperately.

But the fact is, Lee failed to put a competent man in charge in the West. For all it's vaunted superiority in generalship, the South came up empty at the point of greatest crisis. And that's another mark of Grant's superiority to Lee. Grant found a great general in Sherman and unleashed him to tremendous destructive effect. Many consider Sherman to be a better general than Grant, but the fact is that when Sherman was in command earlier in the war he had a mental breakdown, and it was only when he was placed under Grant that Sherman truly blossomed as a leader.