Forgotten Generals

I'd plumb for Aethelstan the Glorious, King of all Britain.

Never heard of him?  Neither had I, but apparently he was pretty good.

Very informative thread.  Kudos to the thread starter!

--I agree totally with the assessment of Narses as a commander.
--But in fairness to Belisarius, Narses was able to do what Belisarius couldn't because Justinian trusted him with an army two to three times the size of the one he allowed Belisarius. Given a similiar force, most people would have bet that Belisarius, too, would have conquered Italy.
--And a quibble. During the Nika riots, Narses played an important part by entering the Hippodrome and buying off one of the factions and then later by being involved in the Imperial crowd control measures. But it wasn't his troops that did the Hippodrome surrounding and terminating with extreme prejudice; they were Belisarius' troops. Narses commanded the Imperial Bodyguard, but Belisarius commanded the army and the operation.

--The high point of Hampton's career was at the Battle of Trevilian Station, the largest all-cavalry battle of the Civil War. There he beat Sheridan and the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, forcing him to break off the fight and withdraw. He also came close to destroying Custer and his brigade.
--Though some might say the high point was when he took Lee's cavalry and raided deep into Grant's rear and captured some 2500 head of cattle. These were safely brought back to Confederate lines after a march of more than 100 miles, while fighting two engagements and suffering a total loss of about 60 men. It's called The Great Cattle Raid and is one of the larger cattle rustlings in American history.

Hampton was beaten by......Custer, at the Cavalry Field at Gettysburg. The main forces engaged were Hampton and Custers.

Wade Hampton who led the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia after Stuarts death was also uneducated militarically. plus he was never beaten when in command. both he and Forrest were also the only Cavalry Comamnder that would rise to the rank of Lieutenant-General in the Confederate Army.

about Tukhachevsky, not sure it was his invention though. the first Soviet Horse-Army was led by Budyonny and many Soviet commanders that would have a sucessfull career in ww2 served in it.

I'm NEW TO ALL EMPIRES!!!

....yeah, just thought i should get the traditional announcement of newbie status out of the way first...

I think that a lot of these people are DEFINITELY not mentioned as much as they should be. But if i had to choose two under-mentioned generals who i've always liked, i'd have to say that the first would be: the Mapuche General
Lautaro. The Mapuche were  (and are) a civilization native to a southern part of chile and an area of argentina. When the spanish decided to conquer that area, Lautaro was elected general (toqui) and ended up decimating quite a number of spanish military expeditions, and razing a number of forts. Some of his tactics are still studied in certain military academies. Granted, the mapuche held off spanish conquest for over 300 years, so lautaro was a small chapter in that time, but he was one of the most impressive ones.

Second (another native-to-the-americas general) would probably have been Wayna Qhapaq, an Inka emperor. In terms of sheer area conquered during his time as the leader, he was in the leagu of Alexander, Caesar, and the other "greats". Granted there aren't too many known little details of that time that i'm aware of, but i still find it impressive.

I must disagree Grant's overaland campaign was a sucess by any means, since at his conclusion Lee was pinned in the trenches in front of Petersberg with all the strategic mobility of an elefant with no legs.

I agree with Spartan and think Grant was better than Lee personally you can't blame him for his lack of success with the clumsy AoP.  If anybody wants to learn more about Grant and his genius try reading Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, perhaps one of the best ways to learn about the man is to study the weapon he forged in this lethal mobile hard fighting hard driving Army.

Edited by Laelius - 24-Apr-2007 at 21:47

I think that there is no such a thing like "best general" etc. I believe that circumstances create a grate general and his victories glorious...People (me too) often overestimate historical persons (and generals of course) because of their charmy personalities...