Most Underrated Civil War General?

True, True. Though I thought Meade was pretty good.

Yeah, but against Lee he had reason to be.

Meade was OK, better than Burnside and Hooker, as timid as McClellan, but he would still fight at least. Grant was by far the best overall commander in the East.

No, he just simply dallied, and nothing more. Lee's army was battered and the Potomac was overflowing, thus uncrossable, and Meade just had to attack.

Meade had an even better time while Lee was withdrawing. He had to recross the Potomac to get back to Virginia, but the rivers were flooding, preventing a crossing. If Meade had attacked like lincoln suggested, the war could have been over.

There were lots of times when if Union generals had done if Lincoln had suggested, then the war would have been over.

But this time especially so. Lee had his back to the Potomac. Any commander would have seized the opportunity to destroy Lee's army, but McClellan dallied.

You mean Meade? Though of course McClellan dallied quite a few times himself.

Thanks for the correction, I do mean Meade. He may have fought, but he still was like McClellan in that he dallied at the worst moments.

We should give him a bit of slack though: He had been in charge of the army for two weeks.

True enough.

I agree that he was timid though. But at least Meade wasn't like Burnside, or Mac. Mac wouldn't have left Gettysburg for weeks, and Burnside would have lost the battle much later.

You have me there. Burnsides would have lost, and while McClellan may have won, it is doubtful he would even rush to destroy Lee's army. Hooker would have, but he would probably be to risky and get his army slammed.

I don't know if anyone put him yet, but Henry Jackson Hunt, and his confederate counterpart(ish) Porter Alexander. Henry Hunt was the army of the Potomac's chief of artillery, and is considered to be the best artillery tactician and strategist during the war. Porter Alexander was Longstreet's chief of artillery, and he was also a great artillery tactician. He was the leader of the massive cannon bombardment of Union troops right before Pickett's charge. Ironically, during this battle Hunt's artillery was providing counter battery fire against Alexander, so they have faced off. Of course Alexander couldn't do much because of his limited cannons and ammo. Hunt was most notable at Malvern Hill (Seven Days), Stafford Heights(Fredericksburg), Little Round Top (Gettysburg), Cemetery Ridge (Gettysburg), Pickett's charge (Gettysburg), and the siege of Petersburg, Virginia. They were both amazing artillery tacticians, and the civil war was arguably the first war where modern artillery was shown to be effective at assault and defense.

I completely forgot about Porter Alexander!

Not bad.

I can understand how you did

The Artilery were the forgotten heroes of the war. It's sad, really.

The artillery and the navy (David Farragut and David Porter off the top of my head) are completely forgotten.