Washington, definitely, for his determination, courage, ability to learn, and inspiration he gave his men. Although he had his setbacks, he also knew when to take risks, and succeeded brilliantly when it really counted, during the siege of Boston and at Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown.
Winfield Scott should be considered on this list. The man whipped a disorganized militia into a real fighting army during the War of 1812 (Those are regulars, by God!), and superbly managed an amphibious landing, a long cross country fighting advance and the storming of Mexico City 35 years later and proposed a winning strategy for the defeat of the Southern Confederacy when he was in his dotage.
Uncle Billy Sherman deserves mention, although it will send my Georgian friend up a wall
I’ve gotta go with Ulysses S. Grant. He’s not a popular choice, but he was ahead of his time.
Other generals were just as good at tactics; Grant was a man who understood strategy, on a theatre-wide scale.
He has terrible mistakes at Cold Harbor and The Crater against him, though. I’ve always thought he did better out west, esp. during the Vicksburg campaign, than he did in the east.
The idea of the attack itself was sound. The planning (by Burnsides, astoundingly) was pretty good too. Then meddling from the army commander (Meade) changed the plan to used troops not drilled for the specific mission, and Burnsides was so dejected at being overruled he drew lots to select the new leader of the attack, getting his worst subordinate (Ledlie).
Grant’s role, as far as I know, had been to authorize the original idea, which was a good one.
Scott was the best, the invasion of Mexico was a brilliant feat, it is discounted now because we think it would be easy to invade Mexico. At the time Mexico was much closer to the US in terms of wealth. He was outnumbered severely and was on the opponents territory and had to attack enemy fortifications.
Andrew Jackson deserves a mention. Whatever else you might say about him, he knew how to lead men effectively. He’s not on the $20 for nothing.
Seconding Nathaniel Greene as (IMO) the best American general of the Revolution. Knew exactly what had to be done strategically to gain victory, and achieved it by draining Cornwallis’s command dry with a long chase through the Carolinas. (Props to Morgan as well.) Yorktowne was just George Washington mopping up after Greene had done the hard work. (Washington, by the way, belongs nowhere near a list of our greatest generals IMO.)
And I second the mention of George Thomas as one of our best Civil War generals.
Greene was quite good, indeed, but Washington was not just “mopping up after” him at Yorktown (no “e”). Far from it. Check out Victory at Yorktown by Richard M. Ketchum for the whole story.
I will throw in Hyman Rickover, the Father of the Nuclear Navy.
By all accounts he hated the idea of nuclear power, especially as used as a weapon, but he enacted the most stringent regulations on nuclear propulsion in the modern world and is the main reason why the US Navy has had zero reactor accidents in it’s nuclear history.