The new piece of … documentary called America, by Dinesh D’Souza, posits “what would have happened if there was no America.” Its premise apparently begins with George Washington being shot in battle (though the trailer shows us nothing about what the film is really about). But Washington is shown riding a horse, saber drawn, galloping into battle in the front of his troops.
Did Washington ever lead from the front?
Yes, several times he had near calls with being shot. At Princeton he was leading from the front and rallied his troops around him, with a large British formation not too far away and essentially nothing in between him and the barrage of bullets they fired–it was simple luck he wasn’t hit or killed. Washington actually ordered his men to fire at the British while he was still in between them and the British formation, and guns of that time producing so much smoke as to obscure what was going on one of Washington’s officers was essentially certain Washington was dead–he was between two formations firing at each other. But when the smoke cleared he was still on his horse and unscathed.
Washington was regularly near the front in battle, he didn’t typically fight in the trenches but he didn’t shy away from the front, either. This wasn’t atypical of generals in this era of warfare as they would often want to be near key points of action to shout commands if necessary.
The General that Washington served under during the F&I War was killed basically because of that, and in that war there is tale that Washington had two horses shot out from under him. Benedict Arnold lost a leg and I believe had several horses shot out from under him while leading an army of Continentals. Being a general in this time period wasn’t akin to today where they sit way back at some command center. And it tended to be more involved than in the Civil War when the generals typically were not in the front but observing as much as they could with spyglasses and such to direct large troop movements. But most American Revolutionary War battles would not rate w/Civil War battles, the formations were much smaller and thus there was more sense to the generals being in the thick of it. Lee would have been too narrowly focusing his attention if he had done the same during a major Civil War battle. [Most civil war battles were small too, but several were very large and famous.]
Washington relieved an incompetent General and personally took charge at the Battle of Monmouth. There’s a famous painting.
Also bear in mind that the Revolutionary War largely featured muskets rather than rifles. Accuracy beyond very short range was not good, and the chance of getting killed by a sniper wasn’t very high.
Actually, the American Civil War was notable for the number of generals who were killed. Generals actually had a higher death rate per capita than privates. A hundred and twenty-four generals were killed during the war (compared to only forty out of a much larger pool in World War II).
It was a combination of a command system that still required generals to lead their troop in person on the battlefield with new weapons that made that battlefield much deadlier.
Yes, one of his officers actually took off his hat and covered his eyes, he was so sure he was going to see Washington shot from the saddle. When he peeked again, he was amazed to see the general unharmed after volleys from both sides.
An earlier thread that may be of interest: Was Washington a good general? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I wasn’t really talking about people whose rank had the word “General” in it per se, but persons who lead large independent military forces.
Washington was C-in-C of the entire Continental Army, it was extremely atypical for a General of that rank to be exposed to direct fire in the ACW. The only real generals of that rank were McClellan, Halleck and Grant on the Union side and Lee at the end of the war on the Confederate side. But even commanders of major forces like the Army of Northern Virginia (Lee) or the Army of the Tennessee (Sherman) didn’t typically lead from the front.
The Civil War featured over 2m persons at arms and a much different organization, typically the forces that Washington had direct command over would constitute anywhere from a Regiment (lead by a Colonel) or a Brigade (lead by a Brigadier General) in the ACW, and some rare instances where he had more forces than that (Yorktown at the end for example, but that was a long siege.) There were Generals that were leading from the front at Gettysburg but these were guys who were leading their Brigade into battle, Meade and Lee were absolutely not walking into the thick of it with their cap on their sword.
Well, Lee attempted it several times.
How about Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Army of Mississippi? He was the highest ranking field general in the Confederate Army - he was senior to Lee. And he was killed in the Battle of Shiloh leading his troops.
I’d say that was atypical, yes.
By your narrow standard, anything done by a general was atypical. If you choose to ignore all of the brigadier generals, major generals, and lieutenant generals, you’re left with only seven Confederates who held the rank of full general. (The Union army never appointed anyone higher than the rank of Lieutenant General during the war. And only Grant and Scott were promoted to that rank.)
The Confederates appointed eighteen Lieutenant Generals during the war. And three of them - Jackson, Polk, and A.P. Hill - were killed in combat.
Right–I pointed out what I meant by the term General, I was not using precise language and I feel I’ve cleared up what I meant subsequently. You are correct, the number of Washington-comparable Generals in the ACW is very low precisely because these are the very top layer of command. But I’ve already listed some of the Union Generals I feel meet this definition, and it wasn’t limited to Grant and Scott. I see no reason to further argue about what I meant when I made my first post, since I’m the final authority on matters such as that.
Not only did Washington lead from the front during the Revolution, he did so as sitting President, against the Whisky Rebellion:
So, he was not exposed to the same peril as during the Revolution, but I would think that is the last time a sitting President personally led military forces.
No. Acting on the Washington precedent, James Madison took personal command of the Militia when the British were attacking the capital in 1814 despite having never been in the military or led troops before. After the war, people realized it would be better to make Commander-in-Chief a policy-making role rather than a direct command.
Winfield Scott was brevetted to lieutenant general in 1847, but never fully promoted to that rank.
Yes, Madison was at the disastrous 1814 Battle of Bladensburg, Md. And yet there is one more example which turned out much better: Lincoln, dissatisfied by McClellan’s failure to attack Norfolk, Va. in early 1862, personally went ashore onto Confederate territory from a small boat and picked where U.S. forces should land. He then gave the order for the attack to take place.
Interesting, I did not know that. I knew that Lincoln was present during the Battle of Fort Stevens, and came under direct fire, but I don’t know whether he gave any orders to anybody on that occasion. http://www.nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/president-lincoln-under-direct-fire-at-fort-stevens.htm
From all I’ve read, Lincoln did not give orders at Ft. Stevens, but just observed the Confederate attack (and was brusquely ordered to take cover - by some accounts, by a young Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.).
I was at Shiloh recently and at the spot where Johnston was killed. When he was shot he was actually observing the battle from some 4-500ish yards back from the fighting. While plenty close enough I don’t think it could be counted as leading from the front.
Check out Chernow’s biography of Washington. Washington’s physicality (when he wasn’t sick) along with his extreme “physical courage” were a big part of his appeal. Even the Indians were impressed.
Here’s an excerpt from early in his military career, 1755:
I don’t think so. This map shows the location of the battlelines and where Johnston was when he was shot by a Union soldier. As you can see he was around two hundred yards from the enemy line and leading an attack when he was shot.