I’ve enjoyed reading these threads though I dont know enough about military history to vote. What has been posted about Pyrrhus intrigues me. Is there a book or a website (or plurals of these) you could recommend that entertainingly covers his exploits?
Man made a lot of craters. 
I don’t disagree with you, really. I just don’t consider him nearly that bad. He was a hit-or-miss general who tended to brilliant or terrible decision, with nothing in between. Not the kind of man I want around, but not the worst, either.
Since Cump’s gotten so much attention, I’ll again share his Sept. 1864 letter to the city leaders of Atlanta. I believe it’s the perfect expression of his views on the war, and is one of the most pungent statements around of Union war goals (actually rivaling anything Lincoln wrote). It’s well worth reading in its entirety: academicamerican.com - This website is for sale! - academicamerican Resources and Information.
Scoring should be up shortly.
The results of our 1st round of voting:
Ulysses S. Grant - 29
William T. Sherman - 28
Pyrrhus of Epirus - 8
Benedict Arnold - 6
Douglas MacArthur - 5
George Tryon - 4
Earl of Cardigan, Cloudesley Shovell - 3 each
Lord Chelmsford, William Hull, Curtis LeMay - 2 each
Oreste Baratieri, George Armstrong Custer, Heinrich Himmler, James II of England, John A. McClernand, Arthur Percival, Gaius Terentius Varro, Xerxes I of Persia - 1 each
smiling bandit voted a little late, but since that didn’t affect the elimination outcomes, I’ve tallied his votes too. Henceforth, however, all votes must be by the deadline or will not be counted.
Also, please be sure to use the name exactly as it appears below in casting your vote, unless it’s blindingly obvious who you mean (I had to search a bit for “Varus,” not realizing it was Varro).
The boldfaced leader(s) above are eliminated. That leaves:
Abdel Hakim Amer: Panicked, lost Sinai in 1967
Benedict Arnold: Top Continental general turned traitor
Oreste Baratieri: Routed by Ethiopians at Adowa
Braxton Bragg: Bungling, irritating Confederate general
Duke of Buckingham: Useless sycophant, incompetent military leader
Ambrose E. Burnside: Defeat from jaws of victory
Benjamin Franklin Butler: “Beast” hated in New Orleans
Luigi Cadorna: Lost twelve consecutively; hated, cruel
William Calley: Ordered, led My Lai Massacre
Earl of Cardigan: Charge of the Light Brigade
Christian de Castries: Dien Bien Phu loser
Charles Alexander of Lorraine: Sustained career of incompetence
Charles le Temeraire: Rash rather than “Bold”
Lord Chelmsford: Zulu dawn at Isandlwana
Crassus: Army pincushioned by Parthians
George Armstrong Custer: Cavalryman lost at Little Big Horn
Carlo di Persano: Loser of Lissa
William George Keith Elphinstone: Lost an army in Afghanistan
Maurice Gamelin: Relied on the Maginot Line
Horatio Gates: Fled headlong from Camden, S.C.
Gaius Claudius Glaber: Why fortify against slaves?
Hermann Goering: Prancing figurehead misused Luftwaffe
Rodolfo Graziani: Trounced in North Africa
Douglas Haig: Incompetent British WWI general
Bill Halsey: Leyte Gulf errors; two typhoons
Paul D. Harkins: Ignorant, overoptimistic in Vietnam
Heinrich Himmler: Nazi botched every field command
John Bell Hood: Recklessly stupid, lost Atlanta, West
William Hull: Surrendered peacefully to inferior forces
James II of England: Surrendered throne without a fight
Thom Karremans: Toasted Mladić, allowed Srebenica massacre
Hugh Judson Kilpatrick: Nicknamed “Kill Cavalry” for reason
Ernest J. King: Anglophobe disastrously opposed Atlantic convoys
James Ledlie: Drunk during Battle of Crater
Curtis LeMay: Reckless, nuke-happy SAC chief
Tiberius Sempronius Longus: Lost to Carthage at Trebia
Francisco Solano López: Almost unmade Paraguay
Douglas MacArthur: Dismissed from Korea by Truman
George B. McClellan: Timid, bungling, arrogant Union commander
John A. McClernand: Useless political hack hurt Union
Ratko Mladić: Ordered Srebenica massacre; since indicted
Napoleon III: Clobbered, captured at Sedan
Nicias: Commanded ill-fated Syracuse expedition
Arthur Percival: Surrendered Singapore to Japan
Philip VI of France: Crushed own army at Crécy
Maximilian von Prittwitz: Peed his pants in Prussia
Pyrrhus of Epirus: Invented new way of losing
Romanus IV of Byzantium: Lost Battle of Manzikert
Zinovy Rozhestvensky: Led Russian Navy to annihilation
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna: “Napoleon of the West”? Ha!
Cloudesley Shovell: Wrecked his fleet on Scilly Isles
Daniel Sickles: Almost lost Gettysburg single-handedly
Manuel Fernandez Silvestre: Lost badly in Spanish Morocco
Geoffrey Spicer-Simson: Naval commander undone in Africa
Frederick William Stopford: Blunderer at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli
George Tryon: Sunk his flagship on maneouvres
Gaius Terentius Varro: Blamed for defeat at Cannae
Publius Quinctilius Varus: Army totally annihilated in Germany
William Westmoreland: Brutal, unimaginative technocrat
William H. Winder: Lost Upper Canada; Washington burned
Xerxes I of Persia: Epic blunders in Greece
Zhao Kuo: Became idiom for “bad general”
Eliminated:
Ulysses S. Grant
William T. Sherman
Same rules for the next round, which will end at noon EST on Fri. Nov. 19.
Lord Chelmsford: got even at Ulundi 2
Benedict Arnold:2
Pyrrhus of Epirus 1
Benedict Arnold: 3
Pyrrhus: 2
Both for the reasons already discussed.
Pyrrhus 2 convinced by others’ advocacy
Douglas MacArthur 2
Will think more about the last one.
Round 2 voting! Yay!
Benedict Arnold -1 The man was a traitor, not incompetent. He effectively won Saratoga and when he was working for the British he was pretty devastating there for raids.
Earl of Cardigan -1 Again, he was an ass, but he got bad orders.
George B. McClellan -1 He wasn’t that horrible compared to other inept commanders. He also built the army that would defeat the Confederacy.
James II of England -1 He gave up without a fight because he knew his cause was effectively lost, at least at the time.
Lord Chelmsford: -1 Yes he lost a column at Islawanda. There were mitigating factors to the loss but it had the benefit of wiping out the bravest of the Zulus. I don’t think he lost a battle after that.
Benedict Arnold: 2. Same reasons as before, and as Mr. Miskatonic said.
Douglas MacArthur: 2. He wasn’t a horrible general, more horrible at politics.
James II of England: 1. He’s the king, he doesn’t have to be a military leader!
I’m gonna go with Pyrrhus: 2. Though he gave his name to “pyrrhic victory”, he was actually thought a great general of antiquity, and so doesn’t belong here.
Cloudesley Shovell: 2, for reasons already mentioned.
George Tryon: 1, same.
**James II of England **2 votes. He had no hope in England, was outnumbered in Ireland but fought well in Europe.
Earl of Cardigan 2 votes. I agree, he wasn’t good but wasn’t the worst.
Ernest J. King 1 vote. There is still much debate about his actions. His support of the Pacific campaign I believe was clearly correct. The lack of support for Convoys had more to do with his lack of available escort ships than his Anglophobia from what I understand. The man was an ass and clearly made mistakes but I don’t think he is the worst.
2 votes for Benedict Arnold - a fine general, and although he dabbled in treason, he redeemed himself by returning to the Crown’s service. Not his fault that fighting the colonists was too expensive to be worthwhile.
2 votes for Pyrrhus.
And I’ll wait on the last vote, for now.
Benedict Arnold, a traitorous scumbag but not a bad field general - 2
Pyrrhus, I’m convinced by the experts here - 2
James II of England, didn’t actually lose a battle on the field, just chickened out at the end - 1
Pyhrrus - 2
Benedict Arnold - 1
James II of England - 1
Cloudesley Shovell - 1: You’ve convinced me that what happened to him could have happened to any naval commander during that era, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt despite a truly disastrous mishap (I’m not as willing to give the same benefit to George Tryon. I don’t think it’s too much to expect an admiral to avoid ramming his ship into another ship!)
In my initial phrasing, I tried to separate the Anglophobia out from the convoy issue, but they may have gotten conflated at some point.
One group of, if I recall accurately, ten destroyers sat immobile in New York during Operation Drumbeat, and more Americans were killed sailing unescorted during that period than died at Pearl Harbor. King specifically refused to commit the destroyers for fear they’d be kept in the Atlantic on ASW duty where there was little chance for glory, and he’d have difficulty transferring them to fight a fleet action in the Pacific which was likelier to win appropriations for the Navy. The whole refusal to convoy was wrongheaded – convoy is an offensive technique, not a defensive one, as John Keegan has written, but in King’s case it was exacerbated by his desire to promote the Navy in the only theater he believed offered a chance for dramatic action and winning renown.
I believe the Americans had plenty of resources to convoy shipping if they weren’t deliberately holding back resources for the Pacific.
As soon as convoy was adopted, losses dropped. Over the whole course of the war, despite the German wolfpacks savaging numerous convoys, the loss of ships in convoy was negligible compared to unescorted losses. And the U-boats suffered disabling losses in the convoy battles and the highest casualty percentage of any arm of service in the war. Convoy was manifestly the correct solution and had so proved in the First World War.
I would have to see a cite on those 10 destroyers and then I would gladly concede he was an idiot. I never heard that before.
Replacing the eliminated Civil War generals for whom I voted:
Benedict Arnold – 2
Pyrrhus of Epirus – 2
Sticking with:
Xerxes I of Persia – 1
The rules state only two votes per voter per nominee.
Even if he’s just that bad… er, good.