John Bell Hood: Not a great general, but Southern historian H.J. Eckenrode described him as— “A born fighter, a perfect animal organism without knowledge of fear, he was little affected by wounds that would have killed men of less superabundant vitality. In appearance, as in character, he was the typical Nordic fighting man, with his stalwart presence, his blue eyes and his long golden beard. He might have been Coeur de Lion reincarnated. It shows how unerringly race tells that in the last crisis of the Confederacy, when a fighter was demanded, the choice fell on this pure-blooded Nordic, this descendant of the viking past.”
Nathan Bedford Forrest was another absolute chad in every way: 6’3” (when average height was 5’6”), piercing blue eyes, chiseled features, and a genius mind. Born poor, he made himself wealthy as a businessman before the Civil War. He was one of only a few men on either side to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without previous military training. Nicknamed “The Wizard of the Saddle”, he revolutionized many cavalry tactics, and both the British and the French said the Confederate cavalry under his leadership was the greatest cavalry in the world. After the war, he founded the KKK. The man was a force of nature
>>18109104>>18109105Based
>>18109104Very cute. Still destroyed his entire army out of petty spite though.His subordinates, including Forrest, hated him because he would never stop bitching about how shitty his men were, and treated them all with contempt.
I honestly feel bad for most Civil War generals because they were often heroic men made for leading small armies into daring actions but got stuck in a modern industrial meatgrinder instead.
>>18109105Gigachad
>>18111174Its funny how that happened all the way up into WW1.
Hood was a good fighter leading a division but never should have been in command of an army. Which was worse though—Johnston’s retreating to the outskirts of Atlanta or Hood’s banzai charges?
>>18109105Forrest was a brilliant fighter but then there was the time he got into a brawl with a junior officer and sustained serious injuries while the other man died. A great leader doesn’t have the luxury of chimping out over “muh honor”.
>>18111255Are you retarded? Throughout human history that shit has happened.
>>18111352True, but most successful leaders govern their passions in a time of war. The CSA really needed their cavalry commanders when Vicksburg was threatened but Earl van Dorn gets shot by a jealous husband and Forrest has a ghetto brawl with a young lieutenant. He’s still a great general. Andrew Jackson got shot in a duel the year before New Orleans iirc so I guess you can be a hothead and still lead.
