Table 10 CIVIL WAR TACTICAL EVALUATION

SUMMARY AND COMPARISION

Name Yr Born USMA Grdrnk %-tile Yrs EVAL Number % Vic F/EIDX %SPRS raw score %score
Banks 1816 - - - - - - - - 2 4 0.25 1.03 0.0 1.28 0.34
Thomas 1816 40 12/42 0.71 20 3 6 0.83 1.00 0.16 1.99 0.52
Rosecrans 1819 42 5/56 0.91 12 2 3 0.67 0.92 0.0 1.59 0.42
Sherman 1820 40 6/42 0.86 13 3 9 0.67 1.22 0.0 1.89 0.50
Grant 1822 43 21/39 0.46 11 1 13 0.46 0.32 0.15 0.93 0.24
Burnside 1824 47 18/38 0.53 6 2 4 0.75 0.43 0.0 1.18 0.31
McClellan 1826 46 2/59 0.97 11 2 4 0.25 0.92 0.0 1.17 0.31
Johnston,J.E. 1807 29 13/46 0.72 31 2 4 0.50 1.17 0.0 1.67 0.44
Lee 1807 29 2/46 0.96 31 5 13 0.85 2.29 0.31 3.45 0.91
Bragg 1817 37 5/50 0.90 19 2 4 0.25 1.07 0.25 1.57 0.41
Beauregard 1818 38 2/45 0.96 22 3 4 0.75 1.19 0.25 2.19 0.58
Longstreet 1821 42 54/56 0.04 19 3 12 0.50 1.18 0.17 1.84 0.48
Jackson 1824 46 17/59 0.71 5 4 10 0.91 1.66 0.50 3.07 0.81
Hood 1831 53 44/52 0.15 8 0 7 0.0 0.40 0.0 0.40 0.11
Fredrick II 1713 - - - - - - - - 4 9 0.89 1.35 0.33 2.57 0.68
Wellington 1769 - - - - - - - - 3 11 1.00 0.91 0.18 2.09 0.55
Napoleon I 1769 - - - - - - - - 3 34 0.85 1.10 0.33 2.28 0.60
Napoleon I ('96-'09) 1769 - - - - - - - - 4 20 0.95 1.54 0.33 2.82 0.74

This table gives some startling results. Many civil war readers are likely to be appalled by Grant’s very low rating. This derives from a low winning percentage and poor loss/efficiency ratings. Yet, with such low ratings it should be expected that an overall low rating would result. Thus it’s difficult to fault the quantitative rating process for the result. Also a number of other generals receive lower ratings as would be expected, i.e. McCellan, Burnside, Rosecrans and Banks. There appears to be at least some basic validity to the rating process. Civil war readers may also be appalled to see the very high rating accorded Lee by this process. Again, having high winning percentage and high loss/efficiency ratings resulting in high rating should not make this surprising. Also very surprising to many readers may be the comparison with Fredrick, Napoleon and Wellington. Here again, these figures receive appropriately higher ratings as would be expected. Thus the rating process is validated to some extent. Recognizing the obvious limitations of a quantitative evaluation, this process is useful in highlighting the uneven results from many subjective analysis of civil war generals.

The distribution of values also tends to confirm the validity of the process. Superior command performance is clearly a somewhat unusual characteristic. The distribution here shows only one really superior rating, two poor ratings, and the majority in the mid-range. Distribution = 1x5; 1x4; 4x3; 6x2; 1x1; 1x0; very roughly mimicking a normal distribution.

Column headings = USMA-West Point Class; Grdrnk-Class standing ; %-tile- percentile standing; Yrs- years pre-war army service;
EVAL-command performance rank; Number-battles; % Vic-per cent battles won;F/EIDX-friendly/enemy hit index;
%SPRS-per cent surprise; raw score-total score; %score-score as normalized from 1-100, High score=90

M. Collie May 1993

Back