American History Hit - America's Bloodiest General

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Ruthless tactics. Extreme violence. The loss of huge numbers of their own troops. The deaths of the most opposing troops. What makes a general 'bloody'? And who fits that description best?In this first of four episodes on American Generals, Don and Jonathan Bratten sort through the rolodex of military leaders. Robert E. Lee, John Bell Hood, John J. Pershing or Douglas MacArthur. Who will win this unwelcome title?Major Jonathan D. Bratten is command historian for the Maine National Guard and a regular guest on American History Hit. He has written extensively on the history of Guard units from states across New England. His book is entitled 'To The Last Man: A National Guard Regiment in the Great War, 1917-1919'.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Richard Power. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code AMERICANHISTORY.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. September 18, 1862, as dawn breaks, a blood-red sun edges upwards over the horizon, casting its light on a killing ground.

Residents of nearby Sharpsburg, Maryland, carefully picked their way across the field where, just yesterday, a vicious battle ensued between Union and Confederate troops. Now, what was once a peaceful and prosperous farm has been reduced to three brick structures, smoldering in the morning haze. Here lie the men who fell, casualties whose numbers will eclipse any other single day of this four-year war, never mind those beyond. No matter the uniforms they wore, these are all soldiers who were brought to this place and to this end by orders of the men ranked above them, themselves answerable to the general who planned

the day, and who, knowingly or not, dispatched so many to their deaths. So the question, does the bloodiest day of war define who was the bloodiest general in U.S. history? Good day American History hit listeners. Glad to be with you. I'm Don Wildman. It is often said of history's great generals. They possessed strategic brilliance, seeing the battle before it unfolded, tactical ingenuity, flexibility in the fight. Unshakeable decisiveness, calculated certainty, and engineers command of logistics and supply. But there's another measure of these men, which to my mind is more basic and defining than all the rest. It's called the moral weight of command, the capacity to send others into mortal danger, to trade lives for military advantage, and then carry forever the price of those decisions.

All generals in combat must contend with this factor and nonetheless stand resolute. So today in this episode, we'll explore a few of those American generals who most famously fit this bill. whose legacies tell the tale of those at the top who were known especially for the casualties of their wars. Who were the bloodiest generals in U.S. history? And is there one who stands above the rest? We'll speak again with military historian Major Jonathan Bratton of the Maine National Guard, author of the book, To the Last Man, a National Guard regiment in the Great War, 1917 to 1919. Also, friend of the show, who's made numerous appearances in other episodes. Hello, Jonathan.

Welcome back to American History Hit. It is great to be back, Don. Thanks so much. We've sure said that a lot to you. Okay. In this episode, we'll do four generals, okay? Sadly, we could tell the tale of others responsible for the ultimate costs of war. But I wanted to ask you first.

A question. When soldiers are trained to go into battle, are they also trained not to question the decisions of those above whose choices put them at such risk? Oh, now that's a question. Sorry. Historically, in armies across time, yes. In the American Army, no. I think every single American commander would agree with when Washington takes command of the Continental Army in 1775, he sort of makes this comment of, I have inherited command

of some of those disagreeable, argumentative soldiers who don't know their place. You know, they won't shut up. They keep talking back. And, God, these New Englanders, like, use first name basis with their officers. and the Marylanders all think that they're extra special, and my Virginians are literally fighting each other with fists. This is sort of what every sort of commanding officer of Americans has always almost universally bemoaned is Americans have the trait

of not knowing when to shut up and not keep our opinions to ourselves. So when it comes to obeying and disobeying orders, and especially ones that could get you killed, well, the whole problem, right, of war is that a lot of it involves killing and being killed. And so when you talk about obeying, disobeying orders for, hey, you know, go take this company and attack that machine gun position, well, maybe if you, you know, line everyone up and just have them walk straight towards them all in 1914, that's a quick way for people to realize, hey, you know, I'm going to refuse this command. but generally speaking, in American military history, there are rare, very rare moments of orders not being

obeyed because of fear of a leader making a poor decision. Now, there are delays, absolutely. There are other ways of sort of getting around orders that might be viewed as overly destructive. But generally speaking, this is one of those things that you can look at sort of an amphibious landing as a great example. know when that ramp goes down, it's going to get bad. But you also know this is what has to be done. And so when push comes to shove, you have soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen, I guess, guardian space, whatever now, who look at that and go, all right, well, this is what needs to be done to accomplish the mission. I signed the dotted line. Here we go. Yeah. Well, it's one of the basics. I assume that that's sort of taught in schools, military schools. That's the way it goes. You know, you're the first man out. You're the first man out. And here you go.

Okay, today's criteria is gruesome, a bloodiest general who has caused the most injuries to their own troops, to opposing troops, to civilians. So let's begin with a controversial choice, General Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate forces in the Civil War, of course. He was commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia associated with inflicting more American casualties than any other enemy combatant. We have to remember, he's the enemy in this. He's not with the United States. This is a bit of a stretch. His strategies often involved aggressive high-risk assaults, didn't he? He took a lot of chances, that guy. He took a lot of chances, and he took a lot of casualties. So if we throw our minds back to George Washington, sort of as the poster child for how to fight a war outnumbered and win, fight against a sort of what seems like on paper a superior opponent and win, Washington declined battle more often than not. He maneuvered. He tried to wear. down his enemy through attrition. He tried through light attrition, though, not through major battles. But this is a different type of war that we're seeing in the Civil War vice the American Revolution.

All these generals in the American Civil War have been brought up on the Napoleonic idea of a decisive battle, which is in itself inherently problematic, because if you're going to talk about bloody generals, Napoleon Bonaparte's got to be right up there at the top of that list. His wars, both with the French Revolutionary armies and then with the wars that are given his name from 1803 to 1815, are insanely bloody. Even his decisive victories are incredibly bloody. He spends lives as if they are almost nothing. And so if that's your model of generalship, boy, why are we surprised that these guys in the Civil War with now technology that has enabled a higher rate of fire and much greater accuracy out to longer Rangers. Why are we surprised that the body count goes up? With Lee,

rather than avoiding battle, he seeks from the very beginning when he takes command of the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring, summer of 1862, he is seeking a decisive battle. And there's a whole bunch of reasons for this. He's looking at the larger scale. He's looking at diplomacy. He wants to have a Saratoga like event that will convince foreign powers to intervene in the war. He knows that this Confederacy doesn't have a lot of staying power. So if they want to do something, they need to do it now. They need to do it soon. That's his interpretation of his strategic position. And also, I think there is something a little bit bloodthirsty about Robert Lee. He has given this idea of this, you know, this kind, older, white-haired gentleman. He spends the lives of his troops at an insanely

high rate. If you look at the seven days battles when he takes command, but his attacks at Malvern Hill look like Pickett's Charge a year later, just on a slightly more miniature form. His losses at Antietam are stunning. It's 30% of his army that he loses. And even in what is called his greatest victory at Chancellorsville, I would disagree. I think Second Bull Run is his greatest victory. Chancellorsville, he loses another 11,000 of his troops to 13,000 of the enemy and also loses one of his core commanders, multiple division commanders.

He is fighting his own war of attrition on himself. It is almost stunning. And so he doesn't revert as an offensive-minded general. He doesn't have the manpower or logistics to back up his sort of aggressive, innate sense of the offense. And that is going to continuously destroy his army. and then when he gets to Grant, it's pretty much over. And then he continues to fight on through it.

One wonders how much Grant learned from Lee's tactics. I've always wondered if there was a cause and effect there. I don't think there was a cause and effect. There's a great moment in the Overland campaign where Meade's Army of Potomac staff officers are debating, well, what's Lee going to do now? What's Lee going to do now? And Grant sort of chimes in and goes,

I'm tired of hearing about what Lee's going to do to us. Let's talk about what we're going to do to him. But Grant is himself an offensive-minded general. It's hard when you compare, contrast, Lee, and Grant, because they both have sort of similar moments. You know, Grant has his last attack at Cold Harbor, which was in 1864, incredibly bloody affair. Lee has not just Pickett's charge.

He has an attack in the fall of 63, and the campaigns in Virginia that's like they've got Malvern Hill. He's got multiple sort of these front-on assaults that are just sort of catastrophically bloody. I think if I were to make a difference, I would say one was seeking to end the bloodshed, the other was prolonging it. If you look at Appomattox,

Lee's army is in a bowl. Amputs troops are on the high ground surrounding it, pretty much surrounding his army. Grant could give, he could say it any time, hey, we're going to solve this rebellion problem right now, I'm just going to blow Lee's army off the face of the earth. Instead, he sends another, remember, he's been sending repeated flags of truth to Lee to say, in order to prevent the effusion of blood, I am asking for a negotiation to end hostilities.

This is not Lee saying, I want to save my people. I, hey, I can see their writings on the wall. Our armies are in retreat everywhere. I am getting my ass handed to me at every. every location, you know, I came to Appomattox for supplies and your cavalry got here before me and your cavalry beat me. Like, that's how bad I am, is your support arm is beating me. And it's Lee who's always continuing to try to find a way to fight on. If you look, again, Antietam is another great example. Lee loses, as I said, 30% of his army, crosses over the Potomac. Longstreet's like,

his subordinate's like, hey, man, cool, good, I'm glad we got out of there. I thought we were going to lose. And Lee goes, all right, we need to figure out how to cross the Potomac. and go back into the fight. And Long Street's like, are you insane? We have 20,000 of our army refused to cross the Potomac, and they're hiding out in the Shenandoah Valley as deserters. We need to go, like, do something about that before we can advance again.

So always there's this idea in Lee's brain that if he just does this next thing, he will win, whereas Grant is like, I am just trying to cause this bloodshed to end. That's where I stand on those two compared to each other. Got it. I think one fact to keep in mind is we can do this, comparison of our four generals. The first Confederate invasion of Union-Hulled territory, of course,

is Gettysburg, and Lee makes that choice. He leaves Pennsylvania with less than half of the army of North Virginia intact. Pretty bloody story there. Next on our list is another Civil War Confederate, much lesser known, General John Bell Hood. Brave, aggressive, personally led charges into battle, unlike some of the other men's we're going to talk about. His tuberculosis, Lossed over 1,000 men at the second battle of Bull Run. Catastrophic losses at the Battle of Franklin, Nashville, during the Tennessee campaign later on. 23,000 Confederate troops hurled at entrenched Union Army in Franklin, 1864. I'm talking about incredible stories that this guy goes through.

A bloodthirsty guy, am I right? John Bell Hood is highly aggressive, which is great from time to time. He doesn't have that thing in his brain that says, hey, this is a bad idea. Maybe we shouldn't do this. When you're a lower level commander and the idea of I'm going to utilize my own initiative, I'm going to find the weak spot of the enemy and attack there,

leave John Bell Goodhood as a brigade or division commander. You're good. Just leave him at those levels. Even there, you're going to, like you said, his losses at second bowl run. and then three weeks later, his divisions pretty much decimated at the cornfield at Antita, just a few men left. It's absolutely insane.

But he has this persona of this aggressive leader. And so the Confederate High Command, when they're looking at who to replace all their officers as their core commanders, they keep having Corps commanders getting killed or wounded or retiring when they say, I can't do this anymore. This is insane. They keep coming up with Hood. We're like, oh, man, this guy is great. He's super aggressive.

He's a go-getter. He seizes the initiative. That's all good. But you also have to know that, you know, the difference between seizing the initiative to maneuver on your enemy, find a weak spot, and drive through versus seizing the initiative and just going straight ahead. And Hood's body itself is going to show the almost folly of John Bell Hood, which is that he will lose an arm and a leg in the war.

If you're an army commander and your troops see you coming along and you have one arm and one leg, they might say, oh, he's very brave, this is good. Or they might say, boy, I'm not sure that this guy makes the right decisions. And I don't know that we want this guy in command. And as he said, Battle of Franklin, Confederate President Jefferson Davis gives Hood command of the Southern Army down in Georgia, relieves Johnson of command, puts Hood in command following Atlanta. And Hood takes off into Tennessee. Sherman just goes, if he'll just keep going, I will give him.

I will give him supplies to allow him to reach the Ohio because now he's not pursuing me. He's not in my way. I can march to Savannah. And also, we've got three field armies operating up there. And that's where Hood smashes his army against the walls of George H. Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, the Sledge of Nashville, who really disintegrates this Confederate field army in front of him.

And so the hood is this sort of tragic figure of a guy who really, who was promoted, beyond his own capabilities. Also, who was just absolutely high on laudanum most of the war because of his wounds. There you go. Interesting. I don't even know how you fight without a leg. He had this idea.

A frontal attack would restore discipline and camaraderie in his troops, though he wouldn't usually do a frontal attack of an entrenched enemy of the same size or greater. And that kind of sums it all up for John Bell Hood, right? Sure does. Over six months, Hood had lost 75% of the Army of the Texan. Tennessee's fighting force. The man was relentless. All right, let's take a break, leave these Confederates well behind. When we come back, we'll move into the 20th century and the World Wars. We're back with Major Jonathan Bratton questioning the legacy of a few of history's bloodiest generals who fought for the Americans. Jonathan, in your military mind, historically

speaking, as the technology of killing grows in the 20th century, did military leaders, the generals were talking about, have to grow their capacity for death and mayhem. As the machinery became more vicious, did the men have to become so too? Oh, undeniably. Absolutely. You see this the most starkly in the Second World War and specifically with the Army Air Corps, eventually Army Air Force. Curtis LeMay, not on our list, but probably should be. As commander of the Air Force in the Pacific, with strategic bombing, not just the atomic. And we're not talking the atomic bomb. We're talking about the scientific and deliberate destruction

of Japanese cities to the point where by the end of 44, we'd run out of cities to burn through firebombing. To LeMay, you know, he said at the end of the war, he said, yeah, it's a good thing we won this. Otherwise, I would probably be tried for war crimes. Wow. That is a level of killing that I think, since it's done from the air, it has this almost impersonality of it, where if it's on the ground,

I think a ground commander, even, you know, even as someone almost as bloodthirsty as a patent might say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, that's too much. Like, we've got to tone it down. So you're absolutely right. I think when the addition of technology creates a new scale and a new precedent for what we consider as acceptable in killing, is that we're not. we're still very much dealing with to this day. Well, the, you know, the nuclear deterrent ends up being the final chess piece that sort of freezes things in place in theory. Of course it hasn't.

But that's what, you know, as technology has grown, it has challenged men's capacity for dealing with what it can do. So let's talk about World War I, famously a meat grinder conflict. We didn't suffer nearly the casualties incurred by our eventual allies or enemies. We joined the game late. Nonetheless, one general, John Pershing, Blackjack, earns a place in history for the blood spilled in his actions. He is famously central to the Muzagon battle,

the highest American death toll in World War I for a single battle, well, ever for a single battle. 26,277 Americans die in this battle. Takes place in the Verdun region of France. Begins September 26, 1918. How much did Pershing know what he was getting into? And was he just willing to spend lives? Man, we could talk for a really long time about how I feel about John Pershing.

There's a few things. One, Pershing sets this stage early on for American casualties to be high for this war. When he states in 1917, and then this is reflected in infantry manuals up until early, almost mid-1918, that, yes, artillery is important. Yes, machine guns are important. Yes, air coordination is important. But the most important thing is that the American rifleman with the bayonet is what's going to win this war. That's what's going to force the Germans out in the open.

Just sort of brushing away three years of that being the worst possible thing to do. Pershing is going to doggedly persist with this idea of open warfare, this theory that if he can just get out of the trenches, he can create maneuver space that will bring about the German defeat. And he designs the American divisions to be massive. So most divisions at this time, the French, Germans, British, 14 to 15,000. American divisions are 28,000. They are meant to take casualties and keep on rolling. So literally his intent is to take casualties.

His favorite division commanders, such as Robert Lee Bullard, who, yes, is named for Robert really. Command of the first division will famously, you know, the first division will family say, we took more casualties than any other division in the AEF. And you've got a whole bunch of other officers who are like, that's not a thing to be proud of, guys. Like that's, sure, sometimes you are going to have to take losses, but really just throwing troops into a meat grinder for just because it's not a strategy. So all of that to say that by the time we are poised for the Muzargon offensive, which is in, you said, it's around Verdun. Anyone who's ever been there knows that this terrain is god-awful. It's around the heights of the muse. So it's high ground. It's rolling. It's got ravines.

It's got divvits. It's got hills. Also, it's a micro-terrain that makes it really obnoxious. That's along the muse. Into the Argonne Forest. This is forest. Like, this is not just like American woods. This is heavy, old-growth European forest. Like, nightmares come out of this place. Like, this is where, no, there's a reason that Europeans set fairy tales in these places. And the Germans have been preparing for this offensive along this front ever since they took this ground in 1915. So concrete pillboxes, trenches, barbed wire everywhere. It's a very, very, very difficult part of the front. Everyone knows this.

Pershing knows it, asks for it. Because if he breaks this part, it will leave the city of Mets and Sedan open to the American. Americans to take. And in his mind of the American army that he has fought to keep together, so as two field armies fighting together, if they can take Mets and Sedan, then that will show America's place in the world. Now, try communicating that to your average doughboy. Yeah, it's called the Hindenberg line. How did this work out for him? Did he succeed in his endeavor? So, yes, so the muse is gone offensive. Yes, it is the bloodiest battle in American history, but it's also the longest. It goes from September 26th to November 11th. It's fought in three phases

involving approximately 430,000 U.S. troops. So, you know, you've got to throw a few caveats in there, like, yes, it is the bloodiest, but it is the biggest and also the longest. There's a couple of reasons why it is bloody. Pershing makes the choice to begin this division with fresh troops who have not just taken part in the Samiel offensive just two weeks prior. And those are all his most veteran division. So first off, you've got your first push is all guys who are new to the,

relatively new to this with the exception of a few divisions. That means that the first phase of the Muzergan offensive is an absolute bloodbath, almost collapses within days, sort of has to do a reset. Pershing has to do a lot of self-evaluation. One, he has to realize he can't command, you know, he's been in command of one of the field armies and realizes he can't do that. He has to give up command, be the overall strategic commander, allow his subordinates to take charge.

He has to come up with a way to relieve divisions from the front lines. lines in a reliable way to allow them to recuperate, to rest, to recover, to reset before they come back in the line. And yes, in the end, the Musaergan Offensive is greatly successful in an area that all the allies admit is one of the most, if not the most difficult front along the sort of Western Front area. But it comes as such a shocking cost that it is only because of Pershing's popularity with the success of winning the war, ending it in November. It was not supposed to end,

really, Allied planners did not think it was going to end until spring, maybe summer of 1919. It ends in November of 1918, such as Pershing's popularity because of it that he doesn't have to face congressional inquiry, but only just.

He has brought up on inquiry as to why he ordered attacks on the morning of November 11th when everyone knew that the war was going to be the armistice was going to be happening. But that is really all that keeps public opinion from turning against. But one wonders if it was Pershing's tactics that convinced the Germans to give up because at first they didn't think the Americans were willing to spend lives.

And boy, was he willing to do that. We're going to move on now to our last of our four generals, the one and only Douglas MacArthur, who had fought in World War I. Has a heck of a resume that many people don't realize. His father, General Arthur McArthur, the name itself, war crime, was in the Civil War on the Union side, and then he went on to serve in the Philippines and elsewhere. MacArthur was perhaps the most iconic, in my opinion, iconic American general ever in terms of

being the model image of the cultivated general with the corncob pipe and the whole thing. He was well known for having high casualty actions, decorated multiple times for bravery in World War I, conferred later with the Medal of Honor for his courageous leadership during the disastrous Philippines campaign, 1941 to 42. It was particularly the Battle of Luzon and the Battle of Manila later on. I mean, there's so many chapters in any of these guys' stories, but I'm skipping over so much. Those Philippine battles saw extremely high fighting, high casualty rates for all sides, both Americans and Filipino, as well as massive civilian casualties during the fighting in Manila. MacArthur is such an icon. He almost outsizes himself, you know, in terms of what happened.

during his battles, you know, to the general reader of history. Where do you put General Douglas MacArthur in the pantheon of these bloodiest generals? Douglas MacArthur has to rank up there among some of the bloodiest generals in American history. As you said, you know, he was very well known. Well, there's a reason for that. He was one of the first American generals to understand what publicity is. Then he sought it and he catered it throughout his entire career. And he also sought casualties early.

If you look at his combat record in World War I, yeah, multiple distinguished service crosses, but also multiple frontal assaults. His actions at Krahruj Farm, his first brigade action, is literally just sacrificing a bunch of Alabamans for really no reason at a farm manned with a couple machine guns against him, with his guys getting mowed down. He is going to, I like to say that MacArthur made only three good decisions in his military career. One was ending hazing at West Point when he was the superintendent. The other was his island hopping campaign.

in the Pacific, and the other was his In-Shahn landing. And at every other point in his career, when MacArthur was presented with a, hey, this could be a good decision or a bad decision, he almost always went with a bad decision. So I will actually defend, stand up for him, even with his casualties on Luzon in 1945 and the fighting that begins late 44, 45, because if you look at his counterpart, so MacArthur is commanding through the Southwest Pacific, through the Central Pacific, as Admiral Nimitz.

The Navy and Marine Corps in World War II, when they look at how to take an island, they look at ending the battle is more important than anything else. So doing it rapidly. General Holland Smith, Marine Commander, will famously rack up insane numbers of casualties by frontal assaults in the Central Pacific

because of this idea. The Army and the Southwest Pacific is willing to take more time. So MacArthur does bypass a lot of islands that his counterparts might have fought on, saving a lot of lives. He then gets into the Philippines, and this is, as you say, one of his most controversial points. Was it necessary to fight it out for Manila? Was it necessary to fight it out in Manila having the 37th ID and the 1st Cavalry Division fighting out street by street through Manila itself? Corregador, Batan, and then...

the biggest one, Okinawa. Many military theorists and historians at the time and today have said, well, you know, he could have operated through, he could have starved these garrisons out, he could have looked at other ways of getting rid of these forces in that last layer of defense before the Japanese home islands. And lest, I can't believe I'm going to do it, I'm going to say something in MacArthur's defense,

but he is also looking at the longer he gives the home islands time to prepare, the more costly that fight is going to. to be. All that to say that I agree with you, but I think it's more, I mean, even just the way that he handles domestic operations, how he handles the bonus army in 1932, is to use force against his own soldiers, his own veterans from World War I. He is a guy who is going to confront these problems head on and go right into it. So he's got to be ranked right up there with the bloodiest. And surprisingly so for many people, because of his image.

It's so colors the way we think about him for many people. We're skipping so many. I'm curious if you'd add a few names to this list yourself of bloodiest generals. I think from the American perspective, Patton's got to be up there. He is another guy who is a problem of aggression, aggression versus risk. Mark Clark, another one, who, you know, in Italy, when asked post-World War II, because he was also a of World War I when asked, or the commonalities of the American soldier between both world wars, he's just sort of ruefully said, well, they both knew how to die well.

And I was like, oh, my God, that's dark. And that says something about your generalship. So almost the default are those that choose the easy way of, all right, let's just, you know, head down, let's get through this. It's so much harder to marshal the forces needed to forces and equipment and logistics needed to find another way of winning. There's examples throughout the Civil War of generals who won by not massacring their troops, who almost got blamed for it. General Rosecrans has an incredible campaign through Tennessee in 1863 that maneuvers Braxton Bragg, the Confederates, out of the state

without fighting a battle, and then almost loses all of it because of the Battle of Chickamauga. So you often have the idea that not fighting is somehow weak, whereas fighting is strong. And so this is what bedevils, military historians and theorists constantly. It's what keeps them going to bars and yelling at each other over these things until the bartenders ask them to leave. And it is probably what keeps academia rolling, or at least the part that does military history. I want to read the book that really addresses the psychology of a general who has to go through this process. But I bet it hasn't been written because they wouldn't really want to admit that, would they? What kept them up late at night were the deaths of so many?

So there's an amazing moment. Lucian Trusket ends the war, I believe, a three-star general in Italy in World War II. He sort of takes over the Italian campaign after Mark Clark leaves after Rome, and he's got to fight up the boot for the remainder of the war. And there's this moment at the dedication of the American cemetery in Italy where he turns his back. He's up there to dedicate the main speech. And he turns us back on the audience and just turns to face his soldiers.

And he says something to the effect of, if any decision I made brought you to where you are laying here in this cemetery, I am truly and exceedingly sorry. And I did my best to try to keep as few of you here. And it's this really amazing human moment from a general we don't talk about hardly at all. Truscott. He's a little bit like Nathaniel Green in the American Revolution. He's sort of your Jack of All Trade's, your go-to guy. And it's a really remarkable statement that he makes that's profoundly moving and shows how many of these individuals wrestled with that. I can say, you know,

having commanded troops, that's always on your mind is that idea of, I have to complete the mission. I must do the thing. But what do I say to the parents? to the loved ones of these soldiers. And it's hard. It's very, very hard because you know that war means casualties, but if your job is war, you know, it's a very difficult thing to wrestle with. So many of my peers who lost soldiers in combat

is a thing that they continuously wrestle over and have to live with. It's either something that you create an outsized personality, like a MacArthur or a patent to sort of get beyond, or you know, you know, there's a lot of, self-awareness, I guess, that goes into that question. Or alcohol. Who knows? Okay, we've put you through our own grinder, Jonathan Bratton, so let's stake our ground here. I'm going to say, you've educated me on the offensive tactics of Robert E. Lee. I think this qualifies him for Bloodyest General

scaling, of course, to the times he lived in. But the fact that he was willing to go that route and spend lives in order to be, you know, more offensive than the union, it says a lot to me, and I'm going to put him at the top of my list. How about you? And I'm going to join you there simply because, you know, when he's besieged in Petersburg, he is consistently looking for a way to break out. He does have an offensive sort of lauded by many as this, oh, this great moment where one of his subordinates leads a breakthrough through Fort Stedman. The breakthrough is sealed within hours and the attack is utterly defeated, causing more casualties.

Lee's decision to continue fighting after the fall of Petersburg and the fall of Richmond and news coming from the south that Johnson's army is getting defeated into the Carol. line is, rather than saying, hey, we had a good run, let's see what I can do to get good terms, literally fighting until there is no, there was no alternative to the fight, to literally the alternative is extermination. That is a fanaticism that kills so many Americans on both sides that I just, I cannot reconcile that with this idea of a great general. That's where I'm sticking my flag. And the fitting ending of it all is his front yard becomes. Arlington National Cemetery for the burial of so many he killed.

Jonathan Bratton of the Maine Army National Guard, Major, has previously done Bunker Hill, Invasion of Canada. How good was George Washington and so many more of our episodes. We keep leaning hard on him, and thank you so much for doing it. Being willing. We'll talk to you soon again. Have a great day. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to American History Hit.

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American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.