I'm thinking Patton, because while he was very good militarily, there were several incidents, including him slapping a soldier, which caused people to want him kicked out. Anyone who has seen the movie 'Patton' knows how he didn't get to participate in the Normandy landing because of such an incident.

Do you mean the one who was the hardest to deal with? Or the one that is the hardest to understand.

I think the worst General in history is William T. Sherman

Id have to say AF General Curtis LeMay. This man was very contraversial..effective at establishing the US as a global super power with his formation of the Strategic Air Forces...but very hard on the way he did it.

Look at some of this mans quotes in the AF quotes group..and you'll see how he stated what he believed in.

The thing that makes me feel the way I feel about Sherman is just like you said about LeMay. Sherman was told that the Union needed to end the war quickly. So he went throughout the South, burning everyone home and town he came across, taking all the food and supplies. Now the thing about this was that there were no Confederate troops in majority of these towns. This left the women and children without homes just as winter came along. Cowardice I think

"Sherman was told that the Union needed to end the war quickly. So he went throughout the South, burning everyone home and town he came across, taking all the food and supplies. Now the thing about this was that there were no Confederate troops in majority of these towns. This left the women and children without homes just as winter came along. Cowardice I think"

Irishwizard, you are welcome to your opinion, but MINE is: you need to hit the books. Sherman was hardly a coward. Nor was he a bad general. In fact, didn't he WIN most of his campaigns? Didn't he defeat most of the southern Generals he came up against? Didn't the North win the war?
Your biggest problem with him is that he burned houses and displaced civilians? Boo hoo. He brought the war to their doorstep, made them know what war was, that it was barbarism and cruelty, and that, though the north hadn't started the war, it would surely end it. Until the south felt the pain of loss and defeat, until their overbearing pride and self confidence was shaken, the war would go on.
As far as leaving women and children homeless, take a look at the way he handled the evacuation of Atlanta. He called a truce to allow the Rebels to transport their civilians to safe areas. Admittedly he made them ALL leave, but that was for sound military reasons: He didn't have the manpower to garrison so large a town, and couldn't afford a rebel presence at his rear in such a strategic position.
During his march to the Sea, Sherman gave distinct orders that only areas in which his troops met armed resistance where to be burned, and most authorities agree he tried to enforce these orders. So he should be nice to the people destroying the United States? Would I be nice to a traitor to the United States, or his partisan supporters? WOULD YOU?

Well, the reason he won most of his campaigns is because he swept through the South from west to east. He served in the Western Theatre but he is better known for his time conquering the South. Its just the means he took to conquer them. You say he gave them proper time to evacuate, ok thats fine. But then burning the city of Atlanta down to the ground and moving on is not what I call the conduct of a General. He allowed them to go to other cities, even though majority of them (The major ones) had been burned already or were on the road to be. I don't see how he can be held so highly by bringing the war to civilians. Many Generals tried to avoid doing this, he didn't. I don't understand how he can be held so high by forcing women and children who, yes they did contribute to the war, but they did not go and kill the men. They were forced out of there homes and left for the worst. He did not leave them supplies, or even possible homes. Refering to the South as having over bearing pride and self confidence is a rather bit harsh. They loved there state just as the Union loved theres. They fought for there homeland since it was the Union who invaded the South. So please don't try to school me. I dont want a flame war, but don't refer to the South during the Civil War in that way.

Custer. He left the Gatling guns at home.

Sherman was carrying out orders (as was Sheridan, no one has mentioned him yet). The North's military strategy of "total war" towards the end of the Civil War was to toally ravage everything and bring the war to the people. The Southerners had very high spirits. Who knows what they could have done in 40-50 years had they still the spirit to go on.

My 2 cents.

How could the Union invade it's own country? Which the South WAS, because the people there had REBELLED against the Union. Perhaps you are forgetting Fort Sumter, in which South Carolinians fired upon Union Troops?
http://www.civilwarhome.com/ftsumterevents.htm
If you feel that his march was barbaric, wasteful of civilian lives and property, and that it's purpose of preventing casualties by shocking the south into submission was not a valid one, I have two words for you:
Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
Of course, anything I say will not change your opinion, so I will leave it at this: Read a biography or two of Sherman, I don't care which, with an eye towards the actual man behind the story. Try to see who and what he was, before the war, and try to understand what could have led him to the policy he adopted. I don't have anything further to say on this topic.

States had the right to secede back then. Its funny how a President must invade his own country to keep control of it. I know plenty of what happened at Fort Sumter. South Carolina seceded and Beauregard gave the leading officer inside the Fort plenty of time to leave but he would not. It's just as if there was a enemy embassy in a state and we told them to leave and they said no. We would make them leave by force, just as PGT Beauregard did at Fort Sumter. Also just in case you didn't know, it was a bloodless battle. I don't see how telling me about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is going to change my mind. 2 totally different eras, and ways of fighting. So dont try to use that as a poll to lean on. I have read a biography on Sherman a year or 2 ago and thats when my views on him came about. He is remebered most for the burning of Atlanta and the march to the sea. What a brave brave general- making women and children by the thousands leave there homes. When the South had done nothing like this to the Union to my knowledge? Or did Lee or even Jackson in his time go town to town burning and taking all the supplys and leaving women and children 'for dead' basically on such a huge scale? I know I can not change your opinion because many of the people today automatically assume that the Union was right, and that the South were just a bunch of rednecks who wanted slavery. Well there wrong. Some people down here, who seriously know Shermans history, don't even say his name. Its that bad. People in the north honestly don't know what he did to the South. Not in a good way, but how he abandoned morals and decency, to achieve the win.