Best Confederate Leader in Civil War?

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Lowbrow Answer: George Pickett
"Okay, men. Here's the plan. We want you to run across that mile of open field. Then we want you to hop over those four or five fences. Then we want you to scale the large hill where the enemy is hiding and take it over. Now, they have more guns than we do, and are fortified in an elevated area, but we're pretty sure you can take them."

"Hahahahahaha. Wait, are you serious?"

What the hell was Pickett thinking on this one? It makes less sense than a harlequin pony on a midnight train to Halifax. See what I mean?


Middlebrow Answer: Stonewall Jackson
This dude is terrifying. He was basically a one-man wrecking ball during the early parts of the war. He made huge gains for the South at Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredricksburg, and almost single-handedly won Chancellorsville. The guy was invincible. He could have taken on the Uruk-Hai army from the second Lord of the Rings with nothing but a staple-gun and still come out on top.

He was invincible, alright, to everything except bullets from his own men. Jackson was wounded by a few of his own soldiers in 1863 and died 8 days later. You have to feel shitty for a great hero when he dies in a wussy way. Imagine Mel Gibson choking on a ham sandwich at the end of Braveheart, or Russel Crowe stubbing his toe and dying from the infection at the end of Gladiator. Okay, that one isn't so bad. Stubbing your toe sucks.


Highbrow Answer: James Longstreet
You know you're doing something right when Robert E. Lee calls you his "Old War Horse." Getting a nickname from somebody awesome is even better than actually being awesome. I'll know I've made it in Hollywood when Johnny Depp starts calling me "Sparky," or Martin Scorsese dubs me "His go-to guy." Ahhh, dreams.

Longstreet was so badass that he didn't even take Lee's shit. When Lee began planning the tactics for Gettysburg, Longstreet openly disagreed and warned against failure. He was later branded a traitor by the South for his confrontation with the great general, but who the hell cares. It's the South. The only thing down there are homophobic rodeo clowns and illiterate hunting dogs.