Civil War Generals Most Effective or the Least Effective?

 At the start of the American Civil War both the Union and the Confederacy an immediate problem of enlisting men into their respective armies and providing them with competent commanders. Many of the senior officers in both armies had their training at the military academy of West Point. Some, including Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, had seen action as junior officers during the Mexican War in 1848-9.

For this activity students either choose or are assigned a Civil War General to research. They then decide whether to enter him in a contest in the category of “most effective” or “least effective” commander. Finally, they make a class presentation trying to have him voted the most effective or least effective commander during the war.