Jon Scott Logel

Soldier, Historian, Husband, Father, Scholar, Navy Civilian, PhD, War Gamer

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@johnkonrad Destroyers can be cool too

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@jkuehn50 Hard to argue with you on this one

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@aestheticsguyy

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@SebastianBae Most excellent last meal for Newport. See you next time!

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@Michalis_Vlahos Interesting framing. The future is not bright

[Michael Vlahos @Michalis_Vlahos]

Are you ready for The Fall? Better "gird your loins" — for it has already happened. Done, and done. For a full retrospective, with Gaius and Germanicus, try this:
https://t.co/uEdyGJwFMy

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@SebastianBae Thanks for coming and doing adjudication. This was one of our better war games. Lots of learning, everywhere

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@SebastianBae You got Globaled!

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@jkuehn50 @sentdefender The USMC has no AH-64s...

[Rod D. Martin @RodDMartin]

Everyone loves asking: “If Grant was such a great general, how come he lost nearly every battle to Lee and suffered way more casualties?”

Robert E. Lee himself had a very different answer.

“I have carefully searched the military records of both ancient and modern history, and have never found Grant’s superior as a general. I doubt his superior can be found in all history.” — Robert E. Lee

The entire question is built on two flat-out falsehoods.

First: Grant didn’t “lose nearly every battle.” There was essentially ONE continuous campaign — from the Wilderness in May 1864 straight through to Appomattox in April 1865.

Grant seized the initiative in the very first clash and never gave it back. Lee spent the rest of the war reacting to Grant’s moves.

When Lee attacked in the Wilderness hoping the old forests and bogs would save him (like they always had), Grant didn’t retreat north like every previous Union commander. He simply disengaged, slid south, and flanked Lee again.

Lee never dictated the terms of battle after that day.

James Longstreet had tried to warn the Army of Northern Virginia: “We’ve never faced anyone like this man.” They didn’t listen. They learned fast.

Second: The casualty comparison ignores that Lee was almost always the defender. Context matters.

But the deeper truth is bigger than any single clash. Lee still fought war the old way — disconnected battles, win-loss record like a sports season.

Grant fought the next war: coordinated campaigns across multiple theaters, using railroads, telegraph, navy, and engineers to keep relentless pressure until the enemy simply could not continue.

Grant didn’t win by accident. He made contact and maintained it until victory was inevitable.

Lee fought the last war. Grant wrote the blueprint for the next one.

That’s why he was great. That's why he won.

Change your mind yet? Drop your hottest take on Grant vs. Lee below. 🔥

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@Michalis_Vlahos @minori_noen Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 😉

[Schadentröst @jkuehn50]

We do not have enough ships.
Our focus on COIN (ironically overseas) & the Army & belief in air power led to this. But we can fix it,especially with help from or ASIAN allies Japan & South Korea & even Australia
@cdrsalamander
@Lazarus_Navy

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@cdrsalamander @TrentTelenko Grant’s Memoirs are the required reading for my elective at Newport.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

He won the Civil War, broke the Klan, went bankrupt at 62, got terminal throat cancer, and wrote one of the greatest books in American literature in the final year of his life. He finished it 5 days before he died.

Ulysses S. Grant was born 204 years ago today.

His name wasn't even Ulysses S. Grant. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822. The congressman who nominated him to West Point wrote down the wrong name. Grant kept it. The "S." stands for nothing.

He hated his father's tannery and loved horses. Graduated 21st of 39 at West Point. Fought in the Mexican-American War, then came home convinced it was an unjust war designed to expand slavery. He later said he believed the Civil War was divine punishment for it.

He married Julia Dent in 1848, into a slave-owning Missouri family. His abolitionist father refused to attend the wedding. In 1859, broke and desperate, Grant freed the one enslaved man he'd briefly owned instead of selling him. He could have gotten a year's wages.

In the Civil War he became what no other Union general was: relentless. Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) split the Confederacy in half. Lincoln then gave him every Union army. His Appomattox surrender terms: officers kept sidearms, men kept horses for spring planting, no one prosecuted.

As president (1869 to 1877) he did something no president would do again until LBJ: used federal troops to crush the Ku Klux Klan. He suspended habeas corpus in 9 South Carolina counties, prosecuted Klansmen before predominantly Black juries, and broke the first Klan.

His presidency was also rocked by scandal: Black Friday 1869. Crédit Mobilier. The Whiskey Ring. Belknap. Grant himself never took a dime. He was just disastrously loyal to corrupt friends. The pattern damaged his reputation for a century.

After the White House, he toured the world for 2 years. Dined with Queen Victoria. Met the emperor of Japan. Then in 1884, a Wall Street partner named Ferdinand Ward ran what we'd now call a Ponzi scheme. Grant was wiped out. 62 years old. Penniless.

Weeks later he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Mark Twain offered to publish his memoirs. Grant wrote in agony, sometimes 50 pages a day, racing the disease to leave Julia an inheritance. He finished the manuscript July 18, 1885. He died July 23.

The book made Julia $450,000, about $14M today. It's now considered one of the finest memoirs in the English language. For decades historians ranked Grant a failure. Since 2000 he's jumped 13 spots in the C-SPAN survey, the biggest rise of any president.

Happy birthday, General 🇺🇸

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

Beautiful ship!

[Michael Vlahos @Michalis_Vlahos]

Decades ago, I went through the "blueprints" and the 51's do have ballistic protection around vital spaces. It is not however enough to safeguard against your scenario, above. This is why we need 15,000 armored cruisers that can survive such blows. The US once excelled at building such ships, which were the envy of the world! That we cannot do so now is a judgment on US! @johnkonrad @mercoglianos @jslogel

[Michael Vlahos @Michalis_Vlahos]

Decades ago, I went through the "blueprints" and the 51's do have ballistic protection around vital spaces. It is not however enough to safeguard against your scenario, above. This is why we need 15,000 armored cruisers that can survive such blows. The US once excelled at building such ships, which were the envy of the world! That we cannot do so now is a judgment on US! @johnkonrad @mercoglianos @jslogel

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

Nirvana was never the same for me after Charles Barkley left the band.

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

Also known as “ops normal” these days

[Schadentröst @jkuehn50]

QOD "This is batshit crazy!"
Sal Mercogliano about the events of the last 24-36 hours in the Strait of Hormuz (SOH), Persian Gulf, and Gulf of Oman, but mostly the SOH.

[Jon Scott Logel @jslogel]

@jkuehn50 You’re not wrong. Twenty years ago we experienced many more fallen daily.

[Michael Vlahos @Michalis_Vlahos]

My talk at a singular National Press Club event, and worth a listen. This event addresses the historical weight of America's War on Iran. I present this here as a deep-rooted Trifecta, where each strand malignly combines: 1)The American Emperor System, 2)The Existential Postulate of our American Religion, and 3)How a client foreign power hijacked the American Constitutional Order. My talk is here, beginning @04:17:26
https://t.co/r3u8CUOw7B