Throughout history the best generals have intimidated opponents on three levels. First as a planner and strategist. Confederate General Robert E. Lee, for example, had established such a mastery over the Army of the Potomac by 1864 that Union commander Ulysses S. Grant found himself irascibly telling his staff that Lee could not be everywhere at once. Second as a battle captain. So skilled a combat commander was Nazi Germany's Erwin Rommel that his mere physical presence was worth a panzer division to the Wehrmacht's Afrika Korps in 1941–43.Third,and perhaps most fearsome,as a general who leads from the front. Riding at the head of his Companion cavalry, Alexander the Great turned the tide on many a battlefield in the 4th century BC.
Most of history's great commanders check only one or two boxes on the “feared and fearsome” chart. Trifectas are few, and among them one name stands out: Nathan Bedford Forrest, arguably history's most comprehensively intimidating general.
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