I know there are book answers, but I have a question for all you military history buffs: "What was the worst battlefield defeat we Americans ever suffered?"

Had to be Gettysburg or one of the other battles of the ACW, those truly were the bloodiest days in American military history... Jim

DJ - I'd offer up General Custer's last stand as the worst defeat.

Gunnie

How about Kasserine Pass. Taught us some humility and forced us to change our doctrine. Along with major losses.

How 'bout the Chinese offensive in Korea of November 1950. Huge intelligence failure and general whuppin'

Keep those cards and letters coming. My tragic recollection would be the loss of the Philippines. Along with the Pacific outposts (Wake, Guam) we just abandoned those people. Terrible.
djj

Another one... How about TET? Certainly did not lose tactically but lost the political and propanda battle big time. CIA employees having a running gun battle with Viet Cong sappers at the US embassy did not go over big at home...

Good call. Remeber the VC getting a bullet in the head administered by the police chief...Just great!

What about Pearl Harbor? Up until that time, the US was just a sleeping giant. Japan walked right up and punched us in the eye, and we never saw it coming.

Patrick

Letting the British come into Washington and burn the White House might qualify. I guess the battle that led to this was Bladensburg.

Nic

I would have to say Cold Harbor. The First real meeting between Grant and Lee. It was said that Grant never forgot it and learned never to make that kind of mistake again.

Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville in 1862/1863. Pretty lopsided victories for the south. I'ld throw in the Alamo, but that wasn't the US, it was the Republic of Texas which was it's own country (or trying to be) back then

Well, we also have the surrender at the Battle of the Bulge of the 106th Infantry Division.

Hi, I've always heard that the worst defeat of an American army was Arthur St. Clair's defeat by the Miami chief Little Turtle and some confederated tribes in the Ohio country back in the late 1700s. Since I'm partial to the American Indians and their religious beliefs it's doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure which side I would have fought on if I had been there. But this is history.

Take care, sgirty

Sgirty, Wow, someone else knows about Little Turtle. I live in Indiana, as a matter of fact the county next to mine is named "Miami." Anyway, Indiana was going to put Little Turtle on our state quarter until the General Assembly realized 90% of the people in the state didn't have any idea who he was. Kinda sad...

Little Turtle! Wow, you folks are true histroy buffs.

There was a good article on Little Turtle in Military Heritage Magazine (maybe a year ago). I was thinking about him too.

There were some pretty bad defeats in the Civil War, but since that was Americans fighting Americans........

There were quite a few poorly managed battles by the US in the War of 1812. They were on a pretty small scale compared to the Civil War and WWII, though.

Nic

Hi,

Yeah. I'm kind of glad Little Turtle didn't get the 'honor' of being placed on the white man's money. That would have done him a great injustice in my opinion.

Isn't it kind of strange that the only Native Americans we do honor to in this country are the dead ones who no longer pose a threat to our ways.

Take care, sgirty.

Follow-up. What happens to this fine fellow? Is he killed in battle?

Little Turtle died in Fort Wayne Indiana in 1812 at the age of 60...

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/ohc/history/h_indian/people/lturtle.shtml

Fascinating. Thanks

This is a tough topic to come up with a single answer to because there are so many different variables to take into effect when trying to decide if something is the worst in a given category. Was it worst in casualties, territory lost, property damage, historical significance, political fallout, or whatnot? You could look at each of these categories and come up with several possibilities for every one of them. Personally, if I tried to mull all the variables over to come up with a single worst battle defeat, I fear my head would explode, and that'd really put a cramp in my modeling style. Thus, I shall go with a copout answer (don't you hate it when somebody pulls something like this? ) and say that while many battles have been lost by the U.S., it only lost one war: Vietnam. The U.S. failed to accomplish its goals, over 58,000 Americans lost their lives, and the political image and psyche of the U.S. suffered damage that is still being felt to this day. Some would say Korea might qualify as a loss, but I believe the continued existance and progress of South Korea defeats any such arguments. We didn't really win that one, but we didn't lose it either. But we did lose Vietnam. That to my mind is far worse than any single battlefield defeat.

Well, another interesting topic area: "were we defeated in Vietnam?"

I was thinking about that too. The US lost the war, but what particular battle did they get totally thrashed in? Even the Tet Offensive was an American victory.

It's kind of strange that the US suffered decisive defeats on the battlefield in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the fighting against the Natives, World War II, and the Korean War, but they were victorious or at least fought to a draw in all these wars. The Vietnam War was the one they lost. It just goes to show what a different kind of war Vietnam really was. Not the conventional type at all.

Nic

How about Anzio? Or would that be more of a blunder by the higher ups?