Grant

by Ron Chernow

However brilliant Lee was as a tactician, Grant surpassed him in grand strategy, crafting the plan that defeated the Confederacy.

Modern science has shown that alcoholism is a “chronic disease,” not a “personal failing as it has been viewed by many.”

As with so many problems in his life, Grant managed to attain mastery over alcohol in the long haul, a feat as impressive as any of his wartime victories.

From this clash between grandstanding father and stubbornly private son, Ulysses developed a deeply entrenched modesty, “a particular aversion to egotists and braggarts,” said a later colleague.51 He wanted people to discover his strengths, not have them advertised. Reluctant to flout his father openly, he developed a strategy of passive resistance, retreating behind a facade of silent obstinacy. He only stood up to his father indirectly, holding back his emotions, as if fearing their violent release. Torn between an intrusive father and a painfully retiring mother, he kept a world of buried feelings locked up inside. Even at the end of his life, one of his physicians delivered this judgment on his emotional makeup: “He is the most suppressive man I ever knew. He is not devoid of emotional nature, but his emotions from early life have been diverted from their natural channels of expression . . . What has been called imperturbability in him is simply introversion of his feelings.”52

Among other things, he scented a political rival in Taylor, who was lionized by the press and presented as a potential presidential candidate for the 1848 election.

Polk promised that he would serve only four years so Taylor was not a rival to him.

James Longstreet served as best man and two groomsmen, Cadmus M. Wilcox and Bernard Pratte, were to join him in the Confederate army; all three later surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.

“There’s a great deal of bluster about these Southerners; but I don’t think there’s much fight in them.”

We see an example of the former point at the barbecue in GONE WITH THE WIND. The latter opinion would prove false.

Shiloh’s casualties eclipsed the total of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War combined.

For Grant, Shiloh represented a personal victory. He had rescued his army from his own errors, showing a gumption and an audacity that altered the battle’s course. He had shown coolness under fire and a willingness to take monumental gambles. The battle also instilled lasting confidence in the Army of the Tennessee, shattering anew the fighting mystique of rebel soldiers. The South, Grant noted, had demonstrated dash and pluck at the outset of battle, but his own men had exhibited the true staying power. Reflecting on this after the war, he said, “I used to find that the first day, or the first period of a battle, was most successful to the South; but if we held on to the second or third day, we were sure to beat them, and we always did.”

Lincoln’s woes as a liberator were compounded by the ongoing disaster of Union military performance in Virginia. With elections safely behind him, he acted swiftly to sack George McClellan, who had responded neither to gentle nudges nor outright pressure to become more aggressive. Without referring to McClellan by name, Grant later made a comment that seems to allude to him: “The trouble with many of our generals in the beginning was that they did not believe in the war . . . They had views about slavery, protecting rebel property, State rights—political views that interfered with their judgments.”36 It was Grant’s stalwart faith in Lincoln’s war aims, coupled with his military acumen, that made him the ideal commander.

On a frigid day in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13, 1862, Burnside sent wave after wave of Union soldiers to their death against the well-fortified positions of Robert E. Lee’s army. If there was one Union loss during the war that looked like outright suicide, this was it. In the one-sided battle, nearly thirteen thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded. A distraught Burnside had the decency to admit responsibility,

Grant was not content to chastise Jewish traders: he wanted to banish all Jews. On December 17, he issued the most egregious decision of his career. “General Orders No. 11” stipulated that “the Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department. Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order by Post Commanders, they will see that all of this class of people are furnished with passes and required to leave.”47 It was the most sweeping anti-Semitic action undertaken in American history.

While it has often been glibly stated that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave at the time—those affected resided in Confederate territory—it had immediate consequences in the field, accelerating the exodus of slaves, inspired by the promise of freedom, from plantations to Union camps. Union troops were now encouraged to entice slaves from their masters. No less consequential was that the proclamation authorized the recruitment of black soldiers, provoking outcries from Democrats and Unionists in border states.

the Mississippi became an open thoroughfare for commerce from the northern states. As Lincoln phrased it more poetically, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.”

Vicksburg possessed deeper strategic meaning—Sherman called it the war’s “most decisive event”—but Gettysburg received more extensive coverage in the eastern press, leaving a more durable imprint on northern opinion.

Richmond and Petersburg were insufficiently manned by troops and, had Butler acted with dispatch, he might have snared the Confederate capital while Lee was distracted farther north. Some historians believe Butler’s failure to capitalize on this unmatched opportunity may have prolonged the war by nearly a year.

One evening, as he viewed ambulances transporting wounded soldiers, the president observed sadly, “Look yonder at those poor fellows. I cannot bear it. This suffering, this loss of life is dreadful.”63 To deal with the legions of dead, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs proposed the creation of a national military cemetery, surrounding the former Lee mansion at Arlington, and Stanton approved the measure the same day.

The Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill made a prediction to Elihu Washburne that proved startlingly accurate, saying if Grant remained lieutenant general and did not run, he would retain Republican Party loyalty “and four years hence will be their candidate and President for eight years. Nothing more certain.”

Sheridan directed Grant to a brick house on the outskirts of Appomattox Court House where Lee awaited him. It was owned by Wilmer McLean, who had owned a house at Bull Run damaged during the first battle there; he had fled to the sleepy hamlet of Appomattox Court House, hoping to escape further hostilities, and would now claim the odd distinction of witnessing the beginning of the Civil War in his backyard and its ending in his parlor.

On the surface, their conversation seemed amiable, but Grant was perceptive enough to discern that Lee struggled with strong feelings behind a mask of cordiality. As he observed in an eloquent passage of his Memoirs notable for its empathy: What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.101 The tone of Grant’s reminiscence confirmed the Duke of Wellington’s adage that “next to a battle lost, there is no spectacle more melancholy than a battle won.”

This passage, and the final sentiments, reminds this reader of the mood of the officers on board the ships of the British fleet as they witnessed the sinking of the Bismarck in May 1941.

Because Bowers’s hand quivered nervously and he botched three or four sheets, Grant reassigned the task to his Senecan aide, Ely Parker. When introduced to the swarthy Parker, Lee blushed deeply, eyeing tensely his complexion. “What was passing in his mind no one knew,” Porter said, “but the natural surmise was that he at first mistook Parker for a negro, and was struck with astonishment to find that the commander of the Union armies had one of that race on his personal staff.”110 Another onlooker thought Lee momentarily offended since he believed “a mulatto had been called on to do the writing as a gratuitous affront.”111 Evidently Lee relaxed when he realized Parker was a Native American. “I am glad to see one real American here,” he ventured, shaking his hand. To which Parker retorted memorably: “We are all Americans.”

By 1872, under Grant’s leadership, the Ku Klux Klan had been smashed in the South. (Its later twentieth-century incarnation had no connection to the earlier group other than a common style and ideology.) He had employed forceful, no-holds-barred actions to loosen the Klan’s grip.

IT IS SADLY IRONIC that Grant’s presidency became synonymous with corruption, since he himself was impeccably honest.

Grant has suffered from a double standard in the eyes of historians. When Lincoln employed patronage for political ends, which he did extensively, they have praised him as a master politician; when Grant catered to the same spoilsmen, they have denigrated him as a corrupt opportunist.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883. Not until 1957 would Congress dare to pass another civil rights bill, and it was only with the long-overdue Civil Rights Act of 1964 that many of the 1875 legislation’s protections for blacks became the enduring law of the land.

He wound up with an eloquent appeal for separating church and state: “Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school . . . Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church & the private school support[ed] entirely by private contribution. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

father of William Howard, the future president.

Future President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Grant had not been personally involved in any scandal.

Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant’s presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klan’s ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history. The Civil War is far better known than its brutal aftermath.

Garfield’s physician seriously mismanaged the treatment, repeatedly probing the wound without antiseptic conditions,

An outstanding book on Garfield's assassination and the medical treatment he received is DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE, AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT by Candace Millard.

Perhaps reflecting on his grievous disappointments with people, he wrote philosophically, “I am glad to say that while there is much unblushing wickedness in this world, yet there is a compensating goodness of the soul.”

As his life neared its end, Grant rested in a circle of family affection and his nine-year-old granddaughter Julia later sketched the scene: Grandmama was crying quietly and was seated by his side. She had in her hands a handkerchief and a small bottle, perhaps of cologne, and was dampening my grandfather’s brow. His hair was longer and seemed to me more curled, while his eyes were closed in a face more drawn than usual and much whiter. Beads of perspiration stood on the broad forehead, and as I came forward, old Harrison gently wiped similar drops from the back of the hand which was lying quietly on the chair arm. My father [Fred] sat at the opposite side from Grandmama, and the doctor and nurse stood at the head, behind the invalid.

Similar scenes have been played out since the dawn of man but in the modern era --- post World War II --- there has been a notable difference in many cases. How wonderful that Julia was able to focus on the human circle and its arcs. Today too many of those arcs focus on the monitor which shows the pulse of the patient.

At 8:08 a.m. on July 23, 1885, Grant died so gently that nobody was quite certain at first that his spirit had stolen away. His death reflected words he had once written to a bereaved widow during the Mexican War, saying that her husband had “died as a soldier dies, without fear and without a murmur.”

A monitor would have confirmed the death. I will let the reader determine which is better.

Summing up Grant’s career, Frederick Douglass wrote: “In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.”