Grant

by Ron Chernow

Seldom, if ever, has a literary masterpiece been composed under such horrific circumstances.

Summoning his last reserves of strength, through a stupendous act of willpower, Grant toiled four to six hours a day, adding more time on sleepless nights. For family and friends his obsessive labor was wondrous to behold: the soldier so famously reticent that someone quipped he “could be silent in several languages” pumped out 336,000 words of superb prose in a year.7 By May 1885, just two months before his death, Grant was forced to dictate, and, when his voice failed, he scribbled messages on thin strips of paper. Always cool in a crisis, Grant exhibited the prodigious stamina and granite resolve of his wartime effort.

In a magnificent finale, Grant finished the manuscript on July 16, 1885, one week before his death

However brilliant Lee was as a tactician, Grant surpassed him in grand strategy, crafting the plan that defeated the Confederacy. The military historian John Keegan paid homage to Grant as “the towering military genius of the Civil War” and noted the modernity of his methods as he mobilized railroads and telegraphs to set his armies in motion.

The Civil War and Reconstruction formed two acts of a single historical drama to gain freedom and justice for black Americans, and Grant was the major personality who united those two periods.

Grant found public speaking “unbearable” and only submitted to this torture “by the greatest exertion.”

Ulysses conveyed a vivid sense of his father’s insatiable thirst for knowledge. As a boy, he had “read every book he could borrow in the neighborhood where he lived. This scarcity gave him the early habit of studying everything he read, so that when he got through with a book, he knew everything in it.”

“If people knew how much more they could get out of a horse by gentleness than by harshness,” Grant once observed, “they would save a great deal of trouble both to the horse and the man.”

Money was a black art that Grant never learned to master,

Unlike many great historical figures, Grant brooded on no vast dreams, harbored no spacious vision for his future, and would have settled for a contented, small-town life.

In his haste, he listed the applicant as Ulysses S. Grant. The confusion came about either because Hamer confused Ulysses with his younger brother Simpson or because he assumed Ulysses was his first name and he had taken Hannah’s maiden name for his middle name. (Grant himself blamed Senator Morris for the long-lived error.) The mistaken name, which persisted at West Point and beyond, was the bane of the young man’s life and seemed symbolic of his almost comic passivity under Jesse’s heavy-handed tutelage. As Grant later confessed to his wife in frank exasperation, “You know I have an ‘S’ in my name and don’t know what it stand[s] for.”

This early experience made Grant tend to view war as a hard-luck saga of talented, professional soldiers betrayed by political opportunists plotting back in Washington.

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.

Riding his buggy through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa that winter, Grant engaged local townspeople in heated discussions, predicting the North would defeat the South in any war in ninety days—a mistaken optimism he maintained through the early period of conflict. Suddenly Grant was fired by a mission, a clear sense of purpose, something that had been lacking in the 1850s.

When Ely Parker encountered him, he asked if Grant planned to enter the conflict. “He replied that he honored his country, and that having received his education at the expense of the Government, it was entitled to his services.”53 The Civil War was about to rescue Grant from a dismal record of antebellum business failures. Even his posture became more erect, more military. “I saw new energies in Grant,” said Rawlins. “He dropped a stoop shouldered way of walking, and set his hat forward on his forehead in a careless fashion.”54 Many major figures in history could have succeeded in almost any environment, whereas Grant could only thrive in a narrower set of circumstances. He not only had military skills and experience, but believed wholeheartedly in the Union case. As he reminisced, “I wanted to leave the country if disunion was accomplished . . . I only wanted to fight for the Union.”

However much he may have preferred that his talents lay elsewhere, he came startlingly alive within the daily, sometimes hourly, challenges of a military world.

Lacking Napoleonic ambitions, Grant did not envisage himself at the helm of vast armies and merely aspired to head a regiment or cavalry brigade. As always, he studiously avoided jockeying for position. Reared with Methodist modesty, he could never admit nakedly to the true depth of his ambition. In this way, he was strictly Hannah Grant’s son, not Jesse’s. Ethical and honorable, he wanted to receive jobs based squarely on his merits, a faith he held so unalterably he called it “one of my superstitions.”84 Refusing to grovel, he considered it unseemly to profit from favoritism. It irked him to watch others maneuver for position, and he was “sickened at the political wire pulling for all these commissions and would not engage in it,” he wrote.85 Chummy with few politicians, Grant labored at an extreme disadvantage in securing a commission. “I was a carpetbagger and knew but few of them.”

Grant was back in his element, as proficient in war as he had been ineffectual in business. The incessant activity was clearly therapeutic for a man whose foremost enemy had been unwanted idleness.

An atypical male, Grant never hesitated to admit human fears.

This anticlimactic moment was formative for Grant, who never forgot the nugget of practical wisdom learned. He would emerge as a master of the psychology of war, intuitive about enemy weakness. Henceforth he would project himself into opponents’ minds and comprehend their fears and anxieties instead of blowing them up into all-powerful bugaboos, giving him courage when others quailed.

After numerous mistakes in selecting generals, Lincoln and Stanton had weeded out the weak reeds and began to assemble the team that would win the war. Grant’s ascent was simply stunning.

Grant charmed the throng by admitting he had “never made a speech in his life, and was too old to learn now.”

While at the train station, Grant conferred with Rosecrans, who energetically disputed Dana’s accusation that he planned to desert Chattanooga. Far from being despondent, Grant found Rosecrans “very cheerful . . . as though a great weight had been lifted off his mind.”115 Rosecrans outlined plans to supply his isolated army, and Grant found it a highly productive meeting with the demoted general laying out “some excellent suggestions as to what should be done. My only wonder was that he had not carried them out.”

the gentle, “slightly stooped” man, who stood five foot eight and weighed 135 pounds. Porter picked up many subtle traits: how Grant thoughtfully stroked his beard; the “perceptible twinkle in his eyes” when he was about to utter something amusing; the “square-shaped jaws” that expressed his willpower; the creased brow that disclosed a “serious and somewhat careworn” mood behind an otherwise cheerful facade; his surprisingly clear, melodious voice; his slow, rolling gait; and how he behaved civilly to everyone, never snubbing those of lesser rank.3 But it was the mind, beautifully organized and well prepared, that most dazzled Porter as a torrent of ideas suddenly issued from this reputedly silent man. A keen listener and close observer, Grant “began to fire whole volleys of questions at the officers present. So intelligent were his inquires, so pertinent his suggestions, that he made a profound impression upon every one by the quickness of his perception and the knowledge which he had already acquired regarding important details of the army’s condition.”4 Grant’s instant grasp of complicated logistical issues astounded Porter.

Thomas had been tarred with the name “Old Slow-Trot”—he had a spinal injury that forced him to gallop slowly—which got to the heart of Grant’s dilemma with him. Thorough in preparation for battle, dogged on defense, Thomas swung into action reluctantly. “He is possessed of excellent judgment, great coolness and honesty, but he is not good on a pursuit,” concluded Grant, who often said, “Thomas is too slow to move, and too brave to run away.”

On the spot Grant infused a fighting spirit into the army, and men received him with “a rousing cheer” as he made the rounds.11 He tolerated no sloppiness. That first day he passed by soldiers packing cracker boxes into wagons in perfunctory fashion. “That won’t do, men,” he reprimanded them. “Those crackers are going to men who are starving. Every cracker is precious, and the more boxes you get into that wagon the more hungry men you will feed tonight.”12 He gestured with his crutch to indicate where more boxes could be stored. Such stories sparked new vitality in the hitherto sluggish, downcast army.

His old logistical skills, dating back to the Mexican War, had rejuvenated the army under his command, which felt a new guiding intelligence. “We began to see things move,” explained Colonel L. B. Eaton, brother of the chaplain. “We felt that everything came from a plan . . . Everything was done like music, everything was in harmony.”

Grant’s clear sense of purpose enabled him to enlist the energies of a giant army in a common task. “For good sense, strong judgment and nerve, he cannot be surpassed,” Wilson wrote. “He is a tower of strength.”

He also noticed how decisively Grant acted under pressure. When brought a request for a major expenditure, Grant approved it with startling speed. Rusling asked Grant if he was sure he was correct. “No, I am not,” Grant shot back, “but in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.”

As a courtesy to Grant, Lincoln furnished him with a four-sentence statement that he would read aloud to him the next day, enabling Grant to prepare his reply. Lincoln made two suggestions about Grant’s response, both pertaining to the morale of soldiers and officers. Back at Willard’s, Grant promptly scribbled his statement in pencil on a sheet of paper. Determined to establish his independence, he pointedly ignored Lincoln’s two suggestions. Wary of pressure from Washington, he was bent upon resisting it from the outset.

While Grant imagined at first that he would oust Meade, he needed to win over the goodwill of the skeptical Army of the Potomac and didn’t want to appear high-handed. Many people had warned Grant he would be surrounded by backbiting jealousy in the East. “I have just come from the West,” Grant noted, “and if I removed a deserving Eastern man from the position of army commander, my motives might be misunderstood, and the effect be bad upon the spirits of the troops.”

However demoralized the army was, it still clung to its pride, and Grant injected new dynamism into it. As his influence spread, a psychological change took hold.

But at such periods his mind was working more actively than that of any one in the army. He talked less and thought more than any one in the service.”

Grant never raised his voice, lost his temper, or scolded people and did not abuse his power by indulging in moody behavior. Grant explained to Porter his aversion to profanities, saying “swearing helps to rouse a man’s anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him.”

Grant’s self-confidence, his willingness to act on his own judgments and take responsibility, spread courage through the ranks. He was a superb communicator, making sure officers in one place knew what was happening elsewhere. Porter thought Grant’s capacity to visualize the entire battlefield unmatched.

he was thought such a rule-book commander that one southern politician groused that Lee was “too much of a red-tapist to be an effective commander in the field.”

Grant was the strategic genius produced by the Civil War. He set clear goals, communicated them forcefully, and instilled them in his men.

Grant’s response to the battle was no less important than his behavior during it. Neither disheartened nor dismayed, he didn’t lick his wounds or go skulking back to Washington with excuses. The Wilderness only toughened his resolve.

Grant hadn’t yet slain Lee, but he had done something as important—he had slain his specter. James Wilson recalled how Grant’s summons to turn south toward Richmond “lifted a great weight from my mind. We who had known him best felt that the crisis was safely passed, and that we were now on the sure road to ultimate victory.”

When Lincoln appeared, looking sleepless with black circles under his eyes, he comprehended the significance of Grant’s movements. “I think, without knowing the particulars of the plans of General Grant, that what has been accomplished is of more importance than at first appears. I believe I know—and am especially grateful to know—that General Grant has not been jostled in his purposes

Then came an immortal line that would be emblazoned in the press and trail him forever: “[I] propose to fight it out on this line if it takes me all summer.”83 In an artful piece of editing, Grant struck out the word “me,” which might have sounded vain; that deletion turned him into an impersonal force of nature.

Grant refused to parade his superior rank, and his skillful handling of people, no less than his military acumen, accounted for much of his success.

If Grant’s confidence made him an inspirational leader, it could also expose him to catastrophic mistakes engendered by overconfidence.

Gradually Grant’s enthusiasm for Smith cooled since he didn’t care for grumblers and Smith was a professional malcontent.

For Grant, morale and teamwork were always vitally important, and the venomous Smith had violated that code of soldierly conduct. It was his berating of Meade that Grant mentioned in relieving Smith from command. Smith had declared he could not serve with Butler, and when it was decided to retain Butler, his days were numbered. With his backbiting tendencies, Smith had simply overplayed his hand. As Rawlins wrote, Grant dismissed Smith “because of his spirit of criticism of all military movements and men . . . and his disposition to scatter the seeds of discontent throughout the army.”

Sherman assured Grant that “I have always felt that you personally take more pleasure in my success than in your own and I appreciate the feeling to its fullest extent.”

This was an assertive commander after Grant’s own heart, and he decided not to linger in West Virginia “for fear it might be thought that I was trying to share in a success which I wished to belong solely to him.”34 Perhaps Grant remembered Halleck trying to steal credit from him and shrank from committing the same error. He again showed he knew how best to motivate commanders by delegating authority to them—a trust that worked well with the talented, but could backfire with incompetents.

Badeau had fresh cause to extol Grant’s unassuming demeanor. “He is a more unselfish man than [George] Washington, and is free from vanity,” he wrote. “I have never seen anyone comparable to him in public life . . . Hundreds of years hence, some actor will be studying his character and ‘making up’ for him instead of Hamlet.”

but their slaves, wrote Sherman, “were simply frantic with joy. Whenever they heard my name, they clustered about my horse, shouted and prayed in their peculiar style, which had a natural eloquence that would have moved a stone.

Sherman’s letter notifying Lincoln of what happened became an instant classic: “I beg to present you as a Christmas-gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.