Grant

by Ron Chernow

It was the most sweeping anti-Semitic action undertaken in American history.

On the same day Grant issued the order, he wrote a letter expressing a conspiratorial view of Jewish traders,

Grant’s infamous order was a self-inflicted wound, issued at a moment of pique and over the objections of Rawlins. Besides pointing to the order’s offensive nature, Rawlins predicted it would be countermanded by Washington. “Well, they can countermand this from Washington if they like,” Grant rejoined, “but we will issue it anyhow.”

It was a miserable time for Grant, who also had to cope with the loss of his false teeth. He had dipped them in a washbasin overnight only to find that his servant had tossed them out with the water the next morning.

One victim was Fred Grant, who was grazed in the right thigh by a bullet, again raising questions about Ulysses’s paternal judgment in permitting him to loiter in the vicinity of battle.

At the mountain peak, it was young Arthur MacArthur Jr. of Wisconsin—father of World War II general Douglas MacArthur—who drove in the first regimental flag.

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.”

One particularly vitriolic critic of Grant resided in the White House. “He is a butcher,” Mary Lincoln said of Grant, “and is not fit to be at the head of an army.”

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.

Grant had lifted his morale and Lincoln enjoyed repeating his parting words: “You will never hear of me farther from Richmond than [I am] now, till I have taken it . . . It may take a long summer day, but I will go in.”

On July 11, Lincoln appeared at Fort Stevens, north of Washington, which was under fire from Early’s men.

It was the only time in American history a sitting president came under fire in combat.

Since Grant was congenitally heedless of danger and resisted extra security, his staff secretly organized a night watch to protect him. Grant never learned about this special layer of security until his second term

The next day, Sherman greeted Lincoln with the news that would help reelect him: “Atlanta is ours and fairly won.”

With his puckish humor, Grant again played the prankster and kept telling officers that each new dispatch showed McClellan in the lead.

Only after midnight—by which time many dejected officers had drifted off to bed—did he admit delightedly that it had

all been a hoax and Lincoln had been ahead ...

His train pulled into the Burlington station after dark, and he was flustered and embarrassed that he had no idea where to go. “They say I live here,” he confessed to two men on the platform, “but I don’t know where.” When the local police chief caught a glimpse of him under a lantern, he exclaimed, “Thunder, it’s General Grant,” and escorted him to his house on Wood Street. Because Grant had no key, he rapped at the door like a stranger, even though it was past midnight.

Grant toured the city streets for the first time in two decades until crowds recognized him, making strolling impossible. He also rode a streetcar, hanging on a strap and unable to sit down because no passenger believed his escorts that this really was General Grant.

In all, an estimated twenty thousand slaves deserted their plantations to travel on the edges of Sherman’s army.

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. W. T. Sherman, Major-General.”

When Johnson was done, Lincoln whispered to the parade marshal, “Do not let Johnson speak outside.”

When Grant and Sherman returned to Julia Grant, who had readied tea for them, she asked if they had seen Mrs. Lincoln. Grant confessed they had not asked for her. “Well, you are a pretty pair!” she chided them. “I do not see how you could have been so neglectful.”128 The two men, conceding their faux pas, pledged to ask after her the next day.

In his usual concise style, he began his letter to Lee: “GENERAL, The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Va. in this struggle. I feel that it is so and regard it as my duty to shift from myself, the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the C. S. [Confederate States] Army known as the Army of Northern Va. Very respectfully your obt. svt U. S. Grant Lt. Gn.”

Lee sat down and formulated his thoughts to Grant: “GENERAL:—I have received your note of this date. Though not entertaining the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of N. Va. I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood & therefore before Considering your proposition ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.”

The next morning, he sent Lee a delicately worded note that dropped the defiant tone that had earned him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant”: GENERAL, Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of same date, asking the conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of N. Va. is just received. In reply I would say that peace being

my great desire there is but one condition I insist upon, namely: that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again, against the Government of the United States, until properly exchanged. I will meet you or will designate Officers to meet any officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of N. Va. will be received. Very respectfully your obt. svt. U. S.

Lee sat down by the road and composed his reply to Grant as he clung to his last shred of dignity. I received at a late hour your note of today—In mine of yesterday I did not intend to propose the Surrender of the Army of N. Va—but to ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the Surrender of this Army, but as the restoration of peace should be the Sole object of all, I desired to know whether your proposals would lead to that end. I cannot

therefore meet you with a view to Surrender the Army of N–Va—but as far as your proposal may affect the C. S. [Confederate States] forces under my Command & tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 A m [sic] tomorrow on the old stage road to Richmond between the picket lines of the two armies—

Grant sent Lee a note that spurned his proposed meeting and yielded no concessions. It did, however, exhibit a softer, more personal side. GENERAL, Your note of yesterday is received. As I have no authority to treat on the subject of peace the meeting proposed for 10 a.m. to-day could lead to no good. I will state however General that I am equally anxious for

peace with yourself and the whole North entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying down their Arms they will hasten that most desirable event, save thousands of lives and hundreds of Millions of property not yet destroyed. Sincerely hoping that all our difficulties may be settled without the loss of another life I subscribe myself very respectfully your obt. svt. U. S. GRANT Lt. Gn

I sent a communication to you today from the picket line whither

I had gone in hopes of meeting you in pursuance of the request contained in my letter of yesterday. Maj Gen Meade informs me that it would probably expedite matters to send a duplicate through some other part of your lines. I therefore request an interview at such time and place as you may designate, to discuss the terms of the surrender of this army in accordance with your offer to have such an interview contained in your letter of yesterday[.]85

Wilmer McLean pocketed $20 from Sheridan for the table on which Grant composed the surrender agreement; the next day, Sheridan gave it as a gift to Libbie Custer, wife of George Armstrong Custer, who, legend says, flew off with the prize on horseback.

The Civil War had been a contest of incomparable ferocity, dwarfing anything in American history. It claimed 750,000 lives, more than the combined total losses in all other wars between the Revolutionary War and the Vietnam War.

as a portion of the total population, the Civil War killed seven times as many American soldiers as World War II.

Mary Lincoln, suspecting a possible rival to her husband in Grant, disliked the idolatry lavished on him.

Grant found the experience so unsettling, he later confided, that it entered

into his decision to spurn the president’s offer to escort him to Ford’s Theatre the next evening.

the president, who invited him and his wife to see Laura Keene in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre that evening, with Mary Lincoln forming part of the group.

The newspapers had already announced that Grant would accompany the president and the theater had distributed handbills to that effect; the house would be liberally draped with flags and bunting. For security reasons, Stanton protested heatedly that such a public event would endanger both Lincoln and Grant.

Lincoln urged Grant to accompany him to the theater, hinting that the nation expected to see the victorious president and general united at such a moment. Having just been in the public spotlight, Grant wished to escape town. At this awkward moment, a message from Julia arrived, listing her reasons for wanting to set out for Burlington in the late afternoon. Fortified with these excuses, Grant politely declined to attend Ford’s Theatre, joking that he now had a command from Mrs. Grant. As he subsequently said, “I was glad to have the note, as I did not want to go to the theater.”

As Porter later commented, “It was probably this declination which saved the general from assassination, as it was learned afterward that he had been marked for a victim.”

For Julia Grant, this eventful day was shot through with baleful omens. To

close friends, she would candidly confess that she had refrained from going to Ford’s Theatre that night because “she objected strenuously to accompanying Mrs. Lincoln.”

According to Adam Badeau, Lincoln had also invited Stanton and his wife to the theater that night. Mrs. Stanton suddenly called on Julia and told her that “unless you accept the invitation, I shall refuse. I will not sit without you in the box with Mrs. Lincoln.”24 The two women decided jointly to boycott the theater outing.

The lone Washington police officer assigned to guard the presidential box had left his post, leaving only a White House footman.

Mary Surratt, who ran a boardinghouse where Booth colluded with other conspirators, went down in historical annals as the first woman ever executed by the federal government.

After he and Julia settled into their Georgetown home, Colonel Dent had no qualms about moving in with them, forcing the victorious Union general to tolerate under his roof a cranky, unrepentant rebel who pontificated about the North violating southern rights.