1. Had circumstances been even sightly different, Grant would have been considered a failure, perhaps even by himself.
2. It took a certain amount of mentorship to get Grant going as a noteworthy writer. I wonder if so it came that Mark Twain was the only figure Grant could receive mentorship from.
3. The article describes how for a brief period after a horrible war, there was a demand for politicians acting genuinely and in good faith. I wonder if there's any way to reach this state sustainably.
The last photo of him sitting in his chair, desperately trying to finish his memoirs was taken in their house in Galena, IL. If you’re in the vicinity make sure to visit it (and the nearby charming city with tons of history, e.g. the term lobbying was coined in the DeSoto House Hotel here). Tours are given by elderly and knowledgeable docents which include charming details, e.g. during the tour around the globe mentioned, Grant was so well wined &dined that he gained 50lbs.
Grant's world tour coincided with the first stirrings of American imperialism abroad, and it's interesting to compare the two: during his travels Grant developed a deep antipathy to European colonialism, was convinced that America's future lay in developing trade and cordial diplomatic relations with Asia, and even helped -- at the request of the two parties -- broker a treaty between Japan and China over the Ryukyu islands. Had Grant been nominated again in 1880, we might have had a very different US foreign policy going into the 20th century.
Chernow’s biography of Grant is excellent, and very edifying for me personally. Grant was both a great and good man, and should be much more revered in American society than he is.
A great book. There’s a scene in which a message was to be delivered to the commander and the messenger was startled to realize that Grant, in muddy boots without a coat, was the recipient. The war started with generals with shiny buttons and tassels on their shoulders, directing battles by yelling from horseback, and ended with the general looking like a soldier, moving material by railroad and communicating with the telegraph.
As president, Grant sent 5000 troops to Louisiana to ensure former slaves could vote and hold office.
grant's autobiography is well worth reading - quite funny at times. but when it gets into the battles it kind of loses me, having only a vague grasp of geography and topology. possibly why i am not a great general?
I read Grants biography three times. For all of his faults, Grant was a genius in reading his opponents mind and knowing what his troops were capable of. Terrain and geography played a role but it is secondary to his men’s welfare.
When Rosecrans were trapped by the Confederates after the battle of Chickamauga, Grant was assigned to take command and free the trapped Union army. Grant arrived and quickly saw that the Union troops were starving and that Confederates blocked the most direct supply routes and many mules and horses were driven to death in an attempt to feed the troops. Grant quickly launched a surprise attack to establish the “cracker line” a direct route to supply the troops with hard tack, a staple food of Union troops.
Once his troops were fed and recovered their strength, he went on the offensive. At the battle of Missionary Ridge, Grant’s troops charged up a mountain against Confederate canon and drove Braxton Bragg off the field. For several months Bragg thought he was close to destroying an entire Union army and suddenly Grant showed up and turned the tables on him.
A lot of history books, including but not limited to those dealing with battles, are handy to read with maps (often topographical ones) of the area open if they're not in the book. Back when I listened to audiobooks while commuting, I learned that a lot of history books were a poor match for the format.
It probably depends on how much military minutiae you get into. I've only listened to a few of Duncan's podcasts but I've also enjoyed a lot of (but not all of) Dan Carlin's podcasts. The thing is they mostly aren't about tactical elements of battles or history more generally. (They probably assume some general knowledge of the overall geography which I have.) I've also read books, not just military but ones like Endurance, that it's really useful to be able to look at a map.
One of my favorite books! If I remember correctly, Grant had no aspirations of being a soldier, and was not one of the best students at the Military Academy, and even after he graduated and became a soldier was still...green for a long time.
One thing I found intriguing was how gentlemanly he was able to conduct himself in war, when dealing with his own men (who sometimes barely had any training at all) and when dealing with the enemy.
The manner in which he writes his memoirs, his manner of speaking, is much different than how I speak, but is pleasant to read. There are sections that I reread many times. If I recall correctly he had no confidence at all in his own writing ability, and only began writing to pay the bills (writing short stories about the war for the newspaper).
Yes. The part where he was put in charge of the "trained" (i.e., completely untrained) mules and the "teamsters", (many of whom had lied about their credentials because teamsters got to ride on the wagons rather than humping a heavy pack on foot) made me laugh out loud.
Grant is probably the US president who has been most rehabilitated by US history over the past few decades. Jackson and Wilson are probably the two who have come to be viewed far less favorably.
It's an interesting example of "Politics as the Art of the Possible" that Fort Bragg (after the Confederate general) was recently renamed as the wonderfully generic Fort Liberty, rather than "Fort Grant".
We can be sure "Fort Sherman" never made the short list though it might have gotten some chuckles, at least among the brass hailing from northern states.
It fell short three generations later. Grant wiped out the KKK and had former slaves in elective offices. Sure, he didn’t fix all the problems in 8 years, but he did more than anyone could have expected, and a lot of his progress was rolled back later.
The funny thing is that George Washington et al were actual traitors and revolutionaries--they overthrew the existing British colonial governments by force!
The Southern secessionists did no such thing. They won legitimate control of legitimate democratic-republican institutions at the ballot box. They used the same institutions which had ratified the constitution to nullify it--a right which, having not been explicitly granted to the Federal Government or forbidden the states, was clearly reserved by the states per the 10th amendment!
Can we really pretend that our government "derives its just powers from the consent of the governed" when revoking that consent is "treason" and grounds for total war?
The evil of slavery has been successfully leveraged to screen the North's imperialism and obscure the South's principled adherence to the founders' intent. Lincoln's choice to wage ware is blamed on the South. The clear meaning of the constitution is cast aside. The despotic nature of reconstruction is forgotten. Slavery was evil, ergo North good, South evil.
This standard, of course, by which imperialist aggression is justified by the moral failings of the conquered people, is itself considered to be evil in every other case. But not in the case of the American South. Slavery bad, you understand. So many still openly celebrate the murder of hundreds of thousands of their boys and the destruction of their society.
Yes. Perhaps if the chief cause of secession were taxation or political oppression, more nuance could be tolerated regarding the South.
>This standard, of course, by which imperialist aggression is justified by the moral failings of the conquered people, is itself considered to be evil in every other case
No.
I am a somewhat-defender of the American 2nd amendment for them purpose of defense against tyranny.
I would be less upset with the actions of January 6, for example, if it were against a despotic president who claimed a third term, or who had seized Congress with the secret service by force to coerce an outcome. Or if a president had assassinated his opponent in Congress, as a former president claims is his right to do.
In other words: the ends sometimes justify the means.
> Yes. Perhaps if the chief cause of secession were taxation or political oppression, more nuance could be tolerated (?!) regarding the South.
So you're willing to forgive and largely ignore the role of slavery in a revolution "with" slavery, but you're not willing to do so in a secession "for" slavery? I can't help but notice that this line of reasoning applies more moral weight to the mindset of a few political leaders than it does to the enslavement of millions. Could it be that this is more of a rationalization of the contradiction between two of your priors (union founders good, confederate founders evil) than a true statement of principle?
>This standard, of course, by which imperialist aggression is justified by the moral failings of the conquered people, is itself considered to be evil in every other case
>No.
I'm not sure that Jan 6 is a useful comparison. Consider the Vietnam war instead. When discussing Vietnam, would I be within my rights to declare the Vietnamese evil and undeserving of a fair hearing in the court of history, their point of view dismissed as intolerable nuance, simply because we consider totalitarian communism to be an abject evil? Of course not! If anyone made such an argument, you would immediately be suspicious of their motives. You would be suspicious because you understand that, though totalitarian communism was a great evil, a good-faith understanding of the history requires that we, at a minimum, hear the Vietnamese side of things, consider the full range of their motivations and have the good grace to question our own.
All Southerners want with regards to the history of the war is the same good-faith and courtesy that's afforded to the Vietnamese, but apparently that's too much to ask.
Closer to our time, in the comments from 2017 we have this:
> I live in General Sherman’s birthplace: Lancaster, Ohio. I learned quite some years ago not to tell anyone in the South where I was from, unless I prefaced it with the fact that I was born in Kentucky.
I grew up not far from Lancaster, a little further to the southern border with WV. My family came from southwestern PA and that's where I was born. My uncle married a southern woman (from the hills of northern GA) and her and my cousins really had a big problem with where we lived. They probably still do, we wouldn't know because we haven't spoken to them since my uncle died. There are some very deeply embedded feelings that remain in the south about "the war" and it can be a real jolt to be confronted with them.
> Mrs. Lincoln went out that evening without the Grants, taking a short carriage ride from the White House to Ford’s Theater to watch a play. There, John Wilkes Booth entered their box and assassinated Lincoln.
if you have Apple TV (I know, yet another streaming service) you've been seeing Manhunt about the hunt for Booth. This is an excellent show. Check it out if you can.
1. Had circumstances been even sightly different, Grant would have been considered a failure, perhaps even by himself.
2. It took a certain amount of mentorship to get Grant going as a noteworthy writer. I wonder if so it came that Mark Twain was the only figure Grant could receive mentorship from.
3. The article describes how for a brief period after a horrible war, there was a demand for politicians acting genuinely and in good faith. I wonder if there's any way to reach this state sustainably.