Just finishing up Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant.
Honestly a hard book to put down.
I intend to buy Chernow’s bio. To date the best I’ve read is the one by Jean Edward Smith. There’s a major reassessment of Grant going on and deservedly so. That includes his presidential years as well.
Smith agrees with David Herbert Donald, who called Grant the most underrated American in history.
Grant was a master strategist. Before him the Union forces were like a balky mule team, no two pulling together. After he became General of the armies that changed. From that time all armies were to move in concert toward a common center - Lee’s army of Northern Virginia. Grant to Meade: “Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.” In effect, Sherman’s march was attacking Lee’s rear. And never forget that there was a crucial election in 1864. Had Grant failed it was likely that the Democrat candidate McClellan would have won and there would have been a negotiated peace. Sherman’s taking of Atlanta was also crucial.
Being a Southerner I was taught to denigrate Grant. But after extensive reading I reached the inescapable conclusion that Grant is one of the greatest captains in history. Don’t get me wrong, I revere Lee and my ancestors but they were wrong.
And don’t buy into that old canard about Grant being a mere butcher who won because of overwhelming numbers alone. That’s nonsense. Previous Union generals had the same advantage as Grant yet they lost and turned tail. One of the most portentous days in American history was the day Grant turned south after that epic battle in the Wilderness. There was to be no turning back.
Sure he sustained heavy casualties. But that’s to be expected when you’re on offense and attacking entrenched positions. Same for Lee. He suffered tremendous casualties at Malvern Hill, Antietam, and Gettysburg. James M. McPherson:
Even in the fighting from the Wilderness to Petersburg during the Spring of 1863...Grant’s casualties were proportionately no higher than Lee’s even though Grant was fighting on the offensive and Lee’s soldiers stood mainly on the defensive behind elaborate entrenchments. Lee had lost as many men in Pickett’s assault at Gettysburg (and proportionately four times as many) as Grant did in the equally ill-fated June 3 assault at Cold Harbor.”
Again, don’t get me wrong. I honor the memory of Lee and Grant, and I’m not for removing all those statues either. It smacks of generational chauvinism in the words of William Manchester. Peter Capstick was right - “History is the often unpleasant record of the way things actually were, not the way they should have been.” Just so.
Very good, but I think Chernow spent too much time dwelling on allegations of Grant's drinking.