Posted on 07/24/2015 2:30:32 PM PDT by the scotsman
Visited Grant Cottage several years ago at Mt. McGregor, NY. The place has been kept exactly the same since the day he died. The clock was stopped at his time of death, and the floral arrangements (now dried) sent by the G.A.R. and other organizations are still on display. Even the bed he died in is where it was back then. Very eerie.
Yep. If it wasn’t for Twain publishing the memoirs, Grant’s family would have been left without any money.
And yet at the end of the war, they were the ones having a victory parade.
It is too well written to not have been tweaked by Twain.
In the end it was a simple war of attrition.
President Grant and his wife.
Sherman and Sheridan did his dirty work.
Grant was a nice guy, it was his friends and appointees that screwed his administration up. He put his trust in the wrong people. Another post war general made President, like IKE, he was drafted for the job. History will be kinder to Grant eventually. I think I still have 2 first editions of his memoirs.
They would have run away once and the whole matter resolved quickly, were it not for that darned McClellan fellow.
I always get ‘em with, “WHERE is Grant’s tomb?”
After the War Lee also never allowed an Unkind word to be said about Grant in his Presences.
For his Magnanimous attitude, because Lee knew, that as the Vanquished, if it were any other country on Earth Grant would have been in his rights to have taken Lee back behind a Tree at Appomattox and had him Shot as a Traitor.
But he didn't.
There is an interesting monument to him west of Palm Springs on I-10. It is a combination luxury hotel, resort, casino, museum, store and truck stop run by the Morongo Indians, a tribe which only got recognized as a tribe because their progenitors made an appeal to Grant, who declared them to be a tribe independent of the other so-called Mission Indians.
Grant was very sentimental about such things. He wanted all Native Americans to embrace being Americans just as he wanted all former Confederates to embrace rejoining the union. Most of the time, this didn't work out so well, but the tiny Morongo band saw an opportunity and approached Grant.
It has paid off handsomely for their 400 or so descendants. Even the cars which don't take their I-10 exit to gamble or shop will take it to buy gas since it is cheaper than anything in the area, courtesy of favorable taxes which their tribal recognition gives them.
So how’d that treason trial of Jeff Davis work out?
Most of the Confederate Officials were lucky they weren't hanged for Treason.
He was indeed a monster. He also conspired with Sherman to ruin the reputation of the greatest general the North had, George Thomas, who never lost a battle. ( I say this as a Yankee who would have rooted for the South)
The drunkenness was BS that seems to have been based in a single incident that happened as a cadet. However as an adult he wasn’t much of a drinker because he didn’t handle alcohol well and knew it. I remember reading a letter he sent to another general who had sent him some whiskey. He thanked the general but said that he had given the whiskey to an aide because alcohol was “disagreeable to my disposition”
Reconstruction was a mess with a LOT of blame to go around.
Unfortunately popular history is the worst. Its full of inaccuracies and polluted by agendas and sensationalism.
Ty Cobb’s racism
George Custer’s incompetence
Edgar Allen Poe’s drug addiction
They appear to be based on very thin evidence or outright falsehoods.
It become evident when you look into lesser known historical events. If you look at the River Raisin massacre during the war of 1812 you find that pretty much all combatants agree about what happened. It happened deep in the Michigan territory on the frontier and didn’t capture public attention the way the battle of New Orleans did despite the Frenchtown casualties being the greatest single day loss of life in the war of 1812.
There are 9 Kentucky counties named after men who fought there.
Allen County (after Lieutenant Colonel John Allen)
Ballard County (after Major Bland Ballard)
Edmonson County (after Captain John Edmonson)
Graves County (after Major Benjamin Franklin Graves)
Hart County (after Captain Nathaniel G. S. Hart)
Hickman County (after Captain Paschal Hickman)
McCracken County (after Captain Virgil McCracken)
Meade County (after Captain James M. Meade)
Simpson County (after Captain John Simpson)
So how many freed slaves killed their previous owners? You'd think thousands, but I cant recall reading about any. Most took their owners last name and stayed on the plantation and share cropped. A lot of visceral hate there I tell ya.
The Army of the Potomac was the exception that proved the rule. The Army of the Potomac was unusual in that robbing, burning and pillaging were not its main stay like the other Union Armies which made an art of it.
Grant was IMHO the greatest general in American history. Yes, he knew how to use superior numbers when he had them, but he knew how to win when he didn’t. You only need to look at his Vicksburg campaign. He deliberately split his army, and put himself in the position of being surrounded by superior numbers and cut off from resupply, because it was the only way to get to Vicksburg.
I think Grant along with his friend Longstreet were two of the first truly modern generals in history, in that they saw who new technology like railroads would shape the strategic picture. Both their memoirs are great reading. Longstreet writes about his plan to relieve Vicksburg by sending half the Army of Northern VA to combine with the Army of Tennessee and the Army of Mississippi and invade north into Ohio. In May of 1863 he said by using railroads and taking advantage of interior lines of supply he could put an army of 100,000 at the banks of the Ohio river by July 4th (which just happened to be the date Vicksburg surrendered. That would force Grant to end the siege and move north to stop him.
It’s an interesting “what if”, but he never offered his plan because he learned Lee had already submitted his plan to invade Pennsylvania.
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