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Grant wasn’t a great General. But he knew how to win a battle by throwing countless men and machinery into a meat grinder until it was clogged and overwhelmed.

You need to take a look at Grant's western campaigns which featured lots of movement, flank marches & close cooperation with the Navy. There were frontal assaults like at Vicksburg, but there were good reasons to think that he might be able to punch through.

Grant's Overland Campaign in the east was indeed less creative in the area of battles, but no less innovative in the logistical planning. If the South had a lesser commander than Lee, Grant might have won in 1864 (in the sense that Richmond would have fallen 6 months earlier).

Grant was better than a lot of us in the South give him credit for. More precisely, I guess, he was the right kind of commander for the campaigns in Virginia in 1864-5. He knew he could grind Lee down in a war of attrition, and he had the materiel and manpower to do it, so that’s what he did. That reminds me of Montgomery in World War II—slow-moving, not particularly innovative or flashy, but absolutely outstanding at logistics and winning the morale of his men, and (usually) at not starting or accepting a battle until he was positive he could win.

}:-)4

...look at Grant's western campaigns which featured lots of movement, flank marches & close cooperation with the Navy.

Grant's movement were basic military tactics, although his river campaigns were notable. His successes at Fort Henry and Ft. Donelson were due more to Southern ineptitude than Grant's Brilliance.

But that is the fortunes of war.

There were frontal assaults like at Vicksburg, but there were good reasons to think that he might be able to punch through.

Vicksburg fell after 11 naval and land assaults. The good reason for Grant's success was the fact he could afford to lose large numbers of men. If Grant and the Union had the deficits the South faced, Grant would have been forced to admit defeat.

Grant was the best Union general. Unlike others(cough, McClellan, cough) He recognized what it took to win the war and had the fortitude to do it. It was the Union's natural superiority in men and industry and he used both to effect. .

He knew the South couldn't match his losses and a war of attrition would be to the North's advantage. .