Yeah, but Grant the Southerners respected because he was the only Northern general to consistently beat Robert E. Lee. In addition, Grant supported amnesty for Confederate leaders, tried to protect the civil rights of blacks in the South, among other things.
From Wikipedia, on his Reconstruction conduct:
“Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats (called Redeemers) took the control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his attorney general replied that “the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South,” saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South—sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Recent historians have emphasized Grant’s commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876. Grant’s commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity.”
All in all, not someone that the South is likely to hate these days.
*Sherman* is the general everyone in the South hates because he burned down/destroyed/torched everything he and his forces came across.
He did the equivalent of bombing German factories in WWII. He destroyed the enemies capacity to support the war effort. Once that was done, it quickened the end of the war and probably saved lives in the long run.
War is hell.
My understanding is that Sherman was a tireless supporter of veterans from both sides after the war, that he never turned away a vet who had fallen on hard times, and that the Southroners developed a real respect and admiration for him in his later years.
A few years ago when Grant’s tomb had fallen into a shameful state of neglect and disrepair, the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised donations and offered physical labor to get it back in shape.