Posted on 03/09/2017 5:00:51 PM PST by Bull Snipe
President Abraham Lincoln promotes Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the Rank of Lieutenant General. He is the first Army officer to hold that rank since George Washington.
While he did drink, reports of over imbibing were exaggerated by jealous rivals. Early in his career he was in charge of temperance with the troops. Reading his biography right now.
In a letter to Elihu Washburn dated Aug 30, 1863. “The people of the North need not quarrel over the institution of slaver. What Vice President Stevens acknowledged the cornerstone of the Confederacy is already knocked out. Slavery is already dead, and cannot be resurrected. It would take a standing army to maintain slavery in the South, if we were to make peace today, guaranteeing all their former Constitutional privileges. I was as never an abolitionist, not even what could be called anti slavery; but I try to judge fairly and honestly; and it became patent to my mind, early in the rebellion, that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see peace established, I would not, therefore, be willing to see any settlement until this question is forever settled.
A few years later communicating with Otto Von Bismarck “but as soon as slavery fired upon the flag, we all felt even those who did not object to slavery, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.”
Stripped down B29’s with only turret guns to maximize bomb loads, rained down napalm on Tokyo.
My sister gave me the History Channel day by day calendar for Christmas.
Last year it was Jeopardy.
And the direct frontal assault up hill against an enemy waiting for the attack with a 100 gun artillery reserve on the third day at Gettysburg was such a brilliant, bold, innovative tactical employment for George Pickets Division.
PS. Pickets Charge 49% casualties, Cold Harbor 47% casualties.
Grant received the surrender of three Confederate Armies.
What Confederate General could claim that level of victory.
As did Leahy, Marshall, King, MacArthur, Nimitz, Arnold, Bradley, and Halsey.
Comparing Grant to Hood is appropriate and interesting if you know anything about the US Civil from a tactical point of view. Grant and Hood were tactical soul mates.
General of the Armies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_of_the_Armies
Pershing and Washington(posthumously).
Yeah, it looks like a title that’s informally referred to as “six-star general.”
Halsey made the cut to 5 star rank, but only barely. Ray Spruance was considered for that last 5 star navy promotion but was blocked by those that thought Halsey should get it.
Halsey lead his fleet into twp typhoons toward the end of the war. The Navy Board let him skate on the first one but President Truman was the one to make the decision on keeping him in command.
So the last 5 star rank came down to Halsey or Spruance. Spruance was the lessor known so he got passed over even though Nimitz thought he should have been promoted. His condolence prize was that when he retired, he retired at full pay and benefits for life.
Interesting side not is that Nimitz, Spruance, Adm's Richmond Turner and Charles Lockwood are all buried together in Golden State National Cemetery in California. They were all life long friends and wanted to be together after their deaths.
Not even close. Grants campaign at Vicksburg is a text book example of original thinking. He outsmarted Lee crossing the James. Hood by the time he was given command of the AOT had already lost a leg, had an arm shattered and probably was probably on drugs for the pain. From a tactical point of view, Cold Harbor was a failure, Grand said so in his memoirs, Lee never admitted a mistake for the thousands of Confederate soldiers lives he threw away attacking up Malvern Hill or Cemetery Ridge. Both assaults up hill, against an enemy waiting for the attack and backed up by massive artillery support. As a matter of fact, at Malvern hill, Union infantry watched their artillery slaughter Lee’s troops and most didn’t even have to fire their rifle muskets during the battle.
The rank was really created so that Ike as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe would not be Junior to A Brit Field Marshal. The letters of appointment are each one day different. The first award of 5 star promotion went to Admiral Leahy, Roosevelt’s personal military advisor. The next day General Marshall received his promotion, the next day, Admiral King, then General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, then Ike, and the final promotion to 5 star during the war to General Hap Arnold.
Frontal assaults during the CW were suicide period.
Hood & Pickett didn’t have a chance at Gettysburg.
Burnside didn’t have a chance at Fredericksburg.
Sherman went bust at Kennesaw Mountain.
Grant’s frontal assaults at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor were in vain.
You mean Lee didn’t stand a chance at Gettysburg didn’t you.
the decision for that attack was not made by either General Hood or Picket. The order for the frontal assault was given by General Lee. Even though his best, most experienced Corps Commander, General Longstreet, advised him “no 12,000 men arrayed for battle could take that hill.” Lees frontal assault on Cemetery Ridge was in vain.
If you think Cold Harbor was a one off then you mis understand the whole campaign of 1864. The campaign from the blue side was frontal attack which was repulsed then to the left march all the way to Petersburg. Cold Harbor was just the worst of them so it gets the most publicity. John Hood would have done the exact same thing as Grant.
The only difference is that when all was said and done, by the end of the overland compaign in early summer, Bobby Lee and the shattered remnants of the once vaunted Army of Northern Virginia, were penned up like rats in a cage in Petersburg, VA. There it would languish for many months, until a desperate attempt at escape was made in early April 1865. Within in a week or so, General Lee would surrender the few survivors of the ANV to Lieutenant General Grant.
John Hood never won a campaign as an army commander. Grant never lost a campaign as an Army commander.
Grant was a winner. He was rare in that he moved up the ranks based on merit.
He fights.
...
Yes, and when the war started he was a clerk in his father’s store. He had to beg for a commission.
It’s an incredible story.
I think one thing that set Grant apart from the rest is he didn’t turn back.
He was doing the bidding of his boss the Illinois Butcher President.
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