Posted on 05/22/2004 7:40:59 PM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner
I was reading throuhg US Grant's memoirs and came across this remarkable paragraph on page 95:
"After the war, during the summer of 1865, I travelled considerably through the North, and was everywhere met by large numbers of people. Every one had his opinion about the manner in which the war had been conducted: who among the generals had failed, how, and why. Correspondents of the press were ever on hand to hear every word dropped, and were not always disposed to report correctly what did not confirm their preconceived notions, either about the conduct of the war or the individuals concerned in it. The opportunity frequently occurred for me to defend General Buell against what I believed to be most unjust charges. One one occasion a correspondent put in my mouth the very charge I had so often refuted--of disloyalty. This brought from General Buell a very severe retort, which I saw in the New York World some time before I received the letter itself. I could very well understand his grievance at seeing untrue and disgraceful charges apparently sustained by an officer who, at the time, was at the head of the army. "
Grant was probably drunk when he said this.
General Grant was dying of cancer and near death when he wrote this, FYI.
You got talent!
Vox populi, vox humbug.
There's a statement, probably an urban legend but still good, that one of these jabbering nay-bobs asked President Lincoln what he had to say about Gen Grant being a heavy whiskey drinker and cigar smoker (yes the andti-smoking Nazis were around then). To which President Lincoln is supposed to have replied "Find out what kind of whiskey and cigars and issue them to my other Generals."
IF you can find any of our commanders IN Iraq. Nowadays they all seem to be testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
I would be very interested in any creditable information that you might have to back up your statement. Grant had been a hard drinker in California, after the Mexican war, but there is no proof that he drank anything, after going into the Army in the Civil War. Please post your sources.
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