[contemplator]

Not meaning to make an off topic tangent, but I would love to see a movie done about the Vicksburg campaign. US Grant really showed his genius and tenacity during that one.

[flying Elvis]

Gods and Generals lost so much money that it has killed any interest in filming purely Civil War movies for quite some time.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Yeah, it would be a really good story of redemption too, since after his campaign of movement around Jackson and Raymond and during the siege, Grant went on a real bender out of boredom, so much so that his staff officers brought his wife down from Galena, Illinois to dry him out in time to accept Vickburg's surrender. Of course, Grant fully recovered and went on to greater things. It's too bad that no one has ever made a movie dedicated solely to him and his friend Sherman. It would be a good one.

[FredZarguna]

As I said in a post elsewhere, Vicksburg is probably incorrectly overshadowed by Gettysburg, and yes Grant was a genius--but more important than being smart, he and Sherman were willing to do what war required. For this they've been slandered and vilified, too often because Northern historians decided that to the extent that the South lost, we could afford to be magnanimous with the later "facts." For all those who think Grant was a butcher, and Lee was a genius, take a look at the battle of Malvern Hill. There you'll see that Lee was no master of offensive operations, and there you can see months earlier what Lee would do at Gettysburg all over again, despite being warned by his best general not to attempt the charge.

Finally--in the last two years--you can see some rehabilitation of Grant in some new and excellent biographies.