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Actually when Grant was tactically in charge of Union forces his casualties (except at Shiloh) were not disproportionate. When he came east he was in the role of the Union generalissimo and not in tactical command of any specific army. He kept his HQ with the main field army the Army of the Potomac. He could trust Sherman to run operations in the west without looking over his shoulder.
Grant was never willing to fight Meade over day to day decisions in the Army of the Potomac. Knowing what a porcupine Meade was it would have been a useless battle and Meade would have resigned before letting grant vet his op orders. So Grant compromised and endured the horrible level of staff work that was par in the Army of the Potomac as long as Meade followed orders and moved his army where Grant wanted it to go. The it was up to Meade's staff to fight the battle as they choose. This to often meant getting the extraordinarily brave men of that army massacred. Some times it was just the narrowness of the battlefield such as at Spotslylvania that meant no matter what there would be a lot of dead men at the end of the fight. However, as at Petersburg in the opening week of the siege sometimes it was just horrendous staff work and really dumb decision making. The one battle that can be held against Grant (IMHO) is Cold Harbor. He did badger Meade to bore in an attack the Confederates and Meade thought the field looked like a slaughter waiting to happen and was right.

Now what is this business about spitting on Grant? He really is the iconic figure for the US Army.