“He paid no attention to the naysayers and pressed on, moving relentlessly by the left flank to Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, sustaining horrific casualties along the way and harping criticism from the McClellans and the Northern press who wanted to compromise and retreat. Meanwhile, his Confederate opponent was dropping back, losing men he couldn’t replace. “
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True, Grants Overland Campaign was fought in a series of battles through May and into June of 1864, starting at the Battle of The Wilderness and cumulating in the siege of St. Petersburg, (June 1864—March 1865) was the death knell of the Confederacy. I have read that during those two months Lee destroyed more Union troops than his entire army consisted of. But it mattered not, the war of attrition favored the Union, for with the South’s very limited resources and manpower, Confederate losses during the campaign were much greater when juxtaposed with the Union’s.
I think it was bound to be a war of attrition. Sherman, who was more prescient than most, said at the beginning of 1864 that the worst of the war had not yet begun, meaning the worst of the casualties. Sherman knew the southerners having lived in Louisiana. He knew they were tough fighters who simply wouldn’t surrender because someone outflanked them.
Grant simply had the guts to do what was necessary. The other Union generals did not. That perseverance, and Grant’s coolness under fire, separated him from al the rest. But it is those two characteristics that Grant most conspicuously shares with Governor Palin.