Posted on 04/27/2022 9:57:50 AM PDT by Borges
There is nothing stranger in American history than the up-and-down reputation of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant, who was born April 27, 1822, was the commanding general who ended the Civil War. He managed the great campaigns that captured Vicksburg and Richmond, saved Chattanooga, and compelled the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the main Confederate field army, and did it so well that President Abraham Lincoln apologized for not showing him enough confidence. Grant’s “Personal Memoirs,” published after he died in 1885, are a landmark of 19th-century American prose.
Grant may be a greater example even than Lincoln of the American rags-to-riches story. In 1861 he was working in his father’s leather-goods store in Galena, Ill. Three years later, he was general-in-chief of U.S. forces. Four years after that, he was elected president.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“His greatest victories were taking Vicksburg and his breakout of Chattanooga.”
He totally BUFFOONED Chattanooga. The breakout occurred IN SPITE OF GRANT. Had his orders been obeyed, it wouldn’t have happened.
Shiloh was another example of such bad leadership by Grant that he deserved to be fired.
https://www.grantunderfire.com/
https://www.grantunderfire.com/961/a-critique-of-the-history-channels-miniseries-on-ulysses-s-grant/
Grant’s military reputation is based on his memoirs, which were the primary source for many historians. But Grant either lied or grossly mis-remembered what happened. Contemporary accounts, and the orders he actually gave at the time, show he massively screwed up many battles.
Not all - he did have a few genuinely excellent moments. But his reputation was built on the book he wrote with Mark Twain, not what he actually did, thought, and tried to do during the war.
👍
Interesting...I just remarked to Freeper null and void today that I thought Grant was underappreciated. I thought he was a great man, he had his flaws, but all great people do.
Timely!
“It was Lincoln who told Grant “Let them up easy’’”.
And Grant did it.
Few heroes stand up to close inspection.
Grant does. He was not great at everything he did except for being a general. He was one of the first to approach it as a technical problem to be solved. He outflanked Lee, cut off the southwest from the rest of the Confederacy, and allowed Sherman to do his thing.
Many other generals would have played politics, Grant just got the job done
Eisenhower sucked as a general and didn’t know what he was talking about in discussing Grant. He took over after the South had lost far too many men and the war of attrition was wearing them down. He took over after Gettysburg. He had huge advantages over Lee once he took over and frequently threw mens lives away.
And Shiloh? Grant should have been fired and court-martialed for his buffoonery, laziness and sheer dishonesty.
No paywall source-
https://goodwordnews.com/president-ulysses-s-grant-deserves-more-respect/
Wish Grant had been sniped at Shiloh. It would have saved a whole lot of lives .
The same could be said of Lee...
Grant was the greatest American General. In the civil war he was only general on either to capture an entire enemy army and he did it three times. He was a brilliant strategist as well as tactician and was the supreme general terms of organization and logistics.
Ever see what he said about the fourth bridge in Scotland?
After getting a look at it he said..”That is a mighty big bridge.”
That was it, just that and nothing more.
That is nonsense. If anyone failed on the union side it was Sherman who got caught with his pants down. When Grant showed up at the battlefield he turned the tide and stopped the Southern advance then whipped them the next day.
Yet Grant lost only one battle the entire war (Cold Harbor) and never made the same mistake twice.
A better military man than any of his critics. Got the job done.
He has sucked you into one of the usual things that happen on this web site.
A useless argument. Anyone who says that Eisenhower or Grant were poor commanders is not worthy of a discussion.
In my ever-so-humble opinion, Eisenhower himself was one of our greatest Generals, and Presidents. I vaguely remember Truman and definitely remember Ike.
To show the ambivalence and uncaring of the North with respect to history, ask yourself, "where is the US Grant Presidential Library"? It was moved to Mississippi State University because up North they didn't give a damn and let his memory go into disarray so his descendants and managers removed it to MSU where people still honor and study history without adding their prejudices and false beliefs. They would move his remains if they could. Just as Lee, Grant was a great American.
Wasn’t Grant the source of “Life is just one goddamn thing after another”?
Now past age 65, I can say he seems to have been correct.
Yikes!! A Groucho Marx, "You Bet Your Life" fan!!
"What color is an orange?"
Just finished reading Bret Baier’s book on Grant...very good read and a lot of material that was new to me.
I was as impressed with the challenges Grant had in Reconstruction...we almost ended back in armed combat.
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