I encourage anybody to read about Grant.
Went through the academy, went into service, wasn’t considered much. His friends knew him as a very determined man. He is poor, and when things don’t go well, he even cuts firewood to feed and cloth his family.
War breaks out, he his an afterthought, except to one of his friends, Sherman, who agrees with how the war should be prosecuted.
He is in charge at the first real bloody battle of the west, and even though it starts badly for the Union, he salvages victory from defeat at Shiloh.
He doesn’t dress the part, he drinks and smokes, he isn’t eloquent when he speaks. However, he GETS THE JOB DONE. Lincoln, who has gone through numerous Generals is told that he is a drunk, and he cannot put him in command. Lincoln responds....”He is a drunk? What whiskey does he drink” he askes his Cabinet and staff. They respond they “We don’t know” Lincoln response is “Find out what he drinks and give it to everyone, I can’t spare this man he fights”
Grant ends up rising to the highest command since George Washington and saves the Union, IMHO. His greatest victories were taking Vicksburg and his breakout of Chattanooga. Following Chattanooga he turns his friend loose on the South to march to the sea in the plan they had when war broke out.
and I leave this story....When Grant had broken out of Chattanooga, and sent Sherman on his march. He was recalled post haste to Washington by Lincoln, and was placed in command of all US military, the highest command since Washington. He was in the papers, but people in Washington had really never seen the western army general. He left the battlefield at Chattanooga, still covered in the grime of battle in his battlefield uniform. He stopped by train to pick up his son, and immediately proceeded by rail to Washington. When he arrived, he went for a hotel room. The Hotel looked over his uniform, dirty, and an unshaven man who looked as if he had not slept, wearing a Generals uniform, which they had many of in Washington. He informed the man that they had ‘no room’, but he and his boy could stay in a small room reserved for the help. Grant agreed and signed his name on the Leger, US Grant. When the Hotel Manager realized who this dirty uniformed, unshaven man was, he was given the Presidential suite.....
Lee was told by his Generals that Grant would come for him, and never stop, and he did. Grant did more to save the United States than any man probably in history. He had vision of the post war, and it was a good vision.
Truly a great American and underestimated man.
“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.
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Meh. Had Lee equal forces, he would have been able to conquer the North.
4 to 1 advantage in manpower, not to mention all the logistical and technological advantages.
Continually slugging it out with a smaller force will eventually win no matter what else you do.