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
What would he have done without all those ships to ferry his troops?
It's a lot easier to do things when you have massive advantages over your enemy.