Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
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"Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do." - General U.S. Grant
Sherman once said that Grant was a better general than he was simply because Sherman always worried about what the enemy was doing while Grant never concerned himself about it.
gotta love VDH. bumping for later, and if there is an official Victor Davis Hanson ping list, I would like to be on it. ;)
By the way, I found out this weekend that VDH is a distant cousin of mine. He was always one of my favorite historians anyway...
Duck. The article says nice things about Sherman. The Southern Calvary will not permit that :)
Good stuff! Thanks.
I'd recommend Grant's Memoirs as well to any who have not yet read them. They were, as Hanson points out, published by Mark Twain. Upon reading the manuscript Twain quipped - "My only regret is that I did not write them myself." :)
I stopped reading when he compared Grant to Wes Clark.
Excellent post, and as always from VDH, a good read.
ping
I always thought that Grant was the greatest field commander the US Army ever produced and that his campaign to take Vicksburg was the most brillant ever waged by a US general.
Let me know if you want in or out
While I have enjoyed books on Grant before (especially Bruce Catton's Grant Moves South and his Grant Takes Command, nothing compares to Grant's own Personal Memoirs. It is one of the best autobiographical works I've ever read.
"Grant stood my me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other."
William T. Sherman