Posted on 07/24/2015 2:30:32 PM PDT by the scotsman
'After Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, died 130 years ago today, a million and a half Americans watched his funeral procession. His mausoleum was a popular tourist attraction in New York City for decades. But for most of the 20th Century, historians and non-historians alike believed Grant was corrupt, drunken and incompetent, that he was one of the country's worst presidents, and that as a general, he was more lucky than good.
A generation of historians, led by Columbia's William A. Dunning, criticized Grant for backing Reconstruction, the federal government's attempt to protect the rights of black southerners in the 1860s and early 1870s. Black people, some Dunning school historians suggested, were unsuited for education, the vote, or holding office. Grant's critics were "determined the Civil War would be interpreted from the point of view of the Confederacy," said John F. Marszalek, a historian and executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association. "The idea that Grant would do things that would ensure citizenship rights for blacks was just awful and so he had to be knocked down."
Grant's "presidency was basically seen as corrupt, and it took place during Reconstruction, which was seen as basically the lowest point of American history," said Eric Foner, a civil war historian at Columbia University. "Whatever Grant did to protect former slaves was naïveté or worse."
In recent decades, that's all changed. The Grant you learned about in school isn't the one your kids will read about in their textbooks. And that's because historians are in the midst of a broad reassessment of Grant's legacy. In just nine years, between 2000 and 2009, Grant jumped 10 spots in a C-SPAN survey of historians' presidential rankings, from 33rd to 23rd -- a bigger jump than any other president.'
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...
Jean Edward Smith recounts the story about Grant threatening to resign if Robert E. Lee was tried for treason. At the surrender at Appomattox, Grant had promised Lee that no officers would be prosecuted (in effect) for treason. After President Lincoln was assassinated some Northerners wanted revenge against the South. In June 1865 Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason. General Grant went to the White House and confronted President Andrew Johnson demanding that the terms of the Surrender be kept. He threatened to resign if charges were not dropped and Johnson backed down. Grant’s heart was huge. No doubt, Churchill had Grant in mind with his, “In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Good Will.”
You guys are fighting a past war all over again.
Now which is better? An iPhone or an Android phone : )
Windows pc vs a mac? : )
Ginger or Mary Ann <— definitely Mary Ann!
Slavery held sway under 89 years of Union Rule. How about you put most of that hatred on the Government that dominated that period?
How about you face the fact that the Union was going to CONTINUE slavery if the war had ended sooner?
Five Union States maintained slavery through most of the War. If the Union was fighting to end slavery, they could have started with those.
The one at the end of the war is the one that counts.
That must make them the good guys or something.
It makes them the winners.
Which is not nearly as bad as violating the Foundation Document of this nation.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The South exercised their right to independence as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, The Union violated those principles, in effect REBELLING against the Founding charter of this nation.
It would appear that the "traitors" won that war.
I’ve got Grant’s memoir sitting on the shelf beside me. It is indeed a great read.
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Grant wrote it as he was dying from throat cancer to make money for his wife to live on. At the time, there wasn’t much of a retirement for an officer or a president. And his wealth had been wiped out by his crook of a partner in his Wall Street firm. Mark Twain was the publisher. The memoir is short and entertaining. I’ve been a fan of Grant since reading it.
He went from being a clerk in his father’s store, to the most famous man in the world in the span of a few years.
His liver hasn’t been officially declared dead.
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It’s doubtful he’d had any alcohol during the Civil War or as president. Cigars were a different matter.
On April 20, 1871, President Grant signed the Ku Klux Klan Act which was one of the first anti-terrorist acts ever passed in the world. He more or less crushed the largest terrorist organization of his time, but unfortunately, the Klan eventually recovered and even thrived for some time after Grant was gone. We have been fighting terrorism for a long time.
It isn't past. It's still going on. Look at the voting patterns between Republicans and Democrats nationwide.
Many issues of today are deeply rooted in that conflict. We owe our "Gay Marriage" to the 14th amendment. As a matter of fact, we owe our President to the 14th amendment, without which he would not be regarded as a citizen.
The consequences of that war are still with us and still causing damage. FedZilla has simply made slaves of all of us.
Except that the original manuscript is in the Library of Congress and can be compared to the final book, and its style is perfectly consistent with his letters, orders and reports.
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Yep. Grant was very intelligent, spoke and wrote well. And like Lincoln, he was good at math, too. His goal as a young man was to eventually become a math professor, but fate wouldn’t allow it.
So if the Nazis had won, you would no doubt be out there waving their flag. I do not doubt this about you. You seem like you would make a good little Nazi. You already believe in their mantra. "Might makes right."
What was that thing about slavery again? It is wrong to beat someone down and slap chains on them? I guess your answer is "Well it depends on who's doing it."
Obviously if it is the "winner", it is all right.
When he couldn’t defeat Lee in the field he turned to making war on civilians.
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Good grief. That’s nothing but Lost Cause nonsense.
Grant looks like a big burly man on the fifty. He was actually short and weighed about 135 when he was president according to his wife.
Grant was a nice guy, it was his friends and appointees that screwed his administration up. He put his trust in the wrong people.
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Not always, but it was his one big flaw. It hurt him as president and later on in business.
Yes, in many respects, Grant was too nice a guy. His work in the South following the War was magnificent, but loyalty to friends in Washington led him to overlook too many of their shortcomings.
Believe it or not, I found two of those recently in a money belt I bought at a second-hand store. Stuff like just never happens to me. :o)
I have no problems with taking a war to the support staff of an enemy. Total war is a commendable tactic. It works.
You know what? I'm done with you. Do not ping me again.
I’m a Southerner, and I think Lee and Jackson were the best one-two punch in U.S. military history. But I have always had great respect for Grant. He did, indeed, know how to win.
Yes, he had the numbers, the resources, the equipment and machinery and money on his side. But so did McDowell. So did McClellan. And they had no clue what to do with their advantage.
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