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To: Elihu Burritt
"Grant was known as a softy when it came to scarring, abusing, or disfiguring slaves. He also didn't make all that much money, even as a general."

Please...Grant was a poor manager and business man. A failure at everything he attempted until Lincoln gave him a shot. He was not anti-slavery and slave owners did not mistreat domestic help which is what his wife owned.

In fact, your precious General Sherman states " The domestic slaves, employed by the families, were probably better treated than any slaves on earth"

It was all about money for Grant he had no deeply held views against slavery and was a serious bigot until the day he died if you judge him by today's morals. Which you continue to do to the Confederacy by the way.

The North does not now, or has ever had any superior moral claim on which to stand. Whether it was working poor children in forced labor or slaughtering Native Americans and seizing the land. There is blood enough to go around.

Get off of your high horse, slavery was wrong, I side with General Lee not Sherman or Grant. It was not the cause of the war and you have enough sins of your own to wash.

387 posted on 11/22/2001 11:42:05 AM PST by bluecollarman
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To: bluecollarman
I side with General Lee not Sherman or Grant.

Really? Do you side with the Lee which paid passage for some of his slaves to emigrate to Africa? Something you Rebs keep hammering Lincoln on? Here, read all about it .

Or perhaps the Lee who said, "I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving."

Or perhaps the Lee who said, "You will never prosper with the blacks, and it is abhorrent to a reflecting mind to be supporting and cherishing those who are plotting and working for your injury, and all of whose sympathies and associations are antagonistic to yours. I wish them no evil in the world-on the contrary, will do them every good in my power, and know that they are misled by those to whom they have given their confidence; but our material, social, and political interests are naturally with the whites."

When compared with current day beliefs there aren't too many people from the 19th century who come off as pillars of racial tolerance.

392 posted on 11/22/2001 2:31:14 PM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: bluecollarman
It was all about money for Grant

Just curious. What massive amounts of money did Grant make as a Union Army officer?

My understanding is that even as President, when many of his officials were feathering their nest, that he never made money for himself. It is well known that he literally accelerated his own death by working himself to exhaustion on his memoires which would provide for his family.

I have observed a peculiar pattern in pro-South vs. pro-Union posters on this forum.

The pro-Union posters are willing, even eager, to recognize the personal probity and even heroism of many Southern leaders, such as Lee and Davis, while holding to a belief that their cause was inherently evil.

Many of the pro-South posters seem to feel that their cause can only be upheld by attacks on the personal integrity of Union leaders such as Lincoln and Grant.

Why do you think this is? Why is it so difficult to admit that both Lincoln and Grant fought for what they thought was right, exactly as did Lee and Davis?

There were, of course, many opportunists and corrupt politicians on both sides. But not among the ones I have mentioned.

396 posted on 11/22/2001 3:57:59 PM PST by Restorer
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To: bluecollarman
It was all about money for Grant he had no deeply held views against slavery and was a serious bigot until the day he died if you judge him by today's morals.

How do you explain the fact that Grant manumitted the one slave that he owned, 35 year old William Jones in 1859? William was worth a thousand dollars at the time, and Grant received nothing for the act. While you are at, you should explain the coincidence that Grants closest friends in Missouri, Henry and Taylor Blow. They bought Dred Scott and freed him in 1859 also. Hardly the act of your typical cruel and malicious Southern flesh monger.

You might also consider his biographer, Hamlin Garland, who talked extensively with Grants neighbors and friends in Missouri and concluded that the Grant family's use of slaves was 'a source of irritation and shame." Grant was not primarily an abolitionist, but it is remarkable to note that in his letters and writings, he never referred to blacks as 'slaves,' but only as 'Negro men' or 'servants.'

The primary complaint of his neighbors was that he paid the blacks that he hired far too much, and as southerners of the usual run of the mill racist type, they deeply resented that fact and the trouble that it caused. They also frequently complianed that Grant would never beat them as they felt he should.

What are you going to make up next?

400 posted on 11/22/2001 4:22:01 PM PST by Elihu Burritt
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