Grant Does biographer Chernow over-emphasize Grant's drinking?

[A. Roy]

While this discussion continues, I've been reviewing portions of the Chernow biography touching on Grant's drinking and trying to discern Chernow's attitude toward the topic.

I don't think Chernow's the only one who has articulated this idea, but it seems as if the influence of Julia Grant and John Rawlins was important to keep Grant away from the bottle. I think I see in Chernow's narrative that he believes close associates of Grant wanted to keep him sober because of his crucial role in the Union war effort. Chernow describes Grant's state after the Vicksburg siege:

"The one nemesis Grant could not escape was a whispering campaign about his drinking. The protracted Vicksburg operation had imposed excruciating stress on Grant, who must have been sorely tempted to drink. A remarkable photograph taken of him that spring tells a haunting tale. There is an indescribable look of suffering in his sad, woebegone eyes, showing the terrible toll taken by the previous months. It is less the portrait of a conqueror than of a troubled survivor." (Page 272)

Chernow writes that Rawlins got steamed up on learning that Grant had been prescribed wine for his health problems:

"This apparently led to more indulgence by Grant. Learning he had strayed from the strict path of sobriety, John Rawlins, his resident conscience, drafted an extraordinary rebuke to him in the wee hours of June 6 that seethed with moralistic outrage..." (Page 272)

Chernow partially quotes Rawlins's letter to Grant, adding that Rawlins later in life confirmed that he actually did deliver this letter. I thought it was interesting that Rawlins emphasized the necessity of Grant's staying sober in order to continue prosecuting the war effort:

"The great solicitude I feel for the safety of this army leads me to mention what I had hoped never again to do—the subject of your drinking... You have the full control of your appetite and can let drinking alone. Had you not pledged me the sincerity of your honor early last March that you would drink no more during the war, and kept that pledge during your recent campaign, you would not today have stood first in the world's history as a successful military leader." (Page 272)

ARB

 

[tony_gunter]

The specific topic of this thread is Chernow's biography of Grant and particularly Chernow's treatment of Grant's drinking. From what's been discussed here so far, it seems that Chernow focuses quite a bit on Grant's use of alcohol and is convinced that he was a problem drinker and an alcoholic. On the other hand, some of the accounts of Grant's drinking are dubious and might have been fabricated or exaggerated.
AR

That's my biggest issue with the thread. Chernow barely touched on Grant's drinking, simply mentioning the various rumors and accusations in passing without evaluating them.

 

[tony_gunter]

Banks wrote a letter home and called Grant a Drunk. Grant apologist will Blame Banks for putting him on a hard mouth Horse. Guess it was Banks fault. There is a thread here on it. Don't think Banks was a enemy of the C Gar Sucker.

Hilarious we are suppose to believe everybody was picking on poor Grant.

Or, here's a crazy thought … we could evaluate Banks' letter critically.

1) Grant was a drinker, that's a fact.
2) Grant was also a known reckless rider street racing on a spirited unfamiliar horse.
3) The accident could be contributed to 1 or 2 or 1 and 2, without a breathalyzer Banks can't really say. And if we did have actual proof the accident can be solely attributed to #1, it still doesn't make Grant a drunk.
4) Banks was a temperance zealot, so he would consider any drinker a drunk,
5) Banks was also exasperated that Grant, a debased drunk of all people, had stolen all the laurels from Banks' brilliant Port Hudson campaign.

Of *course* Banks would say what he said, but it doesn't mean we accept it uncritically.

 

[tony_gunter]

"Had you not pledged me the sincerity of your honor early last March that you would drink no more during the war, and kept that pledge during your recent campaign, you would not today have stood first in the world's history as a successful military leader."

That's low-key hilarious given that we have a first hand account of Grant blowing off steam by having a couple glasses of whiskey just before turning in for the night on May 12th, the second most stressful day of his career to date.

 

[SSVilla]

I think he did. I thought it was a subject worth discussing honestly, and in depth but it might have been better to address it as a chapter, like when he talks about Rawlings and then perhaps discuss the most suspicious incidents reported, as well as doing a thorough review of the obviously spurious ones and explore the motivations behind them as they are known from whomever spread them. Or if he's going to pepper the reports through the book as he chooses to do - which makes sense in a chronological sense - only go into detail with the more credible ones or those that could have possible impact on performance - like the reports about the horse fall in Louisiana, controverted as it was.

The author is sensitive to alcoholism as a medical problem and the fact that it's a disease that can be managed and that there are functional alcoholics out there. He's not mean spirited. My only problem is that the subject just comes up too frequently, and distracts from the rest of the narrative.

I know from his interviews that alcoholism was part of his focus and the character flaw he wanted to highlight. He wanted to sort it out for history, but truth is, we'll still never know for sure because Grant also had rivals whose go to move was to try to get him removed from command by slandering him and politicking with Lincoln. For me overall the result is meh because even if he drank on occasion it wasn't often enough to be a problem and never when a campaign or battle was underway. He was mostly abstinent. So I overall it's meh.

TL/ DR I am glad he covers the topic in depth, I just wish it was done in a way that wasn't so disruptive to the rest of his narrative, which is well done.

 

[SSVilla]

One review of Chernow's book led me to an interesting passage on page 67, about the winter of 1849-50, when Grant and Julia were in Detroit. Relying on a later account by Col. James E. Pitman, Chernow mentions the influence of a Methodist minister, George Taylor, on Grant:

"'I think that Dr. Taylor helped Grant a great deal,'" said Colonel Pitman. "'It was said that he had a long talk with Grant at that time and told him that he could not safely use liquor in any form and Grant acknowledged this and took the pledge and thereafter used no liquor at all in Detroit.'" This episode makes clear that Grant, from an early age, acknowledged that he had a chronic drinking problem, was never cavalier about it, and was determined to resolve it. This overly controlled young man now wrestled with a disease that caused a total loss of control, which must have made it more tormenting and pestered his Methodist conscience."

Just to clarify, that latter sentence comes from Chernow himself, not from Pitman's account. It does seem like an extraordinary claim to diagnose Grant retrospectively like this with the disease of alcoholism.

AR

Bolded by me above, and curious use of words by Chernow. I'd only say that intolerance is not the same as chronic drinking problem.

Like I could be lactose intolerant but that doesn't mean I have a problem from chronic cheese and milk ingestion. Now for someone with an allergy to milk just the one glass might be too much.

I think what you cited there is definitely Chernow's POV

 

[tony_gunter]

I think he did. I thought it was a subject worth discussing honestly, and in depth but it might have been better to address it as a chapter, like when he talks about Rawlings and then perhaps discuss the most suspicious incidents reported, as well as doing a thorough review of the obviously spurious ones and explore the motivations behind them as they are known from whomever spread them. Or if he's going to pepper the reports through the book as he chooses to do - which makes sense in a chronological sense - only go into detail with the more credible ones or those that could have possible impact on performance - like the reports about the horse fall in Louisiana, controverted as it was.

The author is sensitive to alcoholism as a medical problem and the fact that it's a disease that can be managed and that there are functional alcoholics out there. He's not mean spirited. My only problem is that the subject just comes up too frequently, and distracts from the rest of the narrative.

I know from his interviews that alcoholism was part of his focus and the character flaw he wanted to highlight. He wanted to sort it out for history, but truth is, we'll still never know for sure because Grant also had rivals whose go to move was to try to get him removed from command by slandering him and politicking with Lincoln. For me overall the result is meh because even if he drank on occasion it wasn't often enough to be a problem and never when a campaign or battle was underway. He was mostly abstinent. So I overall it's meh.

TL/ DR I am glad he covers the topic in depth, I just wish it was done in a way that wasn't so disruptive to the rest of his narrative, which is well done.

Are we reading the same book? Chernow mentions incidents with alcohol, rumors, accusations, etc. but mostly in passing and never with the intent to critically analyze the veracity of the claims.

IIRC, he doesn't even mention one of the more lurid accounts, the Yazoo Party Cruise.

 

[SSVilla]

Are we reading the same book? Chernow mentions incidents with alcohol, rumors, accusations, etc. but mostly in passing and never with the intent to critically analyze the veracity of the claims.

IIRC, he doesn't even mention one of the more lurid accounts, the Yazoo Party Cruise.

He did mention it there. Look it up. I recently listened to it. He also mentions the Louisiana horse, Vicksburg, Mcclerrnand, captain Koontz and others…

 

[SSVilla]

Shiloh, Iuka, etc. as far as I recall it comes up constantly

 

[tony_gunter]

Bolded by me above, and curious use of words by Chernow. I'd only say that intolerance is not the same as chronic drinking problem.

Like I could be lactose intolerant but that doesn't mean I have a problem from chronic cheese and milk ingestion. Now for someone with an allergy to milk just the one glass might be too much.

I think what you cited there is definitely Chernow's POV

More than that, chronic drinking is not alcoholism. Alcoholism is dependency,

Some people (me ) can drink heavily for years then suddenly go almost cold turkey for no particular reason and with no effort. I have had maybe 6 drinks total in the last year.

Given the hysteria generated by the temperance movement of the day, the overlap it shared with the women's movement, and Grant's doting attitude for his wife, it seems natural for him to have been concerned. One drink of the devil's urine, and you'll be strung out, beating your wife, and screaming FREAK OUT. Just like REEFER MADNESS!!!

 

[SSVilla]

More than that, chronic drinking is not alcoholism. Alcoholism is dependency,

Some people (me ) can drink heavily for years then suddenly go almost cold turkey for no particular reason and with no effort. I have had maybe 6 drinks total in the last year.

Given the hysteria generated by the temperance movement of the day, the overlap it shared with the women's movement, and Grant's doting attitude for his wife, it seems natural for him to have been concerned. One drink of the devil's urine, and you'll be strung out, beating your wife, and screaming FREAK OUT. Just like REEFER MADNESS!!!

I do think the morals of the day also make the accounts something to even question as you say. To me we simply don't know enough. Too much made up, the few times he fell off a wagon were like me at my 21st birthday… and him celebrating the conquest of the century with Vicksburg so overall meh… The man did die of throat cancer from chronic smoking- that we don't have to wonder about, not liver disease and alcohol related problems.

 

[tony_gunter]

I do think the morals of the day also make the accounts something to even question as you say. To me we simply don't know enough. Too much made up, the few times he fell off a wagon were like me at my 21st birthday… and him celebrating the conquest of the century with Vicksburg so overall meh… The man did die of throat cancer from chronic smoking- that we don't have to wonder about, not liver disease and alcohol related problems.

Alcohol consumption can have a synergistic effect with tobacco consumption for increasing risk of head and neck cancer, but yeah … that's one of those could be either, or, or both just like his struggle with migraines and his love of tearing around town on unruly horses.

What we do know is that Grant didn't show signs of dependency, which is required for an alcoholism diagnosis.

 

[SSVilla]

Alcohol consumption can have a synergistic effect with tobacco consumption for increasing risk of head and neck cancer, but yeah … that's one of those could be either, or, or both just like his struggle with migraines and his love of tearing around town on unruly horses.

What we do know is that Grant didn't show signs of dependency, which is required for an alcoholism diagnosis.

lol I laughed at the unruly horses. If there's one instance where I really suspect his intolerance showed was at Louisiana. Lol

Two generals that I recall with liver disease are Halleck and Pickett. There might be others. hooker?

 

[A. Roy]

IIRC, he doesn't even mention one of the more lurid accounts, the Yazoo Party Cruise.

Yes, I was planning to go on to the Yazoo incident, which Chernow relates.
AR

 

[tony_gunter]

He did mention it there. Look it up. I recently listened to it. He also mentions the Louisiana horse, Vicksburg, Mcclerrnand, captain Koontz and others…

Yeah, I see it. He actually does a more thorough job with that one than the other allegations but still fails to really list the parties involved and how their stories support / fail to support the allegation.

 

[SSVilla]

Yeah, I see it. He actually does a more thorough job with that one than the other allegations but still fails to really list the parties involved and how their stories support / fail to support the allegation.

Chernov is under the impression that Grant was indeed an alcoholic and presents things in that light mostly… so he will admit when something sound fishy but he still credits that something must have been going on. There had to be some base, he appears to argue.

The more I think about it, a thorough review of this issue cannot be extricated from the professional jealousy Grant's reputation engendered.

Anyway, the standards for the press were similar to the opinion places of today - or worse. That also doesn't help. The fact that as Grant grew in reputation anyone with a juicy story got an audience also was a factor… Some stories were completely anonymous… the worst of the ill intended.

I don't think one can extricate one issue from the other. There are untrustworthy sources for many embellished accounts… and a few that didn't come to light until he was pushing reconstruction and made new enemies who turned on him after the fact like Dana and others like G. Welles

So yeah, in the end it's more meh!

 

[A. Roy]

Another occurrence that I've run across related to Gen. Grant and alcohol is an account of a June 6-7, 1863, trip that Grant and Charles A. Dana took on the USS Diligence to look into the situation at Satartia, Miss., where the Union position was thought to be under threat by Confederate forces. Supposedly, Grant went on a bender during this trip. I seem to remember that other historians think the evidence for Grant's drunkenness on the Yazoo trip is pretty thin.

In Chernow's biography, he racks up a pretty good word count on this story, and it looks to me as if Chernow is of two minds about it: On the one hand, he questions the veracity of the whole story; but on the other hand, he interprets it as evidence of Grant as a problem drinker.

Overall, Chernow seems to suspect that the whole account is a fabrication. The source of the account is a memoir written by journalist Sylvanus Cadwallader, who, Chernow writes, "conjured up a notorious tale of Grant's mad, drunken escapade on this trip." (Pages 273-4) "Conjured up" being the key phrase here. Cadwallader's account was written as if he were on the boat with Grant, whereas, according to Chernow, it was Dana who accompanied Grant, not Cadwallader: "In narrating this tale, Sylvanus Cadwallader made a startling imaginative leap, placing himself aboard the boat to Satartia in lieu of Dana, even though contemporary records confirm that Cadwallader was absent and Dana present." (Page 274)

On top of this, Cadwallader's memoirs were written around 1890 and not published until 1955:

"Cadwallader delayed composing his memoirs until the late 1880s and early 1890s, when he was tending sheep in California. Fred Grant encouraged him to write, saying that 'you certainly occupied a position with the Army that gave you great insight into affairs.' When the book was belatedly published in 1955, the historian Bruce Catton greeted it as 'one of the great books of the Civil War.'" (Page 274)

So the way Chernow describes the provenance of the Yazoo River escapade is in such a way as to cast doubt on the whole story.

ARB

 

[Belfoured]

Or, here's a crazy thought … we could evaluate Banks' letter critically.

1) Grant was a drinker, that's a fact.
2) Grant was also a known reckless rider street racing on a spirited unfamiliar horse.
3) The accident could be contributed to 1 or 2 or 1 and 2, without a breathalyzer Banks can't really say. And if we did have actual proof the accident can be solely attributed to #1, it still doesn't make Grant a drunk.
4) Banks was a temperance zealot, so he would consider any drinker a drunk,
5) Banks was also exasperated that Grant, a debased drunk of all people, had stolen all the laurels from Banks' brilliant Port Hudson campaign.

Of *course* Banks would say what he said, but it doesn't mean we accept it uncritically.

I'm always interested when guys like Banks become sources of reliable reporting. Even aside from his own involvement which might influence him to decide to "distance" himself afterwards, he was a career politician.

 

[Belfoured]

More than that, chronic drinking is not alcoholism. Alcoholism is dependency,

Some people (me ) can drink heavily for years then suddenly go almost cold turkey for no particular reason and with no effort. I have had maybe 6 drinks total in the last year.

Given the hysteria generated by the temperance movement of the day, the overlap it shared with the women's movement, and Grant's doting attitude for his wife, it seems natural for him to have been concerned. One drink of the devil's urine, and you'll be strung out, beating your wife, and screaming FREAK OUT. Just like REEFER MADNESS!!!

An absolute classic, by the way.

 

[A. Roy]

Cadwallader's account was written as if he were on the boat with Grant, whereas, according to Chernow, it was Dana who accompanied Grant, not Cadwallader: "In narrating this tale, Sylvanus Cadwallader made a startling imaginative leap, placing himself aboard the boat to Satartia in lieu of Dana, even though contemporary records confirm that Cadwallader was absent and Dana present." (Page 274)

In spite of pointing out that Cadwallader's account of the Yazoo River escapade was apparently fabricated, Chernow seems to use it as a confirmation of Grant's problem drinking.

After relating some wild excerpts from Cadwallader's account, Chernow writes: "What to make of this fantastic tale? Aside from the fact that Cadwallader wasn't on the trip to Satartia, many preposterous details strain credulity." (Page 275)

Nevertheless, Chernow thinks there may be some truth to the account:

"At the same time, it shows remarkable consistency with other drinking stories about Grant—the granite self-command breaking down under the influence; the slurred speech, wobbly gait, and sudden personality change; the strange reversion to a babbling, childlike state; the straightening up and getting sober and resuming his official personality in a twinkling. These factors make one suspect that the story, though hugely embellished, may contain a kernel of truth instead of being concocted whole cloth by Cadwallader's overwrought imagination. In all likelihood, Cadwallader heard the story of the Satartia trip from Dana or Rawlins and presented it as his own eyewitness account for dramatic effect or self-aggrandizement." (Page 276)

To some degree here, it seems as if Chernow wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, the Yazoo account strains credibility; but on the other hand, it confirms Grant's vulnerability to alcohol.

AR

ARB