Grant Grant had nothing to do with the Union winning the war

Status
Not open for further replies.
Grant understood war, and as GnC, he waged it. While he (and Meade) were confronting Lee and the AoNV, he let Sherman go and kept other Union forces putting pressure on other Confederate armies.

Yes, he had the numbers and resources to wage war across the country. He was not only confronting Lee, but the entire armed forces of the Confederacy. He methodically crushed Confederate resistance.
 
The man who took Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson and taking his first rebel army out the war, the man who when surprised at Shiloh, stayed when most other Union generals at the time would've retreated and ended up winning the battle, the man who took Vicksburg and a 2nd rebel army out of the war and cut off most of Lousiana, Texas and Arkansas from the Confederacy, the man who lifted the seige of Chattanooga and won one of the most stunning victories of the war, the man who brought Lee under siege in less than 2 months and ran him to ground when Lee finally tried to escape, the man who captured a 3rd rebel army, the man who let Sherman run loose and prove to the Confederacy that they were powerless to stop him, the man who coordinated Army-Navy cooperation to a degree never seen before in American history, that man, Ulyssess S. Grant had nothing to do with the Union victory? Oookay.:rolleyes:

I would like his detractors to name another Union general who did half of what Grant did.
 
I never did have the nerve to venture into the other thread ' Lee a traitor ' geesh. So THIS is where it ended up, with Grant having nothing to do with contributing to to the Union victory? How did that get there, he happened to be there ( I'm guessing on a bender ) when the other side didn't win?

I'm guessing this thread was started through exasperation, the subject is as silly and inflammatory as the one which provoked it. Both premises are off-the-wall. Lee considered himself bound first by loyalty to Virginia, was behaving completely honorably as far as he could define it, Grant? See above.
 
Grant, arguably, had 3 or 4 moments of brilliance during the war that show him as different than and better than any other Union general:
  1. the Henry & Donelson Campaign
  2. the Vicksburg Campaign, in particular the crossing of the Mississippi and the trapping of Pemberton in Vicksburg
  3. the move across the James to Petersburg after Cold Harbor (which failed to achieve complete success, but could have easily won the war in June 1863)
  4. the relentless pursuit to Appomattox after the breakthrough at Five Forks.
He was not perfect, but no other Union general has a record to compare to that.

Tim
 
Just to play Devil's Advocate, I think the only way to argue Grant had nothing to do with winning the war would be to adopt a Hegelian-inspired view on history. Going that route plays down or denies the role of human personality and decision-making in anything that happens in history. It's the "great, impersonal forces" school of thought, and recall that some advocates of that school of historiography were quite militant about denying that individual humans had anything to do with anything.

Following this line, the argument goes that the North won the war because of the big issues: it's substantial material superiority; the South's problematic geography; the South's peculiar institution and British reliance on Northern food exports proving almost insurmountable hurdles to gaining foreign recognition; etc, etc, etc. We're all Civil War buffs, so we're all familiar with most or all these "macro" advantages and disadvantages. What a "big forces" advocate would argue that if there hadn't been a Grant, Northern cultural circumstances would have thrown up someone almost as good, as good, or perhaps even better at some point. The individual becomes irrelevant to the overall scheme of things.

Of course, the same line of thinking would make the whole pantheon of Southern heroes just as irrelevant as Grant. The general course of events would have more or less been the same, because Southern cultural circumstances would have thrown up people almost as good, as good, or better.

Just thinking about it ought to show why I hold those Communistical academics who adopt such hogwash in utter and complete contempt :tongue:

My point in engaging this exercise is to underline just how important Grant was. The entire forward momentum of Union victory in the western theater began with him at Fort Donelson. Looking at who the other field commanders could have been for that operation, it's easy to see the whole **** thing getting bungled. Imagine the ripple effect on that!

The only way to make this argument -- that Grant had nothing to do with the Union winning the war -- would be to advocate the slightly less preposterous position that no individual had that much to do with anything that happened anywhere at any time.
 

Again, the Union winning the war had little to do with Grant really. The only reason Lee couldn't trash his army like he did with all the generals before Grant was because the war was already in the late stages when the Confederacy had very little resources and plus Sherman's attacks on the Western front proved to be nearly fatal for Lee's army due to the massive desertations. But Grant had absolutely nothing to do with Sherman nor did he help in any way the accumulation of resources the North had that helped them win the war. Grant was just a general whose only strategy was to launch front-attacks without caring too much how many of his soldiers will die.
This is the post that initiated this discussion.
- Alan
 
Following this line, the argument goes that the North won the war because of the big issues: it's substantial material superiority; the South's problematic geography; the South's peculiar institution and British reliance on Northern food exports proving almost insurmountable hurdles to gaining foreign recognition; etc, etc, etc.

Although OT I again must point out that Britain was in no way "dependent" on US grain. True, they imported a lot of US grain but that's because the northern states used to "export" this south, and supply and demand led to a massive oversupply and hence a collapse in US grain prices to the point that it was cheaper to consume US grain then that raised in Britain. Claussen points out that "King Corn" didn't exist anywhere outside the minds of americans: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1896319
 
I would like his detractors to name another Union general who did half of what Grant did.


How about William T. Sherman? While Grant was stuck at Petersburg picking pumkin-seeds, Sherman utterly destoryed the Confederacy's Western Front, not to mention the Carolinas.
 
Say Grant had nothing to do with winning the war goes to far. Now if the question was framed as was Grant necessary to win the war then the answer would be no, Grant was not necessary.

What probably was necessary was to remove Halleck. Imagine for a moment a counterfactual where Grant is posted to the Army of the Potomac, but only as army commander, leaving Halleck in place. Halleck would have pulled Grant back from the Wilderness to assume their "proper place" defending Washington.
 
And I stand by it, btw.

Whilst the argument is very overstated it has some sound underpinnings. Grant was a "mere pounder" and the Confederacy had largely been bled white already. However, somebody had to get going forward. As it turned out Grant was unable to force a decision, but Sherman was, if by the skin of his teeth.
 
To say General Grant was merely a pounder disregards the overall duties of a commanding officer. Can't even imagine the challenges presented to this individual on a daily basis. There were a handful of generals, on both sides, that were able to do it successfully. It's no wonder Grant had a splitting headache prior to receiving General Lee's surrender proposal.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top