Grant "Grant" -New 2020 Mini Series Coming Soon! Directed by Leonardo DiCaprio

For sure, especially for the wounded at Cold Harbor, after Grant launched one of his many frontal charges at Lee that spring, way too many soldiers had to suffer and die. Why did Grant feel the need to play "checkers" with his own men when he took command of the Army of the Potomac and micro managed Meade? Yes, we know Meade was hardly an aggressive commander in the Civil War but even he couldn't have been happy working under Grant and watching the Yankee body count go up, up and up. Does "winning" trump everything and justify the way Grant fought his campaign in VA? Was it really OK and necessary how Grant and his 2 buddies; Sherman and Sheridan exercised total war against the southern people? Yeah he won but look at the cost. Was that the best way to fight?
 
The War had a hard timeline. Lincoln wanted results. Grant Knew what Lincoln wanted, newspaper headlines and Victories to support his re-election. Carnage affected recruitment. Men stopped signing up even for 90 days. Life expectancy was less than that. So, the Yankee forced the Negro into Blue Suits. Didn’t trust them either, aka Petersburg. History lies about the whole thing. Now if you contest Grant, or his Chosen, you are branded a Hater.
 
Depends on the perspective, as usual. From the Union point of view, winning meant ending Confederate resistance. Grant was not just waging a campaign in 1864 to beat Lee in Virginia; he was applying a grand strategy of pressure everywhere with the ultimate aim of ensuring the Confederacy could not sustain, let alone reinforce or maneuver, armies. And that meant defeating the will of a people not just beating armies in the field. Of course “collateral damage” is a nice little phrase that sounds better than wrecked livelihoods and burnt homes.
The alternative was more advance and retreat - which from the Confederate point of view would have been good had the Union eventually tired of that and given up.
Either way the body count goes up, though. War is brutal stuff.
 
All of that is True. However, Lincoln’s fortunes were tied to the War. Republicans fortunes were tied to the War. Republicans thought Democrats were Traitors.

Grant said after Cold Harbor that he knew if this assault failed, within a few weeks he knew he would have another headline to replace it. Lincoln thought he may lose the Election. So the importance of the Election shouldn’t be understated. Lincoln needed Positive headlines. The whole thing started over a Election. You can’t separate Politics from this War None of the others either. Reconstruction was nothing more than keeping the Republicans in power. Republicans didn’t fight a War to lose it in a Election.

Back to the OP. The Mini Series stresses Lincoln’s analysts of the Election. Told Grant his Presidency was resting on his shoulders. It is True Grants Campaign was 5 pronged. All to help Grant defeat Lee. Sherman takes Atlanta. Lincoln’s Political Fortunes turn on that.
 
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For sure, especially for the wounded at Cold Harbor, after Grant launched one of his many frontal charges at Lee that spring, way too many soldiers had to suffer and die. Why did Grant feel the need to play "checkers" with his own men when he took command of the Army of the Potomac and micro managed Meade? Yes, we know Meade was hardly an aggressive commander in the Civil War but even he couldn't have been happy working under Grant and watching the Yankee body count go up, up and up. Does "winning" trump everything and justify the way Grant fought his campaign in VA? Was it really OK and necessary how Grant and his 2 buddies; Sherman and Sheridan exercised total war against the southern people? Yeah he won but look at the cost. Was that the best way to fight?
"Too many soldiers had to suffer and die" applies to the entire war. I'd recommend Gordon Rhea's books to get a good understanding of the Overland Campaign. It was about maneuvering and fighting. Not about body counts.
 
"Too many soldiers had to suffer and die" applies to the entire war. I'd recommend Gordon Rhea's books to get a good understanding of the Overland Campaign. It was about maneuvering and fighting. Not about body counts.

Good point! Body counts didn’t matter. War of attrition they called it. Mini Series said Grant wasnt a Butcher. But War had high Costs. Whatever the Words, results were the Same.

Mini Series tells us Grants objectives were Political. They could of used the term, The Union is your Shoulders or The Negro is on your Shoulders. No, they used Presidency’s.

Series was Very Important. Been a long time since the Northern Narrative has been Explained to us. 6 Hours on the History Channel. Selective Historians. Bewildering how the Black Historians came to their conclusions. Several important Revisions. Grant enters martyrdom. Series Reinvents Grant. Less known Character than Lincoln. Easier to Manipulate his Narrative.

Fascinating!
 
Good point! Body counts didn’t matter. War of attrition they called it. Mini Series said Grant wasnt a Butcher. But War had high Costs. Whatever the Words, results were the Same.

Mini Series tells us Grants objectives were Political. They could of used the term, The Union is your Shoulders or The Negro is on your Shoulders. No, they used Presidency’s.

Series was Very Important. Been a long time since the Northern Narrative has been Explained to us. 6 Hours on the History Channel. Selective Historians. Bewildering how the Black Historians came to their conclusions. Several important Revisions. Grant enters martyrdom. Series Reinvents Grant. Less known Character than Lincoln. Easier to Manipulate his Narrative.

Fascinating!
So he's somewhere between drunken butchering failure and martyr and neither version of him is correct. Sounds about right.
 
Facts DO matter. Our job as ACW enthusiasts is to clear away the myths and determine the facts. Those include (as has been stated in this Forum numerous times) few Americans in the antebellum considered Blacks their equal; many thought slavery morally repugnant, but were unwilling to become involved in its demise; only about 15% were Abolitionists and some of them believed in the inferiority of Blacks; the crisis that ended in the Civil War was caused by disagreement over the expansion of slavery beyond those states where it then
existed and a fear that if new states were admitted as Free States, slavery would eventually be banned everywhere.
The irony is that by starting a war over the issue, Southern slaveholders only assured a more speedy end to their 'peculiar institution'. In 1860, even the most influential Abolitionists thought slavery would not end in their lifetime.
Whether or not one admires Grant, he was very much an example of the 'average American' of the time. He believed slavery was wrong (even freeing his one slave), but was unwilling to force his personal beliefs on others.
They all were educated in the history of Napoleonic wars. That including Napoleon destroying his French army in Russia, and his allies therefore quitting him. But it wasn't enough, was it? There was a still a Waterloo, and more Frenchmen, Prussians and Brits had to die, before Napoleon was permanently exiled.
But that is not how the US Civil War ended. Instead of following Lee's army, and allowing him to join up with Johnston, for an American Waterloo, Grant encouraged Sheridan to cut into Lee's army at Sailor's Creek, and the cut off the railroad cars at Appomattox courthouse. Grant allowed Lee to surrender as a soldier, and even after the assassin killed Lincoln, Davis was neither hung nor permanently exiled, because it was not necessary. The Russians could not do that after Napoleon invaded Russia, because they were as exhausted as the French. Therefore Napoleon survived and France was wounded but still very much functioning.
The Confederacy was so thoroughly dismembered, that it could fight again for a generation. By the time its population had recovered, the US was a major industrial power and cotton prices were not sustaining per capita income growth.
We take for granted that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments remained part of the constitution, even though their intent was clearly blunted in the southern states.
Some people do not like that the worst abuses of slavery were permanently abolished, without a humanitarian disaster, and do not like the republic for which Grant advocated.
I suspect however, that the current of history is in Grant's favor, and the series will be the start of a broader reappraisal of the unity for which he lived and advocated.
 
Narratives have a lot of Myth in them. Thread is about the Mini Series. Nationalism is mostly Myth.
The narrative, both historic and modern, to make President Grant a drunken butchering failure and his supposed martrydom are a myth. Both injected in some way with nationalism, attempted confederate and United States of America.
 
It’s a good point: nationalism is mostly myth. It has to be. No community is built on a bunch of historians or other researchers coming to consensus over documents but by an appeal to common values and shared experiences. Myth (in the Joseph Campbell sense) is the attempt to breathe life into those values and draw inspiration from stories - including apocryphal legends - that illustrate them. Not enough myth and the seams of any society start to show.
 
It is naive to think that political considerations are not a huge factor in any war. You cannot fight a war without the suport of the people and that support has an expiration date.

Furthermore, while Lincoln certainly enjoyed being President he - and everyone else - knew that if a Democrat, Little Mac or anyone else - won the election that the war would grind to a halt and peace obtained on Jeff Davis' terms.

Was that a selfish impulse, or was ending slavery and freeing four million people from chattal bondage worth the casualties? You tell me.

Particularly since the alternative, should Lincoln have lost, could very well have been another 20 or 30 or 40 years of slavery.

Certainly the South was aware of this. Leaders including Lee were openly aware that if they could just hold on until after the election that they might see Lincoln replaced by someone more malleable. Would this have been a good result?

The fact is that war is violence and killing. Grant had no more desire to see young men slaughtered than anyone else, but Lee was a savvy opppnent and refused to offer battle any other way. Grant woild have given his left arm for Lee to come out of the trenches and engage in a stand up fight.

Was Cold Harbor a mistake? Of course it was. Even Grant admitted it. But attacking breastworks and taking the casualties was the only way to fight Lee. The alternative was the McClellan approach.

They say that Cold Harbor was the price the Union paid for Grant. They also say that Gettysburg was the price the South paid for Lee.
 
I appreciate Rochester Bill's comments a whole lot! And as usual, UASKME always has terrific thoughts to share. I'm someone who thinks the South had to win a semi quick war - like Lee also believed, take the fight to the North and beat the Union on their own property. So honestly, what choice did the great general have? He knew the south had no stomach for a long war and certainly would run out of men and supplies, not to mention, PATIENCE and RESOLVE. Lee almost accomplished his objective! I also believe Grant, while he did have a strategy to win the war in a lot of different theatres, still assumed his own brute strength and numbers would get the job done. As costly as it was, he was right.
 
Please stop saying Lee fought for slavery, he did not!

Don't want to belabor the point, as others said, but Lee was a slaveowner and the Confederacy fought for the preservation of slavery.

The Myth of the Kindly General Lee

To quote:
Lee was a slave owner—his own views on slavery were explicated in an 1856 letter that is often misquoted to give the impression that Lee was some kind of abolitionist. In the letter, he describes slavery as “a moral & political evil,” but goes on to explain that:

I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy.
The argument here is that slavery is bad for white people, good for black people, and most important, better than abolitionism; emancipation must wait for divine intervention. That black people might not want to be slaves does not enter into the equation; their opinion on the subject of their own bondage is not even an afterthought to Lee.

Lee’s cruelty as a slave master was not confined to physical punishment. In Reading the Man, the historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s portrait of Lee through his writings, Pryor writes that “Lee ruptured the Washington and Custis tradition of respecting slave families” by hiring them off to other plantations, and that “by 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate, some of whom had been together since Mount Vernon days.” The separation of slave families was one of the most unfathomably devastating aspects of slavery, and Pryor wrote that Lee’s slaves regarded him as “the worst man I ever see.”

The trauma of rupturing families lasted lifetimes for the enslaved—it was, as my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates described it, “a kind of murder.” After the war, thousands of the emancipated searched desperately for kin lost to the market for human flesh, fruitlessly for most. In Reconstruction, the historian Eric Foner quotes a Freedmen’s Bureau agent who notes of the emancipated, “In their eyes, the work of emancipation was incomplete until the families which had been dispersed by slavery were reunited.”

Lee’s heavy hand on the Arlington, Virginia, plantation, Pryor writes, nearly led to a slave revolt, in part because the enslaved had been expected to be freed upon their previous master’s death, and Lee had engaged in a dubious legal interpretation of his will in order to keep them as his property, one that lasted until a Virginia court forced him to free them.

When two of his slaves escaped and were recaptured, Lee either beat them himself or ordered the overseer to “lay it on well.” Wesley Norris, one of the slaves who was whipped, recalled that “not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.”
 
Once again the South already had slavery. It was protected in the Constitution and Lincoln said he didn't have the ability to change it. OTOH every time a new State was admitted the South wanted it to be a slave state and the North didn't! Lincoln was elected POTUS and was also on record saying he was NOT pro slavery! Now that IMO is what drove the South to secede from the United States of America and form the Confederate States of America. The CSA wanted Independence from the USA in much the same way the "Colonists" wanted Independence from King George. There you have it Gentlemen and any Ladies who happen upon this thread. And thanks to all for reading my post.
 
Once again the South already had slavery. It was protected in the Constitution and Lincoln said he didn't have the ability to change it. OTOH every time a new State was admitted the South wanted it to be a slave state and the North didn't! Lincoln was elected POTUS and was also on record saying he was NOT pro slavery! Now that IMO is what drove the South to secede from the United States of America and form the Confederate States of America. The CSA wanted Independence from the USA in much the same way the "Colonists" wanted Independence from King George. There you have it Gentlemen and any Ladies who happen upon this thread. And thanks to all for reading my post.

Lincoln's views on slavery were complex and changed over the course of his life. He also was very conscious of the politics of taking a strong anti-slavery stance when he desperately needed as many border states to stay in the Union as possible and large portions of the Northern populace were ambivalent on the issue and openly racist.

If as you argue Lincoln's anti-slavery stance was what drove the South to secede, then it would seem that slavery was the cause of the war. If it was a war for independence, the natural question becomes, what did the Confederacy want independence for? They wanted independence because they saw their way of life, in other words, slavery, as under threat from the North. They wanted independence in order to preserve and expand the institution of slavery and the social hierarchy formed alongside and intertwined with it.

Furthermore, in the wonderful book APOSTLES OF DISUNION, Charles Dew quotes numerous secession commissioners using the threat of racial equality and race war resulting from the abolition of slavery to encourage other southern states to secede. This was southerners speaking to southerners on issues that they believed would agitate the population. And that issue was slavery.

Thank you for the polite debate!
 
They all were educated in the history of Napoleonic wars. That including Napoleon destroying his French army in Russia, and his allies therefore quitting him. But it wasn't enough, was it? There was a still a Waterloo, and more Frenchmen, Prussians and Brits had to die, before Napoleon was permanently exiled.
But that is not how the US Civil War ended. Instead of following Lee's army, and allowing him to join up with Johnston, for an American Waterloo, Grant encouraged Sheridan to cut into Lee's army at Sailor's Creek, and the cut off the railroad cars at Appomattox courthouse. Grant allowed Lee to surrender as a soldier, and even after the assassin killed Lincoln, Davis was neither hung nor permanently exiled, because it was not necessary. The Russians could not do that after Napoleon invaded Russia, because they were as exhausted as the French. Therefore Napoleon survived and France was wounded but still very much functioning.
The Confederacy was so thoroughly dismembered, that it could fight again for a generation. By the time its population had recovered, the US was a major industrial power and cotton prices were not sustaining per capita income growth.
We take for granted that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments remained part of the constitution, even though their intent was clearly blunted in the southern states.
Some people do not like that the worst abuses of slavery were permanently abolished, without a humanitarian disaster, and do not like the republic for which Grant advocated.
I suspect however, that the current of history is in Grant's favor, and the series will be the start of a broader reappraisal of the unity for which he lived and advocated.

Republicans controlled the Supreme Court. Also controlled much of the Political Process for decades past the CW. They are the ones who deleted the Negroes Gains. They didn't believe in them any more than White Southerners. Rejected de
They all were educated in the history of Napoleonic wars. That including Napoleon destroying his French army in Russia, and his allies therefore quitting him. But it wasn't enough, was it? There was a still a Waterloo, and more Frenchmen, Prussians and Brits had to die, before Napoleon was permanently exiled.
But that is not how the US Civil War ended. Instead of following Lee's army, and allowing him to join up with Johnston, for an American Waterloo, Grant encouraged Sheridan to cut into Lee's army at Sailor's Creek, and the cut off the railroad cars at Appomattox courthouse. Grant allowed Lee to surrender as a soldier, and even after the assassin killed Lincoln, Davis was neither hung nor permanently exiled, because it was not necessary. The Russians could not do that after Napoleon invaded Russia, because they were as exhausted as the French. Therefore Napoleon survived and France was wounded but still very much functioning.
The Confederacy was so thoroughly dismembered, that it could fight again for a generation. By the time its population had recovered, the US was a major industrial power and cotton prices were not sustaining per capita income growth.
We take for granted that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments remained part of the constitution, even though their intent was clearly blunted in the southern states.
Some people do not like that the worst abuses of slavery were permanently abolished, without a humanitarian disaster, and do not like the republic for which Grant advocated.
I suspect however, that the current of history is in Grant's favor, and the series will be the start of a broader reappraisal of the unity for which he lived and advocated.

Republicans controlled the Supreme Court and much of the Political Process post War for Decades. They found the Civil Rights Bill Unconstitutional. Nobody in Congress thought it was constitutional when they Passed it. Northern White Racist didn't want their kids in school with Blacks. All this **** about, Just in the South is ridiculous. Republicans had no problem abusing the Chinese, then calling them Slave. Caleb Cushing and all the China Merchants trafficked the Chinese. Same system as Slave Trafficking. Northern Aristocrat Merchants were great Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers.

Yankees Forced the Negro back on the Plantation. Even the Radical Republican Racist didn't want the Negro in the North. They wanted him Growing their Cotton. Voting Republican and little else. When Voting became a Drag. Growing Cotton was the only thing left. Yankees didn't give one whit what happened to them. Profited from their labor as much as they did during Slavery. Helped to keep them on the Plantation until WWI. Then were forced by necessity to accept Negro Labor. And look what they did to them!

Grant worked with his Slave. Guess he worked with the Native Americans also. Talk that the War might of saved a Race Extermination. Well, no it didn't Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and Yellow Hair did a fine job with that. Race War the Yankee wanted, wasn't in the South, it was in the West.

All of this is part of NATIONALISM. Projection of all of the Nations Sins on the South. All Myth and a Lie. Hard to take some Seriously?
 
Lincoln's views on slavery were complex and changed over the course of his life. He also was very conscious of the politics of taking a strong anti-slavery stance when he desperately needed as many border states to stay in the Union as possible and large portions of the Northern populace were ambivalent on the issue and openly racist.

If as you argue Lincoln's anti-slavery stance was what drove the South to secede, then it would seem that slavery was the cause of the war. If it was a war for independence, the natural question becomes, what did the Confederacy want independence for? They wanted independence because they saw their way of life, in other words, slavery, as under threat from the North. They wanted independence in order to preserve and expand the institution of slavery and the social hierarchy formed alongside and intertwined with it.

Furthermore, in the wonderful book APOSTLES OF DISUNION, Charles Dew quotes numerous secession commissioners using the threat of racial equality and race war resulting from the abolition of slavery to encourage other southern states to secede. This was southerners speaking to southerners on issues that they believed would agitate the population. And that issue was slavery.

Thank you for the polite debate!
And I thank you sir for responding to my post. That one can find quotes from the Planters that pushed for Secession while waxing on an on about Slavery isn't difficult to find look for Stephen's cornerstone speech. That said Secession was precisely what it was which was to separate the CSA from the USA. All my ancestors that fought in that terrible war were Confederates and with that said precious few owned any slaves. Southern Independence IMO is what they all fought for. Secession was about separating from the United States. Regarding Lincoln's views changing over the course of his life we are in agreement. IMO Lincoln would have made the post war years far better had he survived the war. Surely someone as well read as yourself can remember the line many Confederate solders spoke in that last year and a half of the war. Rich man's War and a Poor Man's fight. Those soldiers who said that resented the Planters exemptions but still fought for Southern Independence.
Lincoln's views on slavery were complex and changed over the course of his life. He also was very conscious of the politics of taking a strong anti-slavery stance when he desperately needed as many border states to stay in the Union as possible and large portions of the Northern populace were ambivalent on the issue and openly racist.

If as you argue Lincoln's anti-slavery stance was what drove the South to secede, then it would seem that slavery was the cause of the war. If it was a war for independence, the natural question becomes, what did the Confederacy want independence for? They wanted independence because they saw their way of life, in other words, slavery, as under threat from the North. They wanted independence in order to preserve and expand the institution of slavery and the social hierarchy formed alongside and intertwined with it.

Furthermore, in the wonderful book APOSTLES OF DISUNION, Charles Dew quotes numerous secession commissioners using the threat of racial equality and race war resulting from the abolition of slavery to encourage other southern states to secede. This was southerners speaking to southerners on issues that they believed would agitate the population. And that issue was slavery.

Thank you for the polite debate!
A
 
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