Grant Grant the card player!

[CivilWarCollector]

Everyone knows Grant had drinking issues at various points in his career, but a vice that never left him was card playing. I'll share a few anecdotes I've learned poking around, but most of what I know comes from this article:

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2016...016-civil-war-us-grant-robert-e-lee-25582.htm


The other interesting little anecdotes I've read are:

After the surrender of the South, Grant approached Longstreet, his old colleague, and asked him "if he would care to play a hand of Brag to recall the old days on the frontier army". Brag being a very old British pre-courser to poker.


Another story goes something like:

There are a few union and confederate officers out in the middle of no-mans-land one evening playing cards. During a particularly heated hand a Union officer rides up and shouts "Ahoy, what goes on there?"

A confederate soldier jumps up and says "Sorry sir, we was just playing poker. I won $2.00 from this Yankee."

The union officer grins and declares "That's all for tonight gentleman, game is over" and turns to leave.

A union solider, realizing who the officer was and what was going on, jumped to his feet, snapped a crisp salute and hailed "Good evening, General Grant!"



So there we have it. A little fun from the gritty man in Blue! What's everyone think?


If you want to check out a deck of Cards that Grant himself may have played with:

 

[donna]

Interesting. I had read he really enjoyed cards.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

Thank you so much for adding this @CivilWarCollector ! I really enjoyed your video, and the stories that went with it. Artifacts become so interesting when we can add some stories to them as well and I had never seen these before. General Grant may indeed have played with a deck of these during the war. Going back to read your article now.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

Well, I've just read the article and how interesting on so many fronts.

First of all, the fact that card playing is rarely mentioned in any of the Grant papers or his memoirs:

"Despite poker being a favored proclivity of Grant's, he never himself bothered to chronicle his own card playing that much. His great end-of-life autobiography, the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (published by the poker-proponent Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death in 1885) shares no stories of his own poker playing and only casual references to that of others. In fact, there are only a few small, mostly incidental references to cards in all 31 volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant."

And how it could also be adjoined to his military thinking and tactics. Betting all on the outcome in the hope of winning. And continuing to raise the stakes until the other party folded. At least that's my take on it.

As a sideline we have Hood in Atlanta who Sherman had 'sussed out' as regards his weakness via his card playing habits.

"Hood's adversary was William Tecumseh Sherman and his larger Military Division of the Mississippi. Not knowing much about the young Hood, Sherman asked his officers if anyone had any acquaintance with him previously, perhaps at West Point. One stepped forward, a "pro-Union Kentuckian" (writes McManus) who informed Sherman he had seen "Hood bet $2500 with nary a pair in his hand."

Such information helped Sherman plot a strategy versus Hood, surmising that his boldness in a hand of poker might well translate to boldness on the battlefield. That meant Sherman could go on the offensive with his troop advantage and expect Hood not to retreat as he should.

"As if on cue, Hood proceeded to shatter his Army of Tennessee with four near-suicidal attacks on Sherman's well-dug-in positions," explains McManus. Both sides suffered nearly the same number of casualties (more than 30,000), but the loss represented a much higher percentage of the South's numbers than the North. The Confederate army left Atlanta, Lincoln was reelected, and by the spring came surrender.

Lee had warned about gambling producing "deplorable results." And for the South, one might say, Hood's gambling nature had done just that."

Forrest having a proclivity for gambling as well, I've often wondered how things might have been different if he had been in charge at Fort Donelson. Forrest was the master of the 'sleight of hand' in war, and may well have been a match for Grant in the circumstances.

And I have to end with this one about Grant's 'Valentine's' gift to a friend on 14 February 1867:

Grant once mentions in a letter sending $10 to the U.S. Senator James W. Nesmith on February 14, 1867, calling the payment a "Valentine" and adding "this is the day for distributing such things." A notation clarifies the money "was a little balance on a poker transaction." Another note shares journalist John Russell Young's 1879 diary entry describing a poker game with Grant.

Great share once again, and the only thread we haven't had today on Grant's 'vices' is his drinking! That one's been done to death.

 

[CivilWarCollector]

I genuinely enjoyed that article and have now read it through three times. I wanted to share the entire article in my video, but alas, no one wants to listen to someone drone on for 30 minutes

 

[Cavalry Charger]

I genuinely enjoyed that article and have now read it through three times. I wanted to share the entire article in my video, but alas, no one wants to listen to someone drone on for 30 minutes

Well, I just droned on for a couple about it

There's always someone who will appreciate what you post here, but a link is a great idea if people do have enough interest to read further.

 

[GrantCottage1885]

The following story as related by U.S. Grant Jr. in a newspaper article from 1922 is amusing

Fond of Cards.​

"I think he got the greatest relaxation, especially in his latter years after he was president and we were living in New York, from a game of cards. He didn't care for chess, he could win too easily. He liked cribbage, but poker was his favorite game. I remember many a game he had with Commodore Garrison, v Senator Elkins and Senator Chaffee. They always played draw poker this was over 50 years ago and for a small limit. Mother didn't like to have him win the money of other men, although they were much wealthier than he, ' and so when he came home from a game, would call up to mother: "Well, Julia, I'm home. I lost my money." He always joked about mother's inability to play cards and loved to tell guests about the time he stacked her hand. They were having a friendly game and mother left the room tor a minute. Father winked at the others and stacked her hand, giving her a royal heart flush. "When mother returned," he would chuckle, "she picked up her hand and said, "Give me four cards."

One of Grant's final handwritten notes currently on display at Grant Cottage Historic Site may seem to have insignificant content at first. The note takes on more significance when one realizes that it shows his powerful desire to have a semblance of family life right to the bitter end despite his desperate condition.

It reads: "Tell Jesse to come down in fifteen of twenty minutes and play cards with me"

The note is in a case with a couple of other game boards the Grant family brought to Mt. McGregor for leisure and family time. The collection is highlighted in the following blog post: https://www.grantcottage.org/blog/2018/5/21/mementos

 

[CivilWarCollector]

Video was removed. Here it is for anyone interested.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

Video was removed. Here it is for anyone interested.

Annoying as it's an entertaining video with lots of good information. Hopefully this one will stay up.

 

[Canadian]

More fascinating details, very well told.