Grant Grieving about Grant

[wausaubob]

The entire subject is a political trap. To blame Grant for the virulent, genocidal racism that controlled most Americans' attitudes towards the Indian minority is a cop out. While I sure am Kansas is sincere, the source of the diatribe is to make Grant the excuse for centuries of brutality towards Indians.

 

[unionblue]

If we had been around back then there wouldn't have been a Civil War. We'd have settled over hotdogs in a couple hours.
LOL

General BillO,

I am in complete agreement with your stated terms.

Please complete those terms by sending a hot dog vendor between the lines, with plenty of MUSTARD and onions.

Yours Truly,
Hard-headed Yankee,
General Unionblue

 

[USS ALASKA]

Where's my safe space?

Nor...Norway...?!?

Cheers!
USS ALASKA

 

[Canadian]

Because of where I live -- just three townships east of the 98th meridian, "where the West begins" -- and in the same county where several of the civilian scouts were recruited for the expedition that ended in the Battle of Beecher Island -- the Plains Indian Wars hit very close to home for me. Within a couple hours' drive are several important frontier forts -- forts that Sherman and Grant visited in 1868 in their tour of the western forts, forts where Sheridan and Custer served, including Ft. Hays, from which so many federal expeditions against Native Americans were launched. I've been reading books about that era, and am particularly intrigued by Lakota hero Crazy Horse, who was truly "a man in full" -- admirable in just about every way there is. When I traveled to the Sand Hills of Nebraska for the total solar eclipse in August 2017, I viewed the eclipse from a place that happened to be very near the sandstone bluff where Crazy Horse had the unexpected vision that directed the rest of his life. It moved me profoundly to be there.

This heroic, humble, virtuous man was betrayed by... Ulysses Grant.

"Ulysses S. Grant Launched an Illegal War Against the Plains Indians, Then Lied About It"

This Smithsonian magazine article was written by the well-respected historian Peter Cozzens, whom many here on the forum know for his Civil War books. He has also written several books on the western Indian wars; his 2016 The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West won several prizes including the Gilder Lehrman Prize, and has been widely praised by historians including William C. Davis and James M. McPherson.

@KansasFreestater you may be interested in this book when it comes out in September:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/in...ns-world-of-ulysses-s-grant-9-12-2018.146749/

Cozzens is a fine historian, but his Civil War books betray an anti-Grant bias, so somehow I'm not surprised. But the evidence isn't quite as solid as he might like it to be, as a close read suggests.

I won't weigh in on the ketchup and mustard, but I'm intrigued about the debate on whether Grant was guilty of this or not. I've seen the link come up in google searches but had never read it.

@KansasFreestater, you find the book credible, I take it. @Bee you linked to some complex machinations against Ely Parker and @contestedground , you mention the author's anti Grant bias. Is there truth to the charge against Grant or has the history been distorted by biases?

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

@KansasFreestater , I have no intention of letting anyone culpable off the hook but we have a tendency ( not you, meaning something handy in general referred to as ' history' ) to wish our history fast 'n easy, you know? Boy, bring Grant's name into the mix and the rest of the conversation leaves.

Had a member of a tribe tell me Native American histories, centuries of it, never had a chance to be passed down, so swiftly was some extermination achieved. Grant would have been sleeping on his 2 blankets, at West Point, if dates mean anything. I got that comment in reply to a query on a book- this Native American liked it hugely, " 1491 " , by Charles Mann. Talk about background- which is all history. Highest praise was that he is not an archeologist, bound by academic preconception.

Hate to give you one, more for the list, especially one which doesn't sound very much as if it would be relevant here. It is, honest.

 

[wausaubob]

The problem is that there probably is not an Indian story during the Grant/Sherman era. There is instead a Cherokee story, a Pawnee story, a Navajo story, a Benito Jaurez story, a Crow story, and a Lakota, Comanche and Apache story as well. And then there are stories of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who knew that blending into the dominant culture was the most likely way to survive.

 

[5fish]

Grant was a Nativists.... he was a Nativists it makes sense he dislike native Americans...

"Nativism" can be defined in a number of ways. Sociologists and anthropologists tend to describe nativism as a mixture of xenophobia, ethnocentrism, racism, and ultranationalism. My use of the term connotes someone who fears, hates, or resents most immigrants and believes that immigrants pose a threat that must be actively resisted. In addition, because the vast majority of Catholics and Jews in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century were immigrants, I believe it is appropriate to use the term "nativism" to describe Civil War-era anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism as well. Civil War History, Vol. xuu. No. 2 © 1997 by The Kent State University Press I20CIVIL WAR HISTORY president that the failure of Grant's biographers to mention this aspect of his worldview is surprising, especially since it recurs from early adulthood until his death. Nativism tinged the letters he wrote from Mexico while a young soldier there in the 1840s. In the 1850s he joined a Know Nothing lodge and irrationally blamed immigrants for setbacks in his career. In the 1860s he promulgated one of the most infamous acts of state-sponsored anti-Semitism in American history. The most talked-about speech ofhis presidency, delivered in 1875 and all but forgotten today, had a clearly anti-Catholic message. And in the 1880s, as Grant looked backupon his careerwhile composing his memoirs, he still seemed to believe that immigrants (especially Catholics) posed a threat to the nation. The first hint of Grant's enmity toward Catholicism is revealed in his letters from Mexico during the Mexican-American War. After Grant's death, unfortunately , family members did not want his less flattering writings to become public, so they excised from the letters almost every potentially embarrassing comment that Grant had written while in Mexico. From what remains, however, one can piece together Grant's views. Grant believed that Mexico, with its abundant natural resources, would have been a great nation were its population not "degraded" by Catholicism. In Puebla, the twenty-five year-old Grant reported that "the mass ofthe people are the same poor degraded looking beings that we have seen all over the country. At a certain ring of the church bell or when the senior Priest of the place passes you might see them...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw1HPxt04LGx-9aRez2ODsom

https://www.google.com/search?q=gra...ndroid-att-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Highest praise was that he is not an archeologist, bound by academic preconception.

:: grumble :: Not to nitpick, but I run into the "better not to be an archaeologist" thing in Egyptology, and it doesn't hold water. Archaeologists at least deal with actual physical evidence, rather than someone's perception of something that may or may not have happened to somebody else. Nonspecialists don't realize the amount of information that can be gleaned from a particular fragment of pottery at a certain level of a properly investigated site-- too many of them want Ancient Aliens or something. :: grumble ::

Sorry for the digression.

 

[contestedground]

... and @contestedground , you mention the author's anti Grant bias. Is there truth to the charge against Grant or has the history been distorted by biases?

I'd read the article first, and then decide whether the evidence offered sustained the interpretation presented.

If the charge is that Grant gave up under pressure on his efforts to block or contain encroachment by whites in the Black Hills, well, that's nothing new. The president was discovering in 1874-75 that offering a determined stand on a number of issues simply eroded his political position and enhanced the chances for a Democratic victory in 1876. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible.

 

[Canadian]

I'd read the article first, and then decide whether the evidence offered sustained the interpretation presented.

If the charge is that Grant gave up under pressure on his efforts to block or contain encroachment by whites in the Black Hills, well, that's nothing new. The president was discovering in 1874-75 that offering a determined stand on a number of issues simply eroded his political position and enhanced the chances for a Democratic victory in 1876. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible.

I read the article and found it frustrating. The language used is rather inflammatory- "conspirators" "perfidy" and so forth, which makes me sceptical, since it doesn't belong in an unbiased historical investigation. I find it hard to evaluate without access to the documents referred to, dug up in various separate places. It strikes me that there is a fair amount of reading between the lines that the author does.

I'm curious as to why this link rises to the first page of a google search so often when reviews written more recently tend to drift further down the pages.

 

[WJC]

@KansasFreestater , I have no intention of letting anyone culpable off the hook but we have a tendency ( not you, meaning something handy in general referred to as ' history' ) to wish our history fast 'n easy, you know? Boy, bring Grant's name into the mix and the rest of the conversation leaves.

Had a member of a tribe tell me Native American histories, centuries of it, never had a chance to be passed down, so swiftly was some extermination achieved. Grant would have been sleeping on his 2 blankets, at West Point, if dates mean anything. I got that comment in reply to a query on a book- this Native American liked it hugely, " 1491 " , by Charles Mann. Talk about background- which is all history. Highest praise was that he is not an archeologist, bound by academic preconception.

Hate to give you one, more for the list, especially one which doesn't sound very much as if it would be relevant here. It is, honest.

I've read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and consider it a very interesting and most informative work. Anyone interested in learning about the cultures native to the Americas ought to read it. The reader will be amazed at how little we've been taught about the subject.

 

[Bee]

To those of whom tolerate my endless Grant "musings", the topic most frequently visited upon is 'Grant & the Indians', as it is part of the most often used mantra criticizing Grant in the form of "if Grant was such a Civil Rights champion, how could he allow what happened to the Indians?" (followed by the Chinese in California) I note that we live in a democracy comprised of a government of three branches: Executive, Legislative, Judicial. It is important to note that during the era spoken of, a very significant midterm election took place:

With the election following the Panic of 1873, Grant's Republican Party was crushed in the elections, losing their majority and almost half their seats to the Democratic Party. This was the first period of Democratic control since the pre-war era. The economic crisis and the inability of Grant to find a solution led to his party's defeat. This was the second-largest swing in the history of the House (only behind the 1894 elections), and is the largest House loss in the history of the Republican Party.​

1. James E. Campbell, "Party Systems and Realignments in the United States, 1868-2004," Social Science History, Fall 2006, Vol. 30 Issue 3, pp 359-386

This is my starting point: just how much influence did Grant have on this issue, once he lost power in the House? This is the investigative path I eventually intend to pursue, as there are those in residence who believe that Grant wielded the powers of a Dictator, thus, he alone held the fate of "The Indians"

Disclosure: I fully admit that my familiarity with the Grant Administration is a work in progress.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

:: grumble :: Not to nitpick, but I run into the "better not to be an archaeologist" thing in Egyptology, and it doesn't hold water. Archaeologists at least deal with actual physical evidence, rather than someone's perception of something that may or may not have happened to somebody else. Nonspecialists don't realize the amount of information that can be gleaned from a particular fragment of pottery at a certain level of a properly investigated site-- too many of them want Ancient Aliens or something. :: grumble ::

Sorry for the digression.

That was from a perspective spoken of by someone I'd rather not name; examples in the book back up a mistrust of them in this specific area. They have excellent reason to do so, being the topics no one listens to. Other fields, equally viable, just as academically based, are not mistrusted.

You run into professionals of various stripes in all fields. Theories become run away with. Here's an example, and an important one. 2 miles from here is a prehistory dig. A few ancient camps were discovered. Using as the single proof, an arrowhead made of chert, archeologist firmly states ancient Native Americans came all the way here, to southern PA from upstate New York, to kill elk. Then dragged all that meat back- to New York. Claim is, that chert is only found in that specific spot, in NY. Geologist, also an academic, of course found that chert here. Husband is an environmental chemist, not a geologist but must have a solid grasp. We have it in our soggy front yard, an old creek bed.

Original narrative can't be budged despite prehistory arrow heads, axes, cairns and pertroglyphs signifying a prehistory settlement, not a camp. Not really arguing with you, for whatever reason our Native American history does not seem well explored.

 

[WJC]

Native American history does not seem well explored.

So true. And much of it was lost during the 'westward expansion' of our country. Recall that in the years preceding the Civil War, discoveries of mounds in the Midwest were assumed without scientific evidence to have been built by the Lost Tribes of Israel: after all, no Indian was capable of such work. This erroneous assumption took any study of Native American history off the intellectual table: it wasn't worth pursuing.
What a loss....

 

[wausaubob]

Cozzens has an interesting story, but he seems to have left out a few pieces. Because Grant had extensive contact with Indians in Mexico and Oregon. And Sherman's treaty with the Lakota allowed them a huge empire, which was not going to stand.
Moreover, neither the railroad, nor the slaughter of the buffalo were secret. The end of the nomadic, hunter/gatherer lifestyle was imminent.

 

[Canadian]

So true. And much of it was lost during the 'westward expansion' of our country. Recall that in the years preceding the Civil War, discoveries of mounds in the Midwest were assumed without scientific evidence to have been built by the Lost Tribes of Israel: after all, no Indian was capable of such work. This erroneous assumption took any study of Native American history off the intellectual table: it wasn't worth pursuing.
What a loss....

I really enjoyed reading "1491," which gave a tantalizing hint of just how much was lost.

 

[5fish]

Ulysses Grant.

"Ulysses S. Grant Launched an Illegal War Against the Plains Indians, Then Lied About It"

I wonder why any of the Grant fans question the article. The man has the evidence...

This is my starting point: just how much influence did Grant have on this issue, once he lost power in the House? This is the investigative path I eventually intend to pursue, as there are those in residence who believe that Grant wielded the powers of a Dictator, thus, he alone held the fate of "The Indians"

If you read the article he had complete control over starting hostilities with the Plains Indians. He and his selected crew made up a plan in and put into motion. I do not see your complaint about Grant abilities holds water...

 

[MaryDee]

I also highly recommend 1491.

 

[Philip Leigh]

I'd read the article first, and then decide whether the evidence offered sustained the interpretation presented.

If the charge is that Grant gave up under pressure on his efforts to block or contain encroachment by whites in the Black Hills, well, that's nothing new. The president was discovering in 1874-75 that offering a determined stand on a number of issues simply eroded his political position and enhanced the chances for a Democratic victory in 1876. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible.

In awarding the Sioux damages in 1975 the U. S. Court of Claims was not so forgiving as recent Grant corruption-apologists:

"The duplicity of President Grant's course, and the duress practiced on the starving Sioux, speak for themselves. A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings never in all probability will be found in our history. . ."

 

[5fish]

Cozzens has an interesting story, but he seems to have left out a few pieces. Because Grant had extensive contact with Indians in Mexico and Oregon. And Sherman's treaty with the Lakota allowed them a huge empire, which was not going to stand.
Moreover, neither the railroad, nor the slaughter of the buffalo were secret. The end of the nomadic, hunter/gatherer lifestyle was imminent.

A story about a killing... some snippets...

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/

Sherman knew that as long as the Sioux hunted buffalo, they'd never surrender to life with a plow. In a letter to Sheridan, dated May 10, 1868, Sherman wrote that as long as buffalo roamed those parts of Nebraska, "Indians will go there. I think it would be wise to invite all the sportsmen of England and America there this fall for a Grand Buffalo hunt, and make one grand sweep of them all."

But that was all some time away. It'd be another four years before the buffalo-protection bill died, and the Native Americans resigned to reservations, from when Cody and the U.S. Army and the men from New York stood on the grassy hill, in that unusually warm September in 1871, above the Platte River in Nebraska.

Cody and the men made a contest of the hunt. Whoever killed the first buffalo would win an engraved silver chalice. Years later, in an article he wrote for the magazine Cosmopolitan, Cody would call this trip the best equipped he'd ever taken. The Army had supplied an armed escort and 25 wagons filled with cooks, linen, china, carpets for their tents, and a traveling icehouse to keep their wine chilled. The reason for such extravagance was undoubtedly because the New Yorkers were well-connected, but also because Major-General Phillip Sheridan, the man with the task of forcing Native Americans off the Great Plains and onto reservations, had come along with them. This was a leisure hunt, but Sheridan also viewed the extermination of buffalo and his victory over the Native Americans as a single, inextricable mission––and in that sense, it could be argued that any buffalo hunt was Army business. After the men circled the herd, they charged down the hill, chasing after the six buffalo, eager for the first kill.