Grant Not impressed with Grants performance

[matthew mckeon]

Any different than what's already out there?

I'm not that familiar with the recent bios of Grant. It seems determined to find him very heroic and excuse his flaws. But he's only at Hardscrabble farm, and I haven't gotten to the "good stuff" yet.

 

[KansasFreestater]

I got an advance copy and I'm part way through it. Its a bit of a hagiography, little Grant being a wonderful boy and young man. I'm on Hardscrabble farm right now.

Ooooh, I am so envious!!!

They told me I won't get mine until September. They said only a limited number would be available before then, so evidently, Matt, you are one of The Chosen Few!

I look forward to hearing a full review from you soon.

Just one thing: It's not hagiography if he really was a wonderful young man!

 

[wausaubob]

To understand Grant one has to read Huckleberry Finn, numerous times. Twain new the utter banality of the age he lived in.
And he knew Grant.

 

[wausaubob]

Grant was not a wonderful young man. He grew up nearly wild, and thought school was boring. His father packed him off to West Point to straighten him out.
He risked his life for the army, and then found out that what he really wanted was to be normal.

 

[Bee]

To understand Grant one has to read Huckleberry Finn, numerous times. Twain new the utter banality of the age he lived in.
And he knew Grant.

Not meaning to be obtuse, but what does Huckleberry Finn have to do with Grant?

 

[wausaubob]

Fighting was to Grant like music was to Mozart. It was automatic.

 

[KansasFreestater]

I'm not that familiar with the recent bios of Grant. It seems determined to find him very heroic and excuse his flaws. But he's only at Hardscrabble farm, and I haven't gotten to the "good stuff" yet.

Does Chernow deal at all with Grant's congenital amusia? Every Grant biography out there has disappointed me in this regard. Of course, most of those were written before the recent developments in neuroscience regarding that affliction. But I am hoping that Chernow has tackled it.

 

[wausaubob]

Grant is Huckleberry. He is everyman. Tricky, speaking in a local idiom, but determined, that slavery is wrong and he will free the slaves, one at a time, or all at once, even while uttering the most degrading racial slang possible.
Few people can tolerate that this is exactly the type of person who fought the war and reunited the nation. It wasn't done by Charles Sumner, and Stephen A. Douglas and President Lincoln. Someone had to go across the country and reconquer the land.

 

[Bee]

Grant was not a wonderful young man. He grew up nearly wild, and thought school was boring. His father packed him off to West Point to straighten him out.
He risked his life for the army, and then found out that what he really wanted was to be normal.

Grant's father supported his son's ambitious nature to go beyond the limited life of a tanner. The family had little money for college, but the United States Military Academy at West Point, then as now, offered a deal: a superior free education in return for Army service after graduating. Without telling Ulysses, Jesse Grant applied for an appointment to the Academy for his son, who was accepted. Told of his acceptance, the shy Ulysses did not want to go. His father stated that he thought his son would go, and Ulysses "thought so too, if he did." With his father's encouragement, Grant decided to go to West Point to fulfill his own desire to travel and take advantage of the education being offered to him.https://millercenter.org/president/grant/life-before-the-presidency​

 

[wausaubob]

To understand Grant you have to read John Russell Young's account of the cruise to England. As soon as Grant left the United States he became a totally different man. He was very social and congenial and would tell stories long into the early morning hours.

 

[KansasFreestater]

OK, now I see what's going on. @wausaubob is messing with us!
We need some /sarc/ indicators or things get taken wrong!

EDITED: Well at least I thought Bob was being sarcastic. But some of his comments below seem more serious, so now I confess I'm confused.

 

[wausaubob]

He was totally undisciplined as a child. But fearless, and faithful to his mother. He was smart. One of those people without a great education, but perceptive and possessed of a suberb memory. Both Sherman and Meade remarked on Grant's lack of education and abundance of common sense.

 

[wausaubob]

There is a reason Sherman said it would take a 1000 years to understand Grant.

 

[wausaubob]

To understand Grant you have to understand that prior to the Vicksburg capitulation, the standing orders were that there were to be no more paroles in the field.
Grant paroled the Confederate army at Vicksburg, and defied Halleck, Stanton and Lincoln to overrule him.

 

[Bee]

Grant is Huckleberry. He is everyman. Tricky, speaking in a local idiom, but determined, that slavery is wrong and he will free the slaves, one at a time, or all at once, even while uttering the most degrading racial slang possible.
Few people can tolerate that this is exactly the type of person who fought the war and reunited the nation. It wasn't done by Charles Sumner, and Stephen A. Douglas and President Lincoln. Someone had to go across the country and reconquer the land.

Ulysses was a small, sensitive, quiet youth. The simple local schools bored him, and other children mistook his quietness for stupidity, nicknaming him "Useless." The boy, however, had an incredible knack in what was a critical skill in that time and place—horsemanship. On the family farm, his father often gave him the responsibility of taking care of the horses and the other farm animals, and he was renowned in the area for managing unruly horses..https://millercenter.org/president/grant/life-before-the-presidency​

 

[KansasFreestater]

Thank. You. Bee.

I'm stuck with slow internet and an ornery tablet right now, so I appreciate your stepping up to bat for Ulysses.

 

[Bee]

Thank. You. Bee.

I'm stuck with slow internet and an ornery tablet right now, so I appreciate your stepping up to bat for Ulysses.

I am tenacious

 

[WJC]

If you want to understand what a disgraceful scumbag Grant could be, I recommend reading two books:

General Grant and the Rewriting of History, by Frank Varney.

Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas, by Benson Bobrick

Grant repeatedly smeared officers/generals he didn't like and/or that he viewed as rivals. His memoirs have been proven to be loaded with lies, distortions, and outright fabrications.

This is not to mention the fact that Grant used his men as canon fodder for most of the war and on at least two occasions (that we know of) left wounded men to die on the battlefield because he was too proud to follow the tradition of sending a flag of truce to call for the retrieval of the wounded and the burial of the dead.

Like most human beings, Grant was not all bad. Sometimes he behaved honorably and showed he was capable of being decent and noble. His order prohibiting large-scale frontal assaults is very commendable (and was long overdue). His decision to stand up to the Radicals when they tried to prosecute Robert E. Lee deserves great praise. But, sadly, when all the facts are weighed, the picture that emerges of Grant is not a pretty one.

I am not surprised- based on your many posts- that Grant is not your military hero. But is it helpful to an honest discussion to call him "a disgraceful scumbag"?
I have questioned some of Grant's personnel decisions, Rosecrans and Wallace among them. But I also realize that personnel decisions, especially under pressure, are difficult and mistakes are not infrequent. We complain about modern day sports personnel decisions, but the pressure of decesion-making in even a multimillion dollar sports team pales next to that in a murderous war.
And I am reminded that even the best decision-makers are right only 40% of the time.
Memoirs by there nature are self-serving documents: no one writes his/her memoirs to list all their mistakes or as a confession of guilt. The reader must always take that into account, regardless of the writer.
We have discussed the "canon fodder", "Grant the Butcher" elsewhere. No need to repeat those arguments here except to remind ourselves that frontal attacks were sometimes the only option available, and were tactics used in battles since the beginning of time.
You seem quick to blame those "two occasions [where Grant] left wounded men to die on the battlefield" on Grant's "pride": will you please elaborate?

 

[matthew mckeon]

Does Chernow deal at all with Grant's congenital amusia? Every Grant biography out there has disappointed me in this regard. Of course, most of those were written before the recent developments in neuroscience regarding that affliction. But I am hoping that Chernow has tackled it.

He hasn't addressed it yet.

 

[WJC]

This really sells Grant short on his abilities to manage the Washington power structure in order to maximize his ability as commanding general:

General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, now outranked by his former subordinate, had forced Grant's hand by requesting to be relieved. Higher rank required Grant to assume overall command.Grant resolved the problem by arranging Halleck's appointment as chief of staff, leaving him in Washington to coordinate orders, freeing Grant to establish headquarters wherever he wished. Halleck's new post separated strategic command from administration, a crucial innovation in modern warfare. Grant avoided the role of military advisor to Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a role congenial to Halleck, but intolerable to Grant, who intended to remain a commander, rather than a courtier, and to distance himself from politicians. Lincoln's Generals, Grant, Lincoln, and Unconditional Surrender, John Y. Simon, [pg 165-6]​

Thanks for posting that excerpt.
We sometimes lose sight of Grant's ability to navigate through the turbulent waters of the political storm. It was a trait lacking in most of his predecessors, and in many ways their undoing.