Grant Personal Side of Grant

Not sure where I read it. Perhaps his Memoirs that he had to teach the new Officers how to do paperwork and Quartermasters how to order.
 
Maybe Grant's background as a quartermaster was one key to his successes.

I think the General would have agreed with you.

I was just reading about how he became quartermaster. He was really ticked off about it; felt like it was a sort of demotion and asked to be put back in the line. Apparently he didn't know that it was Zachary Taylor himself who'd taken note of him and put him there. (Taylor had seen him on a work detail wading into chest deep water to show the men how to do the thing.) They marched the biggest U.S. army ever yet assembled deep into country where the conditions were as likely to kill them as the Mexican army. Supply was a big deal. Grant was actually too busy to send sappy love-sick letters to Julia for a while.
 
Grant actually has a warm place in the hearts of Oregonians. There's a Grant street in nearly every town, Grant County, etc. He may have been very depressed in California, but he liked Oregon and wanted to relocate there, bringing out his family and starting up a farm. Nature sure didn't cooperate! Didn't sour him on the state but he didn't get to move. He did visit Portland a couple times. When the Cal-Ore railroad was completed, he came out on it to visit Portland, formerly Stump Town. Sailor's Diggings - sailors deserted ships at Crescent City to head for the gold fields around Jackson Creek - had changed its name to Waldo. Waldo was a scheduled stop, having formerly been a stage stop, and they were very excited about Grant's visit. Bands, potlucks, best hotel rooms, all banners and frills! And...the train was behind schedule but it slowed down so Grant could come out on the back end and wave as he...passed on by. :eek: :mad: :frown: So, Waldo was renamed Grant's Pass! :laugh:
 
Grant actually has a warm place in the hearts of Oregonians. There's a Grant street in nearly every town, Grant County, etc. He may have been very depressed in California, but he liked Oregon and wanted to relocate there, bringing out his family and starting up a farm. Nature sure didn't cooperate! Didn't sour him on the state but he didn't get to move. He did visit Portland a couple times. When the Cal-Ore railroad was completed, he came out on it to visit Portland, formerly Stump Town. Sailor's Diggings - sailors deserted ships at Crescent City to head for the gold fields around Jackson Creek - had changed its name to Waldo. Waldo was a scheduled stop, having formerly been a stage stop, and they were very excited about Grant's visit. Bands, potlucks, best hotel rooms, all banners and frills! And...the train was behind schedule but it slowed down so Grant could come out on the back end and wave as he...passed on by. :eek: :mad: :frown: So, Waldo was renamed Grant's Pass! :laugh:
I like Oregon, I can see why he liked it better than Northern Calif.
 
The one interesting aspect of Grant that not one historian, to my knowledge, has ever been able to successfully prove is that he drank to the point of drunkiness during any battle in which he was the commanding officer. Even Halleck was never able to successfully prove Grant's drinking at any point during the civil war.
 
Waldo was a scheduled stop, having formerly been a stage stop, and they were very excited about Grant's visit. Bands, potlucks, best hotel rooms, all banners and frills! And...the train was behind schedule but it slowed down so Grant could come out on the back end and wave as he...passed on by. :eek: :mad: :frown: So, Waldo was renamed Grant's Pass! :laugh:
Is that a true story? If not, it sure should be!
 
The one interesting aspect of Grant that not one historian, to my knowledge, has ever been able to successfully prove is that he drank to the point of drunkiness during any battle in which he was the commanding officer. Even Halleck was never able to successfully prove Grant's drinking at any point during the civil war.
Heck, I'm not even convinced that he was a true alcoholic. What I've gathered is that Grant "couldn't hold his liquor" -- in other words, it took very little to get him drunk. So, ironically, Grant drank much less than many if not most other officers in the Civil War. And with rare exceptions, those other guys never seem to get taken to task for it. Here's a typical scene: "Union Soldiers Pictured Playing Cards and Drinking 'Old Red Eye'", courtesy of the National Park Service. Notice all those bottles on the table!

fig41.jpg
 
Guilty as charged!
I consider it my personal mission to help rehabilitate the reputation of a good man unjustly maligned lo these many decades. :geek:


Not to me Kansas! I'll help, just point me to the nearest soapbox. Sam Clemens didn't like anybody, generally with reason. His championing of Grant is something I've always considered the Golden Seal of Approval, gee whiz. He seems to have viewed him as such a good man he was a babe in to woods, understood Grant and Julia were considered fair game by every charleton ( these days we'd just refer to them as scumbuckets ) and pickpocket with a good story because Grant was so guileless- just couldn't think anyone would lie to him. Anyone who had Mark Twain's approval, much less friendship you just know was an extraordinarily good guy.

That thing where he and Julia refused all help paying back that horrific debt, when they were swindled? Takes a stiff neck. But maybe the single, nicest thing about Grant is that he thought Julia the most beautiful woman he ever laid eyes on. Julia was a nice looking lady in her way, perhaps not the most beautiful woman in Washington. You'd never tell it by her husband- she was IT.
 
Is that a true story? If not, it sure should be!

:rofl: Grants Pass - which had an apostrophe until the 30s, when the Post Office fussed about it - was, according to the city dads, named for Grant's victory at Vicksburg. That's their story and they're sticking to it! The other story is folk lore, which always has more or less a dollop of truth. Grant's pass through Grant's Pass is true...and quite in keeping with the history of the region!
 
he liked Oregon and wanted to relocate there, bringing out his family and starting up a farm. Nature sure didn't cooperate!
Grant was stationed at Fort Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia, then part of Oregon Territory. This became part of Washington Territory in 1853. Despite the boundary down the middle of the river, communities along the Columbia up as far as the Okanogan near the Canadian border were more oriented to Portland that to Puget Sound where the territorial and state capitol was at Olympia. Today, tens of thousands of Vancouver residents work and shop in Oregon (no sales tax).
 
Grant was stationed at Fort Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia, then part of Oregon Territory. This became part of Washington Territory in 1853. Despite the boundary down the middle of the river, communities along the Columbia up as far as the Okanogan near the Canadian border were more oriented to Portland that to Puget Sound where the territorial and state capitol was at Olympia. Today, tens of thousands of Vancouver residents work and shop in Oregon (no sales tax).

It's still a great area - I can see why Grant fell in love with it. I'm not sure what Julia would think but she'd be happy wherever her husband was happy. A lot of CW generals liked the area - for instance, Pickett built a house there for his family, think it's still called the Pickett House. He was also part of the reason soldiers were stationed up there, what with quarreling with the Brits over pigs! :laugh: In California, a lot of future generals were cleaning up on the confiscated Mexican land grants and so centered around the Bay Area. Somehow, that doesn't seem like an appealing opportunity for Grant, even if he'd been stationed in that locality. That always smacked a little of profiting on somebody else's misfortune. Not his speed!
 
Pickett built a house there for his family, think it's still called the Pickett House.

Pickett House is in Bellingham several hundred miles north of Vancouver Barracks. Pickett had two families, one in the east and a Native American wife in the West. His son became a prominent artist in Washington Territory. Pickett's claim to fame while in Bellingham was to construct a fortification on San Juan Island against the British who held the other side of the island.
 
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