Grant Ulysses S. Grant: Overrated or Underrated?

One of the basic tenets of warfare through time is to try to have the advantage in quality and numbers...

There's been plenty of generals who managed to lose even so! Lee did amazing things with a little bit of nothing, it's true, but Grant could have been one of history's true failures with everything going for him if he didn't know his business. He did!
 
There's been plenty of generals who managed to lose even so! Lee did amazing things with a little bit of nothing, it's true, but Grant could have been one of history's true failures with everything going for him if he didn't know his business. He did!
I agree he won when he should have, that isn't a fault by any means. However wouldn't base over or underated on doing what should be expected

Stormin Norman did what was expected in Iraq, it's hard to fault him for doing so.....but don't think many around the world expected a different outcome considering the resources he had to bear in a conventional war either.......
 
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Overrated Underrated in what? Political or martial skills? Pretty vague question I believe.
If you are referring to his political skills and abilities, then I believe he was vastly overrated. He was a decent man yet was a minnow swimming with sharks but he was not a fool or blind to bad behavior
His handling of Jay Gould and James Fisk and their attempt to corner the Gold Market was masterful.
He tried to be both supportive of rights for blacks and bringing Southern Whites into the Republican Party but was not successful with either
His attempts to improve the conditions of Native Americans were novel but unsuccessful
His military career was highly successful and he was not overrated as General
Regards
David
 
Like most any famous person Grant is now relegated to the armchair debates of historians and buffs. Grant would certainly never have wanted to be rated. He wanted to live a simple quiet life as a farmer or math professor with plenty of time to spend with his family. Underrate him on his abilities and failures in certain endeavors if you wish, but the one thing he cannot be overrated on is doing his duty, whether it be to his country, his fellow man or his family. There is something inestimably admirable in focusing on doing one's duty despite failures, negativity, illness and the like. As a general he used his natural abilities to end the war as quickly as possible. He was an untrained politician, but still found ways to accomplish some monumental things while in office. If your looking for an underrated man of perfection you won't find it in Grant, similarly if your looking for a hollow overrated man you won't find that. In Grant you'll find an ordinary man who was committed to doing his duty and did what he had to to accomplish it.
 
Pretty difficult for him to be underrated these days. Grant was not what his fanboys think of him.
 
Overrated, Grant would have been a Federal version of John B. Hood without his numbers.

Not really. The hyperaggression Grant showed in the spring of '64 was not normal for him. We can speculate why he was desperately trying to force a decision before the Republican Convention, and why as soon as it was over he stopped. Personally, I think he was desperately trying to get a win to support his run at the Presidency, but as the results of his operations emerged his support collapsed with only one state supporting him in the end.
 
Well, from my armchair (I'm not literally sitting in it right now, but I do have one-- a 100-something-year-old Morris chair that was my great-grandpa's), here are some of my thoughts assessing Grant's performance as a general in the Civil War.

Pro: Grant seems to have known, instinctively or by experience, of the importance of combined arms. As usual, I'm thinking about this primarily in naval terms, but on the Western rivers his cooperation with the Western Flotilla/Mississippi Squadron was almost uniformly smooth and effective (and believe me, Porter was not the easiest person to get along with), and he continued to exercise that ability when transferred East. He appears to have known that the Union navy was a competitive advantage against the Confederacy, and operated with it effectively with few bumps or disagreements (a notable exception being his insistence upon obstructing the James River above City Point, over Rear Admiral Lee's objections).

Pro: From my reading of Grabau and others, it seems very difficult to escape the conclusion that Grant's force had an effective intelligence-gathering organization in his operations in the West. The situation may have been different in Virginia, where he was mostly reliant on someone else's (Meade's) organization and other conditions were different.

Pro: From every source I can recall, it appears that Grant had a cool head and a large amount of personal courage. Though not glorified by his troops in the way that a McClellan or Lee was, they appear to have been generally fond of him and confident in him. I haven't done as much reading on this as I intend to, but from outward appearances it looks to me like Grant knew the value of good staff work and had an effective staff around him.

Con: Grant doesn't always seem to have been able to accurately estimate the value of his subordinates. Some he thought the world of, for little apparent reason; and some he did not treat fairly. I could be off base on both of these examples, but it seems to me that McPherson and Rosecrans are appropriate examples. I still am not clear on what Grant saw in McPherson as a commander, as his performance seems to have been quite mediocre; whereas Rosecrans, someone with clear abilities and a good record, ran afoul of Grant and was treated poorly, both at the time and in after-the-fact recollections.

Con: Though some of the problems in the Overland campaign actually really belong to Meade and his staff, Grant was in top command and could have directed things differently. It seems to me that a lot of the frontal-assault business usually blamed on Grant really stemmed from the way the Army of the Potomac operated, and that he probably should have concentrated a lot more on the maneuver operations that he demonstrated aptitude with in the West. (Important caveat: in the West, he was not up against a counterpuncher of the undoubted ability of Robert E. Lee, and this undoubtedly had a major effect.)

So... neither an unstained hero nor a feckless bumbler.
 
Not really. The hyperaggression Grant showed in the spring of '64 was not normal for him. We can speculate why he was desperately trying to force a decision before the Republican Convention, and why as soon as it was over he stopped. Personally, I think he was desperately trying to get a win to support his run at the Presidency, but as the results of his operations emerged his support collapsed with only one state supporting him in the end.
I thought this was a history group that dealt in facts and evidence.
 
Good point, personally do you feel he was over rated, under rated, or neither as a woodcutter? It didnt seem to lead to financial security.

Grant did the job as directed by Lincoln, and the outcome was successful. Is Grant overrated, yes, by many, in my opinion. By elevating Grant, we can lower Lee; this is an attempt to diminish the accomplishments of Lee, who did much more with much less.
 
Grant did the job as directed by Lincoln, and the outcome was successful. Is Grant overrated, yes, by many, in my opinion. By elevating Grant, we can lower Lee; this is an attempt to diminish the accomplishments of Lee, who did much more with much less.

I would think the opposite would be true, when one considers he had the numbers, and should win, his winning shows him competent in doing what was expected.......to try to say he is somehow underrated for beating a numerically inferior opponent....would suggest the opponents commander despite having the inferior forces, must have been quite formidable in the minds of those who think he is somehow underrated
 
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Let's hear your thoughts.

How can anyone determine anything or make an exact estimation without a median? Insert who you think was an average U.S. president as the median and then maybe people can compare and contrast it. All I seen in this thread was a bunch of biased opinions without an in depth analysis. It would be interesting if you would put a median in there so we can see how people rate his presidency. For an example, if Calvin Coolidge were your median then Grant would have been an awful president. If Woodrow Wilson were your median then Grant would been an above average president.

Same thing for his generalship, you don't have a median to rate him accordingly. Let's speculate that Napoleon was the median, then Grant would be considered a below average general. If Douglas Haig is your median then Grant was a great general.

Too hard to determine without a median or some kind of metric....
 
Grant was still the only general on either side to force the surrender of 3 enemy armies (Ft. Donelson, Vicksburg, Appomattox). Hard to underrate someone with those victories.

Exactly. Pretty impressive coming from a so-called failure and a drunkard when facing a the purported super hero Confederate generals.

Here's what I come up with thus far:

War theory 101 specifically states if an army goes on the "offensive" it is required a 3:1 advantage. Why? Too many variables to automatically attribute victory to the numbers theory, because numbers are required for victory.

Here are the variables from the CW:

1). the Confederates were fighting on the their home territory, so they were "dug in."

2). the Confederates knew the terrain better.

3). the Confederates had a enormous spy network that tracked the Union's movements.

All Grant's number advantage did was neutralize Lee's advantages and won through attrition. What did they expect Grant should have done with an army that was totally dug in? He did not have access to carpet bombing like we do now to give him an opening or some room to breath. He had to use his number advantage to put the squeeze on the Confederates. Anyone who has any ground war experience will know what I'm talking about. According to the number theory, if Lee would have went on the offensive in the north his entire army would have been obliterated within 6 months.
 
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