So maybe Grants gifts were in the strategy, operations and logistics area, and not so much in tactics. It seems to me that because of his gifts in these areas there he was involved in very few set piece battles in the west, and in the east, Lee didn't give him many openings.
I'd agree with that, with the caveat that Meade appears to have run more of the tactical show in the East.
To return to J.F.C. Fuller, he considered neither Grant nor Lee particularly gifted in tactics, saying that both were sort of stuck in the Mexican War as far as tactical use of artillery and infantry were concerned. (His opinion, but I think Fuller knew what he was talking about.) But they excelled at the higher levels, which is what made them particularly good top commanders.
Don't want to raise the temperature in a reasonably civil and informational thread, but it seems that the tactic of crossing the River below Vicksburg was a brilliant move (following a few failed tactics). That is, when does operational become different than tactical?
No temperature raise... There is no sharp dividing line between strategy, operations, and tactics, any more than there is a sharp dividing line between bass, tenor, alto, and soprano; but they do play different roles in the grand scheme of things. I would tend to say that crossing the river below Vicksburg, since it involved the movements of large bodies of men not in direct contact with the enemy, was in the operations sphere, rather than the tactical.
Jomini referred to operations (which he called "grand tactics," at least in English translation, which doesn't help the definitions for our purposes) as the science of marches-- how far and how fast can a column march, how many roads do you need for how many columns, how do you get the columns into battle array at the end of the march, and so forth.