Grant Was Ulysses S. Grant actually an alcoholic?

Hi! Welcome. Hate to bang on a guy's first post but I gots to! I'd very much like to see the information from Grant's service records in California that shows he had the nickname 'drunken butcher'. Since I've looked at his military records from that period I tend to think I'll have a long wait.
Okay let me ask this how many times is it mentioned in there that he was late for roll call in the mornings when he was on post and how many times dose it say he was getting disaplened for being late for roll call and being drunk on post
 
Here is a scream shot of the wiki page on Ulysses S Grant and in it states that he resigned his military service while in California for being drunk and I will do some research to find the information I post to confirm it for some of you who support him

Screenshot_2019-10-14-23-35-06.png
 
Okay let me ask this how many times is it mentioned in there that he was late for roll call in the mornings when he was on post and how many times dose it say he was getting disaplened for being late for roll call and being drunk on post
Hi Vernonne. I think the dispute was around the words 'drunken butcher' which is unlikely to have appeared in Grant's records.

And it seems he accepted the offer to resign rather than face a possible courtmartial for any instances of 'drunkenness'. That way his record, I'm assuming, would remain clear.

I also don't think anyone here is arguing against this darker period in Grant's life and what it represents. Ulysses appears to have fallen into a big hole which he was struggling to climb out of while separated from his wife and children. Now, it's possible to pass judgement on that, and he definitely carried the stigma of it throughout his army career, but it seems there are people who continue to want to use that as a reason to disparage Grant, calling him an alcoholic, when there is very little evidence to support such a conclusion IMO.
 
Okay let me ask this how many times is it mentioned in there that he was late for roll call in the mornings when he was on post and how many times dose it say he was getting disaplened for being late for roll call and being drunk on post

Well, I was hoping for something more substantial than Wiki. It was once this happened - which was all Buchanan needed. That commander had been wanting to get rid of Grant forever and any excuse would do. It's actually a credit to Grant that it took Buchanan so long! Cavalry Charger is right though - it's the 'drunken butcher' appellation I was asking you to source. At the time Grant was stationed there, the tribes around about were quiet and reasonably friendly and the settlers were busy being lumberers. I was just wondering who he had butchered while drunk.

Actually, we should probably note what happened to Grant before he arrived at Ft Humboldt, and how Capt Bliss' death resulted in an accidental promotion for Buchanan. The Aspinall, second leg of the sea voyage, which left from Panama to go up the coast non-stop to Ft Humboldt, was a plague ship - which is why a new commander was needed shortly after arrival. Cholera. Grant had a firm constitution but nevertheless had two serious bouts of illness and was treated by Dr Jonathan Clark, whose granddaughter later founded the well known Clarke Museum in Eureka. He'd gotten an earlier expedition through this region of Panama/Nicaragua, and he did it again - Buchanan was also a passenger on the Aspinall. Altogether this assignment was such a nightmare that Grant didn't say much about it in his memoirs, as if he'd made an intentional effort to wipe it out of his memory banks!

We should also mention that Grant wasn't all that shook about having his military career cut short - he had kids to feed and the army pay was so low he was truly the working poor. But...there was gold in them thar hills! He had an idea to head down to Gold Country in California or north to Washington where it looked better for farming. As was characteristic of him, he took a lot of hard knocks that would finish off another man and found the silver lining nobody else could see.

As for Col Buchanan, his promotion to fill the slot vacated by the death of the previous commander was about it for his career. He spent the rest of his life trying to undermine Grant's. You'd think Grant had murdered the guy's family or something horrible to get that kind of rancor out of somebody but it was much more bizarre - he existed!
 
we should probably note what happened to Grant before he arrived at Ft Humboldt,
It's interesting. Julia had wanted to travel with him, even though she was heavily pregnant and they had a young toddler at the time. Grant knew the journey would be far too risky but, as she continued to insist, he told her ultimately he would leave the decision up to her. Fortunately, she came to her senses, and the two parted ways for a period as yet unknown. That was always going to be hard for Grant. What was harder was that Julia wasn't the best correspondent, and it took several months for Grant to discover that all had gone well with the birth of their second child. So, not only did he not have his family with him, but he lacked the correspondence to know that they were alright. Having spared them a treacherous journey, as @diane mentioned, he still lacked the reassurance of their wellbeing.

I guess that's just to add a little more insight, and it's all insight I've gained since I've been here.
 
Well, I was hoping for something more substantial than Wiki. It was once this happened - which was all Buchanan needed. That commander had been wanting to get rid of Grant forever and any excuse would do. It's actually a credit to Grant that it took Buchanan so long! Cavalry Charger is right though - it's the 'drunken butcher' appellation I was asking you to source. At the time Grant was stationed there, the tribes around about were quiet and reasonably friendly and the settlers were busy being lumberers. I was just wondering who he had butchered while drunk.

Actually, we should probably note what happened to Grant before he arrived at Ft Humboldt, and how Capt Bliss' death resulted in an accidental promotion for Buchanan. The Aspinall, second leg of the sea voyage, which left from Panama to go up the coast non-stop to Ft Humboldt, was a plague ship - which is why a new commander was needed shortly after arrival. Cholera. Grant had a firm constitution but nevertheless had two serious bouts of illness and was treated by Dr Jonathan Clark, whose granddaughter later founded the well known Clarke Museum in Eureka. He'd gotten an earlier expedition through this region of Panama/Nicaragua, and he did it again - Buchanan was also a passenger on the Aspinall. Altogether this assignment was such a nightmare that Grant didn't say much about it in his memoirs, as if he'd made an intentional effort to wipe it out of his memory banks!

We should also mention that Grant wasn't all that shook about having his military career cut short - he had kids to feed and the army pay was so low he was truly the working poor. But...there was gold in them thar hills! He had an idea to head down to Gold Country in California or north to Washington where it looked better for farming. As was characteristic of him, he took a lot of hard knocks that would finish off another man and found the silver lining nobody else could see.

As for Col Buchanan, his promotion to fill the slot vacated by the death of the previous commander was about it for his career. He spent the rest of his life trying to undermine Grant's. You'd think Grant had murdered the guy's family or something horrible to get that kind of rancor out of somebody but it was much more bizarre - he existed!
I'm gonna find where I read that at cause its in black and white but yeah I will find it
 
Perhaps the notion of Lee being an alcoholic comes from the oft attributed quote “I like whiskey. I always have. That is why I never drink it.” I believe the source is a letter to Custis on his leaving Virginia for West Point (correct me if I’m wrong). I could see some ill informed modern pontificator taking this statement as evidence that Lee had an alcohol problem and thus never drank. To me it just fits in as a word of advice to a young son leaving home for school. He had seen what fast living could do to a man in the form of his late father.

However, without any other evidence, I think we can safely say that Marse Robert wasn’t an alcoholic.
 
Perhaps the notion of Lee being an alcoholic comes from the oft attributed quote “I like whiskey. I always have. That is why I never drink it.” I believe the source is a letter to Custis on his leaving Virginia for West Point (correct me if I’m wrong). I could see some ill informed modern pontificator taking this statement as evidence that Lee had an alcohol problem and thus never drank. To me it just fits in as a word of advice to a young son leaving home for school. He had seen what fast living could do to a man in the form of his late father.

However, without any other evidence, I think we can safely say that Marse Robert wasn’t an alcoholic.
That makes sense, I could see that!
 
Here is a scream shot of the wiki page on Ulysses S Grant and in it states that he resigned his military service while in California for being drunk and I will do some research to find the information I post to confirm it for some of you who support him

View attachment 329624
Hello and welcome! Stop by the secession forums sometime!

Would you mind letting the group know what the sources are for footnotes 73 &/74 in your screenshot?
 
I do think the point of Rawlins as Grant's keeper definitely gets overplayed. I wonder if the point was more that he needed a confidante when Julia wasn't around, and it appears Rawlins was his man. Perhaps if the lens was shifted more to this perspective it would make a difference. Rawlins wasn't there to act as Grant's 'keeper' in Julia's absence, but as his 'confidante'. We know he missed her badly when they were apart.
I believe that the idea that Rawlins’ role was to be Grant’s savior from the bottle is based on Rawlins’ letters to his second wife. It was a new marriage to a younger woman (his first wife died at the outset of the war) so I imagine that he would have wanted to emphasize his indispensable role in Grant’s success.
 
That's the Yazoo Bender! Indeed, as you say, it's been shown to be largely exaggerated and, in places, fabricated. (There's one little squib in it that suggests Grant was so drunk he - ahem! - may have let the marriage vows slip a little.) This was published well after anyone who could deny or confirm it was dead. What the reporter witnessed - the actually true part! - was the wildest ride of any general in the whole CW. He had a 'headache' - yep, a skull crushing, brain mashing, perfect storm of a migraine - and he decided a death-defying race through Mississippi was the only thing to do - with any luck he'd break his neck and the migraine would stop!
I believe that the story was written by Sylvanus Cadwallader, a different journalist, some years after the war.
 
I agree. Simpson is a scholar who has done extensive research on Grant for decades. His books are also concise and highly readable. Chernow is a writer, a very good one, but not an historian. I have read numerous criticisms of his use of sources.
I fear Chernow's book will keep this fire burning for a long time.

I haven't read it yet, but I get the impression from his blog that Brooks Simpson's biography of Grant probably gives the most levelheaded treatment of Grant's alcohol use. Can anyone who has read widely on Grant confirm or deny?
 
My mom knows a lot about the Civil War, and we trade random facts all of the time, and she told me the other day that Ulysses S. Grant was an alcoholic. Is that really true? My history teacher in Middle School told me Robert E. Lee was an alcoholic, but didn't mention Ulysses S. Grant. Your thoughts?
He loved his whiskey, according to history.
Heck, anybody that went through that war deserved to drink to excess!
 
"Grant demanded unconditional surrender at Donelson, and set a pattern that continued. Two months later Grant was surprised one Sunday morning at Shiloh by Albert Sidney Johnston, but held the line and counterattacked the next day and won the battle—the bloodiest of the war at that point.

After the battle, a group of congressmen called on Lincoln and asked that Grant be relieved because they had heard he was drinking. Lincoln was amused at the congressmen. At one point he asked them to find out what brand Grant was drinking because he would like to send a case to his other generals. And actually Grant was not drinking at the time.

In an interesting contrast, General Lee was given two bottles of whiskey by an old friend at the beginning of the war to use for medicinal purposes. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the two bottles were still in his chest unopened."

 
"Grant demanded unconditional surrender at Donelson, and set a pattern that continued. Two months later Grant was surprised one Sunday morning at Shiloh by Albert Sidney Johnston, but held the line and counterattacked the next day and won the battle—the bloodiest of the war at that point.

After the battle, a group of congressmen called on Lincoln and asked that Grant be relieved because they had heard he was drinking. Lincoln was amused at the congressmen. At one point he asked them to find out what brand Grant was drinking because he would like to send a case to his other generals. And actually Grant was not drinking at the time.

In an interesting contrast, General Lee was given two bottles of whiskey by an old friend at the beginning of the war to use for medicinal purposes. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the two bottles were still in his chest unopened."

OK, so he was drinking, Lincoln thinks. Then find out what he was drinking, and prove that it is more than a rumor.
 
It seems 'he's drinking' or 'he's drinking again' was thought to be the silver bullet of the day to end someone's career, or besmirch their good name. During and after the war - just like Grant - Forrest was accused of it. He'd had a couple shots when a surgeon had to dig a bullet out of his back, but other than that he was a plumb teetotaler. Even his staff didn't get the cordial drinks in the general's tent! (And that sorrowed quite a few of them...) Like Grant, he had one alcoholic experience that changed his life. As a 14-year-old kid, he became curious about the effects of alcohol on different people - some got weepy, some got happy, some angry, so on. So, he got him a jug to see what effect it would have on him. And, reflecting on his seriously intense temper, he decided this experiment would best be conducted out on a lonely hill far away so, as he said, "I could only hurt trees." He chugged the jug, all right, and nearly died of alcohol poisoning. He thought it was the typhoid (strangely, most people didn't think of alcohol poisoning) and prayed to God that if He saved him, he would never touch the stuff again. And, except for a couple surgeries, he did not. But...that didn't stop newspapers from declaring him a violent drunken guerilla chieftain! (As to what kind of drunk he made, he never did know - he couldn't remember!)
 
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