Biography of Ulysses S Grant (18th president of the United States). Full episode..

October 23rd 1863 Chattanooga Tennessee after a grueling four-day journey general ulysses s grant arrived at union headquarters it injured his leg and had to be helped off his horse once again he was dogged by rumors that he'd been drinking [Music] he listened silently as his officers described a bleak situation the Union Army was surrounded men and horses faced starvation a Confederate victory seemed inevitable grant thanked his men began to write his orders you see a lot of granted just that act of writing the the concentration of the determination he never looked up he never hesitated he never seemed to search for a word and by the time it finished he was surrounded by pieces of paper he covered with us is very even handwriting in a faith he had fought the bathroom already in his own mind before the war granted been a nobody a failure as a farmer and a businessman as commanding general he was called an incompetent a butcher [Music] but he would win every campaign he ever fought his blame Midwestern ways would captivate the American people there was something about that element of the American dream that rags to riches story he had experienced humiliation he understood failure and I suspect a lot of Americans could see themselves in him grant not Lincoln his popular man in the 19th century no question about it even in death Lincoln wasn't as popular as Ulysses Grant twice a grateful nation elected the Civil War's greatest hero president but his years in the White House marked by racial violence and scandal would threaten to destroy all he had accomplished now could this strange career be explained what about the heights to which it ascended what about the depths to which it descended how could such an ordinary man achieve such extraordinary feats [Music] little distinguished ulysses s grant as a youth except but he had a way with horses Grint loved horses he was remarkable with horses but he could always calm the most fractious horse Brent communed and communicated with that horse just naturally it just flowed between him and the horse to be a good person with horses one has to be calm and firm and quiet and he was ball three of those things [Music] my family is American and has been for generations in all its branches direct and collateral he would write ulysses s grant grew up in the Ohio River Valley his father Jesse root Grant had arrived in Georgetown Ohio in 1823 when grant was one year old he was the descendant of pioneers would settle the western frontier for them the American Dream was a real thing they had come into open clear virgin territory they had cleaned the forest out they had built up farms they had made the land this was the valley of democracy where democracy seem to be working itself out in the lives of homesteaders it was also a place where a great national drama was being played out he grew up really unboard between slaveholding Kentucky and free Ohio this home town was filled with southern transplants and the ideas for and against slavery were much in the air his father had an opinion on that as he did on everything an ardent abolitionist Jesse Grant was outspoken on the issue of slavery voicing his opinion in local newspapers for all to read his wife Hannah had no such desire for recognition she was notorious for her silence he was always on guard against pride and being quiet was one way not to catch yourself being proud when Grant accomplished something she said nothing and she said very little affection so she was a difficult person to be around a very withholding person grants personality his calm demeanor reflected traits inherited from his mother there is a driving ambition in him that is reminiscent of his father but certainly not the boastfulness that went along with it a man with a talent for making money Jessi grant had chosen one of the most lucrative yet unpleasent professions of his time a tannery particularly a nineteenth-century tannery who was a place of blood everywhere GOP's of animal fat smells extraordinary smells that were said to stick with the Tanner you could tell a Tanner no matter how many times he had washed and bathe because the whole business stuck to him something in grant's soul just recoiled from that 50 years later grant could still recall the stench of his father's tannery drifting into his childhood bedroom ida tested the trade he wrote [Music] I attended the village schools grant said of his childhood I was not studious in habit I've never missed a quarter his real passion was horses when he was 12 he fell in love with a Colt owned by a neighbor mr. Ralston grant admired the Colt want to buy a bad wig went to his father for business advice on how to negotiate said he wanted to pay $25 for the horse so old Jesse shrewd trader than he was at well Ulysses all for 20 if we're all still won't take that off for 22 and a half and if Ralston won't take that then off for the 25 and so you look these trots off to mr. Ralston look seven since I want to buy this horse and Papa says don't offer you 20 if you won't take that offer 22 and a half won't take that offer 25 and force Ralston sells the horse for $25 worried his son showed little direction Jessie chose a career for him Christmas 1838 when Ulysses was 16 he learned that his father had gotten him an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point Jessie grant was the kind of man who would follow a dollar to hell and when he learned about the possibility of sending his son to West Point at government expense he jumped at the opportunity it was only when the appointment was a sure thing that he finally told Ulysses that he's going to West Point young Grant said I won't go and Jesse said you will when Ulysses Grant arrived at West Point he stood 5 feet 1 inch and way just 117 pounds I had a very exalted idea of the requirements necessary to get through he wrote I did not believe I possessed them and could not bear the idea of failing grant was out of place in the West Point cadets world of military drills crossed belts and gleaming grass he didn't have the military bearing and grant was a student at West Point they were still talking about the famous cadet who had gone through ten years earlier without a single demerit a record I think that still stands and that was Robert Lee and grant was the very opposite of that he slouched he cut classes he stayed in his room cadet grant was required to learn drawn in order to sketch battlefields and planned campaigns but it was his renderings of landscapes and his paintings which most impressed his professors along with his command of mathematics it was his natural aptitude for mathematics that carried him through to graduation other classes he took far less seriously did the minimum amount of work and under the circumstances graduated respectively grant placed 21st in a class of 39 years later one classmate remarked no one could possibly be more surprised than myself at Grant's amazing success [Music] in September 1843 brevet second lieutenant ulysses s grant reported for duty with the 4th Infantry Regiment at Jefferson Barracks near st. Louis he had an income of 779 dollars a year and a fair prospect of returning to West Point to teach mathematics but in 1846 grant was called to duty when an expansionist United States went to war with Mexico over disputed territories in the southwest Mexico was crucial for grant as in some ways it was crucial for the whole country for the coming civil war it was a kind of trial run or training run for many of the officers north and south years later it would condemn the Mexican war as one of the most unjust ever waged a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed in Mexico grants served as a quartermaster managing supply trains and transportation in a hostile unfamiliar country he understood the importance of supply and logistics but he did not like being left behind with the Mules and ammunition etc he wanted to be at the front lines and so whenever gun fired open grant would somehow find his way to the front [Music] grant fought at Palo Alto Veracruz Mexico City alongside young officers he would later face in the Civil War james longstreet Simon Bolivar Buckner robert e lee in Monterey American troops were pinned down and running out of ammunition brigade commander asked for a volunteer grant quickly step forward [Music] hanging off the side of his horse using it as a shield grant rode through the town to pass the bullets and artillery of the Mexican army grant was good at this because he kept his head and grant never seems to have felt fear of being harmed or being killed he found the drama of war absolutely compelling the decanas the suffering the effects of war were simply appalling he was horrified at bloodshed the Mexican war is more important for grant as an observer than as a participant he's learning things about the style of command from Zachary Taylor a man who was informal in his military style and yet direct in his combat and from Winfield Scott who was known result fuss and feathers but who waged a brilliant campaign from Veracruz to Mexico City grant was learning not only what these officers did right but at the same time what these officers did wrong [Music] city of Mexico September 1847 my dearest Julia some of the hardest fought battles that the world has ever witnessed have taken place and the most astonishing victories have crowned the American arms but dearly have they paid for it [Music] the loss of officers and men is frightful I'm getting very tired of this war and particularly of being separated from one I love so much Ulysses Grant had met Julia Denton two years before going to war while on a visit to White Haven a dent family plantation just outside st. Louis she was one of three sisters of grants West Point roommate Frederick dent and the one he was drawn to she was 18 years old she had a very sheltered life she was plump she has strabismus one I was slightly turned therefore there was not lots of competition for Julia's hand but beyond that grand jury has something in common they both loved houses they both loved riding horses Julia was a strong and skilful Rider [Music] Julia was everything that Hannah Grant was not she was lively jolly where Hannah was silent and rather Stern she was a highly social creature and grant very much responded to that julia had been raised with the pretensions of southern aristocracy her father Colonel dent owned some 20 slaves at his sprawling though not very prosperous Missouri plantation Frederick dent was a self-nominated colonel he was pro-slavery he was like grant's father quite a blowhard and he seemed he seemed as well probably a lazy man his chief occupation was sitting on his porch watching his neighbors go by and he didn't think much of grant he didn't think grant had a future in the Army Colonel dent refused to give his daughter's hand to a soldier with few prospects and only relented when Grant had been at war for more than a year once grants had decided that he wanted Julia for his wife he was determined to see this campaign through to the end no matter what the obstacles no matter how long it took his tenacity was extraordinary seven months after the u.s. defeated Mexico Ulysses and Julia were married in st. Louis at the dense winter home Jessie and Hannah grant did not attend when grant married Julia she inherited I think five or seven slaves and grants father the abolitionist really couldn't forgive Ulysses connection to a slaveholding family so it was a great source of tension [Music] Julia and Ulysses have been together for years when Grant was ordered to leave for the Pacific Northwest with a young boy Fred and another child on the way grant had to leave Julia behind he tried every scheme imaginable to make money and bring his family out west he shipped ice from Alaska to San Francisco the ice melted on the way he planted potatoes they rotted in a flood he invested 1,500 dollars in a store in San Francisco it went bankrupt and a capacity for investing in every wrong thing that came along every Enterprise that wasn't going to pay off and gradually he began to sink into a kind of despair about his capacity to what reunite his family grant had been away from home for five months when he learned that Julia had given birth to a second son Ulysses jr. he carried a letter on which Julia had traced the outline of little Ulysses hand when he showed it to others his own hand trembled in 1854 grant was transferred to Fort Humbolt a remote post on the northern California coast it was at humble that ulysses s grant acquired a reputation that would haunt him for the rest of his life view is intensely lonely and II ran into a very autocratic martinet of an officer that made him miserable the oppression was very serious he was not riding his horse he was staying in the barracks and he was really in very bad shape [Music] to add to his despair he had not heard from Julia all winter [Music] one night and a dream about encountering Julia dancing away the night with other offices ignoring him as if he didn't exist and it's only played upon his feelings of insecurity that perhaps Juliet had second thoughts that perhaps there was a better life for her elsewhere My dear wife you do not know how forsaken I feel here the state of suspense that I am in is scarcely bearable I sometimes get so anxious to see you in our little boys that I am almost tempted to resign and trust a province and my own exertions for a living whenever I get thinking about the subject poverty poverty begins to stare me in the face [Music] grant sought solace and whiskey fellow officers noticed his slurred speech after the first glass liquors seemed a virulent poison to him and yet he had a fierce desire for it one officer recalled one glass would show on him and two or three would make him stupid he got drunk for two reasons one because he missed his wife tremendously and felt very lonely when she wasn't around and secondly if grants had two drinks he got drunk he's not that he drank a lot grant could get drunk I'm very little and people noticed it on April 11th 1854 yearning to return to his family captain Ulysses Grant resigned from the United States Army it was rumored that whiskey had cost him his commission Jesse grant was not pleased by his son's sudden resignation and tried unsuccessfully to get the army not to accept it I think after spending so much time to qualify for the army and spending so many years in the service he will be poorly qualified for the pursuits of private life he wrote Secretary of War Jefferson Davis grant was 32 when he returned to Missouri ready as he said to commence a new struggle for our support he accepted an offer from Julia's father to farm land at Whitehaven [Music] [Applause] grant built their first home with his own hands and called it hardscrabble he was proud of it but Julia found it homely and crude a far cry from the comforts of Whitehaven wandering the empty rooms she asked herself is this my destiny everything that happened to grant for the next three or four years is in that that name that he gave hardscrabble he minute I think is a kind of dig at his father-in-law's pretentious name for his farm Whitehaven so hardscrabble but it pretty pretty much summed up what he went through [Music] with the help of the dent family slaves and one slave of his own grants set to work clearing the land to plant oats corn and potatoes but just as he failed as a businessman he also failed as a farmer he eventually had to abandon hardscrabble grant moved to st. Louis where he could have sold his slave William Jones for a thousand dollars but instead he freed him he took a job as a bill collector then the Custom House clerk one Christmas he had to pawn his watch to buy his wife and children presents he had lost everything he had no job he had no prospects and so he he turned to his father had in hand ulysses asked for a loan when you are ready to come north i will give you a start Jesse replied but so long as you make your home among a tribe of slaveholders I will do nothing [Music] ulysses s grant arrived in Galena Illinois in the spring of 1862 begin a new life working at his father's harness and leather shop grant worked as a clerk hoping someday to be made a partner like his younger brother Orville but for now he mostly totaled up the bills under his father's thumb and his brother Orville's thumb - I don't think grant was very happy at all and those early Galena days but he was desperate he had to take care of his family after work grant would climb the steep stairs behind the leather shop leading to his house high up on the hill grant would come home and open the door and more often than not and the family legends his son would pounce on him and say mister do you want to fight and grant would answer I'm a man of peace but I will not be hectored by a person of your size and they would tumble and wrestle and roll all over the floor until grant would finally say enough and surrender to his little boy [Music] in the evenings he would read the news out loud to julia 1860 was an election year and the papers were filled with reports of the growing national crisis over slavery and secession i deplored the agitation of abolitionists he later said the talk of dissolution of the Union made my blood run cold he was a reasonable man in a hundred simple time this man had seen war and unlike a lot of people who were agitating he knew what secession would mean he was not eager for that [Music] that November Republican Abraham Lincoln believed to favor the end of slavery was elected president at the grants harness and leather shop oysters and beer were served in celebration grant helped host the reception but his spirits were low having lived among southerners he knew secession was not an idle threat the south will fight he predicted at 4:00 a.m. on April 12 1861 a Confederate artillery detachment opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay South Carolina the next day news that war had broken out reached grant and Galina they're up at two parties now grant Rosa's father and traitors and Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter we have a government laws and a flag and they must all be sustained this is a man who was not involved in politics before the war didn't even vote that often for him it was a simple matter and that was as it was for many Northerners of protection in the defense of the Union most northerners and grant really was among them wanted to reunify the country without touching slavery and yet grant understood very early on that in all likelihood if the war continued for very long slavery was going to be attacked grant wanted to fight to restore the Union convinced he'd be much in demand he wrote Army headquarters in Washington asking to be commissioned as a colonel he received no reply he went to Missouri to appeal to two Mexican War veterans but was rebuffed by both he went to see General George B McClellan whom he had met in the Pacific Northwest McClellan would not see him he ended up waiting outside all sorts of office doors and waiting in hallways hoping that somebody would would give him a command but the label of the drinking quartermaster had stucked pretty hard and nobody in the beginning was interested in giving grant a command at all of any kind [Music] finally grant was given a commission he was put in charge of the 21st Allah Noi infantry an unruly group of Midwestern farm boys who had driven their first commander into retirement he knew that they were untrained and that they were they had an attitude and the attitude was I am here because I want to be I am here and I'm just as good as you why should you tell me what to do and grant knew that the good officer had to respect that Democratic attitude had to encourage it and nurture it and turn it into something positive somehow grant had the same quality with these men that he had demonstrated with horses somehow he had the ability to exert this Authority without shouting without waving his hands without threatening and these men recognize that and within days Grant had changed these farm boys in the 21st Illinois who had spent most of the time since they enlisted raising hell and getting drunk into something we're presenting a real regiment [Music] Grint soon had a chance to test his Manny and himself it was ordered to advance on a Confederate regiment in Missouri commanded by Colonel Thomas Harris as he approached the enemy grant later recalled my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt as though it was in my throat but as the Confederate camp came within view he saw that the rebels hearing of the Yankee advance had left it occurred to me that Harris had been as afraid of me as I had been of him Grant learned from that experience that the person who attacks first the person who seizes the initiative is going to have the advantage it was a lesson he would never forget [Music] on July 31st 1861 President Lincoln appointed ulysses s grant Brigadier General grant sat for a photograph to send a Julia the appointment came as a surprise Lincoln needed generals and grants name had been submitted by the congressman from Galena for his portrait a proud grant or his full dress uniform and sword sash and three ostrich plumes but grant would rarely again display any signs of rank beyond the requisite shoulder stars appearances he believed mattered little what mattered is what happened on the battlefield [Music] General Grant got his first important command in Cairo Illinois a dreary but strategic city at the intersection of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers [Music] from Cairo fighting his way down America's great rivers grant would make his reputation as a warrior Ransome Midwestern or Westerner as they call them that and and these people moved on rivers he understands the flow of those rivers is the life flow of the country and you can control that river you have an unfettered supply line all the way back to Cairo and from Cairo by rail to st. Louis and Chicago troops material nursing everything can come down that River and grant very early on the very beginning of the war sees that this is how the South can be taken by using these river systems that the South is trying to defend [Music] grant was growing restless at Cairo impatient to begin his offensive let us go by all means he told his commanders the sooner the better On February 6th 1862 at Grant's urging a flotilla of newly built Union ironclad gunships was ordered to attack Fort Henry 125 miles southeast of Cairo on the Tennessee River after just two hours of fierce shelling the Confederates surrendered fort Henry and retreated to Fort Donelson for Henry is ours grant telegraphed is Superior General Henry wager Halleck and without awaiting further orders added I shall take and destroy Fort Donelson [Music] one week later Union gunboats shelled Fort Donelson from the river about Grant encircled it from the rear blocking every avenue of escape [Music] at 4:00 a.m. on the 16th the Confederate commander at Donaldson Simon Bolivar Buckner who had been with Grant at West Point in Mexico asked for terms of surrender grants reply would become a legend no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted I propose to move immediately upon your works this was a wonderfully clear direct and blunt way of describing what he wanted Mark Twain liked that so much he copied it out and carried it around in his wallet for years would take it out and read it to people it's written the way grant ran an army direct hard blunt and no questions about it Buckner was furious I accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms which you proposed he replied the North had its first great victory and the hero who is this man grant who fights battles and wins them on reporter asked his initials us suggested an answer unconditional surrender grant it had a nice sound to it the capture of some 12,000 Confederates by a general who had infected the panache - you know - to get them to surrender on terms that were unconditional was something that was very exciting in the north grant success in capturing fort Henry and then capturing Fort Donelson came like a shot in the arm to northern morale and almost overnight made grant famous [Music] before Fort Donelson grant had been so little known that not even the illustrator of the influential Harper's Weekly knew what he looked like from this moment on grant would never again escape the public eye at Fort Donelson a journalist described Grant clenching a cigar given to him by a fellow officer grant had always smoked a clay pipe but now cigars began to arrive by the thousands Shahrukh's Coronas cigarillos from every corner of the union I gave away all I could but having such a quantity on hand I naturally smoked more than I would have done grant would soon smoke as many as 20 cigars in one day headquarters Fort Donelson Tennessee February 16th 1862 dear wife I am happy to write you from this very strongly fortified place now in my possession after the greatest victory of the season my impression is that I shall have one hard battle more to fight and we'll find easy sailing after that the success that he enjoyed in capturing a whole Confederate Army bread and grant feeling that the Confederacy was something of a hollow shell and maybe one more push and it would collapse on April 6th 1862 grants army was camped on the Tennessee River near a church called Shiloh at his headquarters nine miles away grant made plans to deliver what he thought would be the decisive blow against the Confederacy [Music] the Confederates were planning an offensive of their own [Music] [Music] [Applause] at dawn rebels in the tens of thousands burst out of the woods at Shiloh surprising grants troops and over running their camps Grint arrived at the front at 8:00 that morning to find his army on the verge of collapse he finds the rear area in complete disarray hundreds if not thousands of men cowering and the bluffs a situation that suggests that a that a complete disaster has occurred he's going from commander to Commander moving up reinforcements arranging for supplies rallying men giving up Brown inch-by-inch in a stubborn effort to hold on at one point he came under fire one bullet barely missed him another grazed his horse a third struck his sword scattered through it all grant remained unperturbed he knows reinforcements are on the way he believes the Confederates cannot maintain the sort of attack that they've initiated early that's why he knows that his men can stand their ground until dusk that he will prevail eventually Shiloh a general who can ride around the battlefield and by glimpsing man advancing over their troops forming up over here artillery firing somewhere in the distance and can put all of these pieces together in his head and see what is actually happening through the smoke that is a general has an extraordinary gift [Music] that evening the flash of Union gunboats shelling Confederate positions revealed the aftermath of battle the Union Army had taken a terrible beating kept awake by the blast of cannons grant sought refuge under an oak tree then in a log house which had been turned into a field hospital the sight was more unendurable than encountering the enemy's fire he later wrote and I returned to my tree [Music] grants most aggressive General William Tecumseh Sherman commanded a division at Shiloh approached and Sherman's been under fire all day and by the end of April 6th he's convinced that the time has come to retreat from the field but as he sees Grant something in him says don't give that kind of advice he walks up to his friend whoops him in the eye and says well grant we've had the devil's own day haven't we grant takes a puff of a cigar looks up and says yep let's lick them tomorrow though [Applause] [Music] the next day grants battered army reinforced overnight recaptured the bloody ground lost the day before but at a price grant could not have imagined I saw an open field in our possession so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground as casualty lists began to appear in newspapers the public was horrified the two days of fighting had left more dead than all the battles previously fought on American soil 24,000 casualties and all you took a mile of trenches to bury the dead chaila does provide a turning point in grants own mind it convinces him that the Confederacy is not the hollow shell about to collapse that he had thought after his relatively easy victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson I think it also shocks a lot of the northern people into an awareness that if they are going to win this war it's going to be a victory that comes at very high cost nobody had expected a bloodletting like that certainly northern public opinion hadn't anticipated it there was no preparation for that kind of carnage someone had to be blamed for such an enormous loss of life and the person they blame was grant such amazing blundering and gross negligence was probably never before heard of in the history of war one newspaper declared here is a case that calls loudly peremptorily for a court martial six weeks earlier he had been unconditional surrender grant the victorious hero of Donaldson now he was butcher grant the incompetent commander of Shiloh it was even rumored he'd been drunk the night before the battle in Covington Kentucky where she was staying with Hannah and Jessi grant Julia read the news i sat shocked and almost stunned at articles and abuse of my husband just after the Battle of Shiloh I felt two deeply wounded to weep I felt hard and revengeful Shiloh not only damaged grant's reputation it cost him his command although grant had averted disaster at Shiloh all general Halleck could think of with the carnage of the first day general Halleck became convinced that grant really couldn't manage a large army and that he had been surprised and so Halleck came personally to Pittsburg Landing to take control and basically put grant on the Shelf by naming him to the meaningless post of second-in-command [Music] that pattern of his early adulthood that he thought was broken he's a general now thought that's all over in the pattern of continual failing of downward spiraling and now he's gone up high to command and only only to go down again [Music] confined to his headquarters without an army of his own grant wrote in despair my position differs but little from one interest I owe it to myself to ask either full restoration to duty or to be relieved entirely [Music] [Applause] in the summer of 1862 the war was not going well for the north in the West the Union advance had ground to a halt [Music] [Applause] the East the Union Army had been driven from the gates of Richmond all the way back to Washington [Applause] [Music] [Applause] frustrated President Abraham Lincoln reshuffled his generals grant was restored to command that fall grant led his army of the Tennessee into the heart of cotton country setting in motion a revolution that would shatter the foundations of the old south I am extended now like a peninsula into an enemy's country he wrote territory occupied by people terribly embittered and hostile to us [Music] Confederate guerrillas destroyed his rail lines and supply depots slowing his advance civilians laid mines and spied for the Confederacy it was a desperate fight to preserve a way of life as word of the Union advance reached plantations in Louisiana and Mississippi thousands of slaves rushed towards Grant's lines the coming of the Union Army is heralded both in black folklore and in black religious expression as a moment of liberation of a coming of Redeemers to save them from bondage but it also carries with it a recognition to in many parts that this army of liberation is also comprised of soldiers in some cases were very hostile to these people why are we freeing them this is not a war about slavery this is a war to preserve the Union at first grant turned the fugitive slaves away fearing they would overwhelm his lines I have no hobby of my own in regard to the Negro he said to his father either to affect his freedom or to continue his bondage grant has the problem that every commander has of not knowing exactly how to deal with the slaves who were fleeing to his army and grab himself as a former slave holder and as the husband of somebody who continued to hold slaves and who in fact had brought them into Mississippi is not one from whom one would expect an enlightened attitude towards this tremendous influx and yet it comes I think he realized as everybody with a brain did that slavery was over and you would have to do something with the slaves and then what are you gonna do you have to put him to work he saw people coming into his lines they needed to be fed or it need to be done hey let's use them why not but there were all kinds of people who would have erected barriers who'd have said oh they can't do it oh they don't have the capacity son gran said okay put him to work if they can't work they can't work we'll find out and he was very very frank about saying that which is not what people did in the 19th century Grint set up camps where the former slaves would help provide for their own care by harvesting cotton corn from nearby abandoned plantations under the supervision of Union authorities the idea in mind as grant explained is that if we can begin to show the American public that black slaves can act in a responsible fashion can take care of themselves economically can become self-sufficient maybe the attitudes the racial attitudes of Americans will change this is important because it shows that that grant is is fighting in a sense against slavery not just to hurt the south we take slaves away from the South you you strike at the economic vitals of the south but he also you know has I think a sense that something has to be done for these recently freed people they just can't be left alone President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1st 1863 freed slaves began to be inducted into the Union Army [Music] at first grant doubted the newly armed soldiers could be trusted in the frontlines and confined them to garrison duty but when he heard of their fierce defense of a union camp at Milliken's Bend in Louisiana the general slowly began to change his mind by arming the negro we have added a powerful ally grant wrote Lincoln they will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weakens him in the same proportion they strengthen us it seemed to him that it was a important part of Union strategy to use the slaves against their former masters and he very much agreed with Lincoln on that and in the process of forming black regiments and watching them in action he came to respect the right of black people to demand political equality but even as he dealt with the social revolution the civil war had unleashed grant never lost sight of his main objective the capture of Vicksburg a Confederate stronghold and the last obstacle to the union's control of the Mississippi River a Vicksburg fell grant knew the Confederacy would be split the armies in the east cut off from their vital supplies of food and soldiers in the West Vicksburg is the key Lincoln had said the war cannot be won until the keys in our pocket the problem was that Vicksburg was nearly impregnable [Music] it sits high on a Bluffs 200 feet high above the Mississippi on a hairpin turn on the Mississippi River so that vessels coming downriver have to make a very sharp turn and slow down and as they go past Vicksburg say a Union gunboat has to go by about seven miles of fire north of Vicksburg there's the Delta which runs almost all the way up to Memphis and that's just a semi tropical swamp filled with sluggish meandering streams alligators and when you're in there you feel like you're in us we're the heart of darkness grant realized trying to take the city by frontal assault from the river was virtually impossible so that winter he desperately tried to find an alternate route through the Mississippi Delta he tried cutting a canal to bypass Vicksburg [Music] we blew a hole in a levee to open an old steamboat route we ordered his army to clear a path through the thickness of the Delta nothing worked Midwestern farm boys eager to fight rebels found themselves dredging mud and sawing trees eight feet underwater [Music] camped in pestilential swamps drinking contaminated water exposed to swarms of mosquitoes soldiers were dying from malaria dysentery and smallpox go any day down the levee one soldier wrote home and you could see a squad or two of soldiers burying a companion until the levee was nearly full of graves the hospital's full of sick it was a horrible situation and these guys had no sense that they were going anywhere they were literally stuck in the mud as winter came to an end Grant had yet to move on Vicksburg hungry for victory the northern public turned on him the press renewed the campaign of criticism it had begun at Shiloh our noble Army is being wasted by the foolish drunken stupid grant wrote the influential editor of the Cincinnati commercial grant will fail miserably hopelessly eternally even Lincoln began to doubt his general I think General Grant has but one friend left the president said but he also sent a spy to Vicksburg to report on Grant's progress and particularly on his drinking [Music] grants only comfort at this very trying time was Julia who came down from Memphis when grants on the move on campaign a Julia's left behind the other with her father or with the member of the grant family bouncing back and forth but whenever grant set up headquarters anywhere he called for Julie to join him and set up as a domestic community in the camp [Music] meals at camp were simple cucumbers in vinegar for breakfast meat always well cooked the sight of blood reminded grant of his father's tannery when he got one of the migraine headaches that often plagued him Julia gave him mustard foot baths and compresses for his eyes fearing her husband was in danger of losing his command Julia urged him to take Vicksburg by direct assault mrs. grant Ulysses responded I will move upon Vicksburg and I will take it to you need give yourself no further trouble he had a clear plan a clear idea of how to take this place he would move south along the Louisiana shore take his army down there and then send supply ships and gunboats past the Vicksburg batteries they would unite with his army south of Vicksburg and ferry that army across into Mississippi on dry ground and come in behind Vicksburg that's a great plan it's an audacious plan it's one of the riskiest plans of the Civil War Grint by this stage of the war even though he was being subjected to all kinds of criticism he maintained confidence in himself he maintained confidence in his ability to make the right kinds of decisions and carry them out and win everybody else Sherman others were telling him you ought not to do this he had decided that this is what he wanted to do this is what he needed to do grants whole career is on the line here if he doesn't take Vicksburg he's done but more is at stake at Vicksburg than the reputation and career of Grant what's at stake here is the very war itself whether the north will win or lose this thing [Music] on the evening of April 16th Union ironclads quietly approached Vicksburg [Music] Confederate pickets spotted their dark shapes and set bonfires to light the night the batteries opened fire for more than two hours the fleet withstood the barrage 125 rounds of artillery that set the Mississippi ablaze then a little after midnight the batteries fell silent the fleet had made it through [Music] on April 30th three days after grants 41st birthday his forty thousand troops boarded the transports south of Vicksburg and were ferried across the mile-wide River I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equalled since grant later wrote I was on dry ground and on the same side of the river with the enemy he's now in Mississippi he's behind enemy lines he's between two armies two Confederate armies one in Vicksburg and one at Jackson he's almost cut off completely from his supply lines and cut off completely from his communication lines as his army moved across Mississippi foraging teams took livestock chickens whiskey grain from Mississippi gristmills all they needed to survive this is a pivotal moment in the war this was the first time a major field army I had deliberately cut itself off from his base of supplies and lived off the enemy's country whatever was not of use was put to the torch southerners watched in terror as the Union army destroyed plantations cotton gins factories railroads everything of value to the south it is our duty to use every means to weaken the enemy grant explained to his officers there was a tremendous fear once Union armies begin moving into the south it's no accident that thousands those who can take to the roads refugees by the tens of thousands White's begin moving to try to get away from the union's armies but many poor southerners can't and have to stay and it's difficult to recreate today what it must have been like living in a in a society in which law has ended the Confederate troops have retreated you're sitting there waiting knowing that the Union armies are on your doorstep and anticipating really the worst I think southerners associated this kind of warfare very directly and very personally with Sherman when actually it was ironically grant who began this kind of warfare during the Civil War began to strike at the infrastructure and tear the guts out of the south Sherman just picked up on that and took it two hits in the in the southern mind its most horrific conclusion grant ordered his armies to March first toward Jackson and then West to approach Vicksburg from behind general McPherson he will move forward with all possible dispatch I have ordered your rear brigade to move at once General Sherman start one of your divisions on the road at once and directed to move with all possible speed general McKiernan close up all your forces as expeditiously as possible the enemy must not be allowed to get to our rear [Music] in all the dispatches what comes through is is the word again and again speed speed speed blackberry quickness everything he's pushing pushing pushing in less than three weeks grants army marched 180 miles and fought and won five battles forging a bond with its commander that deepened with each victory [Music] there's this sense that there's the guy who's behind it all there's the guy if we're gonna follow and if we follow him he has the chance to be as interesting one of the troupe says he has the chance in this campaign to be another George Washington they all had that sense of destiny they really had this sense that this was the most important campaign of the Civil War and that this general was going on to greatness grant moves with his shoulders thrown back his left hand in the pocket of his pantaloons his eyes thrown straight forward and accountants drawn into furrows of thought one reporter noted the soldiers observe him coming and rising to their feet gathered to see him pass they only watch him with a certain sort of familiar reverence good morning general pleasant day general they greet him as they would address one of their neighbors never embarrassed by the thought that they are talking to a great general [Music] on May 18th Vicksburg came within sight of ulysses s grant riding in advance of his troops his army had driven the Confederates into their fortifications twice the general ordered his men to break through the well entrenched Confederates twice the effect [Applause] Grint however remained confident the enemy is within our grasp he wrote Washington the fall of Vicksburg can only be a question of time grants army began to lay siege to Vicksburg cutting off all communication and food supply starving the residents out forced underground to avoid the constant shelling living on a diet of mule meat and pea bread the people of Vicksburg endured the siege this is in a sense the first modern war in which although there may have been lip service given to the protection of civilian rights it was understood particularly I think on the part of both grant and Sherman that in order for the war to be successfully carried out it wasn't simply a war against the opposing army it had to be a war which demoralized which broke the back of the will of the South resistant as the siege dragged on grant grew Restless on June 6th anxious that the Confederates might be preparing an offensive against his rear he took a reconnaissance trip up the Yazoo River by some accounts what happened aboard his steamer bore out the warnings of grants harshest critics [Music] well there's a lot of controversy as to whether or not during a crucial moment in the Vicksburg campaign he went on a drinking spree the heroic in a sense image of grant is he might have been a drinker but he never drank at strategic moments in a military campaign and a guy by the name of Cadwallader who covered his campaign said that's wrong he was drinking at that point we'll never know all the evidence is in their stories contradict one another collide with one another we don't have a smoking gun but I think it's clear from conversations that people had with Sherman after the war interviews with other officers that Grant drank throughout the world he didn't drink steadily he drank periodically and probably drank it on occasion to excess on July 4th after 47 days of siege starved and without hope of reinforcements Vicksburg's 30,000 defenders surrendered the Stars and Stripes are now waving an exuberant Union captain wrote his wife the Confederacy is divided the Mississippi River is opened and General Grant is to be our next president vicksburg elevates grant to preeminence among Union generals I mean he's clearly Lincoln's man from now on he's a guy that has the stick-to-itiveness and in a sense the the genius to defeat the south four months later rant one yet another decisive victory a Chattanooga Tennessee he had completed the campaign begun with the capture of Fort Donelson less than two years before the South now lay open to conquest on December 7 Abraham Lincoln called for a National Day of Prayer and wrote grant I wish to tender you and all under your command my profound is gratitude [Music] on march 8th 1864 ulysses s grant and his 13 year old son fred arrived at the Willard hotel the political epicenter of Washington he's gotten off the train I think he's carrying his own bag there's nobody with him no lieutenants no majors no Colonels no attendants he's got his suitcase and his little boy and he's looking shabby the clerk by all accounts looked over the desk and regarded him rather superciliously and Grant said he wanted a room that night and the clerk was not impressed with the stars on grants shoulder because he could look in the dining room across from the desk and see half a dozen generals any time of day or night so he looked at grant rather sneeringly and said you can you can have one of the attic rooms later on when it's free and Grant said that would be fine and the clerk shoved the book over for him to write his name in and he wrote us grant and son Galena Illinois and when the clerk turned it around and read the name he said the presidential suite is available for you right now general grant and grant went up [Music] grant was in Washington on official business he was to be named general and chief of all Union armies and to be commissioned as a lieutenant general the first officer to hold that rank since George Washington one of the great ironies of Democracies is that we believe that the destiny of the nation is in the hands of the citizens but at the same time there is a hankering for a savior especially when timezones grants Starr had risen so high since the fall of Vicksburg the previous summer but he was being seriously considered as a candidate for the presidency grandpa Smith's the talk is preposterous I am NOT a politician never was I never hoped to be said the only office he desired grant joked was mayor of Galena so I could build a new sidewalk from my house to the depot the afternoon of his arrival in Washington he attended Lincoln's weekly White House reception his entrance was just politically brilliant imagine this in our time he walks around to the White House and he's waited he doesn't get there early he goes in and he stands at the door very simply and Lincoln spots him they have never met both of them were Midwesterners both of them were in a way self-made men they'd come up from an unprivileged childhood they had made their way in the world they had overcome adversity there was a spark of Understanding between them this is General Grant is it not Lincoln said in reading he then led the general to the East Room there was a clamorous uproar people grabbing his hand shaking his hand and looked as if he pulled apart and finally Secretary of State Seward put him on top of a sofa so that everybody could just look at Grant as he stood there most uncomfortably being looked at and looking down at everybody around him he blushed like a girl one reporter noted streams of perspiration running down his forehead and over his face either he affects the plane and homespun style of doing things or else he is an extraordinary example of unconscious freshness the next day as he accepted his promotion to lieutenant general and the responsibility of command of all the armies of the Union Grant spoke with humility with the aid of the noble armies that have fought in so many fields for our common country it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations two weeks later Julia and the children joined him in Washington with his new commission came a salary of $12,000 per year guaranteed for life the misery of Humboldt the penury of hardscrabble and the humiliation of Galina were all behind him grant could now provide for his family without depending on his father or Colonel dent he had but one regret he was now part of the world of Washington of the show business of politics he said he despised on May 4th 1864 ulysses s grant the fourth general to command the armies of the Union in three years crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia to begin what the North Pole would be a decisive campaign of the Civil War grants very vigor inspires the public confidence to a reasonable anticipation of quick work and great results wrote the New York Herald if with General Grant at the head we cannot put the rebellion down in the coming summer we can never put it down coming off of the euphoria of the successes in 1863 there was a feeling of great confidence in the north that now finally we're going to be able to prosecute this war to imminent victory and this cruel war will soon be over with a northern public impatient for victory grant called for an all-out offensive to bring the Confederacy to its knees five columns to take the war into the south in a well coordinated plan his old friend William Tecumseh Sherman would March grants Western armies toward Atlanta I will make Georgia howl he bowed grant would lead the Army of the Potomac toward Richmond the capital of the Confederacy and fight against robert e lee for three years lead a southern gentleman and legendary West Point cadet had defeated every Union General who had dared cross into Virginia among his men he inspired blind almost religious devotion his opponents thought he was invincible grant who had never lost a battle thought otherwise I had known Lee personally he said and knew that he was mortal he intended to crush Lee's army and end the war by November the only doubt in his mind concerned the new army under his command the Army Potomac was used to getting beaten by Lee at every turn and thought it was doing well if it if it could hold its own against Lee it didn't have the this killer instinct that was characteristic of the armies that Grant had commanded in the West the morning of May 5th General Ulysses s grant awoke to the sound of gunfire soon word came that his army had collided with Lee's in a nearby thicket after issuing orders grant lit a cigar took out his penknife and began to whittle the whittling is a sign of anxiety he widows so fiercely that he cuts apart those kid gloves that he's wearing he's smoking so hard to repress his anxiety that he goes through two dozen cigars in one day he's a very anxious man very worried not because of anything that robert e lee's doing but rather because he's worried that the Army of the Potomac is not going to respond to his command it was called the Battle of the wilderness 70,000 Union men engaged 40,000 Confederates in some of the fiercest combat of the Civil War clever tangled and brush almost from the beginning it was hard to know who was who the smoke was thick in the woods caught on fire from the cannons and muskets almost at once of the addition of fighting the enemy who were fighting the fire itself the sight of men burning up wounded men lying there and the heat making the shells and their belts start exploding so they were shot to death by their own ammunition many wounded were either burned alive or were seen to actually [ __ ] their rifled muskets and place them up against their heads ready to pull the trigger if the flames got too close it was by any criterion unusually horrible battle and it was worse than anything that Grant had seen in the Western theater as the fighting subsided an officer claimed he saw the general throw himself facedown on his car and give way to the greatest emotion stirred to the very depths of his soul in battle grant hardly concerned himself with the issue of losses but as even he says in his memoirs when the battle was over it was very hard to take in what had happened as you walked across a battlefield filled with corpses and and men still alive and barely breathing and he said after the battle you you begin to think about what has happened and the costs and consequences on May 7th the Battle of the wilderness came to an end it appeared that Lee had gotten the better of grant the Union had suffered nearly 18,000 casualties the Confederates fewer than 12,000 the army of the potomac awaited the order to retreat three times they had crossed the Rapidan in three times they had been ordered back they saw no reason why this time it should be different [Music] that evening grant approached the second core of the Army of the Potomac camped along a road as he rode by the men broke into a cheer he was not headed north back to Washington but south toward Richmond they had figured out the grant had no intention to disengage complain that this would be the last campaign of the Army of the Potomac and that this was going to be a campaign that would end in victory one way or another in that moment I think you saw almost all of Grant's character he was in motion as he liked to be he was on a horse as he loved to be and he was not retracing his steps he was going forward there was no retreat in it [Music] as grant continued to push south his army and Lee's became locked in a desperate deadly embrace Lee came to appreciate the fact that he was up against the great general you see this in his dispatches and you see it in his comments to his fellow officers he knew grant was good he knew he was up against as he said a worthy adversary it was sickening when you read the descriptions of these battles the battles that comprise not just the wilderness but North Anna Spotsylvania it was unrelenting warfare every day dear Juliet the world has never seen so bloody or so protracted a battle as the one main fought and I hope never will again in one month of fighting grant lost 44,000 men almost half of those would cross the Rapidan were dead missing or wounded it as long as he closed in on Richmond even at a frightful cost the morale in the north remained high great confidence is felt in Grant Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles noted but the immense slaughter of our men sickens us all on the 21st of May the general and his officers met just outside Spotsylvania for a rare council of war sitting on pews borrowed from a nearby church grant planned his next move he believed that Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was on the ropes and that one more good hard shove would break through Lee's army and enable the arm of the Potomac to get on to Richmond which was at that point less than ten miles distant I may be mistaken but I feel our success is already ensured he wired Washington grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to smash through Lee's forces at a crossroads known as Cold Harbor the Cold Harbor battlefield is just an open field it looks like three or four football fields wide and long and at one end of that at the southern end there are the built-up ditches and trenches where the Confederates were behind great mounds of dirt for their rifles muskets just pointed and at the other end coming down from the north there was a line of Union troops line after line really and the order was simply for them to charge straight ahead across this wide-open expanse [Music] at 4:30 a.m. on June 3rd 60000 Union soldiers attacked across a 7 mile front the waiting Confederates replied with a fusillade so fierce windows were sent to a rattled in Richmond the division in front seemed to melt away like snow falling on moist ground a Union soldier recalled [Music] in less than two hours the Army of the Potomac had suffered over six thousand casualties that night grant told his officers I regret this assault more than anyone I have ever ordered there had been butchery at Cold Harbor he later said not because of the bloodshed but because it was shed in vain to no advantage whatsoever he compounded his mistake by leaving hundreds of wounded men howling in the hot June Sun while he exchanged letters of terms with Lee both Lee and grant in my view behave very badly indeed neither one of them would admit that he'd been defeated and so neither one would send in a white flag that would enable them to get out to these wounded men who were wailing out there in the hot June Sun waiting for relief four days after the assault grant finally relented and called for a ceasefire when Union litter bearers climbed out of their trenches they found only two men still alive amongst the piles of rotting corpses [Music] coldharbour Virginia June 4th 1864 my dear little Nelly I received your pretty well written letter more than a week ago I know that you have been representing the old woman that lived in a shoe at the fair I know you must have enjoyed it very much even as he witnessed the horror of his blunder grant took time to write his little daughter the guilt the grant felt oh it told Harbor was enormous the strain on him was unbearable and writing a lesson to a child was a complete escape for that he could see the battle and then he could turn away from it and see his daughter he was able to compartmentalize in that way that was the way he kept going I think that that sustaining private life was immensely important to him and whatever happened in his public life was a whole other world be a good little girl as you have always been study your lessons from Papa laughter Coldharbour all of the things that had first been said after shiloh that grant was a butcher that he was incompetent that he was a drunkard all of that came back with renewed force and real hatred Mary Lincoln was practically shrieking in the White House that Grant was a butcher and that Lincoln should remove him because he was so so cruel and hard there were soldiers who after this began to believe that the entire campaign was one of endless ceaseless bloody assaults always were futile and that Grant had no creativity as a general whatsoever except at expending human life the demand down here for killing purposes is far ahead of the supply one soldier wrote home thank God however for the consolation that when the last man is killed the war will be over [Music] Grint maneuvered his force around li to attack petersburg a rail center just south of Richmond but his troops were too tired and demoralized to press an assault many refused to follow orders I have never seen an army so Haggard and worn so worked out and fought out so dispirited and hopeless one officer wrote grant has pushed his army to the extreme limit of human endurance unable to take Petersburg grant settled in for a siege this is likely to prove a very tedious job I have on hand here Oh Julia the enemy keeps himself behind strong entrenchments all the time and seemed determined to hold on for last he knew we was playing for time Li's strategy in 1864 is to hold out long enough and inflict heavy enough casualties on the enemy so that by the time of presidential election in November the northern people will have become so weary of the war and so disillusioned with the possibility of victory that they would elect a Democrat turned Lincoln out of office and negotiated armistice and withdrawal of northern troops would mean the Confederacy had won this war each daily held on Lincoln's prospects for re-election dimmed by August 1864 he was convinced he would be defeated in November the strain on grant was plain to see the satin dies a worn face the mouth is shut down tightly all around one officer observed he carried the Union on his back the grant was extremely frustrating he knows that he has to produce a victory to secure Lincoln's reelection time is running out finally on September 4th good news reached grant Sherman had taken Atlanta ransacked it and then burnt it to the ground Sherman's victory was the vindication of grants overall campaign plan in 1864 all of those armies moving simultaneously against a common center somewhere grant knew the Confederacy would crack it cracked Atlanta Sherman may have achieved that victory but in the end it was according to Grant's design in honor of your great victory I have ordered a salute to be fired from every battery bearing upon the enemy grant wired his old friend it will be fired within an hour amidst great rejoicing [Music] that November Lincoln won re-election the South had been denied its last opportunity for victory grant a staff officer reported was back in good health and buoyant spirits ready to prosecute the war to what he now knew was its inevitable conclusion it's inconceivable to think about any outcome after November of 1864 except up in defeat and it's difficult to know what must have gone through the minds of men like Lee and his other fellow generals and Jefferson Davis except that they simply psychologically in some way they could not admit to themselves that and so they kept on fighting this war that was doomed to failure in March 1865 after a nine-month siege grants headquarters at City Point Virginia were busy preparations were underway for the final Union assault on Petersburg but at Grant's cabin life followed the domestic routine of a family in peacetime [Music] julia had come to city point earlier that year and settled in with ulysses i'm snugly nestled away in my husband's log cabin julia wrote a friend am i not a happy woman an officer one time comes upon the two of them holding hands they're startled grant grows red-faced because that was a private domestic moment the kind of expression of love that many people did not see because grant wanted to conceal his true feelings from outsiders ulysses could often be found wrestling with his youngest boy Jesse you know my weaknesses he explained my children and my horses [Music] at his wife's prompting grant invited the President to City point for a few days suggesting that the rest would do him good on the 24th lincoln arrived at city point aboard the steamer the river Queen the president looked over plans been conferred with his generals in a steamer stateroom they discussed the end of the war and the beginning of the peace Lincoln and Sherman and grant met in order to just to talk over what should be the policy of the north toward the defeated south when it was apparent that this was going to happen and all were agreed it should be an easy piece very very much predicated on the idea that well the the southerners had to swear an oath of allegiance to get back into the Union they had to accept emancipation but that everything else should be easy the South had to be put down brutally aggressively and in the fastest fashion possible but once that happened he's thinking like a soldier here you make peace you know you put the saber down and you don't put in place policies that are going to alienate the south you want to reunite the sections as they planned reunification the three men set aside the central question before them and the nation the fate of more than 4 million former slaves the war had freed [Music] on April 2nd Grant's forces finally broke through the Confederate entrenchments ringing Petersburg the last obstacle to victory the next day the Confederates abandon Richmond but not before setting ablaze the Capitol but had been the symbol of the rebellion April 9th 1865 Palm Sunday ulysses s grant went out for a ride he had slept poorly tortured by a migraine headache exhausted from his week-long pursuit of lead his head was still pounding when an aide delivered him a note the instant I saw the contents I was cured he later said Lee had agreed to surrender that very afternoon general ulysses s grant and general robert e lee met at a house in ethem Attucks anyone trying to discern from appearances which man was the victor and which the vanquished would likely have been deceived six feet tall and erect in Baron Lee arrived in full dress uniform with sash and jeweled sword five feet eight and stooped shoulders grant appeared in his field to inform but mud spattered trousers tucked inside his muddy boots he looks just like a common guy hi his shirts unbuttoned his coat looks like it's a bit frayed as his hat off you wouldn't have thought of him I think is the general you would have thought of him as some kind of ordinary soldier symbolically and immensely telling thing this was the success of such person of ordinary America over some perhaps mythical a sense of aristocracy it does seem as if the cast-iron grant changed where he put off that armor and he went into into Appomattox in a mood of generosity and mildness he seems to have been extraordinarily sensitive to Lee's feelings [Music] Grint tried to break the ice reminding Li they had met in Mexico léa vaguely remembered the encounter after several minutes they got down to the business at hand [Music] grants terms were generous there would be no reprisals for treason trials officers and men could go home not to be disturbed by US Authority so long as they observe their paroles the laws enforce where they may reside I felt sad and depressed grant were called at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly and had suffered so much for a cause though that cause was I believe one of the worst for which a people ever fought and for which there was the least excuse [Music] as news of the surrender spread through Union camps batteries began firing joyful salutes grant ordered them stopped at once the war is over he said the rebels are our countrymen again grants paramount concern is that there's peace and order in a spirit of reconciliation in the south an acceptance of defeat and that's the one thing he never cut from the south and acceptance of defeat they've left me one privilege one southern are declared to hate him I get up at half past four in the morning and sit up till 12:00 at night to hate him [Music] ulysses s grant would record good friday april 14th as the darkest day of his life that morning grant met with President Lincoln and his cabinet to discuss reconstruction policy their business completed Lincoln asked if the general and his wife would care to join mrs. Lincoln and him for a social engagement that evening Grant said he would have to consult with his wife the afternoon papers reported the grants would be joining the Lincoln's in the state box at Ford's Theater Julia grant let her husband know she was unwilling to spend the evening with Mary Lincoln whose company she disliked grant thanked the president for his kind invitation but informed the White House that he and his wife would be visiting their children in New Jersey and would be unable to attend [Applause] [Music] at midnight as the generals carriage pulled up at Bloodgood's Hotel in Philadelphia a messenger was waiting with a telegram for grant [Applause] Lincoln had been shot it said and cannot live grant is deeply moved by Lincoln's death he believed that with Lincoln and charge reunion was possible because of Lincoln's leniency and generosity he didn't know what would happen under Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson he also felt in some way that he had inherited Lincoln's responsibility but if Lincoln couldn't oversee the peace the grant would have to do whatever he could to oversee the establishment of a lasting reunion between north and south with Lincoln gone it would fall to the Tanners son the former shopkeeper from Galena to rebuild the broken nation as the hero of the Civil War mourned the death of the man he trusted above all to meet the enormous challenges in the years ahead he confined it to his wife I am filled with the gloomiest apprehension [Music]

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Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, full episodes, episodes, original series, sneak peeks, Three Night Miniseries, Grant series, Grant series on history, Grant series clips, Grant series episodes, Grant series sneak peek, Grant Series trailer, Trailer, Grant on history, saves the nation, The Civil War, Reconstruction, the herculean task, American story, humble man, Ron Chernow, United States Army General, Central Intelligence Agency

Id: mo9nGsUe_3I

Length: 104min 44sec (6284 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020