(bright instrumental music) - Well, let me welcome you all here. Thank you all for joining
us for what promises to be a very stimulating
conversation, I hope, first, between me and
Professor White, Ron White, and then opening it up to
questions from each of you. Let me just start by noting that Ron is a product of Northwestern. He is a fellow Princeton PhD, although his was at the school,
the theological seminary. - [Ron] No, the university. - Yeah, of the university, great, okay, but in Theology, was it not? - [Ron] Well, Religion and History. - Yeah, okay, got it, got it. History professor, author
of three books on Lincoln, including a number of those that were the best books of
the year, New York Times, Washington Post, et
cetera, and bestsellers. And now, the author of a
great biography on Grant. Indeed, it is the great
biography on Grant, and I'll even read to you
what it said on the back here by one General David H. Petraeus, Retired. (Ron and audience laughing) That it is certain to be
recognized as the classic work on Ulysses S. Grant. American Ulysses is a
monumental examination of one of the most compelling
figures in American history. I might note that I have long
been a huge admirer of Grant. I was inspired enormously by
reading Grant Takes Command by Bruce Catton during the
early months of the Surge, where his example was truly exceptional, and we'll talk about
some of these qualities that are still very applicable today. And on the Grant Memorial
Association in New York and I've done a number
of events there for him, including one which, please
don't excommunicate me, but we actually use a professor from UCLA. (Ron and audience laughing) Joan Waugh, she was
willing to cross the aisle in a neutral territory, in
which we went through her book on Grant, which was essentially
the historiography of Grant, and it recounted how Grant, of course, was a monumental figure
when he passed away, and then was run down
over subsequent decades, particularly, in the last
century by Southern historians trying to build up Robert
E. Lee and the Lost Cause, and then has gradually been resurrected, and this will complete that action. Actually, there's another
one coming as well. Ron Chernow is doing a biography of Grant, and I'm sure that there will
be a rap music play on Broadway within a few years, but so,
look, it is really a pleasure and a privilege to do this with you, Ron. Let me, in fact, I also want
to note a couple of the reviews that were really quite extraordinary. White delineates Grant's virtues better than any author before. By the end, readers will see
how fortunate the nation was that Grant went into the
world to save the Union, to lead it, and on his deathbed, to write one of the finest memoirs in all of American letters. That's The New York Times Book Review. The Boston Globe calls it magisterial. American Ulysses is the
newest heavyweight champion in this movement to raise Grant's esteem, a game-changing biography on one of the most consequential figures in American history, and
then one that I truly like. Grant deserved better from posterity and from White, he gets it. So, with all of that, Ron, welcome, and perhaps you might just start out by telling us how you
came to write this book. - Well, thank you very much. Thanks, all of you, for coming. As has been mentioned, I've
written three books on Lincoln, and in my biography of Lincoln, I thought I knew quite a bit about Grant. I told the story of Grant the general, but the more I got into
writing this biography, I had to make a personal confession. I didn't really know the man, and I think a lot of
Americans do not either, and so I think that Grant
is due for an upgrade in the 21st century. What struck me was, in the year 1900, Theodore Roosevelt made this affirmation. He said, "Mightiest among the
mighty Americans are three, "George Washington, Abraham
Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant." And then he went on to
say, "Of second rank, "of second rank are Benjamin
Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, "Alexander Hamilton, and Andrew Jackson." And when I say that to people,
they're kind of aghast, second rank, so how did
Grant achieve this fame, how he fall, and why
should we think of him in a new way again? - And did, what actually
led you to make the decision to, 'cause you invested
what, seven years of life? - [Ron] Seven years, right. - Where did the light bulb come on that this was a worthy task? - Well, as you and I
talked about last Monday, to find someone who really has an esteem but has been left underappreciated. We've seen this happen with John Adams or with Dwight Eisenhower
or other figures, and I thought it was time for Grant to take a fresh look at him. Also, I'm the first person
who's had the privilege of looking at all 33
volumes of the Grant papers. They were begun in 1962. They will be finished in 2017. So I had access to materials that previous biographers did not. - And where did you travel when you were researching all this? How many of the battlefields and... - Well, I'm a believer that
you have to go to places. There's a kind of a modern phenomenon of writing biographies
in your office online. I don't think that works. So I've been to all the major battlefields involved with Grant. I've had the privilege of walking with national park historians, with great Civil War historians. Gary Gallagher, we walked
through the wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse. Chattanooga is one of those sad examples where, on urban renewal,
we tore down everything related to the Civil War
in the 1950s and 1960s, but James Ogden, the
national park historian, met me early one morning
with maps and photographs, and for six hours, we just
walked around Chattanooga. When you go to Vicksburg, you can have read maps of Vicksburg, you can read books about Vicksburg, you cannot appreciate
Vicksburg until you go there to try to understand what
this must have been like, and Grant's genius in attacking Vicksburg. So I've been to every major
battlefield, even Belmont, which is now mostly underwater
of the Mississippi River, but to be there at Belmont
and to understand how Grant, successful at first, but
then didn't pay attention to the fact that the Confederates would counterattack, and
what he learned from-- - [David] It's Shiloh, but... - Well, at first, first,
Battle of Belmont, but also at Shiloh, where
I think you have to admit he was surprised the first
day, have to admit that, but then standing under a
tree on that first evening, he tried to go into the
hospital but he could not because of the amputations. It just turned his stomach, so he stood under a tree in pouring rain. Sherman came up to him and
said to him something like, well, we've really been had it today, and Grant's terse comment back to Sherman, "Yep, but we'll lick 'em tomorrow." And that says so much about Grant. - That's a comment, by the
way, that I actually used during the Surge, and lick 'em tomorrow really became a little
bit of a rallying cry. We had some, obviously,
some very, very tough days, and very significant losses. I mean the one time where a
house was literally blown up with a whole squad of soldiers in it, just in one of the events of that day, and there were many others. And I remember, I had just read that part of Grant Takes Command, and
going in and recounting, this is Grant, having been
almost driven into the river, at Shiloh, surprised by, I
guess that was Beauregard. - Oh, Beauregard. First, Albert Sidney
Johnston, but then Beauregard took from Johnston, and
Johnston was killed. - That's right, and we've
all had these moments. You call it you're just
waiting for daylight. Sometimes you're walking
to daylight, as we call it in the military, and
it's cold and it's wet, and it only is gonna improve
when the sun comes up, and in that dark moment,
his most trusted lieutenant comes out as well. We had the devil's own day
today, didn't we, Grant? Grant takes a soggy cigar. (Ron chuckling) And says, "Yup, lick
'em tomorrow, though." And it's a very, very powerful
moment if you think about it, and again, something that we, I recounted on several
very, very tough occasions. So you went to all the battlefields, you had access to the papers, you visited New York, see
where his home used to be. - New York, Galena,
Georgetown, Point Pleasant, all the places that he lived. - [David] Yeah. How many of those still have
structures that are left? - Well, believe it or not, White Haven, where he met Julia, is there. It's now part of the
National Park Service, Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. The home in which he lived
in Galena is now been bought by someone from Southern California who thought he could make
money and kept people out, and he let me in, but the people
of Galena gave him a home. His home in New York is there, so there's a number of those places, yeah. - Yeah. Well, let's recall then,
sort of the history of Grant, up to that transformative
moment, of course, when the Civil War begins,
but how did he end up at West Point again, which
was just sort of a curious way to go there, having gone there myself. - Was a very different West Point. He grew up in the Western
frontier of Ohio, Georgetown. His father wanted him to go to West Point because it was a free education and it was one of only two or maybe three engineering schools. In those days, you didn't really
have an ironclad commitment to serve in the military after West Point. Many people like George
McClellan moved in as engineers into the developing railroads. Grant didn't want to go to West Point, but this says something
about the relationship of parents and children
in the 19th century. He instead said to his father,
"If you want me to do it," unspoken, although I
don't want to, I will. So he arrives, five feet tall, 117 pounds. He barely qualified in terms
of height, 17 years old, and not at all sure he wanted
to pursue a military career. - And doesn't exactly set the
world on fire academically. - He does not. He finished 21st out
of 39, and the ranking is both academic and demerits. And in his memoirs, he
makes this curious comment, I must apologize. Why did he apologize? I spent most of my time reading novels. So I went to West Point. I stayed in the Hotel Thayer. On the floor where I stayed
was your photograph. (chuckles) And I wondered, why did he apologize? And there I learned that novels were kind of second-rate
sitcoms in the 19th century, that the library of West Point, which was basically an engineering library or with textbooks for military, in French, didn't include novels, but the boys had an
informal lending library, and they bought novels and
shared them with each other. And he tells us exactly
which novelists he read. So we started reading
those novels. (chuckles) - And he does distinguish himself in one regard at West Point. - He does, if we're on the
same track here. (chuckles) - Let's see if we're on the same. - Yeah. At the end of the four
years, fortunately for us, potential cadet arrived that day to see this remarkable final ceremony, and all the cadets assembled
in the arena where horses were, and they went through
their paces together, quite impressive, and then
the riding master calls out, Cadet Grant, and Grant goes
to the end of the arena and gets astride this
huge horse called Thunder, which the boys were afraid to ride because he was so ferocious. The riding master goes to the
bar and lifts it 12 inches. The height is 12 inches
raised, and Grant and the boy who's the prospective
cadet writes this down in his memoir, his diary, really. He said it was like rider
and horse were fused together as Grant thundered down on Thunder and leapt over that barrier. That height would stand for 25 years. Grant was a great horseman, and we don't understand what that means. Horses are not part of our society, and I say in my biography, people of the 19th century
understood that for a person whom horses trusted could be
a person who we could trust, and this is how Grant won
his way with many people, especially in the military. - Yeah, so he goes on, gets commissioned, and begins his set of assignments, seeks his future wife's hand. His father-in-law not enamored
of young Lieutenant Grant particularly at that time. - Well, Grant's posted
to Jefferson Barracks, outside St. Louis, which
is the largest barracks because people are moving West and they need soldiers
to protect the settlers. He arrives, his roommate,
senior roommate tells him that his family would be
hospitable to young soldiers. He arrives, there's three daughters. The one oldest daughter is away
in St. Louis for the winter. She comes back in February of 1844 and they see nothing else but each other. She's a great horseback rider, too. So they just ride horses on and on. And he courts her by
reading novels to her. He reads Sir Walter Scott. Now she'd read Sir Walter
Scott also in her schooling. And so this woman who
he calls my dear Julia becomes this incredible person. The pure gold of Grant's papers are that she kept every
one of his letters, every single letter, and Grant, who really wasn't too good often
at expressing his feelings, expressed his feelings to Julia, and that's how I wanted to
get inside of this person. His letters to her tell
us who is this person from the inside out. - And they continued throughout his life. - Throughout his life, yeah, yeah, yeah. - So you have the periods
of the war periods, all of these, always
with those letters going. - With those letters going on, hundreds and hundreds
of letters, yeah, yeah. - So he, has bounces around various posts. Then ends up on the West Coast. The trip, the travel to
which is quite extraordinary. - He serves in the war with Mexico. Not his first choice. He is asked to be a quartermaster, and he feels like this is
taking him out of the action, although he is in some action,
but actually it prepares him in a way he doesn't fully
understand because the whole way that someone would supply an
army, and now in the Civil War, a massive army, and so
quartermasters would write back and say, wow, Grant is amazing. He understands this whole
supplying of troops. Then he comes back, marries Julia. Her father was not, was
against this marriage, as you suggested. Didn't want to marry a vagabond soldier. Why not marry a more successful person? The three men who stand up
with Grant at the wedding, including James Longstreet, will all serve in the Confederate Army. Then he's posted to Michigan and New York, and then given the assignment
to go to the West Coast. Julia cannot accompany him. She is pregnant with their second child, and he makes this dangerous
crossing across Panama where many, many, many people die. And that's, I believe, where
his latent leadership abilities come forward. The people who travel with him comment on the incredible
leadership of this man, who protects all of these
people crossing Panama. And then he's posted in Oregon first, and then in California. For two years, he's missing Julia. - [David] And that gets to him. - It gets to him. He's filled with loneliness,
despair, and we have to say, admit the fact that he
falls into drinking. That's kind of a contested area, but he does fall into
drinking, and on the same day, he gets a letter from the, there's so much irony in biography. On the same day, he gets a
letter from the Secretary of War, who's Jefferson Davis, telling him that he's been promoted to be captain. He writes a letter to Jefferson Davis. Jefferson Davis receives
the letter that day, saying that he will
resign from the military. So he resigns from the military with a very uncertain future. He wants to go back and be
with Julia and their children, but he despairs living in
the shadow of Julia's father, who's an ardent pro-slavery person. - Yes, and then begins, one after another, of various occupations. - He tries farming and he sells wood on the streets of St. Louis. He tries to be a real estate person for whom he's supposed to collect rents and Julia says he can never collect rents. If the person says, I'm
sorry, I can't pay you. He'll say, oh, I understand. (people laughing) One of the wonderful things about research is that one afternoon at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library in Springfield, I came across this little piece of paper. It says everything. It's dated three days
before Christmas, 1857. Grant has walked into St.
Louis, into a pawnshop, and pawned his most precious
possession, a gold watch, so that he can buy Julia
a Christmas present. Things have gone so low. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have the run-up,
the election of Lincoln. You have the shots fired in the Civil War, and all of a sudden,
Grant clearly is eager to get into the action. - He wants to get into the action. It's a little difficult
actually to get into the action, but he does, and very quickly, he begins to demonstrate
his ability of leadership, how to be able to command
the respect of his troops, and so, often, especially
at the beginning, troops that are sort of
undisciplined, not sure, he commands their respect and
begins to mold these, first, small units then larger
units into a fighting force. - [David] Yeah, it starts with a company. - Company, right. - Then helps the statewide effort. Then all of a sudden,
becomes a brigadier general, and ends up leading forces,
but before we go there. - [Ron] Yes. - A question I wanted to ask
earlier, and should have, but will now, and it has
to do with the title. I have always felt that real genius is expressing the entire theme of a book in a few words of a title. So you have, well, Band of Brothers, actually, I hadn't even writ
that down, but I mean that, the Band of Brothers' phenomenal
title captures the essence of the relationships among
men in combat in World War II and the great 101st Airborne
Division, I might add, which I was privileged to
be the 40th commander of. Mean I used to command it in combat, but we had team of rivals. Doris Kearns Goodwin's brilliant book about how Lincoln basically
takes all of those who really thought they were
going to be the next president of the United States,
and in some respects, should have been, even went to bed thinking they were going to
be awakened the next morning by being told that they
would be president. They were not, and Lincoln
brings them all into his cabinet. You had American Caesar by Manchester about Douglas MacArthur, The Last Lion about Churchill, again, I think it was Manchester as well. I mean these books, again,
the essence of this, there's a military guy, as
a young captain, actually. Now he's a three star general. Very much one of my guys, over
the years, H. R. McMaster, wrote a book, Dereliction of Duty. He writes this as a captain
describing the conduct of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff during Vietnam. Pretty interesting perspective. Then goes back, teaches
history at West Point before rising to greatness. American Ulysses, how, first of all, why didn't anybody else ever pick this? And then how did you stumble onto it? (Ron chuckles) - Well, my friend, Gary Gallagher, had actually used that term in some kind of bibliographical
essay, and so I said, "Gee, could I use that term?" Because I say at the
outset that we Americans are often caught up in the
myth of the self-made man. - [David] Yes. - And I make the point that Grant didn't see himself that way. He saw himself as part of
the whole family of Grant's who had come to this country in 1630. And I think the greatness of individuals, both Lincoln and Grant, is
that, yes, they rose in triumph, overcoming many obstacles, but the triumph was
never about themselves. It was always in service to a
cause greater than themselves, and so this was a man
whose cause was America, and so he's an American Ulysses. He's not just Ulysses the
Great or something like that, and I thought this title
tried to capture that. - Oh, so I think it's a,
again, that is genius as well, as, I mean, the writing, by
the way, for those of you who have not read it, is wonderful and I actually copied a part of this, which takes us to where we are right now. Then came the Civil War
and everything changed. In a story of transformation, Grant moved in the next seven years from clerk at his father's leather goods
store in Galena, Illinois, to commander of all the Union armies and President of the United States. His remarkable rise constitutes
one of the greatest stories of American leadership. And then you relate what
I recounted earlier. Although he was renowned at
the time of his death in 1885, it was not long before Grant
began to fall from favor. Historians writing under the influence of the Southern Lost Cause
lifted up Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy in the
War of Northern Aggression. In their retelling,
Grant became the butcher who supposedly countenanced
the merciless slaughter of his soldiers to
overwhelm by sheer numbers the courageous Southern Army. When Grant is remembered,
he's too often described as a simple man of action, not of ideas. Pulitzer Prize-winning Grant
biographer, William McFeely, declared, "I am convinced
that Ulysses S. Grant "had no organic, artistic,
or intellectual specialness." Describing Grant's midlife
crisis, the only problem was that until he was nearly 40, no job he liked had come his way, and so he became a general and president because he could find
nothing better to do. That's McFeely. And to that, Ron responds,
no, I believe Grant was an exceptional person and leader. A popular 1870s medallion
depicted George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant as the three great leaders of the nation. Lionized as the general
who saved the Union, he was celebrated in his lifetime as the hero of Appomattox, the warrior who offered
magnanimous peace terms to General Robert E. Lee. Elected President twice, he
would be the only such leader of the United States to
serve two consecutive terms between Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. Even with the scandals that
tainted his second term, he retained enormous popularity
with the American people and probably would have
been elected to a third term in 1876 if he had chosen to run. Well, let's now go back to
that period from the beginning of the Civil War, and I
offer, actually, by the way, a challenge to all of
you, and I shared this with Ron the other day
when we met over lunch, that I think that Grant is truly unique in American military history and quite unique in global history. There are very, very few people who have demonstrated true
excellence at the tactical level, and that would be division
commander and below, say, in those days, 15,000 or
less, the operational level, this is now a corps in modern days, it would be multiple divisions. First two, of course, were
at Land Between the Lakes, tactical, the operational
masterpiece was Vicksburg, one of the greatest campaigns,
really, in world history, and then as a strategist. By the way, so all of
you can think about this, and I welcome, honestly,
if you can think of someone who fits that mode in our history, I think that it's very
difficult to find that. Certainly, and don't get me wrong, there are people that have
been tremendous strategists, there have been people who
have been great tactical, there've been people who
are great operational, but to do all three is
really quite extraordinary, so let's now begin with where
he does first demonstrate this excellence, and this is
now the Land Between the Lakes, Donelson, Fort Henry
- And Fort Henry. Well, Donelson and Fort Henry
were perched at the edge of Tennessee on the western side. It was a long Confederate line, 500 miles, attempting to defend the Confederacy, and Grant approaches this with his army, and is both, he worked well with the Navy, which has not always been true
before, with Andrew Foote, the Naval commander, and they
come across Fort Donelson. I've stood there, and
the park historian said, "Can you imagine what it was like "when they first saw the
smoke from the smoke stacks? "They couldn't yet see the boats, "and the boats come around that bend "and come down that river," and Grant seizes the opportunity there. There's a kind of a divided Confederate, three different men at
one point or another are defending it. The first two flee, knowing that Grant would be after their
hides, and left behind is Simon Bolivar Buckner,
Grant's roommate. When Grant came back from
California without any money, Buckner stood up for him
in New York and said, "I'll pay your hotel bill." - [David] Yes, yeah. - And so Buckner says, "Well,
I'm ready to surrender. "What are the terms?" And Grant comes back, "The only
terms that I will offer you "are unconditional surrender," and Buckner is taken aback by that, and he accepts those terms and
Grant assumes a new nickname, U.S. it's now Unconditional
Surrender Grant, and this is the first great
victory of the Union forces. It first brings Grant to
the attention of Lincoln, the congressman from
Galena, Elihu Washburne, becomes Grant's advocate. He brings Grant's name to Lincoln. Lincoln receives this
affirmation, and there's a someone who does a portrait of
Grant smoking a cigar. After the Battle of Fort Donelson, Grant will receive 11,000 boxes of cigars (people laughing) from grateful American
citizens. (chuckles) - [David] Now that-- - His son tells us that story, yeah. - So he does those. He is elevated further now. Tell us again about what transpires between that time and then Shiloh. - Well, that's February of 1862, and then the next great
battle will be Shiloh really on the way to Corinth,
Mississippi in April, and he makes plans to
attack, really, the attack is gonna be at Corinth, and
he doesn't fully understand that Albert Sidney Johnston,
the Confederate general who Grant deeply admires, was preparing to mount a surprise attack
against Grant, which he does, and on April 5, Albert
Sidney Johnston attacks. The men are actually sleeping
a mile apart from each other on the night of April 4,
and Albert Sidney Johnston launches the surprise attack,
drives the Union forces back, as you suggested, almost
into the Tennessee River. It's so desperate, but they hold the line at the end of that day. That's when the encounter
between Grant and Sherman, and the next day Grant reconfigures. One of the gifts here
is we have to remember that up until the Civil War,
the largest American army had been 14,000 men in the Mexican War, and so people might be esteemed graduates of West Point most likely to succeed would have been William
Rosecrans, but to command an army of this size takes a
special gift and expertise, and Grant can do this, and he
demonstrates it on April 6th, and wins a smashing victory, driving the Confederates back to Corinth. - And Johnston, of
course, is killed as well. - And Johnston is killed,
sadly, in the episode. He lets his own physician
go to help troops. He has a wound to his leg. He doesn't understand what's going on and the people there can't help him and he bleeds the death in 20 minutes. Should never have died. - [David] Yes, one of the great leaders. - One of the great leaders, yeah. - Along with Stonewall Jackson. Certainly, I think in that pantheon. So this is quite a significant victory. And truth, history, I think
probably rightly it always, I don't think it was treated
as a draw, but again, the Confederates withdraw. - [Ron] They withdraw and they announce that they've won a victory. I mean they've inflicted damages and then the casualties are so huge. - Casualties are so high that Grant is... - Is criticized.
- Soundly criticized. - [Ron] Soundly criticized, yes. - And a lot of the newspapers,
of course, all this time, by the way, he's fighting
on various fronts, and I can empathize with this. He's not only got the enemy to his front, he's got Congress and the journalists at various points going after him. Why don't you share a few of those? - Well then, Grant, for good or for ill, makes a decision early on, he will not respond to his critics. So the criticism is just immense. He writes to Julia and says, you're gonna hear an
awful lot of criticism. I just ask you, don't
read all these papers. It's gonna be just scurrilous, what they're gonna say about me. And he can kind of get by with this. He said, "I'm not gonna respond." Sherman steps forward, his best friend, talk about someone so
totally different than Grant. He just goes after the press. He said, "How dare you criticize Grant?" Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So he raises the bar, but the
newspapers are just vigorous or her, and aggressive in attacking Grant. - Yeah, Sherman of course
had what, a brother, I guess it was, in the Senate. - [Ron] Yes, in the Senate. - Which was a help as well. - [Ron] Help as well, and
Lincoln is listening to all this. He's never met Grant, and
so he's trying to discern what's really going on. - Yes, and there's lots
of political machinations out in the West as well, you might wanna. I mean, this had to be
incredibly frustrating, too. - Well, and this is where the whole-- - [David] He's held on
a leash by his boss. - Yeah, well, in this, the whole episode, which we haven't mentioned
yet, of Grant drinking. I mean, in a sense, he did
drink in the Pacific Coast that he was at threat of
being court-martialed. So the story is out that
Grant was drunk on the morning of the, when the Battle of Shiloh began and the woman who's the,
she's a Confederate, but it's her house. She said, "This is ridiculous. "He wasn't drinking at breakfast here," but those are the stories, and of course, his rivals wanted those stories to go up because this is a way
of bringing him down. - Yeah, so now, take us to, give us the context for
the Vicksburg campaign. - Well, Vicksburg is this fortress city overlooking the Mississippi, that controls the Confederate
dominance of the Mississippi. And the challenge is, if the
Confederates can be defeated and the Confederacy split in two, this will have a tremendous effect, demoralizing and territorial,
on the Confederacy. So Sherman had started
down in December of 1862 to attack Vicksburg, and
in a tremendous defeat, is forced to fall back. He's fighting an offensive war. These troops are firing down upon him. He's defeated, and he
really encourages Grant to drop all the way back. Let's go back to Memphis
and start all over again, but Grant will not. His middle name I think is determination. So he figures, he tries
four different ways to get around Vicksburg. Each of the four are unsuccessful. Finally, he decides that he will-- - [David] Including trying to dig a canal. - Trying to dig a canal. - [David] I mean, trying
to dig a river, basically, because the whole problem
is that you can't run, nobody thought you could
run the guns of Vicksburg. - You couldn't run, yeah, yeah. - That if you tried to go
by in the Navy flotilla, that you're just gonna get torn up. - But again, then his great
partnership with the naval part, Admiral Porter said, "I will
run, I will run Vicksburg," and so ironically again, on the
very evening that the people of Vicksburg are having a ball, a dance, to celebrate how victorious they are, that's the evening the Union
begins to run Vicksburg, and they get almost past
Vicksburg when the place erupts in fire, but they get past
it, so Grant's strategy is instead of attacking
Vicksburg from the north, he's coming from the north,
he will bypass Vicksburg and attack Vicksburg from the south. And then his brilliance comes
into play, just remarkable. Instead of doing what
Vicksburg and John Pemberton, the commander expects,
going directly northwest up to Vicksburg, he goes northeast, he goes the other direction, and decides that he will not be trapped
by the Confederate Army, but he fights five separate battles, making his way towards Vicksburg, and then mounts a siege of Vicksburg. He tries to attack Vicksburg twice, twice he suffers horrendous losses, and then sets up a siege. - Now this, the risk in
this was extraordinary because, and so extraordinary that Sherman sends him a letter. He's his most trusted lieutenant. Again, the level of trust
already between these two was extraordinary, and keeping in mind that Sherman had serious
mental issues, frankly. He was known to have bouts of depression that were very, very deep, and Grant provided the overhead
cover for him to a degree, which was just of the greatest
of importance until again, everything is going
well enough, ultimately, we'll see that Sherman is
turned loose after Chattanooga, but at this point in time,
Sherman looks at the plan and says, this is so risky
that I have to write a letter. He writes Grant a formal letter and asks that it be put in the files, really, to make sure that
he said this is too risky. - It's not gonna work. - It will not work, and it does. So they get south of Vicksburg. They then, instead of
immediately attacking Vicksburg, the biggest challenge is that he has to prevent the
reinforcing Confederate forces from reaching Vicksburg, in which case, you'd have a very, very
tough time cracking that. So they cut loose of their supply lines. Keep in mind now, they're
already south of Vicksburg. - [Ron] Way south. - All of their logistics
tail, if you will, is all, a lot of it is still stuck north. They did take a lot with them but they throw off their supply lines. Of course, they could only
bring what would go on a ship. And now they go march very
rapidly out to the east, meet this force coming at them, defeat it, have a couple of other
skirmishes with others, and then, and only then, turn and invest Vicksburg with a siege, by which time then I think
it's probably starting to become a foregone conclusion, that it is going to have
to collapse, and of course, they starve and they
have terrible hardship. - They're living in caves. Well, this is one of the
more, people, when you say, use the word research, that
doesn't sound very exciting. This is one of the more
exciting parts of this. I was put in touch with
a gentleman who said, "I will show you Grant's
route," and so we met one day and the first moment we got
out of the car, he says, "Let me get out my bug spray," so he sprayed all my legs and everything. He says, "I'm gonna show you roads "that don't no longer exist. "I will take you to towns
that no longer inhabited, "but I'm gonna show you Grant's route, "and I'm gonna show you," he told me, "why Grant is so remarkable,"
that he was able to, okay, I'll change my mind here, I'll rethink what I was going to do. Well, this isn't gonna
work so I'll try that. And he said, "The genius of
Grant is just overwhelming." The same with the Park Service historian. Sadly, at Vicksburg, they've
allowed all the trees to grow up. The environmentalists
didn't want to cut them down and so you don't realize these,
all the trees were cut down, and so this was a free fireplace, and the park historian
again showed me how, what Grant's strategy was to attack a deeply
entrenched Confederate force. Just remarkable. - Yeah. So you have Vicksburg, by the way, as we're talking about Sherman and Grant, it brings to mind what
Sherman supposedly said, years and years later,
that, "Grant stood by me "while I was crazy and I stood
by him while he was drunk." (people laughing) Sherman, Sherman, quite
a character, actually. - Well, let me add one postscript here. Lincoln, who had never met
Grant, had written a letter to George Meade after Gettysburg. They were at the same time. He was terribly, terribly angry with Meade because Meade let Robert
E. Lee escape, limping. Why didn't Meade follow? Day after day after day, Meade
got to the Potomac River, it was flooded, he couldn't cross it, and still Meade hadn't left Gettysburg. So Grant writes this letter and says, don't you realize (mumbles). In the Lincoln papers, this
is the beauty of Lincoln, the letter is found
never signed, never sent. He realized if he'd have sent that letter, he'd have destroyed George Meade. Five great letters of Lincoln are found never signed, never sent. What a leader. He writes to Grant and he
says, dear, dear General Grant, we've never had the privilege of meeting. I simply want to say, when
you decided to do this, I thought that was wrong. When you made that decision,
I thought that was a mistake. When you did that, I
didn't agree with that. At the end, he says, dear General Grant, I merely wish to say I was
wrong and you were right. Sincerely, A. Lincoln. I was wrong and you were
right, wow. (chuckles) - [David] Really one of the
great partnerships, actually. - It is, yeah, yeah. - I mean Lincoln, Lincoln
found his general. - [Ron] He did, he did. - And it was really an
extraordinary relationship. So after Vicksburg, Grant comes
east by way of Chattanooga, which is quite desperate at the time. He shores it up. Again, it's really
running out of supplies, the lines of communication
are cut by the Confederates. Gets lucky there... - [Ron] He does. - In the attack, where they weren't-- - [Ron] Of Missionary Ridge. - The troops weren't supposed
to keep going, and they did. - [Ron] Kept going. - And they just got the bit in their teeth and ran the Confederates
all the way off the hill on a very, I've seen
that battlefield as well, and to think of scaling this
is really quite extraordinary. So Grant does brilliantly then. He then does come east, he's brought east, and for the first time, you
have someone given command of all of the Union forces,
so it's no longer an army in the west or an army in the east and the chief of staff of the army having some sort of
control, but it confused. Lincoln went through how many generals by the time he gets to Grant? - Well, four generals
who had invaded Virginia, and so, yeah, yeah, all
of them had failed, yeah. - [David] Including McClellan twice. - Twice. - And what we forget, by the way, is that Lincoln could have
lost the election of 1864. There were Bonus riots
over, there were cities were being torn apart in the North. One of the interesting little side notes is the Union Club fractured. This is this great pillar
of society up there, fabulous robber baron mansion, and they have the Union League Club because I think the Union
Club refused to get rid of Bobby Lee, Robert E. Lee. Anyway, so you have a situation
where, and ironically, the man running against Lincoln is... - [Ron] McClellan. - And McClellan would have sued for peace. So for the, this sense of inevitability that the North was just going
to grind down the South, that we had, really was not accurate, and ultimately, Lincoln is
saved by two great victories. First, Atlanta, Sherman, and
then Sheridan in the Valley, the Shenandoah Valley, taking it away, and quite a close-run
affair, but Grant comes, and a wonderful anecdote about
how he shows up in Washington and goes to the hotel. - Yes, he arrives in Washington, and I begin the book this way. He hails a cab from the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad Station, goes to Willards Hotel, which is the great hotel in Washington. - [David] With his son, as I recall. - With his son, Fred,
and comes up to the desk and simply says, "I would
like to have a room." And the desk clerk says,
"Don't you know where you are? "This is Washington, D.C." - [David] He has no uniform on. - No uniform. Well, it's covered by his duster. Don't you know where you
are and don't you know this is the greatest hotel in Washington, kind of like, who do you think you are? And finally he said, "Well,
I can find you a room, "a small room on the top
floor," and Grant says, softly, "That will be fine." So he said, "Well, sign the register." So he signs the register and
the desk clerk turns it around, U.S. Grant and son, Galena, Illinois. And the desk clerk turns pale, (chuckles) and he says, "General Grant,
why didn't you tell me "who you were?" And I like to think of
all the modern people who would have said something
like don't you know who I am? (chuckles) And Grant would never say that. He was accepting of this
small room at the top floor, and that evening he has
received an invitation. He walks two blocks to the White House. He is the guest of honor. Lincoln, who's never met
him before, six feet, four, peers over the top of the
crowd, sees this small man who enters, nobody knows who he is, and General Grant, it's
so wonderful to see you. It's quite a meeting. - Yes, indeed, and again, the building relationship
is quite extraordinary. - [Ron] It is. - So Grant, for the first time, and this is the strategic genius now. - [Ron] Yes, yes. - For the very first time,
has an actual strategy for all of the Union forces. And it is that Sherman, who's
been over here in Chattanooga, is to come east by way of Atlanta, ad now they're getting into
the total warfare concept of they're gonna strip everything, deny the South any of the resources. So it's fairly, fairly rough stuff. And then he comes over to Savannah and then he'll come north. He has a couple of different generals coming out of the Tidewater area. You have Petersburg, the
big underground explosion that they can't capitalize on. It never really goes that far. He has forces coming down
the Shenandoah Valley, ultimately, it's Sheridan,
and he has Meade. Meade is the main effort. Meade is told to go where
you go, where Lee goes, and Grant is in his back pocket. And this is the strategic genius, I think. Again, no one had been
able to do this before. He actually added instructions
for some others as well. And so Meade has the first battle in the so-called wilderness because of the dense,
full forest, so forth. - Well, what you're
suggesting here is that Grant is really commanding five armies, and the problem of the Union Army before is that those armies had been operated in a very uncoordinated way,
not really in communication, not acting together,
and so Grant just visits or communicates with all five generals and says we are going to act together. That is the way we will defeat
the enemy, acting together, acting in concert, and that's
part of his genius here in pulling these five armies together. It had not happened
previously in the Civil War. Then they enter the wilderness and this, the enemy becomes not simply Lee's forces, but the wilderness itself. It's this kind of scrub oak
forest, only about this high, but so deeply compacted that
daylight can barely enter, and the wilderness becomes the enemy. Artillery is totally ineffective. You really can't use cavalry,
and after a few hours, those trees catch fire and
men are burned to death, or they shoot themselves
before they are burned to death by fire, and after two days, Grant has suffered 18,000
casualties in two days of battle. - [David] And his response is? - Well, the lines of
communication have been cut. Lincoln is sitting in
the telegraph office, wondering what in the world is going on. He doesn't know. A correspondence says, I'll
give a thousand dollars to anyone willing to get through. A young man, Henry Wing, 24 years of age, said I'll give it a try
and he says to Grant, is there any message you
have for President Lincoln? And Grant pauses for a
moment and then says, "Please tell the President,
we will not turn back," or, "there will be no turning back." The messenger gets through
and when Grant receives, Lincoln receives it, he
turns to young John Hay, his colleague or his aide, and says, "If any other general had
been the head of this army, "we would have been once
again back on the other side "of the Rapidan, back beyond Virginia." It is Grant's pertinacity,
pertinacity, that wins, Grant's determination that wins. - This, again, sheer determination, I found very inspirational
during the Surge, and I don't want to overdraw
any comparisons here. First of all, we sure weren't fighting
the American Civil War. It wasn't four years that shaped
the destiny of our country, but there was also a
relationship with President Bush during the Surge, very, very interesting, and I remember trying to convey to him our sheer determination as well, 'cause it got much
tougher before it got... - [Ron] Easier. - Easier, and I said that
that would be the case, and sadly, it was. In any event, and he,
Grant writes to Lincoln, I intend to fight it out
all summer on this line if that's what it takes, and
it takes all summer, all fall, all winter, and part of the
spring until April, 1865 in Appomattox Court House. And basically, just stays
after it, and again, you have Sheridan, you have Sherman, you have Lee over here. Ultimately, Sheridan
comes all the way around and cuts Lee's lines of communication. Sheridan, quite extraordinary. - [Ron] Yes, yes. - Really, the other great
general, I think, beyond Sherman in the, on the Union side. And ultimately, they keep missing Lee, Lee is trying to retreat to
the west, and eventually, his army runs out of food,
runs out of supplies, and is brought to April,
1865 and the meeting at Appomattox Court House, and
the terms that Grant offers are quite, they're not
unconditional surrender. - They're not unconditional surrender. It's fascinating because
Lincoln had communicated to Grant several weeks before, I hold the surrender in my hands. Grant is very deferential
to civilian leadership. Grant arrives, it appears
like almost unprepared. They start talking about the
time in Mexico and Lee says, "Don't you think we've got something "to deal with here today?" And Grant brings out his
pad and just writes out in longhand what the terms are, and they're remarkably magnanimous. Lee reminds him that these
men are gonna go back and be farmers and this is April, they're gonna have to
try to put in a crop, and Grant says, "That's
right, I think these men "will need their horses,
they may need their firearms "to go with them." He said, "I think that's
what we ought to do." And this is why Grant, in
future years, will be herald as the hero of Appomattox
by people in the South. - Yes, yup, yup, and in fact, Southerners will come to his events. - [Ron] They will. - Of course, and to
honor him and so forth. Well, we're gonna go rapid
fire, I guess, forward. Lincoln, of course, is assassinated. You have a president who has
a very different perspective on surrender terms and on
treatment of the South, and I think an area that
is overlooked of Grant was the stability that he
provided to the US government in a very difficult time. Johnson, of course, is
actually, I mean, think of this. Nowadays, that Congress passes a law that denies Johnson the
authority to remove leaders and Grant has to work through all this. He has to confront
Johnson a couple of times. Secretary of War is fired. He's the acting Secretary
of War for various periods. Perhaps a couple of words
on this particular period that was, again, so
challenging for the country. - Well, I like to say that
great leaders are people who can redefine themselves, so Grant. - [David] I like to say that, too. (Ron and audience laugh) - [David] Professor at USC. (Ron and audience laugh) - Grant ends the Civil War
as a great military figure, but very nonpolitical,
extremely deferential, easily to Lincoln, easily to Lincoln, but now he enters this
difficult time with Johnson. He tries to be deferential
to him, but cannot, and begins to get more
involved in the life and the work of Congress, and recognizes that Congress has passed these
Reconstruction amendments, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, and they are to be enforced, so he is general and chief of the Army, which has been scaled way
back down to 227,000 men. It's a peacetime army and
he steps up to this task, and he especially steps up to the task of protecting the rights
of African Americans who are both the citizens of the South, but what I didn't
realize was that because, if you think of the enlistments,
the first enlistments were all by white soldiers,
their enlistments run out. The black soldiers enlisted at the end, so of the 227,000 men,
36% are African American. - [David] Really? I didn't know that either.
- 36%. So you have African American
soldiers patrolling the streets of Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans, and this just sets up a
very combustible situation. - His treatment of
Reconstruction, I think, quite magnanimous to
the extent that he can. - [Ron] Yes, yes, yes, yes. - Extraordinary moments
where Sherman faces down the, takes out a governor as I recall. Later, the Indian, the Indian Wars, the only war we now have is
the, out on the frontier, tries to be magnanimous there. Interestingly, Sherman and
Sheridan, much less so. - [Ron] Much less so, right. - And ultimately pursue
campaigns that basically, almost like the Civil War. You just take everything away
from them, burn their teepees, kill the, all that they need. Fast forward, and again, I
think more familiar to people, the challenges that
Grant had as president. Some very good calls in a
financial crisis, I thought. And, but some poor choice of individuals that ended up in scandal. He becomes then the ambassador
to the world afterwards, has this glorious world tour,
and settles in New York, a humble man still, but
he did seem to enjoy what many of us enjoy in New York. It's a pretty decent life,
especially if the robber barons are taking care of you. - Well, there's no free lunch and I mean, he was accepting houses
and gifts from people and I think he did enjoy this. No question about it, yeah. - And then, the worst financial, personal financial situation. He loses all his money
and he discovers writing. - He did not want to write his memoirs. I recall that in the Dwight D. Eisenhower, eight years a president,
only one memoir was written by a member of his cabinet. Would you like to think how
many memoirs are written under George W. Bush and Barack Obama before either have even left office? Grant saw these memoirs as self-serving. He was even critical of Sherman's memoirs, that these are settling scores, making yourself out to be a big person. So he had told several reporters, "I will never write my memoirs," but then he loses all his money. He has to find a way to support Julia. There are no presidential
pensions until the 1950s under Harry Truman, and as he starts out to write his memoirs, he has
a terrible pain in his throat, and he's diagnosed with throat cancer. It's actually a threat of cancer
at the base of his tongue. And he's gonna write his memoirs. The Century Magazine offers him $10,000. Mark Twain hears about this
and arrives at his house and says, "$10,000 is what you would offer "to an unknown Comanche
to write his memoirs. "I want to publish your memoirs." And it ends up, he said, "What did they offer you, 10% royalty? "I'll give you 70% of the total proceeds." And so Grant sets out,
I say, racing death. In his final campaign, his
doctors saying he only lives because he's gonna complete the memoirs. He completes them three
days before he dies. And the grimoires will earn Julia $450,000 of 19th century money. They've never been out of print. They are the gold standard of memoirs. - [David] Truly brilliant writer, clear. - Clear. - Coherent, crisp, self-effacing. - [Ron] Self-effacing, I love that term. - Forthright, and again,
stand by themselves, I think, in that regard. With that, we have about 20 minutes left, and so let me open it to the floor now. Any questions or any
nominations for others who were great tactically,
operation (mumbles). (Ron laughs) Please fire away, yes. (Ron laughs) - [Woman] In the story, (mumbles). - Yes, yes, I will, yeah, yeah. Several weeks ago, in my
airplane reading on a book tour, I came across a remarkable story about this continuing
influence of the memoirs. In 1887, in England, a kind of
obstreperous, 13-year-old boy said to his parents he had one request for his 13th birthday. Winston Churchill wanted
a copy of Grant's memoirs. That's what he wanted,
and in succeeding years, although this wonderful new
book, who's author, Cynthia? - [Cynthia] Candice Millard. - Candice Millard has this
great new book on Churchill and the Boer War. She keeps mentioning how
magnanimous Churchill is, but she doesn't get the fact that the magnanimity all is Grant. Now, again and again and again, Churchill will refer to Grant. So in 1944, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt has in his mind that maybe he will write a
letter to the German leaders offering some kind of end of the war and a conciliatory move, and
Churchill writes to Roosevelt and says, no, no, no, no, don't you remember what Grant said? We will fight it out on this
line if it takes all summer, and that's what the Allied
forces ought to do right now, and Roosevelt says, I
understand. (chuckles) - [David] Wonderful. Yes, please. - [Man] General Petraeus
and Proferssor White, back to the summer of 1864, Petersburg, it seems like the two
sides of the same coin are on the one side, how much
the success of the general depends upon that individual's character and then how much the disappointing, profoundly disappointing,
or a general of generals like Grant is, or misplaced trust, and I would like both of
you to comment on that, how profoundly disappointed
that the trust he put in Burnside and this plan, and yeah. - Yeah, (mumbles) go ahead. - Well, I mean it is, and in warfare, it's about lives, obviously. It's a missed opportunity can be something that never comes again, and mistakes can be really very significant
in terms of the price that will be paid for them, and
I think when they take place and I certainly experienced some of those when I was commanding both in
Iraq and then in Afghanistan, I was the Central
Command commander as well over both of them. It's a different feel. The truth is you're either
the commander or you're not. I mean, okay, I'm in the chain of command, but the guy on the ground is the one who, and by the way, a very lonely
position, I might add as well. In any event, that's where
this determination factor comes in, and just the sheer
resilience and so forth, but, and Grant had that quiet
determination in spades. I mean, it just oozes out
of him, and as I said, I found it incredibly
inspirational during a period. People just sort of forgotten
how tough those early months of the Surge were, but
remember, every critic was coming out of the woodwork,
saying we told you so. We had all kinds of issues
with members of Congress. The White House was getting antsy with the exception of the President. I mean, they'd call out and say, when are these guys
gonna start doing laws? And I'd say, they're
just trying to survive. They just wanna be able to get
to work without being killed. And again, this is where it
takes fortitude and resilience and some kind of inner strength, and Grant had that maybe
more than anyone else that I can think of. What's interesting is that
Eisenhower was much more fragile than people realize, but
inside, it was much more, again, didn't have that
same degree of stolidity, I think, is what Grant had,
and so, phenomenal quality, wouldn't you, I mean. - I would. What I think you may be
referring to also though is when people disappoint you. So that Baldy Smith, for
example, disappointed Grant for, they could have taken Petersburg
easily and they did not. He delayed, and then Burnside with his terrible episode of the Crater, I think you're appealing to that, where they're going to dig this hole and then blow up this thing, and sadly, they put in African American troops who have not been trained to
do this, and the Confederates gun down all these
African American troops. It becomes an incredible disaster for whom Grant must accept responsibility, but he was always a little
reticent to even do this, but he allowed his, in a sense,
commanders underneath him to say let's go forward. This was a terrible, terrible decision, and the results were awful for the Union at that point in time. - [Man] Yeah, and just
to follow up on that, the fragility, and I
hate to use that word, but that tension is, in
Eisenhower, is demonstrated during McCarthy times
when he really did not act as decisively and let that can-- - I'd say it's an interesting point, yeah. Don't get me wrong, I'm a
huge believer in Eisenhower, but Eisenhower, by the way,
as a military commander, he was never tactical,
he missed World War I. Operational leader in North
Africa, obviously, horrible. That's where they had the
Kasserine Pass disaster, and he was very remote, he was removed, he was way, way back. As a strategic commander, he
obviously got the gutsy call to do D-Day on that particular day, when the weather and everybody else was, a lot of consternation. They'd had to delay it already 24 hours, but then misses the Falaise Pocket, the opportunity to close and
keep hundreds of thousands of Germans forces in
France from getting away and Patton is pushing to do it. He's coming up from
the south, essentially, the Brits and the Canadians
and others are over here. He just, just misses it, and he owned it. There was no ground
force commander overall. He retained that himself, so he was the one directing
these army commanders, Bradley, Patton, Montgomery and others. So misses that, but where
his genius was, frankly, was in the civil military,
in the coalition, in the, in that kind of stuff, where again, very, very
remarkable, frankly, dealing with the incredible
ego management required to deal with Monty and Patton
and even Bradley, frankly, and some others. So that I thought was extraordinary. Washington, frankly, the same way. Washington got his butt
kicked all up Manhattan, all the way into out of New Jersey. Comes back, does have
that one great battle on Christmas Eve, then the
rest of the war, he really, what his, and there's never
any overarching strategy, there's never really any, something you put your fingerprint on. I mean, he picked some good people. What he really did was
he kept Philadelphia from destroying the overall effort. I mean, it was all about
dealing with these, again, political egos and
his own political generals who were causing such
problems for them as well. That was the genius of Washington. But what Grant had,
again, this incredible, as I think it's hugely difficult to do. We have lots of people
who are good tactically, but operationally, you got
to have vision, conception, you have to understand relative terrain, troops, et cetera, and then strategically, how he could just lay this
out, and keep in mind, there were no staffs in those days. We were talking last week about how Grant, he would sit all night, he'd
just write these very clear and he'd slide them off, and
they'd fall on the floor, and then keep doing this,
and then they'd pick them up, aides would make copies,
and then they'd ride off to the battlefield or
get them on the telegraph to direct action, but there
was nothing like what I had. Hundreds of, Division Headquarters alone was probably thousand people
when you total it all up. Really quite extraordinary. Another question, please, yes. (man mumbling) - All the way. - [Man] Professor White,
I just want to ask this one question that shows
such character of Grant, and you actually show
the actual transcript of the actual facsimile here. It's the, can you tell us a little bit about Grant releasing William Jones? - Oh, okay, yes. (clears throat) Grant came
back from the Pacific Coast, lived in the shadow of his father-in-law, trying to find some distance. He built his own home, which he sardonically called Hardscrabble, and tried to make a living as a farmer. He did accept a male slave
from the, his father-in-law, William, but then he never explains this, but, and this is the way film begins if you go to the U.S. Grant
Historical Site in St. Louis, it's a wonderful film. In 1859, he decides to free this slave. This able-bodied man in his early 30s could have brought him a thousand dollars, which is a lot of money in 1859. He cannot abide any
longer owning this slave. He sets him free and signs
that manumission document. He doesn't say, didn't I do a great thing? He just did it, and I
think his actions there just really speak loudly. - [Man] It shows such character. - Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah. But again, quietly, that's
always the key with Grant. Yes, please. - [Man] Dr. White, in your
biography, A. Lincoln, James McPherson said, one of the lenses that you look at was through
his faith dimension and if, (Ron clears throat) have you had an opportunity
in, here in Ulysses, to also go do that? - Thank you. I've come to believe that
one of the missing components of most American biographies
is the whole religious or faith story. So that in Lincoln, I think
there's a profound faith story that comes to fruition in
the second inaugural address. 701 words, he mentions God 14 times, quotes the Bible four times, invokes spirit three times. That's not the point. The point is he's trying to
discern the difficult question, where is God in the
midst of the Civil War? Both sides have claimed God
as a kind of a tribal God, God's on our side, God's on our side. Is there a faith story in Grant? Well, Grant is the son of Methodism. Julia's grandfather is
a Methodist minister. When Grant is living in Galena, there's a young Methodist minister arrive, whose name is John Heyl Vincent. He's part of the founding of USC, and Vincent is the minister there, and Grant begins to find him
and listen to his sermons. As he's leaving Shiloh, he
writes, Vincent writes to him and he writes back and says, I can still remember
your feeling discourses in the church in Galena. That's an interesting way of speaking. Grant can't speak of his own feelings. Methodism is a religion of
the heart of experience, and Grant is drawn to this. When Grant returns to
Galena after the Civil War, he's not a good public
speaker and so he said, "I'd like Reverend
Vincent to speak for me." Vincent will become the founder of the great Chautauqua of New York, the world famous Chautauqua,
and in its second year, Grant is now mired in scandal. He's at his home resort at
Long Branch, New Jersey, and Vincent sends out a call, wanting to kind of broadcast and publicize this new endeavor. Vincent is trying to move Methodism from emotionalism to education. That's where we need to go
towards the 20th century. He said, "Would you be
willing to come for a weekend? "It would mean so much
to me and our movement." "I will." Grant arrives with 20,000 other people in this small place setting
in Southwestern New York. Some of you may have
been to the Chautauqua. It's an amazing place today. - [David] Just this summer. - You've been there? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - [David] 2,500 people. - 2,500 people. So I believe that Vincent is
the kind of missing person in the religious story, just
like the pastor for Lincoln, Phineas Densmore Gurley in
Washington is the missing person. We don't say enough about this part of it. When you asked the question, what's the basis of his character? I think his character is formed probably more from his
mother than his father, the kind of values that are a part of his internal moral compass are basic kind of Methodist values. - [David] Last question, please. Yes, right there. - [Man] Hi, you mentioned
Grant being a drinker, and I've always wondered, has his drinking ever impaired his command to the point where he'd be replaced? Did he ever try to stop,
he couldn't, like that. - Let me start. Yeah, I'll let you, well,
remember when they told Lincoln that Grant's a drinker and Lincoln says, "Find out what he drinks and
give it to the other generals. (people laughing) "At least he fights," but... - I think Grant did get
involved in drinking. Perhaps, we don't exactly know why. He often couldn't hold
his liquor too well. The story's often told that
when he was away from Julia, he drank when he was with Julia, and one of the remarkable
things I discovered was how much she was with
him during the Civil War. He wanted her with him. - [David] And his son with him. - Yeah. They were offered this
beautiful home in Philadelphia and she said, "I don't want that home. "I want to be with my husband." So she lived with him for 15 months in this tiny, little cabin
at City Point in Virginia. And so I think that he was never impaired. Others give witness to that. He was never impaired so that
he could not fight or lead because of drinking, yeah. - Ron, let me thank you so much for this. It has really been a privilege and a pleasure and a joy to do this. We dreamed this up some
time ago and I must confess, as I was walking over
here, I said, oh man, we have way over an hour. I mean, I hope we can, (people laughing) I hope we can keep talking long enough. Two pages worth, there was
three pages worth of notes, but this has been delightful, and frankly, we have seen here, I
think, also what comes out in this beautifully written,
beautifully researched, and rightly praised account
of a monumental figure, Ulysses S. Grant, American Ulysses. Thank you very much. - Thank you, thank you. (audience applauding)
