Leadership, Life, and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant

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(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)
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Channel: USC Price
Views: 67,025
Rating: 4.7435007 out of 5
Keywords: USC Price, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, USC, Public Policy, General David H. Petraeus, Ronald C. White, Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War, battlefield, author, biography, autobiography, commander chief, history, New York Times bestseller, Abraham Lincoln, America, president, George Washington, special events, leadership, life, legacy
Id: m7HQPxSxKas
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Length: 74min 10sec (4450 seconds)
Published: Wed Nov 09 2016
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