Was Ulysses S. Grant Intelligent or Stupid, an Effective Leader or a Failure? (2000)

Brooksie Simpson author of ulysses s grant triumph over adversity 1822 1865 why did you stop right after the Civil War a natural breaking point in grants career and his life at 1865 he's accomplished what he needs to accomplish in life and in fact he thought that after the Civil War he would be able to live out the rest of his life as a retired general basking adulation that wasn't to be but I wanted to divide the life at this point even though the argument of the two books together will be that there's a lot more in common between the general and the president that has been popularly assumed when did you first start studying u.s. grant all I had to blame my father's mother in part for that as a young boy she she lion took me to Grant's Tomb in 1865 excuse me 1965 or 66 and the interest started from there as a curiosity but really a serious topic of scholarly study probably when I was an undergraduate the University of Virginia give us the short course where was he born born in point-wise in Ohio on April 27th 1822 the son of a Tanner and business man Jesse grant and Hannah Simpson grant grew up in a South Ohio outskirts of a little town called Georgetown not too far from Cincinnati in 1839 goes to West Point graduates in the middle of his class in 1843 21st out of the class of 39 sees duty in the mexican-american war resigns in the Army in 1854 struggles for several years as a former real-estate agent and several other many careers that all and disastrously for one reason or another in 1860 moves to Galena Illinois in the northwest corner of that state where he is working at a general store owned by his father and younger brothers that's where we find out the outside of the American Civil War hoodie Mary Mary Julia dent in 1848 met Julie dent was the sister of one of his West Point roommates Fred dent he was stationed in Jefferson Barracks just outside of st. Louis and visited the dent family home at Whitehaven and their met Julia and fell head-over-heels in love for her and vice-versa corresponding with her during the mexican-american war and then when he came back married her on August 22nd 1848 how many children do they have they had four children between 1850 and 1858 and what was she like Julia Grant is an interesting person she had a great deal of faith in her husband she on the other hand was also a slaveholders daughter had a very sort of paternalistic view of American slavery a very romanticized view of it she was also very much attached to her own father creating some tensions in the grant marriage because grant himself let's say was in billing towards his father-in-law but she clearly had a great deal of faith in him I was one of the few people had faith in him even when things weren't going well and what were us grants parents like we don't know much about Hanna grant she's very quiet reserved person and some people there would claim that that's where grant got his own taciturn sense Jessi grant on the other hand was a boisterous businessman active in politics bragging openly about his son and in fact made young Ulysses life somewhat difficult at times because people looking to strike back at the old man found in his oldest son a rather vulnerable target and so as a young man grant often found himself the butt of jokes and it so did not help to have a father like that and some of the most frank correspondence we have from Ulysses Grant is towards his father it was essentially Tony's father but out stay away I have no person in no person while half his word about is you Jesse did not get along with Julia grant was friction between the families as part of his political part of it was personal jesse was an abolitionist and a a buttinsky in his son's life always looking to for the main chance and create a lot of tension between father and son how did you go back during the book what I mean by that research on site inspections things like that I did several things I went to the major archives library Congress National Archives Chicago Historical Society Ohio Historical Society we did some traveling also the West Coast um so I went ahead and looked at archival materials I drew upon the published papers of Ulysses Grant as well as closest associates I also went to various places where Grant had been to get a sense of those communities so I've been to Georgetown several times I've been to Point Pleasant his birthplace Galena I've been to his Civil War battlefield so I have a sense of what the ground looks like to him where he would happen to be positioned at that time so I have a good idea of the world in which he lives does grant inhabit or at least in the United States now are there places other than Grant's Tomb where you can and the Point Pleasant home and things like that like it's City point in Virginia where his headquarters was last in the part of the war is there anything there yes they National Park Service now has both the main house that was there and grants Cavanaugh is set up there of course if it's somewhat distorting now you just see the single cabin there where in fact it was part of a row of cabins in 1864 65 but for those willing to go out there you can see that you can go to a max court house you can go to other battlefields and find locations or Grant's headquarters and and look at the terrain more or less as he saw it during the war itself is hardscrabble they're hard scrabble is near whitehaven hard scrabble got moved around several times and it's now on the it's in st. Louis it's on the the bush estate and you can go in there and yeah yeah the anheuser-busch estate right next to the white haven site run by the National Park Service tell us about White Haven what is hardscrabble well Whitehaven was the home of Colonel dent as he liked to call himself a colonel by custom in this case and it was a plantation it was a colonel dent was a slave holder and he owned a rather extensive tract of land south of st. Louis at Whitehaven is a nice but not overly ornate structure people at Whitehaven under the National Park Service now restoring that as much as possible to its condition when Grant himself owned the home in the 1870s so we have a model of what a plantation was really like the den plantation never had that many sway as it was not like a plantation from the movies gone with the wind or something like that hardscrabble was Grant's attempt to carve out his own home on that plantation lot I will locate elsewhere again it's been moved around and now resides on the estate Julie didn't like it very much and grant in fact did not live very long and hard scrabble but hard scrabble is actually a fairly impressive structure for a log cabin we have a notion of a very small building but in fact hardscrabble has ample living quarters for a growing grand family at the time but when Julia's mother died the colonel decided that it was time to bring the family back together again and so hardscrabble was abandoned go over it again born in Point Pleasant and lived in Georgetown Ohio that for Cincinnati where did he go then I went to a few prep schools basically on in southern Ohio but then in 1839 goes to West Point how to get there his father dearly wanted to get him an appointment at West Point and first a correspondent with a senator phone named Tom Morris is it well I'm not going to handle that this time you must locate he must contact your local Cong congressman fellow named Tom Hamer well Tom Hamer and Jesse grant had been friends but had grown apart due to political disagreements and so it was a very painful process for Jesse a very proud man to write - Tom hammer and say please give an appointment for my son Ulysses to West Point the request came to Hamer at just as he was clean at his desk at the end of a session of Congress he rushed the papers didn't know the boy's name which was formally at that time Hiram Ulysses Grant and filled out papers for ulysses s grant assuming that everyone had always called the fellow Ulysses so that would be the first name in the middle name well he fought the middle initial would the S would come from Hannah Simpson's name and that's how you Lissy Hiram Ulysses Grant became ulysses s track grant went to West Point asked for an appointment for Hiram Ulysses Grant or Ulysses Hiram Grant was told the only point we have wishes s grant if you don't like it you go home and he decided stay did you have to have academic credentials then to get into West Point no no a West Point at that time was an engineering school but no you didn't have to turn with a high school diploma they were entrance exams to make sure the candidates were qualified and certainly one subject in which grant excelled was mathematics and that was a key part of the West Point curriculum he was however awful at foreign languages as he freely admitted and so whereas he being near the head of the class when it came to math he was quite near the other end when it came to French how many in his class again well class when it entered was in the 70s that accounts differ whether it's 75 or 77 so on entering classes 77 out of that entering class 39 receive commissions four years later and grants 21 out of 39 so you usually see the citation the 21 out of 39 as grants a middling student but in fact he survives whereas a lot of other people were farmed out or couldn't make it how many of those have we heard of in Grant's own class not many the surrounding classes we hear are lots of people and people maybe just a year or two before james longstreet for example in the class of 1842 when grant comes to West Point in 1839 the senior year the final year for William T Sherman and George Thomas so you hear about those people an awful lot but Grant's class itself was not a terribly distinguished what happened to Longstreet well Longstreet and grant of forged a friendship that went through the Mexican American War Longstreet was present at Grant's wedding and in fact Longstreet married a woman who was related to Julia grant and these two men kept that friendship alive in terms of knowing each other when they came to face each other a little bit in 1863 and certainly in 1864 when grant comes east this commander of all the Union armies and takes the field against robert e lee and after the war that the relationship renews and Longstreet becomes a political operative in the Republican Party and still a friend of grants but they were on opposite sides during the war they're on opposite sides during the war but Longstreet was one of the Confederate commanders that had an idea that his old buddy might be a rather compelling component for opponent for robert e lee after West Point he moves directly to where well after West Point he's assigned to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri and st. Louis and that's where just office English that's where he meets Julia then he gets a series of assignments moving closer and closer to the Texas Mexican border as people are waiting for the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Mexico what's going on in the country then who's present Oh James cave Polk is president in 1814 1845 the United States has already acquired Texas by annexation they're hungry eyes looking westward for other parts of what's that at that time northern Mexico there is a border dispute between Mexico and the United States about exactly where does Texas end in Mexico begin and polka very aggressively of moves to place American forces in a disputed area and one of those people in that contingent is grant who's leading the military then for Polk well the Winfield Scott is at that moment the general in chief of the army the United States Zachary Taylor's in command of the expeditionary force sent into Texas Zachary Taylor becomes president how much after that point he becomes president um in 18-49 he's elected in 1848 and what year are we talking about again the Mex we're talking about 1846 through 48 so he's right there who's right there what was the party in which grant belonged to at that point well grant really didn't have firmly developed political allegiances but to the point that he had them they they were Whig at the Polk he often questioned the hopes the use of patronage and making military appointments a trying get Democrats in positions of influence grant and his father were both Whigs at this time I mean one of grants political idols of appears was Henry Clay but you say somewhere in the book that he was a Democrat or voted Democrat Democratic at some point that's right after the demise of the Whig party in the mid 1850s a grant is sort of left without a party as he never voted on presidential election because has always been on duty in 1856 he decides that he will vote for James Buchanan the Democratic candidate for president he said in part because he didn't know anything but Buchanan but he did know about became his Republican opponent John seafront and didn't trust Vermont to be president again back in the Mexican War Mexican American what role did he play I'll grant I was given various staff duties at the beginning of the war that he'd be a regimental quartermaster and commissary officer etcetera so he was not given a line command with a company at the front line so what would happen in many a battle in the Mexican War is that when the firing started grant would make sure his mules were in law that all supply issues were taken care of and he dried off to the front and get himself involved as quickly as possible he just couldn't keep him out of action once the firing began and he would pick up a squads of troops and lead them forward and and basically act on his own as an officer but he was not in fact supposed to do that he was supposed to be behind and he protested against that rear assignment as a not giving the sort of service he wanted to have nevertheless it was probably a critical service for Grant's later formation because grant began to understand the importance of logistics and and obtain the sort of experience that many Civil War generals did not have in terms of how do you manage an army how do you keep it supplied how do you feed it how do you move it forward grant got that experience during the mexican-american war when was the first time you saw evidence of drinking there's evidence of drinking as early as the mexican-american war that there's some letters home from other people in Ohio or visiting who are saying that Grant is drinking and does not know how to hold his alcohol so certainly it begins to appear how quickly could you tell he was drinking well apparently with one of the things about grant was that it didn't usually take very long to see that ring he didn't need too much to consume in order for it to show and so I think that's one thing that we maybe there's some people today I call my cheap date the only a couple of glasses might send him and to a a you know an intoxicated state that he blushed his speech would slur and he would look a little bit uncertain so it wasn't that grant drank lots of offices in the United States aren't we drank it was that grant couldn't hold his liquor that was held against em it was the worst thing I ever did that you know of from drinking that you're sure that it happened because I know you talk about a lot of things that are miss it doesn't seem to be any sort of truly hairbrained thing that grant did under the influence that there are all these stories that volunter the influence he did this or that but there always need to be fairly minor things nevertheless the fact of the matter is that defenders of grant I have to say well this proves that grant never drank when it was important when he's a major general and he's intoxicated the in fact they're not lols in the action one time he fell he was thrown by a horse in September 1863 and turned up lame and injury which hurt him for quite some time and it's some suggestion that he may have him having a drink or two before mounting his horse and becoming rather careless with this rather spirited mount are the most famous story of Grant drinking during the Civil War during the Vicksburg campaign in June 1863 a lot of people like to discuss that as if it was just a lark and there was a lull in the action grant in fact was on an inspection tour because he was terribly worried about the security of his loins from a threatened Confederate attack from Jackson Mississippi he was going into enemy territory he was not feeling well my suspicion is from what I've read that in fact he had taken a couple of drinks to make himself feel better and had a very negative effect on him but a drunken general on headed towards enemy territory during the Vicksburg siege that's not a lark for no reason at all rather that could have imperiled that Union cause how much and we know that there have been seven eight thousand books written on Abraham Lincoln how many books written on u.s. grant Oh still in hundreds um and we've had a series of biographies in the last 30 or 40 years to full scale biographies and more focus studies usually of a generalship not as much attention given to his presidency did you attempted making this different in any way no I mean I was aware of the people who had gone before me and I was aware of the degree to which they had become either advocates or detractors of grants military career in his political career later on I found for myself that one of the most important things is to step away from that that you it's a bad thing to fall in love with dead people and just stay away from those issues and to try to find out what the story is I have found that that just looking at the sources and trying to piece together what happened can often be as daunting as anything else how about your own view of General Grant at this point I I guess it would be positive on the whole I mean I think he's extremely able commander was able to master challenges that felt other men that his success was not inevitable by any means that he was a master at improvising responding on the spur of the moment to changes in plan and changes in circumstances I think he did that well I think on the other hand he played favorites and sometimes it's a little too stubborn and adhering to those favorites and not taking a second look at some people he did not like sometimes he was so interested in offensive action that he forgot that the enemy also had a will and might try to impose it upon him so I think there were things that granted that weren't social road when did he first start smoking cigars and how many did he smoke a day well great was a pipe smoker and if you go stand Sony and in fact you'll find general Grant's pipe and that strikes people somewhat odd what happened the popular story is that in 1862 at the Battle of Fort Donelson you area that year grant was off conferring with the Nate his naval counterpart and real whole foot and as he came back he found that his army was under attack grant had very little use for swords in the lion Jesus saw them as obstructions more than anything else and so when he came on the battlefield foot had given him a cigar and grant began to direct military operations not with a sword but with a cigar in his hand pointing back and forth well that image got back to the newspapers grant was one of the first great Union heroes of the war people called him unconditional surrender grant taking those initials us and giving them a new meaning from his a surrender demand of the Confederate garrison and all sudden people began to send him cigars and sure enough he became addicted to them and in Grant's case a lot of ways he is the calm exterior is in fact the cigar the tobacco acting as a suppressant a calming influence on him we have a story that during the Battle of the wilderness he went through to dozens of guards in the course of one day and people see a grant during the wilderness is being calm collected whittling away if you look carefully grants nervous he's shredding his kid gloves as he's doing the whittling and he's going through cigar after cigar because in fact he's very nervous about what's going on he's commanding a new army for the first time and he doesn't know what to expect from it and he in fact is using cigars to calm down let's go back again the Mexican War he got out of there win he got out in 1848 the war ends in 1848 with a formal treaty the American forces occupy Mexico City in 1847 so if he's out and he comes back to several post on a post or duty posts in Detroit in New York and in 1852 he is sent to the west coast again what year did he marry he married in 1848 so he's married and his wife is wife Julia with him in all these places she is with him in most of these places although she goes back for example for the birth of their first son Fred in 1850 she goes back to st. Louis as she is pregnant with the second child who something called Ulysses jr. when Grant had sent out to the west coast in 1852 at that time you either went all the way around South America or you went across Panama by foot given the mortality rates grant advised his wife not to go with him but rather they go back to White Haven and live it I live out with her father and mother it was in fact a risky crossing many people did die and it would have been a very chancy crossing for Julia and her children to uh survive for kids for kids had to get along with them he was a very indulgent father I think that one thing you learn about parents is that parents greatest model for ill or for good are their own parents and he was a supremely indulgent father and loved his kids dearly brought his kids especially his oldest son Fred to the front Fred actually was wounded during the Vicksburg campaign which one of these are Fred Fred's the tallest one in the middle wearing a military uniform Fred's born in 1850 named again after the the dent side Ulysses jr. born 1852 and then Nellie born in July 4th the only girl grant used to say the fireworks on celebration of her birthday as opposed to Independence Day and then so the rapscallion of the family young Jesse grant is born late in the 1850s I'm Jessie's named after grants own father how does he get to Galena after grant resigns from the Army in 1854 he goes back to st. Louis and works on how farming did he decide just to give up the service he decided to give up the service and the reason he decided to give the sir he was very depressed at being apart from his family that he missed his wife terribly a correspondence was infrequent missed his children he now had a second son whom he'd never seen and people noticed he was depressed um he did not like life out in the west coast he tried everything he could to bring his wife out tried all kinds of money-making schemes none of them panned out but rank was he by the time he resigns from the Army he was a captain and so in 1854 he does resign and there are stories that drinking has something to do with it probably was drinking because he was depressed but he resigns because he's had enough anybody recognize him at this point as being a genius in military strategy no had he done anything at all that people respected from the military days that he today saw him as a very courageous young officer that he had done things under fire in the mexican-american war that were pretty astonishing it took advance sometimes it was horsemanship sometimes took advantage of his ingenuity and so he was known as a young brave officer but then the mexican-american war was filled with young brave officers so there was seemed to be nothing ception about him except he was cool under fire and and he went to Atlanta and what year he goes to going in 1860 and what has happened again is he's failed as a farmer he goes in the single was he fails and various business concerns he fails to get a political position and by 1860 his father taking pity on his okay come to work in the general store how did his father get from Cincinnati area to Illinois all Jessie was an ambitious businessman who began expanding that leather business all over the place and gets an interest in a general store in Galena and sets up both his sons at the two younger sons Orville and Simpson in that in that business and so although grants the oldest son he had had a separate career and not until 1860 that basically he becomes part of the family business and not as a tanner he despised that but it has a clerk in a general store and how do you get to Glennon he took a steamer no I mean how would people today how would I was a well he's really had to look carefully in the northwest corner of the state there are a lot of antique stores there the Main Street is more or less preserved both the grant houses are there Grant's house that he lived in before the war and a house across the where he's given to him after the there's a valley in the town that separates them as a second house that was given to him after the war so even what 38 years old 90 in 1816 then what are the circumstances when Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers well grant is known at the time as a Mexican War veteran a West Point graduate and Gallinas going to raise a company and parts of a regiment and all of a sudden who who knows how to drilled the boys who knows how to tell the women in town how to assemble uniform and flags but grant and so all of a sudden grant has this reputation as being a man for the situation he's asked to preside at meetings much to his consternation and his somewhat flustered it's never good at public speaking at this time and he himself would admit that later on he wanted however a fight he thought he should be a colonel he had that commensurate military experience for such a position took an awful long time to get that Commission how did he get it he got it because there was a regiment the 21st Illinois who grant the members of whom Grant had sworn in and they had a colonel a colonel Simon good who in fact was no good has a colonel I had lost the respect of his men had become a varying rouille regimen outside of Springfield it was clear to the governor of Richard Yates that something had to be done and there was Grant who by this time was doing odd jobs in Springfield helping to run clerk's office in the old State Capitol and all the sudden people said why not try grant grants been around and the men of the regiment had met him and so there's a fit it was up to the governor to decide whether he got a Colonel Sam that's right who is the congressman from Galena Elihu Washburne a Republican an early supporter of Lincoln um a fellow who was interested in grant and a certainly instrumental in Grant's early career when President Lincoln makes available several commissions for brigadier General's from the state of Illinois Washburn shrewdly make sure that his man grant is included in that mix and so grant earns his first store not because of anything accomplishes on the battlefield but rather because he had a patron and Congress go over that some more because and related to today he was a colonel that had gotten his colonel C from the gun the state that's right just cause he liked him well he was seen as someone who could actually do something and he had professional training in that and it was clear that this unruly regiment needed a disciplinarian who knew what he was about but you tell a story about him going to a restaurant where the governor's sitting in a restaurant and he NORs him that's right he was not seen to be Grant was not singled out as being an important figure I mean kind of paint the picture he's 1860 it's 1860 I was eighteen sixty one sixty one the Abraham Lincoln's already been elected what is it in there baby and so he's in his first term and we just had the fire in Fort Sumter and everyone gravitates to the State Capitol Springfield to go ahead and bring folks together and organize them at the fighting regiments so he's looking to be a comma Colonel he's looking to become a colonel and they use them in all sorts of other capacities because of his administrative experience for the next two America Wars you go to the Old State Capitol today there's a room which was supposedly Grant's office for a while but grant found out after a while all he's doing is filling out forms he wasn't getting the combat command he wanted several times is about to leave he keeps on he would keep on saying he wasn't pulling strings but he's making himself achingly available and that's when he walks in the restaurant and tries to say Here I am could you pick me and nothing's happening he thought he was about to go home either that or search for Colonel C elsewhere and actually takes a trip to Cincinnati to visit the headquarters of a young promising General George McClellan and somehow McClellan never quite grants the old West Point buddy and interview let's stop there just for a second George McClellan went to West Point with him George McClellan was in class of 1846 Sona Cohen was a young rising star brilliant second in his class but quickly jumped to what is his top job in the US military he's Major General volunteers at the Stallman is about to get a full commission in the United States Army but but he was seen as that is that is the bright boy of his decade but jumping way ahead I mean General Grant at the time whatever civilian grant wants a job through McClellan that's right and thinks that McClellan might remember they're they're fairly slight acquaintance ship and McClellan if he remembered anything about grant there was a story that McCowen had gone Weston in charge of an expedition grant was in charge of outfitting that expedition and while he had done so he'd become intoxicated McCowen have observed that McCullen understood the stories about that drunkard grant from the old army gossip circles and didn't want anything to do with grant but the point I want to make is that he goes he goes to try to talk to general McClellan McClellan becomes head of the Army of the Potomac right and then runs against Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and loses that's right what in history by the way where did people put George McClellan as a general although there's a little bit of holy called McCoy every Civil War general enjoys his revisionist biographer Zeus's seek to move reputations up or down generally however that McClellan is seen as a fellow who when push came to shove wouldn't fight too cautious to overtly involved in politics there's even some dispute about his organizational abilities so he's not a viewed very highly by most historians although it doesn't receive a lot of four screws loose but could you say that ulysses s grant was kind of begging George McClellan for a job he was begging anybody for a commission and ends up being president itíd States and McClellan doesn't that's right and just a 3-phase and grant but grant boys at a highest rate of McClellan's military abilities and was very understanding he grant when they harsh comments about other people but he never made those comments about McClellan go back to the restaurant and governor Yates of Illinois well he sees him in the restaurant you say he doesn't pay any attention to him the governor doesn't so he walks out and waits out and outside in the hallway he's about to go and if governor Yates hadn't stopped him out there or he hadn't stopped governor Gates he wouldn't be where he is today um that's possible how'd that happen what was that meeting like I Ivan Gates it wasn't Gates had bigger things on his mind than the fortunes of poor Ulysses Grant at that moment and said basically I think as much as anything else Yates continued to be interested in grandly because Washburn had some interest in grant and this there was his fellow who had some promise but you know commissions as Colonels were given out as political rewards Grant had nope Klout no reputation at all and it's only when they have this troubled regiment the 21st Illinois that they say we've got to do something about these folks that grant becomes a candidate for Colonel see our other states that were sort of interested or other people pulling strings for him but Illinois offer comes through first and then you go back to congressman Washburn mm-hmm he's his congressman from Galena I tried but later on in his life and in his professional life he once again jumping ahead and people have to read the book to get all the details on but he once again puts a bill in to make him a lieutenant general yeah in fact that sort of leads that something I found very interesting about a grant the popular perception was that Ulysses Grant Abraham Lincoln were very tight that grant that Lincoln had always chosen grant as his general and my research showed that wasn't for the Grieg that Lincoln often kept grant at arm's length never went to the point of removing him but had doubts about his ability in 1862 and 1863 Lincoln probably never uttered the phrase I can't spare this man he fights because at the time he seemed awfully willing to spare grant and in fact the the Lieutenant General bill adding a third store reviving this rank that had not been a full rank the United States Army since the days of George Washington wouldn't field Scott it held it by private that Washburn and congressional Republicans revived this rank and want grant to fill it in part to take control of the army away from people like Lincoln and Lincoln does not support this bill until he finds out whether General Grant wants to be President Grant in 1864 and how does he find that out well grant very shrewdly writes letters to people who will see Lincoln one of his former generals of Frank Blair son of one of the Lincoln's excuse me brother got one their habit that's right so Montgomery Blair is Postmaster General in the Lincoln cabinet Frank Blair who's been in Grant's Army has come east that take a turn in Congress is basically a henchman of the Lincoln administration grant writes Blair a letter and says he doesn't have any presidential ambitions at all and he says don't show this letter to anyone unless it be the president himself which is a queer show the letter to the president tell him I don't want to come a rival of his in 1864 there are other messages leaked to link in the same way and so Lincoln checks him out before he supports that bill I mean again he related to today of like being in the Gulf War and somebody was promoting picture general general McCaffrey to be a four-star against the wishes of President Bush that's right this was a case that in fact the Lincoln administration did not frame this legislation and did not support it until after the okay had been given Washburn the congressman was was he able to pass the bill in the house he was able to pass the bill in the house and in fact one of the components of the bill that was finally weeded out and committee was taking grants name out because at one point grants name was explicitly put in the bill so wasn't just reviving the rank but it was specifying that the person who would receive the rank would be the alysha's s grant and what about the Senate what they did senator argued about this and talked about whether in fact this stripped away the president's right to nominate officers in the bill was still logged jammed up in committee when Lincoln said I've Lincoln's basically leaked word that grant was an acceptable candidate in part because of lack of political ambition in 1864 what's the status of everything then and where is US grant well grant starts out 1864 actually in Tennessee and his idea is that come spring he's going to conduct military operations against the Confederate Army in Georgia and look to take Atlanta he's a theater commander by that time he commands basically all the Union forces between the Appalachian Mountains in the Mississippi River and so he's thinking of a way to close down the Confederacy in the West he then finds himself first coming to Washington in March 1864 to get the Commission as Lieutenant General with the position as commander a general in chief of the arms the United States at first he didn't think he was a mistake east that he sort of bounce back and forth and be very mobile but after he checks the political situation in Washington and he goes down and visits the arm Potomac he begins to realize that he's going to have to stay with that army as much as possible shield it from political interference from Washington and at the same time grant is quite concerned about the degree to which robert e lee's image has a has control has infiltrated the mindset of the officer corps the army automic do you think he's a lot different than what he looks like in this picture well the one thing that's interesting about that picture which is taken after Abraham Lincoln's death and if you hood Grant's arm as a mourning ban from from the Lincoln death is that grant didn't really like Napoleonic poses as photographers that often force you to jam your hand and your vest or something like that and look like Napoleon and some generals like George McClellan were very happy to do that other generals were not probably the the cover pictures much more of a sort of grant the relaxing thinking that I like to see them a sort of more stilted photograph of 1865 you just showed really wise asking though as he looks passive he it does look passable though that was part of nineteenth-century photography if you didn't smile he looked straight at the camera you stayed as still as possible and so he does look like a passive observer of events but then so do most other people photograph device did you find that he had one slave he owned a slave we're not quite sure how he got titled to this way if only William Jones whether it was given to him or sold to him by remember the dent family is his brother-in-law comes to mind a likely source and in 1859 he goes and sets the slave free and it didn't didn't really care very much for owning a slave he did have to make lot of compromises in his own life because Julia owned slaves or at least had use of dint families ways and grant with her we have testimony from one of the dense ways woman named Mary Robinson that grant is to go to the dinner table Whitehaven and talk about if I ever get control of the this plantation I'm going to free the slaves here another character I want to ask you about is John Rollins where is he in this photograph John Rollins is sitting next to grant for editing that's right and Rollins is a beard so he's next to him Rollins was a Democrat in Galena hay was District Attorney it was a very ashna's fellow he like grant even before grant became any sort of public figure and grant valued his abilities as well for various reasons he's also in this photograph here with a longer beard that's right and Rawlins um during grants early years was sort of a one-man kitchen cabinet that grant could bounce ideas off Rollins and Rollins and bounce ideas off of him and Rollins with a gatekeeper making sure to protect grant what about the the drinking thing well um Rollins his father was an alcoholic so Romans is very very concerned about anybody drinking and sort of set himself up as grants protector with with someone uneven results if Greg Rowland's had been so effective then we'd have no stories of grant drinking during the war he probably overreacted but saw himself as grants right-hand man on a number of issues grant as grant progressed through the war grant had less and less need for all and began to surround himself with West Point trained officers or professionals kept Rawlings on but didn't rely new lease too much and Rollins as advice as he had heretofore and Romans felt the slight and one role that Rowland's took during the war that grant later discovered her and resented I was in 1864 when their discussions about Sherman's march to the sea Rowland's takes advantage of a mission where he's to be sent to Missouri to stop off in Washington and raised questions about the Marshall I see so much so if there's another exchange of telegraphic correspondence from Abraham Lincoln and Edwin Stan questioning the wisdom of that move I counted ten books on the list in the front by Brooks D Simpson is that accurate this meet eleventh that's right which one of those other books sold the most ah probably the first one the lettuce have peace which was an outgrowth of a dissertation I did when I was a grudges - at the University of Wisconsin although both the reconstruction presidents and the Gettysburg battlefield guy which I did with mark Grimsley I have also sold very well having kept track of the sales figures and sometime where is your home originally I grew up in Long Island in New York originally in Seaford which is on the south shore of Long Island we moved north than in the 1970s to Cold Spring Harbor where my family is today and where did you go to college I went to college at the University of Virginia in 1975 graduated in 79 and then went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin and where did you get your first job out of here graduate school well 19 age were not a good job market for academics but I was fortunate enough to get two positions in the 1980s before I had completed my degree in 1984 I got a job with the answer Johnson papers in Knoxville Tennessee and worked there for a while and I found it interesting although I did not have a lot of sympathy with the Andrew Johnson in 1987 I took a job at Wofford College in Spartanburg South Carolina and taught there for three years before coming out to Arizona State in 1990 what do you teach now I teach American history go back to though your your time with the Andrew Johnson papers in Knoxville there's a moment in here where US Grant goes out of his way to meet Andrew Johnson who was then in what job military governor of Tennessee he had been appointed to that in 1862 falling one other things grants own victories at Fort Henry and Donaldson and so Grant does meet Johnson in 1863 and finds Johnson a sort of an odd person we don't there's not much feedback on that visit at the time but Johnson certainly took the advantage as he often did of giving a long windy speech and grant seemed somewhat flustered and embarrassed by a body encounter it's not fair and we only have you know I don't know 10 11 minutes left something like that but I want you to go briefly over some battles and just tell us what what what impact it left on grants image at the time star was Shiloh and where was it for Shiloh is in western Tennessee off the Tennessee River just above the border between Tennessee and Mississippi grants forces are poised therefore advanced in 1862 to the extent that grant is not thinking too carefully about what the enemy is doing the officer in charge of reconnaissance in front of him is none other William T Sherman's the first to battle the men fight together Sherman does not interpret evidence of Confederate activity very shrewdly and on April 6th 1862 the Confederates launched a massive attack upon grant's encampment overrun some encampments and there's a rather fierce fight in fact what's interesting about grant is we think of as an attacking commander but his early battles he's involved in offensive campaigns but in fact he's attacked by the enemy he's attacked at Donaldson he's attacked of Shiloh Shiloh was a bloody battle by far the bloodiest one in American history at that time there was a search for scapegoats afterwards grant came under heavy criticism and for a while it looked like he might find that that might be a very costly victory indeed to his reputation shadows named after what as a church there is a steamboat landing it's called Pittsburg Landing and as a church called Shiloh in Tennessee in Tennessee Vicksburg Vicksburg is a tough nut for grant to crack e first is down there and late 1862 trying to figure out ways to take this city it is the last major Confederate Citadel on the Mississippi River he is frustrated in effort after effort to take the city there is lots of press attention given to Vicksburg and all finally i he divided he devises a campaign whereby he will cross the mississippi south of the city go first to the capital of jackson and then go west towards Vicksburg itself but it's a campaign of improvisation from the beginning when he crossed the Mississippi first thought he was going to go somewhere else he found the forces he was going to link up with we're not going to be available and so at the spur of the moment says this is we're going to do we're going to go and take Jackson then we're going to go in and take Vicksburg itself it's a campaign in which he's outnumbered campaign which he has to live off the land it's a very innovative campaign within a space of weeks he wins battles in lay siege of the city and that was just astonishing and still held up if any circles is a model military campaign but what's interesting about the campaign is he didn't plan it from the beginning he planned it in response to circumstances and what he saw in front of him which generals were on the other side at Vicksburg Confederate forces are led by John C Pemberton who lends of command the Vicksburg garrison that surrenders to grant on July 4th 1863 and Joe Johnston who was gathering the forces for the relief of Vicksburg Pemberton was in the Mexican War was that's right in fact rantin he had encountered each other during the Mexican War his friends as friends Geary any sense of this frustration when they had their friends and even like Longstreet on the other side well they won the one story would the where the friendship was was was vivid important was the Simon Buckner who's the commander of the Confederate garrison at Fort Donelson that prior to the war when grant was down and out coming back from the west coast that a Buckner helped him out as he waited transportation back home and so Buckner thought that grant would remember this act of kindness and so Pemberton was quite astonished to receive grants demand for unconditional and immediate surrender and thought this is on chivalrous and after the actual surrender meeting grant takes Buckner aside and offers him his purses you know you helped me out if the same thing I can do for you and we have Shiloh in 1862 and Vicksburg is it right rather around the time of Gettysburg that's right they actual surrender itself takes place grant and Pemberton are meeting on July 3rd at just the point where Pickett's charge is taking place in Gettysburg Meade general Meade is doing what and Gettysburg the general Meade's in command with the armpit Tomac has just been put in our position at late June and he withstands fairly Abele robert e lee's attacks on July 1 through 3 the other thing that comes through in your book is the rivalries between these generals and the kind of press they were getting general Meade was not happy with the kind of preston grant was getting grant me dude that would grant came east in 1864 that everyone was going to start writing about grant all the time and that mean did not like that and but that's understandable Meade then sir took out after several reporters which increased his negative press coverage many times reports didn't even mention his name and there was a boycott of describing the art the commander the arm fat omec by name because grant member did not command the arm Potomac Mead stayed and commanded that army from Gettysburg until the end of the war but people began to pay attention to grant an awful lot and sometimes in fact that sort of distorted our historical accounts Mead remained in command of that army and did arrange some assaults including the fateful one at Cold Harbor and showed that while he had great talents as a defensive commander he was lacking coordinating military operations best I could calculate and it general Grant's son fred was 13 at Vicksburg and wounded he was wounded what was he doing there he just got off on his own a place called a big black river bridge and he had been riding around the battlefields for a weeks and all of a sudden got hit by a spent bullet why was even there he was there because one of the things Julia thought it would be a wise idea for grants oldest son to be with him on the battlefields and go around him and all of a sudden you know like any other 13-year old ego scampering off on his own looking for excitement and gets hit by a spent ball what happened to him um nothing serious I mean but he he was certainly taken aback by what had happened to him uh and if you go today to Vicksburg and go to the Illinois monument in fact his name is listed as one of the veterans from Illinois who participated in the campaign now when did Chattanooga happen and what impact did that have on General Grant Chattanooga happens in November 1863 Grant is given theater command in October 1863 and ordered to supervise the relief of a prestige Indian Army in the city of Chattanooga grant comes down on reinforcements gather and he launches an attack against the Confederate forces which was astonishingly successful as much a product of luck as skill that's immense grant as the obvious top Union commander more than anything else what happened such at Chattanooga you write about a lot of direct correspondence between these generals and the president itíd States mm-hmm could you write dear mr. president right from the balance yes you could and that often became so problematic for grant and that grant had some subordinate commanders notably a fella named John mckernon from Illinois who often had a backbiting fellow who wanted grants job and who knew Lincoln from previous a political association but he was a Democrat he was a Democrat but Lincoln valued a Democrat who was loyal to the war effort McCarney fit the bill and meconium sent letters critical of grant and seeking his own command for quite some time and Lincoln did very little to discourage this sort of backbiting wedges for a moment of mckernon and grant from the same town same areas both from Illinois and then you had a Lincoln from Illinois yeah that have anything to do with the you know the during that war that kind of loyalty do people from that state mmm well Lincoln's wealthy had beginning was much more towards Elihu Washburne than anything towards grant but it certainly Lincoln's connections with with mckernon and the need to find some support of Democrats outside of the war made the mckernon quite a valued ally when did General Grant moved his City Point Virginia he sets up camp there in June 1864 after the Overland campaign or the wilderness campaigns as various cause called his confrontation with robert e lee this grapple in the wilderness Spotsylvania courthouse a cold harem and grants crossing of the james and our delay siege to richmond and petersburg and June 1864 ends of grant sets up camp there and becomes a gigantic supply depot I've got this map is not easy to see but City points down here at the bottom and you're looking at Richmond there above it and it's in Virginia on your way up to Fredericksburg NC and then all the way up to Washington Oh mrs. grant seemed to be somewhere around him almost all the time how much did she live with him during the Civil War oh she came to visit him first in 1861 one who still had headquarters in Illinois arm came down and the fall of 1862 and spent time with him when he was in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi came down again and visited his command right at the outs of the successful Vicksburg campaign in April 1863 spent time with her husband during the winter of 1863 64 or in Tennessee and then came down to City point in late 1864 early 1865 and spent time with him by that time the grant grant family moved to the East Coast and grant in fact had gone up several times to New Jersey to help arrange for housing for the family and we're leaving a lot out because times slipping through but Mary Todd Lincoln mm-hm and Abraham Lincoln come to City point how many times ah the couple comes only once and that's in March 1865 that's actually Julia's suggestion she supposedly saw a image of the president say he looks tired and a Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln had been assigned as a volunteer a Don grant staff so the Lincoln's come down for an interestingly timed vacation because it's just as grant is getting ready for his last big push against Richmond and Petersburg and so even as grants worried about action at the Battlefront there's also consumed concern among grant staff officers about making sure that Julia grant and Mary Todd Lincoln don't come to blows okay what again the date ah this is in late March of 1865 Abraham Lincoln is killed on April 8th he's shot on April 14th 1865 and dies on April 15th so what is the relationship between Mary Todd Lincoln and Julia grant well it seems to have been pretty rough that Mary Todd Lincoln was known to voice her dissatisfaction about certain things and also could be terribly jealous and protective of her husband the two women did not seem to get along very well and Mary Todd saw and Julia dent a potential rival for the position of first lady of the land down the road it also Mary Todd Lincoln had her own run-in with General Grant on April 13th grant had come to Washington right after Appomattox assort shut down the war effort there's no parade through Richmond or anything else he goes right back to Washington and he rides around the carriage that night for a grand illumination in Washington I am it's the presidential carriage and there's Mary Todd Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln becomes furious when people begin to cheer grant and said that the presidential carriage symbolizing the President or Mary Todd and you say they were invited to go to the theater invited to go to Fort here the next day and neither grant wants to go out in public with mrs. Lincoln around and so they devised an answer that we've got to go we've got to go see the kids up New Jersey and so they're not in the box at Ford's Theater that night this is the first of how many books on grant this is the first of a two volume study when's the next volume coming out if only I know get some guests I know I've learned not to predict those sorts of things and this book starts with his his birth and takes them all the way through middle of 1865 got 30 seconds what's the most interesting thing you learned in this book that you didn't know before he started this I'd say first of all the the string relationship that Grant had with Lincoln and how the two men managed to work things out I also found it very interesting how a grant resolved personal problems through his military success the end of the war destroyed slavery it doesn't have probably his father-in-law anymore and sets him up as an independent person which means he doesn't have to worry about his father anymore our guess is Brooks D Simpson this is what the book looks like ulysses s grant triumphs and adversity 1822 to 1865 we thank you thank you

Channel: Remember This

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Keywords: biography, memoir, historical, united states, america, leaders, notable people, books

Id: IYJlafmaOrA

Length: 56min 46sec (3406 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 09 2017