Grant

by Jean Edward Smith

• ISBN13: 9780684849263
• ISBN10: 0684849267
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-05
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

Ulysses S. Grant was the first four-star general in the history of the United States Army and the only president between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to serve eight consecutive years in the White House. As general in chief, Grant revolutionized mo

Author Biography

Jean Edward Smith is the author of numerous works of history and biography, including John Marshall: Definer of a Nation and Lucius D. Clay: An American Life. He taught political science at the University of Toronto for more than thirty years and is currently the John Marshall Professor of Political Science at Marshall University. When not writing or lecturing, he raises Charolais cattle in Chickasaw County, Mississippi.

Table of Contents

Preface	13	(21)
The Early Years	21	(13)
Mexico	34	(36)
Resignation	70	(28)
War	98	(35)
``Unconditional Surrender''	133	(34)
Shiloh	167	(39)
Vicksburg	206	(52)
Chattanooga	258	(26)
General in Chief	284	(29)
The Wilderness	313	(27)
Grant and Lee	340	(29)
Appomattox	369	(39)
Reconstruction	408	(23)
Let Us Have Peace	431	(27)
Grant in the White House	458	(33)
Diplomacy	491	(25)
Great White Father	516	(26)
Reconstruction Revisited	542	(31)
The Gilded Age	573	(33)
Taps	606	(23)
Notes	629	(78)
Bibliography	707	(40)
Acknowledgments	747	(2)
Index	749

Excerpts

Chapter Eleven: Grant and Lee I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.Ulysses S. GrantWith the blessing of God, I trust we shall be able to prevent General Grant from reaching Richmond.Robert E. LeeNo two men better exemplified the cause for which they fought than Robert E. Lee and Ulysses Grant. Slaveholder, patrician, scion of the First Families of Virginia, the fifty-seven-year-old Lee personified the romantic virtues of the Old South. His father was Light-Horse Harry Lee, Washington's larger-than-life cavalry commander, governor of Virginia, spendthrift, womanizer, and ultimately a fugitive from debtor's prison who spent his last years in self-imposed exile in the West Indies. His mother was Ann Carter, daughter of the Tidewater Carters, the most prominent of James River planters, and once reputed to be the wealthiest family in America. Eager to emulate his father's soldierly example, and equally desirous of sparing his mother the cost of a civilian education, Lee entered West Point in 1825 and rarely looked back. Brevetted to the engineers, he served with distinction on the staff of General Winfield Scott during the Mexican War, became the ninth superintendent of the military academy in 1852, and three years later assumed temporary command of the 2nd Cavalry, his first troop duty in twenty-six years of active service. In 1859 Lee commanded the detachment that captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry, and on March 16, 1861, he was promoted to full colonel and assigned to command the 1st Cavalry regiment. The following month, when Virginia seceded, Lee promptly resigned his commission and headed south. "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children," he wrote a Northern friend.Lee's decision to join the Confederacy was not easily taken. The very day he learned Virginia had left the Union, he was offered the field command of the United States Army by the War Department. "I declined the offer," Lee wrote later, "stating as candidly and as courteously as I could, that though opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern States." Five days later, April 23, 1861, Lee assumed command of Virginia's military forces. Three weeks after that, with the formation of the Confederate States of America, he became a brigadier general in the Confederate army, and on August 31, 1861, was confirmed in the rank of full general.Lee was a strikingly handsome man, above medium height and well proportioned. He had a massive torso, and sitting on a horse, his shoulders and neck made him appear larger than he actually was. According to his principal biographer, he preferred the company of women, especially pretty women, to that of men, although there was never a suggestion of scandal. Deeply religious, Lee's belief in God was personal, not denominational. He read his Bible and prayer book daily, and spent much time on his knees seeking solace and support. He did not use tobacco, hated whiskey, and rarely drank even the smallest amount of wine. Like Grant, he was blessed with great powers of endurance and a strong nervous system. Despite his innate dignity, he met people easily and had a well-developed memory for names. His mind was mathematical, directed toward problem solving rather than abstraction. He was an accomplished linguist, his reading encompassed a broader range than that of most officers, and, like many gifted commanders, he was bored by office routine. He viewed his father as a Revolutionary War hero, not a tragic bankrupt, and George Washington was his idol. Douglas Southall Freeman wrote that by 1861 Lee "had come to view duty as Washington did, to act as he thought Washington would, and even, perhaps, to emulate the grave, self-contained courtesy of the great American rebel."During the first year of the war, Lee's star was eclipsed. His initial assignment was to reclaim western Virgi