Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession, and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant. John Reeves. New York: Pegasus Books, 2023. 352 pp., $29.95

 

Ulysses S. Grant has experienced something of a moment recently. In the past decade, Grant has been the subject of lengthy biographies by Ronald C. White and Ron Chernow.[1] Other historians have reassessed Grant’s presidency.[2] Still other scholars have produced important books about Grant’s generalship, including, but not limited to, Timothy B. Smith’s masterful five-volume study of the Vicksburg Campaign.[3] These books are welcome because they help refute traditional portrayals of Grant’s presidency and add more nuance to scholarly understandings of Grant the military man. 

In Soldier of Destiny, John Reeves begins with Grant’s resignation from the army in 1854, traces his life over the next decade, and ends with Grant’s appointment as lieutenant general in 1864. Reeves is intrigued by how a man who resigned from the army because of his drinking rose to such commanding heights ten years later. Reeves offers a fairly straightforward narrative history of Grant’s life that covers all the events one would expect. He also discusses Grant’s ideas about slavery and Grant’s drinking. When he resigned from the army, Grant told a friend that “whoever hears of me in ten years, will hear of a well-to-do old Missouri farmer” (p. 7). 

After resigning, Grant made his way east from California, back to his wife Julia and his two small children. Grant’s family lived at White Haven, Julia’s parents’ estate. Grant had always wanted to be a farmer and life at White Haven offered a chance to become one. However, at White Haven, he was entangled with slavery. Julia’s father, Colonel Frederick Dent, owned dozens of enslaved people, hated “Yankees and abolitionists,” and “served on the finance committee on the St. Louis Anti-Abolition Society” (p. 11). 

Thus, Grant personally benefited from enslaved labor, and “being a northerner surrounded by slave owners was a price Ulysses was willing to pay” for the chance to become a farmer at White Haven (p. 36). Indeed, Grant was “highly reliant on the institution just four years before the outbreak of the Civil War” (p. 45). Although Julia “convinced herself that White Haven was a happy, desirable place for its enslaved community,” the reality of life was very different than what she remembered (p. 50). 

Grant “actively participated in the slave culture of St. Louis prior to the Civil War,” although evidence suggests that he was not an effective manager of enslaved laborers (p. 55). The lifestyle Grant provided for his family was “dependent on the ownership of human property,” which did not “seem to trouble Ulysses all that much” (p. 82). He was similar to many of his contemporaries, North and South, who made their livelihoods based on slavery and were not particularly bothered by the peculiar institution. The Panic of 1857 dramatically altered the trajectory of Grant’s life. 

At the beginning of that year, his future seemed promising because he was managing White Haven, one of the largest estates in St. Louis County. However, Grant’s stake in White Haven was tenuous and the Panic of 1857 put the estate in jeopardy. To make matters worse, he began suffering from illness in 1858. Grant and his family eventually relocated to Galena, Illinois, to take a position in his father’s leather store. Although Grant moved from a slave state to a free state, his attitudes about slavery did not change. He remained “ambivalent at best on slavery” and disliked abolitionists and the Republican Party (p. 90). 

He was, however, uncompromisingly pro-Union. Only a few days after the firing on Fort Sumter, Grant wrote to his father that “there are but two parties now, Traitors & Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter” (p. 98). Like many of his contemporaries in the North, Grant’s full-throated commitment to the Union did not al‐ ter his ideas about slavery and race. Given his previous military experience, it was hardly a surprise that Grant quickly became involved in the war effort. 

He began as an assistant quartermaster, then became the mustering officer at Camp Yates, then the colonel of the Seventh Congressional District Regiment (later renamed the Twenty-First Illinois), and then brigadier general of volunteers on August 5, 1861. 

Reeves follows Grant from the Battle of Belmont to Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, General Orders No. 11, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and, finally, his promotion to lieutenant general. Reeves avoids over‐ simplifying the relationship between Grant and Henry W. Halleck, examines the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, and discusses how Grant became a hero to many after their capture.

 It is undeniable, Reeves posits, that Grant was overconfident and unprepared before the Battle of Shiloh. Thus, Grant bears the responsibility for the “shocking demoralization of a large part of the Army of the Tennessee on April 6,” although he also “demonstrated an almost preternatural ability to endure an onslaught that would have broken the spirit of an ordinary commander un‐ der such a strain” (p. 164). 

Reeves analyzes Grant’s viciously anti-Semitic General Orders No. 11 that expelled Jews from his department. This order “reflected his growing dissatisfaction with cotton speculation that appeared to violate departmental regulations” but was ultimately “a black mark on his character” (pp. 190, 198). 

Reeves then offers an account of the conquest of Vicksburg and Grant’s triumph at Chattanooga. He concludes with his promotion to lieutenant general. Although Grant’s prospects in 1854 seemed unpromising, on March 10, 1864, he “reached the pinnacle of his profession with his oldest son by his side. It had been a truly astonishing reversal of fortune” (p. 238). 

As he examines Grant throughout the years 1861-64, Reeves returns again and again to his discussion of Grant and slavery. Grant “clearly wasn’t an abolitionist or a Republican during the summer of 1861, though some of his old associates in St. Louis suspected he was” (p. 100). In November 1861, Grant wrote that he did not approve of his father and the press’s tendency toward launching a “war upon slavery” (p. 117). 

He argued that this might be the ultimate outcome but that the       “portion of the press that advocates the beginning of such a war now, are as great enemies of their country as if they were open and avowed secessionists” (p. 118). 

In 1862, Grant’s “moral ambivalence on the issue of slavery was evident,” and he was “indifferent to emancipation” (p. 180). His evolution, when it came, was sudden. The Army of the Tennessee during the Vicksburg Campaign “brought about one of the greatest socioeconomic transformations in United States history” by freeing tens of thousands of enslaved people and enrolling thousands of Black men into the US Army (p. 214). 

Grant also wrote Abraham Lincoln affirming his support for Black soldiers. It is ironic, Reeves comments, “that a man who benefited dir‐ ectly from slavery for the previous nine years” nevertheless “played a leading role in destroying that wicked institution” (p. 215). Interestingly, Reeves never accounts for the evolution of Grant’s attitudes and does not consider Grant as a “practical liberator.”[4]

If anything, the fact that Reeves emphasizes Grant’s ideas about slavery throughout the book, only to pay comparatively little         attention to why Grant ultimately embraced emancipation, leaves the reader feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps Reeves might have replaced the word “redemption” in the book’s subtitle—which is a           problematic word because of the so-called Redeemers who overthrew reconstructed governments in the southern states during the final years of Grant’s presidency—with “evolution” and then spent more time asking why this evolution occurred. 

This issue aside, Soldier of Destiny offers a good overview of an important ten-year period in the life of Grant and the life of the United States. The ground this volume covers will be familiar for scholars, but Reeves is a good writer and has an eye for vivid quotes. Anyone interested in the US Civil War should think about reading this book. 

Notes [1]. Ronald C. White, American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (Random House, 2016); and Ron Chernow, Grant (Penguin Press, 2017). [2]. See, for example, Charles W. Calhoun, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (University Press of Kansas, 2017); Mary Stockwell, Interrupted Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant and the American Indians (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018); and Fer‐ gus M. Bordewich, Klan Wars: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). [3]. See, for example, David Alan Powell, The Impulse of Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at Chat‐ tanooga (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020); Timothy B. Smith, The Union Assaults at Vicks‐ burg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 17-22, 1863 (University Press of Kansas, 2020); Timothy B. Smith, The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Cam‐ paign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23-July 4, 1863 (University Press of Kansas, 2021); Timothy B. Smith, Early Struggles for Vicksburg: The Mis‐ sissippi Central Campaign and Chickasaw Bayou, October 25-December 31, 1862 (University Press of Kansas, 2022); Timothy B. Smith, Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1-April 30, 1863 (University Press of Kan‐ sas, 2023); and Timothy B. Smith, The Inland Cam‐ paign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863 (University Press of Kansas, 2024). [4]. Kristofer A. Teters, Practical Liberators: Union Officers in the Western Theater During the Civil War (The University of North Carolina Press, 2018). H-Net Reviews

News--U.S. Grant To Get The Hollywood Treatment

Lionsgate, Appian Way To Make Ulysses S. Grant Film; Option Ron Chernow Bio, Mike Fleming, Deadline Hollywood, online, November 1, 2017.

Lionstate and Appian Way have acquired movie rights to Grant, the new bestselling Ron Chernow  biography of Ulysses S. Grant.    David James Kelly has been set to adapt. Chernow is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Washington: A Life, [and] whose Alexander Hamilton was the inspiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony winning musical Hamilton. [Film] will be produced by Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson, with Chernow the exec producer.

 Full Text Link: Deadline Hollywood

News---Netflix's House of Cards, The Grant Memorial in Washington D.C. and the Army of the Tennessee

A Different Kind of Civil War Memorial, Dennis Montagna, The Wall Street Journal, March 30-31, 2014.

The opening credits of "House of Cards," the new Netflix-produced political thriller, are set against time-lapse views of Washington that include the Capitol and the Kennedy Center. Yet the most prominently featured landmark, the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, is likely to be less familiar to most viewers.

Honoring a hero and symbolizing the nation's new prominence on the world stage at the dawn of the 20th century.

Its relative obscurity today is unfortunate, because this monument is one of the greatest works of commemorative art this country has produced. More than a monument, it is a symbol both of Washington's aspirations as a city at the dawn of the 20th century and of the nation's increasing prominence at that same moment. 

More than 250 feet wide and 70 feet deep, the memorial sits at the foot of the Capitol. An expansive reflecting pool fans out before it, with the National Mall beyond. At the center of a broad stepped marble plaza, a bronze portrait of Grant stands atop a tall marble pedestal. Four recumbent lions flank the statue, while low-relief panels on the pedestal's sides depict marching infantrymen. On either side but at some remove are two massive bronze sculptural groups, one depicting a cavalry charge, the other a field artillery unit wheeling into battle position. 

After his death in 1885, Union veterans who had served under Grant campaigned for a monument to be erected in Washington. Their efforts led to Congress appropriating $250,000 in 1901, at that time an unprecedented sum for a federally funded monument. The following year, the three-member Grant Memorial Commission selected New York sculptor Henry Merwin Shrady from a field of 27 candidates, most with far more experience in the realm of public sculpture. 

The memorial would become his life's work. He spent 20 years on it and died at the age of 52, just weeks before its dedication in 1922. But if you're going to leave only one masterwork, you could do a lot worse than this one. The visitor who takes the trouble to seek it out is rewarded for the effort. 

The project's ample budget allowed for a more complex memorial than the standard general-on-horseback. The massive cavalry and artillery groups are placed on low pedestals complemented by built-in seating. They provide a portrait of men and horses gripped by war's hardship and carnage seldom seen in earlier memorials. 

In the former, a cavalry captain leads the charge with sword upraised. The soldier beside him, a self-portrait of the sculptor, tumbles headlong over the mount that has been shot from beneath him. The rider behind shields his eyes with his forearm. Across the plaza, Shrady presents another scene of struggle and endurance. Traversing rough and muddy terrain, a field artillery unit, pulled by a four-horse team, comes to a halt. The horses strain; one breaks free from his reins and presses forward. With expressions ranging from pain to stoicism, three soldiers ride atop the caisson gripping whatever they can for support and bracing themselves against one another. 

Shrady presented Grant much as had other sculptors, as a brooding, taciturn leader astride a horse that is both still and alert. But his portrayal of soldiers at war creates a powerful counterpoint. Grant is the calm center overseeing the maelstrom of battle. In this way Shrady memorialized not only the leader, but his troops and the relationship that existed between them. Shrady's presentation of troops under duress introduced a thematic tone that set it apart from nearly every earlier Northern monument. The earliest major Civil War monuments, built in the decade after 1865, mourned the dead. Those erected in the 1880s and '90s typically celebrated the Union's triumph. But the Grant Memorial presents the specter of war and sacrifice as ongoing, an idea embraced by many in 1900 as a fact of modern American life.

The text of A Different Kind of Civil War Memorial is continued at Wall Street Journal, March 30-13, 2014  .  The top photo is by Melissa Golden for the Wall Street Journal.

Photograph of lion on the House of Cards opening credits is from Ghosts of Washington D.C.'s article on House of Cards.

CWL notes that the "Union veterans who had served under Grant campaigned for a monument to be erected in Washington," were the veterans of the Army Of The Tennessee. The drive to erect a monument to Grant was begun in the 1890s by Society of the Army of the Tennessee.  The Grant Memorial is situated in Union Square and is situated beside the Capitol Reflecting Pool.  The marble platform for the monument is 252 feet long, 71 feet wide and is divided into three sections. The tall, middle section features a 10,700 pound, 17-foot-2-inch  high equestrian statue depicting Grant astride Cincinnati his war horse which rests on on a 22½-foot high marble pedestal.  These dimensions are in  James M. Goode's The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C.: A Comprehensive Historical Guide [1974] as cited in the online encyclopedia  entry for the U.S. Grant Memorial.

News: Fraud Claimed In Sale of U.S.Grant's Coat and Cup

Disputed Sale of Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant's Coat and Cup Prompts Legal Battle, Fraud Claims by Gettysburg Antiques Seller, Matt Miller, Patriot-News' Penn Live Web Site, November 29, 2013.

Nearly 150 years after it ended, the Civil War is still big business. And the sale of some property of one of its key figures is now fodder for a federal lawsuit. A legal battle just begun in U.S. Middle District Court centers on claims by the owners of a military antiques shop in Gettysburg that they are owed a share of a $1.6 million to $1.85 million sale of a coat and cup once owned by Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, one of the war's top commanders and a former U.S. president.There is a bit of North-South friction as well.

The owners of The Horse Soldier on Steinwehr Avenue contend that a Virginian, Donald Tharp, defrauded them out of their cut on the sale of the Grant artifacts. The Horse Soldier owners, Patricia, Sam and Wesley Small, fired their first shot in the fight by suing Tharp in Adams County Court in late October. Tharp is now seeking to have the dispute moved to the federal court in Harrisburg.
In their complaint, the Smalls claim that in 1995 they discovered several Grant artifacts were up for sale. The Smalls and another man approached Tharp with a proposition for a joint financing deal to come up with the money to buy Grant's coat and cup.

Under that oral agreement, Tharp was to receive 10 percent interest annually on his investment, but no more than $160,000, until the artifacts sold, according to the suit. Once they sold, Tharp was to get 55 percent of the profit, with the Smalls receiving 25 percent and 20 percent going to the other investor, the Smalls claim.

The Grant pieces were in the Smalls' store for about three weeks before Tharp asked to borrow the coat and cup to display at his home. The Smalls claim they agreed to turn them over because they'd had dealings with Tharp before and trusted him. However, the Smalls claim in their suit that, without telling them, Tharp sold the items for at least $1.6 million to more than $1.8 million, with Grant's coat going for around $1.5 million. The suit does not state when the sale took place, but the Smalls claim that they didn't learn that the artifacts had been sold until 2010.

They contend that Tharp has refused to pay them the money they are owed for the sale, and has ignored a June 2011 arbitration decision that found in their favor. They want the court to rule that their agreement with Tharp is binding and that he must pay up on claims of breach of contract and unjust enrichment.  Specifically, the Smalls are seeking $380,000, plus interest and legal fees.
Tharp's attorney, Ralph J. Kelly, and Steven E. Grubb, the lawyer representing the Smalls, weren't immediately available for comment Friday.

Text and Image Source: Patriot-News' Penn Live Web Site, November 29, 2013.

Jackson Vs. Sheridan: No Doubt in Grant's Mind Who Would Have Been Destroyed

General Grant was asked how he ranked Jackson among soldiers. " I knew Stonewall Jackson," said the General, " at West Point and in Mexico. At West Point he came into the school at an older age than the average, and began with a low grade. But he had so much courage and energy, worked so hard, and governed his life by a discipline so stern that he steadily worked his way along and rose far above others who had more advantages.

Stonewall Jackson, at West Point, was in a state of constant improvement. He was a religious man then, and some of us regarded him as a fanatic. Sometimes his religion took strange forms—hypochondria—fancies that an evil spirit had taken possession of him. But he never relaxed in his studies or his Christian duties. I knew him in Mexico. He was always a brave and trustworthy officer, none more so in the army. I never knew him or encountered him in the rebellion. I question whether his campaigns in Virginia justify his reputation as a great commander. He was killed too soon, and before his rank allowed him a great command. It would have been a test of generalship if Jackson had met Sheridan in the Valley, instead of some of the men he did meet.

From all I know of Jackson, and all I see of his campaigns, I have little doubt of the result. If Jackson had attempted on Sheridan the tactics he attempted so successfully upon others he would not only have been beaten but destroyed. Sudden, daring raids, under a fine general like Jackson, might do against raw troops and inexperienced commanders, such as we had in the beginning of the war, but not against drilled troops and a commander like Sheridan. The tactics for which Jackson is famous, and which achieved such remarkable results, belonged entirely to the beginning of the war and to the peculiar conditions under which the earlier battles were fought. They would have insured destruction to any commander who tried them upon Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Meade, or, in fact, any of our great generals. Consequently Jackson's fame as a general depends upon achievements gained before his generalship was tested, before he had a chance of matching himself with a really great commander. No doubt so able and patient a man as Jackson, who worked so hard at anything he attempted, would have adapted himself to new conditions and risen with them. He died before his opportunity.


I always respected Jackson personally, and esteemed his sincere and manly character. He impressed me always as a man of the Cromwell stamp, a Puritan—much more of the New Englander than the Virginian. If any man believed in the rebellion he did. And his nature was such that whatever he believed in became a deep religious duty, a duty he would discharge at any cost. It is a mistake to suppose that I ever had any feeling for Stonewall Jackson but respect. Personally we were always good friends; his character had rare points of merit, and although he made the mistake of fighting against his country, if ever a man did so conscientiously he was the man."

Text from Around the world with General Grant By John Russell Young, pages 210-211.

Text Source: Google Books

New This Month---Grant's Lieutenants: From Chattanooga to Appomattox

Grant's Lieutenants: From Chattanooga to Appomattox , Steven E. Woodworth, Editor, 256 pages, University Press of Kansas, notes, index, $34.95.
A companion to Grant’s Lieutenants: From Cairo to Vicksburg, this new volume assesses Union generalship during the final two years of the Civil War. Steven Woodworth, one of the war’s premier historians, is joined by a team of distinguished scholars—Mark Grimsley, John Marszalek, and Earl Hess, among others—who critique Ulysses S. Grant’s commanders in terms of both their working relationship with their general-in-chief and their actual performances.

The book covers well-known Union field generals like William T. Sherman, George Thomas, George Meade, and Philip Sheridan, as well as the less-prominent Franz Sigel, Horatio Wright, Edward Ord, and Benjamin Butler. In addition, it includes an iconoclastic look at Grant’s former superior and wartime chief of staff Henry W. Halleck, focusing on his wise counsel concerning Washington politics, the qualities of various subordinates, and the strategic environment. Each of these probing essays emphasizes the character and accomplishments of a particular general and shows how his relationship with Grant either helped or hindered the Union cause.

The contributors highlight the ways Grant’s lieutenants contributed to or challenged their commander’s own success and development as a general. In addition to revisiting Grant’s key collaboration with Sherman, the essays illuminate the hostile relationship between Grant and Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland; Grant’s almost daily contact with “Old Snapping Turtle” Meade, whose expertise relieved Grant of the close tactical direction of the Army of the Potomac; and the development of a highly successful command partnership between Grant and Sheridan, his new commander of the Army of the Shenandoah. Readers will also learn how Grant handled the relative incompetence of his less sterling leaders—perhaps failing to give Butler adequate direction and overlooking Ord’s suspect political views in light of their long relationship.

Like its companion volume, Grant’s Lieutenants: From Chattanooga to Appomattox is an essential touchstone for Civil War scholars and aficionados. It offers new and profound insights into the command relationships that fundamentally shaped both the conduct of the war and its final outcome.

“These stimulating and insightful essays remind us of the collaborative nature of military command and help us appreciate how Grant persevered and ultimately prevailed in directing the Union armies to victory.”—Brooks D. Simpson, author of Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822–1865

“A companion to Woodworth’s earlier collection of essays on top Union commanders that matches the high quality of the original. . . . Offers incisive analysis of the men Grant entrusted with execution of his strategic plans. Scholars and general readers will find much to ponder in this fine book.”—Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War

“A fascinating and thought-provoking book.”—Stephen D. Engle, author of Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth

STEVEN E. WOODWORTH is professor of history at Texas Christian University. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865

Contents:
John Marszelak on William T. Sherman
Steven Woodworth on George Thomas
Ethan Rafuse on George Gordon Meade
Earl Hess on Franz Sigel
Mark Grimsley on Benjamin Butler
Benjamin F. Cooling on David Hunter, Lew Wallace and Horatio Wright
Steven Nash on Philip Sheridan
William B. Feis on E. O. C. Ord
Mark Grimsely on Henry W. Halleck.

Text and Image: University of Kansas Press
Table of Contents: Amazon.com

Other Voices: Smokin' and Drinkin' with Sam Grant

Was Grant a Drunk?, Edward G. Longacre in History News Network, September 10, 2007. Mr. Longacre is the author of numerous biographies of Civil War generals. He is a recipient of the prestigious Fletcher Pratt Award for Civil War writing.

Since rising to prominence early in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant has been the subject of a sometimes contentious and often overheated debate as to the extent of his liquor consumption, and the effect it exerted on his career. Given the importance of the subject, Grant’s drinking habits should be recognized and examined, not ignored or downplayed as they have been by overzealous defenders of his good name during his lifetime and ever since. That Grant drank occasionally while on duty is a matter of record, as is the fact that on more than a few occasions he drank until intoxicated, stuporous, and violently ill. More difficult to gauge is whether this habit hampered his ability to command or (as some observers contend) propelled him toward military success even as it marked him as a failure in civilian life.

Today alcoholism (or, as it is known in professional circles, alcohol dependence syndrome) is regarded as an incurable but treatable disease whose pathological origins demand careful attention. In Grant’s time, however, alcohol dependence carried a negative moral and religious connotation. Sufferers were denied sympathy, objective diagnosis, and the medical care warranted by their condition. Rather, they were scorned as moral cripples, weak-willed dissipates, and social outcasts. The irony is that such widespread condemnation should have been heaped on a condition that was far more prevalent, and thus seemingly more accepted, in nineteenth-century America than it is today.


Grant did not fit the stereotype of the falling-down drunk. He drank at irregular intervals, in varying quantities, and with differing results. At times he imbibed moderately, with little or no noticeable effect, and he was capable of refusing a drink, explaining that alcohol brought him nothing but trouble. Even so, he was, in the clinical sense of the term, an alcoholic. On more than a few occasions he drank long and hard, unable to stop short of unconsciousness or some form of intervention -- the outbreak of attention-demanding military operations, or the ability of relatives or staff officers to limit his access to liquor.

The pattern that Grant‘s drinking assumed during the Civil War strongly suggests that he was a binge drinker. Binge drinking is well understood today, as well as carefully defined: five or more drinks in a single session by a man, four or more drinks by a woman. A heavy binge drinker is one who experiences three or more such episodes over a two-week period. A less formal definition of binge drinking is drinking simply to become intoxicated. If they do their drinking in private, binge drinkers often avoid detection. When not drinking, although often depressed and angry, they may function more or less normally, holding down jobs, raising and caring for families, displaying not only rationality but also discretion and incisiveness. All of these qualities characterized Grant’s Civil War drinking and help explain why, although battling a disease that sometimes got the best of him, he was able to produce the strategic and tactical achievements that won the war for the Union.

Grant’s attraction to alcohol had its roots in his early military service, if not in his youth. Some historians suggest that it originated as a reaction to the stern morality of his father, an outspoken advocate of temperance. Although he imbibed rarely if ever during his West Point career, being lured only once to that fabled den of cadet dissipation, Benny Havens’s Tavern, he began drinking more or less heavily following the war with Mexico, when the excitement of field campaigning gave way to an enervating round of occupation duty and Grant’s position as a regimental quartermaster provided him with easy access to medicinal stores that included whisky. During this period a pattern emerged that defined Grant throughout his military career: when bored, lonely, or depressed, he sometimes drowned his sorrow in liquor.

His attraction to alcohol lessened following his 1848 marriage to Julia Dent, whose love and care induced him to reform. But when apart from his family (which eventually included four children), such as during extended tours of duty at isolated military posts, loneliness and boredom became unbearable. When in 1854 he appeared at a unit function in a drunken state, Grant was pressured into resigning his captain’s commission. He returned to civilian life, where to feed his growing family he accepted the grudging charity of his father and tolerated the scornful regard of his in-laws. As if determined to prove his critics correct, Grant failed at farming and later in business life just as he had at soldiering. Short months before war broke out in the spring of 1861, he hit bottom -- a neer-do-well eking out a living by selling firewood on the streets of St. Louis.

The war rescued him from obscurity and near-poverty and elevated him to prominence and authority. Refusing to be overwhelmed by his dramatic reversal of fortune or to be deterred by initial, halting efforts in command, by mid-1862 he had become the most heralded Union officer in the western theater. Some historians suggest that Grant succeeded in battle because, unlike more distinguished soldiers such as George B. McClellan and Henry Halleck, he had no pristine reputation to protect. Thus he could afford to take chances, maneuvering freely and striking boldly and with great effect. The theory has some credibility, but it also has its limits. By the spring of ’62, having reaped the credit for capturing Forts Henry and Donelson, Grant had won a reputation worth preserving. And following Shiloh, where he was caught off-guard and nearly routed -- a misstep widely but erroneously attributed to pre-battle tippling -- he had a reputation to rehabilitate. Yet he continued to plan creatively and act decisively. While his more highly regarded colleagues stumbled through excessive caution, Grant in 1863 captured Vicksburg, cutting the Confederacy in two and opening the full extent of the Mississippi River to Union shipping, then raised the siege of Chattanooga and decisively defeated the Rebel forces that had surrounded the city.

At least three times during 1863 Grant became intoxicated while in public, horrifying those concerned with preserving his position and reputation, especially his staff officers. Although historians continue to debate the extent and the effectiveness of his efforts, Grant’s adjutant general, John A. Rawlins, a zealous cold-water man from Grant’s home state of Illinois, strove to cover up his boss’s indiscretions and swear him to abstinence. Grant appears to have given in to his urge to imbibe only on those occasions when Rawlins was not on hand to ensure his sobriety. Nor did Grant drink when Julia and the children visited him in the field, rescuing him from lassitude and loneliness.

Grant reached the pinnacle of his career when brought to Virginia in the spring of 1864 to accompany the Army of the Potomac as general-in-chief of United States forces. He is not known to have drunk during the opening phases of the Overland Campaign, when pressing Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia toward Richmond via the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, and Cold Harbor. But in June 1864, with his offensive bogged down at Petersburg, the lieutenant general went on a raucous bender that might have ruined his career had his inner circle not conspired to hush it up and discredit a disgruntled subordinate who tried to publicize it for personal gain. In the latter stages of the Petersburg siege, Julia and some of the children stayed at headquarters for an extended period, fortifying Grant against further temptation. On the day in April 1865 when he backed Lee into his final corner at Appomattox Court House, Grant was suffering from a blinding headache, but not because he was hung over.


Given the high visibility his position attracted after 1861, Grant’s dependence on alcohol might well have threatened his continuance in command. Instead, through a combination of factors -- his determination to abstain when military operations were in progress; a moral strength based on religious values that has escaped the notice of many historians; and the support of relatives, subordinates, and political backers, chief among them Abraham Lincoln -- Grant persevered to play a critical role in ending America’s costliest war and restoring the Republic. Even so, he continued to fight the urge to drink through the remainder of his life, including his two terms in the White House. Grant’s death at sixty-three from cancer of the throat is usually blamed on his life-long smoking habit. However, a 1998 study conducted for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism determined that “concurrent alcohol and tobacco use significantly enhances the risk of certain cancers, particularly of the oral cavity. . . .” In the end, therefore, Grant may have lost his battle to a disease that had failed to prevent him from becoming one of the most successful soldiers of all time.

From History News Network: Breaking News (September 10, 2007). Article located at http://hnn.us/articles/42366.html

For More on Alcohol in American History: Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800-1933, Thomas R. Pegram

CWL --- Grant Rediscovered, Again.

Still a Mystery? General Grant and the Historians, 1981-2006, Ethan Rafuse, The Journal of Military History, July 2007, 879-874.

In 1879 William T. Sherman, a close friend of Ulysses S. Grant, remarked that "to me [Grant] is a mystery, and I believe he is a mystery to himself." In 1981 William S. McFeely offered a biography of Grant that presented a very different picture of the general and president than the one offered by Bruce Catton, Kenneth P. Williams and T. Harry Williams. These three historians had rescued Grant's reputation from a previous generations', the Lost Cause School, dismissal of Grant.

For Catton, Kenneth Williams and Harry Williams, Grant was not the drunkard, the butcher, the pre-cursor to World War One generals noted for their attrition of their armies by foolhardy frontal charges. Strategy, tactics and grit describe Grant's performance at Forts Donelson and Henry, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga for these historians writing in the 1950s and 1960s.

A backlash to their portrait of Grant began with Grant: A Biography, McFeely's work which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. McFeely presents a complex, darker picture of a soldier with a grand ambition and little ego. Grant was not a simple, hardworking and modest American trying to make his way in the world.

The author described the 1864 Overland Campaign as being 'a nightmare of inhumanity and inept military strategy that ranks as the worst such episodes in the history of warfare . . . ." Grant's work was 'a hideous disaster' in McFeely's eyes. The climate of the time in which McFeely wrote the biography was quite different than the post-World War Two era. The author "approached his study of Grant not as a military historian, but with an interest in race relations." (p. 853-854)

Though widely accepted and positively reviewed by both scholars and the general public, McFeely's book did garner negative criticism from Jay Luuvas, Richard N. Current, James M. McPherson and Brooks Simpson. These four gave poor marks to McFeely for offer an impressionistic treatment of the military campaigns, introducing attitudes of the 1970s into a mid-19th century life, having factual errors, oversimplifying and exaggerating interpretations of controversial events in Grant's life. McPherson was hostile to MeFeely's book, stating that it contained a superficial understanding of generalship and using irresponsibly elements of Grant's behavior. Simpson faulted McFeely for labeling Grant a butcher and a racist and for relying only on casualties a means to judge military success. Simpson cotinued his challenge to McFeely's description by citing the work of J.F.C. Fuller. "Statisical evidence that Grant's losses were not out of line with, and in some cases were actually lower than, those suffered by of Civil War generals." (pp. 856-857)

Since the publication of McFeely's book, Ethan Rafuse offers Geoffrey Perret's
Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier and President and J. Edward Smith's Grant as correctives. Also Brook Simpson's Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865, state Rafuse, presents "fresh and compelling insights" into Grant's early life and military career. Common in these three biographies is the discussion of team work between Grant and Lincoln. Though each of these three biographies are quite positive towards Grant's character, the books also discuss Grant's anti-Semitism and his avoidance of taking responsibility for failed attacks.

"In light of all that has been written on Grant over the last quarter century, has the 'mystery' been solved?" asked Rafuse. He closes his essays with descriptions of elements of Grant's life that have not been well covered or explained. He looks forward to the second volume of Simpson's work on Grant and hopes that in further studies of Grant, the life will be integrated into the times. (pp. 872-874)