Civil War history

Review: Lincoln’s Greatest Journey

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Lincoln’s Greatest Journey, Noah Andre Trudeau. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2016.

Summary: A day by day account of the final trip Abraham Lincoln took for sixteen days at City Point, Virginia, the headquarters of Ulysses S. Grant, and how this transformed Lincoln.

It was Lincoln’s longest stay away from the White House during his presidency.. It didn’t start out that way. Lincoln, accompanied by his wife Mary, had planned a two day visit to Grant’s headquarters, beginning on March 24, 1865. Lee’s forces defending Richmond were slowly weakening as Grant extended his lines. The hope was that the decisive breakthrough ending the war was near. Phil Sheridan was rejoining Grant from the Shenandoah valley. Sherman, further off, was marching from the south.

Lincoln arrived as a war-weary president wanting to encourage Grant to finish the job. He described himself saying, “I am very unwell” and he looked it to observers who knew him. He ended up extending his stay for sixteen days and left a different man both physically and in outlook. Noah Andre Trudeau traces Lincoln’s day by day itinerary against the backdrop of the final days of the Civil War, filling in gaps in the somewhat sketchy outlines of Lincoln’s stay at City Point.

Perhaps the event that changed Lincoln’s plans was Grants repulse of the surprise attack on Fort Stedman on the second day. Grant realized that Lee was fatally weakened and further extended his own lines to the southwest and called on Sheridan to attack on Lee’s right flank. Lincoln attended the command summit a few days later that included Sherman as they readied the attack, encouraging them that “Your success is my success.”

As Grant moved west to be at the crucial point of attack, Lincoln was left with little to do but ride and walk, receive visits and visit field hospitals. Unwittingly, he became a war correspondent, passing news from Grant along to Washington, where his reports were disseminated to the public. In so doing, Lincoln broke new ground in media communications, changing the expectations of a president as public communicator to the nation.

Meanwhile, Trudeau also introduces us to the instabilty and vanity of Mary Lincoln and her dustups with Julia Grant. In the end, she returned early while Lincoln stayed on. The portrait of the First Lady is unflattering, suggesting what Lincoln and others who were around her suffered.

Trudeau covers Lincoln’s visits to Peterburg and Richmond, including the scant provisions for security on the first of these trips. A sniper could easily have ended his presidency right there. Instead, we see a president deeply moved both by war’s devastation and the joyful reception he received from emancipated former slaves.

Lincoln finally departs on April 8. One of the most moving descriptions in the book is Lincoln’s visit to the hospitals for each division, literally speaking to every wounded soldier, some who would die within days while others would carry memories of Lincolns attention and encouragement. Throughout the narrative, we hear of Lincoln’s concern to end the bloodshed. His visit reflected his awareness of the precious sacrifice these and many others had made. This included Confederate soldiers who Lincoln would welcome back to the Union without retribution.

And here we glimpse the transformation that Trudeau so skillfully traces. Lincoln came a weary commander-in-chief. He left anticipating the end of hostilities which came the next day. He returned to Washington committed to the task of reunifying a nation and embarking on a new era in the treatment of former slaves. He was physically restored, filled with a sense of fulfilled purpose, and ready for the new challenge of restoring the Union as a peace president. But first an evening’s entertainment at Ford’s Theater…

Trudeau offers us a well-rounded account of the sixteen days at City Point and how they changed Lincoln. Trudeau also reveals to us the depth of character of Lincoln, battered but resilient, firm in resolve, enthusiastic in support for Grant, and tender with the wounded. We see a man capable of growth as he meets former slaves. And we see a man with a far-reaching, magnanimous vision, one that would die with him.

Review: Grant

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Grant

Grant, Ron Chernow. New York: Penguin Press, 2017.

Summary: A biography on the life of Ulysses S. Grant from his Ohio childhood, his years of failure in business, his rise during the Civil War, his presidency, and later years, including the completion of his memoirs as a dying man.

Many people know the work of Ron Chernow from his great biography, Alexander Hamilton, which served as the basis of the Broadway play, or his biography, Washington: A Life. Chernow has done it again in this biography of Grant, which will likely raise Grant in the rankings of presidents, and establishes Chernow as one of the premier presidential biographers. I honestly can’t say enough good about this book. It is rare to come to the end of 960 pages and wish there were more. I have his Washington: A Life on my TBR pile and will move it up!

Chernow gives us a Grant caught between the ambitions and expectations of father, father-in-law, and socially ambitious wife. It is little wonder in some ways that he struggled with drinking, which Chernow explores throughout the book. Grant quietly resigned from the Army in the early 1850’s likely because of drinking problems on a backwater post in the Pacific northwest. He was a failure at farming a plot of land provided by his father-in-law, and unhappy running a store owned by his father under his younger brother in Galena, Illinois, and continued to struggle with drink. One heroic aspect of Grant’s life was his gradual mastery of this problem during the Civil War (with occasional lapses) and in his presidency (where he remained sober) and later life. The vigilance of his aide, John Rawlins, and wife Julia certainly helped, but Grant’s own eventual mastery is evidence of the resolute nature of this man.

Chernow explores the complicated nature of this man, who seems a bundle of contradictions. He could keenly recognize the opportunities of a battlefield situation and the outlines of grand strategy that led to victory after victory culminating in Appomattox and yet could not assess the character of his closest associates, who often betrayed his trust, in war, in his cabinet, and at the end of his life, when he was bankrupted by Ponzi-schemer Ferdinand Ward.

He could seem like someone with low energy and little drive until a crisis, where he would remain calm, and give decisive direction. He was the first general Lincoln found who would take the fight to the enemy and ruthlessly prosecute it to the end, gaining the reputation of being “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. Then he grants magnanimous peace terms to General Lee and his troops, for which many gave him their undying respect. In later life, touring Europe, he at once dazzled people with his grasp of military history and strategic concepts, showing far more brilliance than people credited, and yet he had no desire for reviewing troops, having seen more than enough of this in his time.

His presidency as well was a bundle of contradictions. His administration was a mix of men of integrity, and corrupt friends, who tainted his reputation as their corruption became evident. Most noteworthy, and a theme of Chernow’s was his vigorous efforts both during the Johnson administration, and in his presidency, to protect and extend Reconstruction, including Black voting rights and office holders, while healing the rift with the South that led Frederick Douglass to write this in summary of his career: “In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.” John Singleton Mosby, a Confederate general wrote on learning of his death: “I felt I had lost my best friend.”

In addition to Reconstruction, his skill in avoiding war with Great Britain over the Alabama, turning it into an occasion to cement the alliance with Great Britain we enjoy to this day, his management of the nation’s finances in paying down war debt, and his fostering of economic growth outshine the corruption of his associates, who he defended at first, but then dealt with when evidence was clear that they had betrayed his, and the public’s trust. His administration was probably better than the taint of scandal that has come down to us. As Chernow notes, he loved his friends too well rather than wisely.

He was a man of few words, except when unbending with close friends. His orders and his speeches were models of clarity and concision. Yet this same man, dying of cancer of the throat accomplished the stupendous feat of writing the 336,000 words in his final years, finishing them just before he died. Many critics consider the Memoirs the one of the greatest works of this genre, described by Chernow as written in a “clear, supple style.” Apart from minor changes of punctuation and grammar, he needed little editing. Writing this work, motivated in significant part to provide for his family after the financial debacle with Ferdinand Ward left him nearly penniless, was perhaps the most courageous act of his life, as he struggled on in great pain and increasing weakness. He finished the work on July 16, and died a week later on July 23, 1885 at age 63.

All this, and so much more, you will find in Chernow’s Grant. Chernow, while cognizant of Grant’s faults, doesn’t bury Grant’s greatness in his failings. He proposes that there is far more to this General and President than we have credited. And as a writer, he celebrates another writer, whose Memoirs are going on my reading list!