Ulysses S. Grant

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!

 

Review: Crucible of Command

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Crucible of CommandCrucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee–The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged, by William C. Davis. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2015.

Summary: This is a dual biography of Grant and Lee that studies their contrasting origins and yet similar qualities of command through back and forth narratives covering similar periods leading to their climactic confrontation, the peace they established, and its aftermath.

Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have been the subjects of numerous biographies, including Grant’s own memoirs. What distinguishes this book is that it attempts, and I think, succeeds in rendering parallel accounts of these two men’s lives who met first in Mexico and finally at Appomattox Courthouse (and once later when Grant was President).

Davis traces their contrasting childhoods and characters. Lee was the Virginia patrician who loved his home state and rarely traveled from it except on assignments. By contrast, Grant was the merchant’s son who moved around, wanted to see the world and was a failure at everything except leading men in battle. Both were educated at West Point, Lee at the top of his class, Grant in the lower half. They briefly encountered each other in the 1840’s during the U.S. invasion of Mexico. In the years leading up to the Civil War Lee struggled with resolving the Custis estate while Grant struggled through a series of failed business ventures, finally working in his brother’s store in Galena, Illinois.

When war comes, Grant re-joins the army, commanding troops in Kentucky and Tennessee. Lee resigns his commission, and after serving as an assistant to President Davis, eventually gains command of the Army of North Virginia, which he leads for the remainder of the war. We see both learning to command large forces. Grant in his tactical defeat at Belmont, his victories at Forts Henry and Donelson and near disaster at Shiloh. Lee’s first command is in western Virginia where he is defeated at the battle of Cheat Mountain. What is clear about both is that they learn from mistakes, develop command staffs around them they can trust and win a series of striking victories that ultimately bring them opposite one another in the campaigns of 1864-1865 where the Union’s overwhelming superiority eventually outflanks and surrounds Lee. We discover hardening resolves, of Lee against the Union even while he extricates himself from slave-holding, and Grant from an indifference to the issue of slavery to increased support of emancipation and the capabilities of black soldiers.

The author also explores the political realities each faced and their skill in handling this. Lee learned through constant communication to win the trust of Davis who easily could have micromanaged the war. Grant had to deal with political generals and a sometimes hostile press. Part of the success of both men was their skill in navigating the political realities that military leaders cannot be ignorant of.

While reading this book, I forgot the last phrase in the subtitle–“the peace they forged.” This book does not stop with the dignified surrender of Lee nor the magnanimity of Grant in allowing the Confederates to return home with their horses and side arms. It explores the subsequent years and the efforts both made to promote reconstruction, efforts subsequently frustrated. And both men die in their early 60s, after serving as Presidents, Lee of a college, Grant of a country.

William C. Davis interweaves the narratives of the two lives skillfully, and while we see differences between the two men, we see two great military leaders, formed by common training and experience, coping with similar exigencies of war. Davis observes that in some ways, Lee has fared the better of the two, mostly because of the corruption in Grant’s administration. But it seems that, while on opposite sides, they were a pair of shining stars of equal brightness. And for the reader interested in biography who thinks they must choose between these great lights, Davis has provided the alternative of discovering them together.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher as an ebook via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Review: A Chain of Thunder

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A Chain of Thunder
A Chain of Thunder by Jeff Shaara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first four days of July 1863 were a decisive turning point in the Civil War. Ending with the repulse of Pickett’s charge on July 3, the Union won a decisive victory at Gettysburg. Lesser known, but equally decisive in the West, Grant received the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, opening up the Mississippi as a Union waterway, severing the connection with the western states of the Confederacy.

In this work of historical fiction, the second in his series on the Western Theater in the Civil War, Jeff Shaara chronicles the series of events leading up to this surrender. We learn of Sherman’s futile attempt to attack up the Yazoo the previous December. Then Admiral Porter bravely moves Union transports and gunboats past the Vicksburg batteries to be followed by Grant’s crossing the Mississippi south of Vicksburg and his movements between Vicksburg and Jackson, occupied by Johnston’s troops.

As Grant is on the move, we see the contrast between him and Pemberton, the Confederate general charged by President Davis with holding Vicksburg while ordered by Johnston to move against Grant before Grant takes Jackson. Grant is clearly his own man, despite being dogged by undersecretary Dana and newspaperman Cadwallader. Pemberton is not and only reluctantly moves part of his forces out of Vicksburg and in not enough time to relieve Johnston but in just enough time to lose several battles including that at Champion Hill to Grant, despite the heroic action of some of his generals, especially John Bowen at Champion Hill. Then, instead of taking the chance of joining forces with Johnston, he returns to Vicksburg in a valiant but impossible attempt to defend the city against much superior forces who can wait him out.

The seige of Vicksburg occupies the second half of the book. It begins with two demonstrations of the folly of charges upon entrenched positions, strengthened by Pemberton’s engineer, Lockett, something it would take military leaders another fifty years to fully grasp, only in the latter stages of World War I. Thereafter Grant and his generals extend their lines and settle in for a seige that lasts from mid-May until July 4.

How do you tell the story of a two-month wait? Shaara does so by chronicling the role of sharp-shooters, of whom Fritz Bauer, who we met in A Blaze of Glory, is one. He details the effects of repeated artillery bombardments in terms of the destruction of the town, the sheltering of its people in caves, and the scores of shrapnel wounds suffered. This leads to an innovation in a Shaara novel, the introduction of a civilian character, Lucy Spence, a single woman who becomes a volunteer nurse, braving the horrors of a Civil War field hospital with its ghastly wounds, amputations, and dying men. And we see the most deadly result of siege warfare, the creeping starvation that reduces people to trapping rats and squirrels and leads to increasing desertions.

The story concludes with the surrender, negotiated by General Bowen, himself a dying man from dysentery. His previous friendship with Grant and sterling battle record helped overcome both the hard edges of “unconditional surrender” Grant and the pride of Pemberton. Nine days later, he is dead.

Shaara gives us a read that sustains our interest through the seige and helps us glimpse once again the nobility and futility that combine in the horrors of war. And for those who feel most of their knowledge of the Civil War is limited to the Eastern campaigns, this helps us understand the decisive role these Western battles played.

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Review: A Blaze of Glory

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A Blaze of Glory
A Blaze of Glory by Jeff Shaara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jeff Shaara and his father, Michael Shaara, gave us a wonderful trilogy of historical novels on the Eastern Campaigns in the Civil War. Now Jeff is working on a series on the Western Theater, beginning with this volume on the battle of Shiloh.

Shaara unfolds the battle for us in understandable terms. The Confederates have been driven out of Tennessee by Grant, who, for all his mistakes, fights to win. Albert Sidney Johnston has gathered the forces in Corinth, Mississippi, for what seems to be a defense of this key rail center, except for the fact that Grant and his troops are not moving from Pittsburg Landing. They are forced to wait for Don Carlos Buell’s troops to join him. In this, Johnston sees a chance to strike Grant while Grant’s back is to a river, and where he is unprepared for battle.

And so it comes about. Despite infuriating delays in movement and a change in strategy proposed by Colonel Jordan, a staff member loyal to Beauregard, he achieves more or less total surprise against the Union troops, driving them back toward the river, first in frantic retreat, and then as Union lines are restored to better defensive positions, against increasing resistance resulting in horrific losses for both sides. Shaara gets us into the mind of Johnston, as he sees troops being fed into the battle piecemeal as a result of Jordan’s strategy, and yet senses the wavering resistance of the Union and the key opportunity on his right to get between the Union and the river and roll up the Union lines. Not being able to sufficiently rouse the troops through his field commanders, he leads the charge himself, resulting in his tragic death.

Still, this charge and Ruggles’ artillery lead to the surrender of Prentiss and a general retreat to Pittsburgh landing. The Union is on the ropes as Beauregard takes command, and yet with an hour of daylight, he calls a cease fire and declares a victory! This allows Grant the time he needs to be reinforced by Lew Wallace and Buell. Grant, ever the fighter, turns the tables and with his now-superior forces, routs the Confederates, who retreat to Corinth.

Shaara leaves us wondering about the “what-ifs”. What if they had attacked in a broad arc of lines rather than columns? What if they had fought that crucial hour longer on the first day? Would they have broken Grant, or been repulsed by his concentrated forces? And the biggest “what if” is what if Johnston had lived and how might the Western campaigns been different?

The novel also explores the political intrigue among both Union and Confederate generals, and the experience of battle from front line troops. We experience the terror of Private Bauer during the initial onslaught, the restored courage as he fights alongside his friend Willis during the Union resistance, the horrors of battle that cannot be washed away from body or mind, and the dawning realization that this is only the first of many fights. We also see the jealousies between Grant and Buell, the impatience and inner uncertainties of Sherman, and the corresponding tension between Johnston and Beauregard. And we glimpse the figures behind the scenes that drive these rivalries, Halleck for the Union and Davis with the Confederacy.

This novel has me in eager anticipation of the rest of the series. The next installment, A Chain of Thunder, on the battle for Vicksburg, is sitting on my “to be read” pile.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher as part of a “First reads” contest sponsored by Goodreads.

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