I have read Grant's autobiography and was surprised at how well written and easy to read it was. I have read 3 different biographies. Both his father and father-in-law were well-to-do, but "Sam" would not take any hand-outs. Grant worked in tanneries of his father as well as other heavy farm work. One biography related how he showed one of his friends that he could do one armed pull-ups even after becoming president! He was a "horse whisperer". Could tame and ride even the most difficult horse. As president, he got a reprimand from a D.C. policeman for buggy racing in the street!
Grant was not just a superb writer, but he was also a magnificent artist. Had he been able to use his talent, he would have been one of the memorable artists of the 19th century. He also love’s mathematics. The demerits he got at West Point were usually for unmilitary bearing . He had spent most of his childhood and teenage years on horseback or running his own livery business at nine. Once he was taking 2 ladies in a carriage across a stream that turned swollen and dangerous in the spring. The water was up to the waists of the two women. They started to scream. He turned around and said to then,” Please do not speak.I will get you there.”
I enjoyed your comment. Just to add a bit to it, he received more than a reprimand when he was stopped for riding his horse too fast. He also paid a fine, of $5 or $10, if I remember correctly. Peace. Out.
British innovator and military historian Gen J.F.C. Fuller characterized Grant as one of the best strategists of modern times and, beyond that, the even rarer master of Grand Strategy, thinking in continental, even global terms.
@marknewton6984 I am emphatically not kidding. Major general Fuller commanded the British Tank Corps in WWI where he created armored warfare; as a military historian he authored The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant and the magisterial A Military History of the Western World ( among many others). He perhaps lacks your military experience and acute judgment.
He was a genius. During the war, he could just come to a ridge and see his men, and understand the numbers, the strength, their officers. He was a superb artist, and had he continued, he would have been one of the most famous and respected artists of the 19th century. He was a math genius. He had a great and loving marriage and the best a father ever. He and Julia had 3 sons and 1 daughter.
He is just as interesting as a boy, as a teenager, as a young cadet, a warrior. He was a loving husband to his Julia, and as a father. Am writing a screenshot about him. He is almost as interesting sans the Civil War. And no, he was not an alcoholic, and I think I can prove that. He was possibly the best equestrian in our history. He loved to travel. He would be greeted warmly wherever he went. He had to be polite to sit through the military parades in Europe. However, when he saw a painting that celebrated war, he would wince and look away. Gen. Eisenhower said that Grant was the greatest general in our history. He said that no drunkard could have accomplished the strategy he did.
A couple of additional comments about his Presidency. He resolved outstanding issues with Great Britain including the claims related to the CSS Alabama. The policies of his administration helped set in motion the rise of America into a great economic and military power. He is the only two term President to complete both terms between Andrew Jackson and Wilson.
Grant did not campaign for the presidency. Instead, he decided to tour the Midwest before industrialization. He understood that the US would become a great power. Europe closely watched the Civil War.
Grant might well be considered the father of "Blitzkrieg." His western campaigns were brilliant in that he made full use of multiple arms of the military in close cooperation. The Mississippi and its many tributaries were the "roads" in the west, closely guarded by Confederate fortresses. His gunboats were used like heavy armor, impervious to field artillery, but with heavy Dahlgren guns that could flatten any land fortification. He recognized that merely defeating armies in the field wasn't enough, that victory lay in destroying the factories and mills that fed the Confederate army, and the rail and water transportation that moved those goods to the front. Once fortresses along rivers were destroyed by his "armored units" troops were then transported in to occupy and defend critical river junctures taken, while cavalry (like aircraft in Blitzkrieg) ranged out to destroy storehouses, bridges, railroads and any infrastructure that fed the Confederate armies. He (and Sherman that learned those tactics from Grant) have often been vilified for bringing the war to civilian industry, but in fact that strategy has been copied by every army since that time. When Grant moved east, he left Sherman in the west and in fact it was Sherman's gutting of Georgia that made it possible for Lee to be defeated in Virginia. Lee's army was deprived of food, clothing, ammunition, by Sherman far in his rear. Sherman (and his mentor, Grant) knew exactly what they were doing and probably shortened the war by several years. They didn't need to occupy the south, just neutralize the infrastructure that fed the armies.
When Ulysses and Julia Grant attempted to withdraw from public life, they were embraced and lionized by every Crowned Head of Europe and every sharecropper south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Withdrawal was not an option and God bless Sam Clemens.
6 месяцев назад+10
After he left the White House, Grant traveled a lot. His travels took him to Heidelberg, Germany, where he happened by chance pull into an inn where Richard Wagner, the musical genius, was also staying. Grant and Wagner were doing pretty much the same thing. Wagner was taking a break after the first performances of the Ring cycle, and Grant was taking a break after he left the presidency. Apparently the meeting was rather awkward, as neither could speak the other's language.
"The capture" of R.E. Lee? When did that happen? I must have missed something. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox C.H. but he was never captured.
The Russians are given credit by many as inventing operational warfare, but it seems clear that decades earlier Grant practiced this art (with Sherman) effectively.
Correct me if I’m wrong. - Grant was ranked in the middle of the pack of his West Point Class. Then he would go on to be one of the greatest military strategists ever. Cigars were his weakness. - It’s what probably killed him.
U.S. Grant integrated, among other entities, the USPS and the US military, later undone by Wilson. Lee spent the last year of the rebellion running from Grant. He was, and remained, as stated in his memoirs, against the Mexican-American war. He did what good soldiers do.
Young Hiram loved his horses and his whiskey. Old Ulysses dedicated his remaining life to the proposition that "These honored dead shall not have died in vain".
He was never called Hiram and everyone else thought it an awful name. His 4 grandparents had gotten together to come up with it. His family and friends called him Lyss. He got the name Sam from West Point. as in US GRANT/ Uncle Sam. He was the original Horse Whisperer. During the entire Civil War, he never raised his voice at anyone. Except once. He came across a man mistreating a draft horse. Grant yelled at him. ( Grant never cursed.) The punishment? The man was tied to a tree for 4 hours.
He was never called Hiram. He was called Lys. He was not an alcoholic. He said once that he had endured slander. Always thin until the White House. ( Pres. Teddy Roosevelt was the first to call it the White House.) Grant could not “ hold” his alcohol. One drink and he slurred his speech. Two drinks and he has to hold onto the furniture.
You're formally correct, but the point is pedantic and part of Grant's magnanimity. Lee's army was starving and by then suffering very high levels of desertion that are not discussed in polite company. It was days away from disappearing entirely one way or the other. By then, Lee's "tactics" were not about wining the war but obtaining food, which failed. Capture of not just Lee but the whole army was, in fact, imminent. All Grant had to do was ignore Lee's overtures and wait a few days. The fact that Lee was allowed an honorable surrender is noteworthy, but the word "allowed" is not chosen lightly in the context of the actual history.
I appreciate your audible content, however - video of people thumbing through their smartphones is lazy and insulting. Many of us are smarter than that, and you can do better.
Lee was not captured. Grant's presidency proved him to be a poor administrator. No doubt he was honest, but had too many incompetent advisers and bureaucrats around him. As a President, he was mediocre, at best. In the Mexican War, he was joined by Lee, Stonewall, and other future Civil War generals. During the Civil War, his losses were so great that many of his detractors referred to him as Butcher Grant.
In my experience everyone's detractors say bad things about them. His Civil War record is just amazing. 3 entire armies who had sworn to die rather than submit.....submitted. You can't do better than that. Lots of casualties during the Overland campaign in 1864, but, he also inflicted quite a few. Percentage wise he came out ahead. Not sure if that is the proper way to judge it. He did, however, ensure that Lee would send no troops to oppose Sherman.
Agreed. Grant understood before many others, including the great conquerors in history, that to win conclusively, you must destroy the armies of the enemy, not just add territory while the enemy retreats and regroups. Thus his high casualty rate incurred in the South. When he beat you, you weren't coming back for more. You were done and grateful to be alive.@@stephennewton2223
@@marknewton6984 Actually he was outstanding in the Mexican War. Combat promotion while in a noncombatant position(quartermaster). A solid president, if unspectacular. Killed the clan, for instance.
I caught that, too. He was not of enough rank to have any impact on strategy. A regimental quartermaster who had to show initiative just to get on the battlefield.
Also, I believe it was Theodore Roosevelt that was instrumental in Yellowstone. Not sure if this video is based in our universe, but hey a nice collection of footage.
@@averagejoe8213 Teddy Roosevelt signed the order to make Yellowstone the first National Park. He could do that because Grant had previously signed the order keeping it off limits to development.
Grant was not a military genius. He employed the most obvious and brutal campaigns. Overwhelming advantages in numbers and logistics allowed him to engage in a war of attrition which just exhausted the resources of the confederates. Incredible numbers of Union soldiers were sacrificed in pitched battles, while the South could not possibly replace their losses.
Look at his Vicksburg campaign and get back to us. A lot of civil war buffs seem to forget that the war in the west was a serious part of the whole affair. And Grant was very daring at Vicksburg. And, persistent in ways others weren't. And, if his techniques in the east were so obvious, how come nobody actually employed them until he showed up? Grant's internet critics tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths on this. 1. Grant was a butcher. This grew mostly out of the truth that the casualty rate of the Civil War was high by historical standards. But Lee or Hood was every bit as brutal in terms of casualties and they skate on the title "butcher". The "best" general in this regard is arguably Joseph Johnston, but he was relieved for being insufficiently aggressive (which inevitably meant his successor, Hood, was going to be bloodier and unsuccessful in the bargain). 2. Grant only did the obvious. But yet, until Grant took command, Lee had a pretty free hand and the war looked like it would grind on forever. If it was so obvious, why did it take 2 and a half years to find someone to do the obvious? Lee's brilliance largely stopped cold after Grant took over. Grant forced Lee to give up the initiative. Nobody else did that. Basically, Grant's critics end up committing the same blunders Grant's predecessors did. They were looking for a low casualty way to end the war. Say this much for Grant's predecessors -- they tried every way they could think of to do just that. They all failed because _there was no low casualty solution_ to be had. Grant sucked it up and fought the war that was actually at hand, not the "nicer" one that nobody could execute and which was consuming a lot of lives anyhow. That _is_ genius after a fashion. The only way to stop the butcher's bill was to actually _win_.
@@curious968 Very good summation. Being a southerner I always idolized Lee as I guess anyone would after reading Douglas Southall Freemans four volume biography of Lee. Grant was always the enemy so of little interest. Then I read a little more of Grant and came to realize he wasnt the butcher of Cold Harbor. He also realized Lees arms was the objective not Richmond and by moving toward Richmond Lee would have to maneuver to protect Richmond. Grant did have something of an advantage when he came east and that was the smaller post Gettysburg army that Lee commanded. Then there was, as you mentioned, the Vicksburg campaign. There was so much more to that than simply surrounding Vicksburg waiting for surrender. Setting aside the early parts up in the Delta region there was pushing Joe Johnson out of Jackson, Then drawing Pemberton out and defeating him at Champions Hill, Griersons Raid cutting rail lines then bringing the gunboats down past Vicksburg and capturing Port Gibson. A truly massive operation. Yes I know I wrote those phases out of sequence. Joe Johnson and his Atlanta defense falling back from one defensive position to the next was preserving his army was masterful but Jeff Davis never liked Johnson and apparently wanted Johnson to come out and inflict some stunning defeat on the Union Army. Which led to Hood destroying the army and Sherman marching to the sea.
i dont recall where i read it but didnt grant own a slave thru out the war between the states. one more thing why arent the yankee monuments being taken down
To my understanding…. Grant’s father-in-law Fredrick Dent had a plantation in Missouri and held slaves. Grant periodically fell on hard times prior to his rise in the military during the civil war. Grant and his wife Julia lived adjacent to Fredrick Dent’s plantation during one of their periods of economic hardship and Grant worked with slaves held by Fredrick. Grant eventually over saw some aspects of slave labor for his father-in-law at some point during this period and ended up owning a slave named William. Grant continued to face financial problems and moved his family to St. Louis away from his father-in-laws’ plantation. Before leaving for St. Louis he emancipated William despite the fact that selling William instead would have brought much needed income to Grant. Grant’s wife Julia took at least a slave woman (possibly others) with them to St.Louis for cooking, cleaning, child care, etc. It isn’t clear to me if the Grant’s owned her/them or if she/they belonged to Mrs. Grant’s father. We do know that prior to the emancipation proclamation the Grant’s had no slaves and from my reading it appears a slave woman that came from plantation with them to St.Louis escaped (self emancipated) and was not pursued by the Grants. We do know that Grant would send Federal troops into the South during reconstruction to take on the Klan and as president he had the support of black abolitionist Fredrick Douglas.
@@ErieRadioGrant did not exactly work with slaves. There was a freed slave who helped him built his 2-story log cabin. We are not sure if he employed slaves from another farmer. My point? He paid everyone, slaves or hired hands the same amount. The other farmers were furious with him. An elder freed slave loved Grant. He said,” He paid them no attention, and the captain jes’ kept payin’ and payin’. He had received a young and healthy slave from his father-in-law. He immediately took that man to the courthouse and freed him. Grant needed the money, and that young man was worth $ 3,000. For a time, he even worked Julia’s father’s plantation. The neighbors made fun of him, because he wouldn’t whip the male slaves! He ended up doing all of the plowing and seeding himself., Dorothy who worked in the kitchen, said that she had never seen any man, slave or free who could work as hard as he could. Do you want to know the measure of the man? When Grant was elected president, his father-in-law, Fred Dent , came to live with Julia and him in the White House. Mr. Dent set up his chair near the front door, and speak with bombast would argue about the good of slavery for the country! Grant was always kind, and am sure he put up with the whole arrangement. Grant had a dry sense of humor. Grant did not even campaign for the presidency. Instead, he took off for the virgin land in the Midwest. He realized that this part of the country would become industrialized. There is lot’s more, but you will have to wait for my screenplay. History is really a vibrant and interesting as can be. Our young people have been brainwashed into thinking we are a terrible society. As for reparations? 340,000 Union soldiers paid the ultimate price to free the slaves. Those who survived often had grievous wounds. Many had amputations with no anesthesia but alcohol. That means that every 4th farm, home, cabin or apartment lost a man. That would be more than a million today. As far as our youth? One cannot be grateful for something about you know nothing. Lincoln gets only one paragraph, if that.
@@ErieRadioexcellent comment. I have read that Grant obtained his slave as a marriage gift from Fredrick Dent when he married Julia. Grant and his slave would work alongside each other in the fields. Something unheard of at the time. When Grant left Missouri in financial failure and returned to Ohio, he released his slave from bondage rather than sell him for the money he desperately needed.
Why should the Yankee monuments come down? They fought to END slavery, not keep it and expand it. Oh, and Grant gave freedom before the war to a slave he inherited. He refused to sell it.
No, he did not own a slave ever. He was given a slave as a wedding present. He immediately took that young man and legally freed him. He said that the man had the same right to make his way in the world. He built a very large log cabin. He hired about three men to help him. I think one was a slave, one a freed slave and a white man. He paid them all equally. The other plantation owners were very upset with him. A freed slave worked with Grant, and later related his experience. He said how mad they got over his payment methods. He said, That captain just kept payin’ and payin’. His wife had 2 girls who worked for her father, and they helped with kitchen and household chores. I wish people would find the facts first.
I have read Grant's autobiography and was surprised at how well written and easy to read it was. I have read 3 different biographies. Both his father and father-in-law were well-to-do, but "Sam" would not take any hand-outs. Grant worked in tanneries of his father as well as other heavy farm work. One biography related how he showed one of his friends that he could do one armed pull-ups even after becoming president! He was a "horse whisperer". Could tame and ride even the most difficult horse. As president, he got a reprimand from a D.C. policeman for buggy racing in the street!
Grant was not just a superb writer, but he was also a magnificent artist.
Had he been able to use his talent, he would have been one of the memorable artists of the 19th century.
He also love’s mathematics.
The demerits he got at West Point were usually for unmilitary
bearing . He had spent most of his childhood and teenage years on horseback or running his own livery business at nine.
Once he was taking 2 ladies in a carriage across a stream that turned swollen and dangerous in the spring. The water was up to the waists of the two women.
They started to scream.
He turned around and said to then,” Please do not speak.I will get you there.”
I enjoyed your comment. Just to add a bit to it, he received more than a reprimand when he was stopped for riding his horse too fast. He also paid a fine, of $5 or $10, if I remember correctly. Peace. Out.
Mark Twain suggested to Grant to write his memoirs the way he would tell someone the story. It makes for a good read.
Disappointed that the autobiography has no personal history, no stories, nothing at all about his life. Strictly war, fighting, military facts.
British innovator and military historian Gen J.F.C. Fuller characterized Grant as one of the best strategists of modern times and, beyond that, the even rarer master of Grand Strategy, thinking in continental, even global terms.
You're kidding?😮
@marknewton6984 I am emphatically not kidding. Major general Fuller commanded the British Tank Corps in WWI where he created armored warfare; as a military historian he authored The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant and the magisterial A Military History of the Western World ( among many others). He perhaps lacks your military experience and acute judgment.
He was a genius. During the war, he could just come to a ridge and see his men, and understand the numbers, the strength, their officers.
He was a superb artist, and had he continued, he would have been one of the most famous and respected artists of the 19th century.
He was a math genius.
He had a great and loving marriage and the best a father ever.
He and Julia had 3 sons and 1 daughter.
Fuller? Long forgotten, even in UK.
He is just as interesting as a boy, as a teenager, as a young cadet, a warrior.
He was a loving husband to his Julia, and as a father. Am writing a screenshot about him.
He is almost as interesting sans the Civil War.
And no, he was not an alcoholic, and I think I can prove that.
He was possibly the best equestrian in our history.
He loved to travel.
He would be greeted warmly wherever he went. He had to be polite to sit through the military parades in Europe.
However, when he saw a painting that celebrated
war, he would
wince and look away.
Gen. Eisenhower said that Grant
was the greatest general in our history. He said that no drunkard could have accomplished the strategy he did.
A couple of additional comments about his Presidency. He resolved outstanding issues with Great Britain including the claims related to the CSS Alabama. The policies of his administration helped set in motion the rise of America into a great economic and military power. He is the only two term President to complete both terms between Andrew Jackson and Wilson.
I wish we had men like that vying to be President of the United States.
Millard Fillmore?
So true - Biden and Trump are jokes.
Grant did not campaign for the presidency. Instead, he decided to tour the Midwest before industrialization. He understood that the US would become a great power.
Europe closely watched the Civil War.
And watch only.
@@tedbaxter5234 Especially Trump!
Grant might well be considered the father of "Blitzkrieg." His western campaigns were brilliant in that he made full use of multiple arms of the military in close cooperation. The Mississippi and its many tributaries were the "roads" in the west, closely guarded by Confederate fortresses. His gunboats were used like heavy armor, impervious to field artillery, but with heavy Dahlgren guns that could flatten any land fortification. He recognized that merely defeating armies in the field wasn't enough, that victory lay in destroying the factories and mills that fed the Confederate army, and the rail and water transportation that moved those goods to the front. Once fortresses along rivers were destroyed by his "armored units" troops were then transported in to occupy and defend critical river junctures taken, while cavalry (like aircraft in Blitzkrieg) ranged out to destroy storehouses, bridges, railroads and any infrastructure that fed the Confederate armies. He (and Sherman that learned those tactics from Grant) have often been vilified for bringing the war to civilian industry, but in fact that strategy has been copied by every army since that time. When Grant moved east, he left Sherman in the west and in fact it was Sherman's gutting of Georgia that made it possible for Lee to be defeated in Virginia. Lee's army was deprived of food, clothing, ammunition, by Sherman far in his rear. Sherman (and his mentor, Grant) knew exactly what they were doing and probably shortened the war by several years. They didn't need to occupy the south, just neutralize the infrastructure that fed the armies.
God bless Mark Twain
his biography about Joan of arc is a great book and mark said it was his best book
Thank you for commending Mark Twain.
When Ulysses and Julia Grant attempted to withdraw from public life, they were embraced and lionized by every Crowned Head of Europe and every sharecropper south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Withdrawal was not an option and God bless Sam Clemens.
After he left the White House, Grant traveled a lot. His travels took him to Heidelberg, Germany, where he happened by chance pull into an inn where Richard Wagner, the musical genius, was also staying. Grant and Wagner were doing pretty much the same thing. Wagner was taking a break after the first performances of the Ring cycle, and Grant was taking a break after he left the presidency. Apparently the meeting was rather awkward, as neither could speak the other's language.
Not to mention Ferdinand Ward Investments...😂
@@marknewton6984Look that up, and your take may be a little skewed.
It was in no way his fault. In general, he tended to trust people too much.
Trusting people too much is naive. He was broke. Mark Twain saved him.
"The capture" of R.E. Lee? When did that happen? I must have missed something. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox C.H. but he was never captured.
Grant was a fierce leader with a extremely honorable disposition as show at Appomotox No other General to my knowledge would have been so gracious.
then you need to read more
The Russians are given credit by many as inventing operational warfare, but it seems clear that decades earlier Grant practiced this art (with Sherman) effectively.
I read that when he entered West Point, his weight was 114 lbs., he was a tiny man.
A good, if brief, overview of Grant. The narrator is a tad loud.
Correct me if I’m wrong. - Grant was ranked in the middle of the pack of his West Point Class. Then he would go on to be one of the greatest military strategists ever.
Cigars were his weakness. - It’s what probably killed him.
He was 21st out of 39. He was however without doubt the best Horseman of his class.
what a wonderful group of men this fantastic country has produced...thank thank...love love..
I wish it didn't sound as though the narrator was yelling throughout the video.
U.S. Grant integrated, among other entities, the USPS and the US military, later undone by Wilson. Lee spent the last year of the rebellion running from Grant. He was, and remained, as stated in his memoirs, against the Mexican-American war. He did what good soldiers do.
Young Hiram loved his horses and his whiskey. Old Ulysses dedicated his remaining life to the proposition that "These honored dead shall not have died in vain".
He was never called Hiram and everyone else thought it an awful name. His 4 grandparents had gotten together to come up with it.
His family and friends called him Lyss.
He got the name Sam from West Point. as in US GRANT/ Uncle Sam.
He was the original Horse Whisperer.
During the entire Civil War, he never raised his voice at anyone.
Except once. He came across a man mistreating a draft horse. Grant yelled at him. ( Grant never cursed.) The punishment? The man was tied to a tree for 4 hours.
I don’t think that he was ever called Hiram. His friends and family called him Lys.
At West Point he was called Sam . U.S Grant, as in Uncle Sam.
He was never called Hiram. He was called Lys.
He was not an alcoholic. He said once that he had endured slander.
Always thin until the White House.
( Pres. Teddy Roosevelt was the first to call it the White House.)
Grant could not
“ hold” his alcohol.
One drink and he slurred his speech.
Two drinks and he has to hold onto the furniture.
He did not enjoy his whiskey.Please see my post about this
Mind blowing facts? When was Grant ever a "strategist" during the Mexican War??? He was a quartermaster in the 4th infantry regiment.
I agree.
Facts and legend don't belong in the same sentence.
What about the part where Mary met Mr. Grant and he told her he hated spunk?
Nice material but It would be nice if you didn't shout.
Captured Lee?
Better check your facts.
You're formally correct, but the point is pedantic and part of Grant's magnanimity.
Lee's army was starving and by then suffering very high levels of desertion that are not discussed in polite company. It was days away from disappearing entirely one way or the other. By then, Lee's "tactics" were not about wining the war but obtaining food, which failed. Capture of not just Lee but the whole army was, in fact, imminent. All Grant had to do was ignore Lee's overtures and wait a few days.
The fact that Lee was allowed an honorable surrender is noteworthy, but the word "allowed" is not chosen lightly in the context of the actual history.
I appreciate your audible content, however - video of people thumbing through their smartphones is lazy and insulting. Many of us are smarter than that, and you can do better.
and Grant's Library is in Mississippi.
I was looking over the comments to see if anyone knew that. Mississippi State University at Starkville.
I should go up there and see it sometime.
I respect historians, even amateurs. How is any of this common knowledge "mind-blowing"?
Nice information but the texting is a real turn-of. What is the point?
silly bot generated content using wwi footage
Lee was not captured. Grant's presidency proved him to be a poor administrator. No doubt he was honest, but had too many incompetent advisers and bureaucrats around him. As a President, he was mediocre, at best. In the Mexican War, he was joined by Lee, Stonewall, and other future Civil War generals. During the Civil War, his losses were so great that many of his detractors referred to him as Butcher Grant.
In my experience everyone's detractors say bad things about them. His Civil War record is just amazing. 3 entire armies who had sworn to die rather than submit.....submitted. You can't do better than that. Lots of casualties during the Overland campaign in 1864, but, he also inflicted quite a few. Percentage wise he came out ahead. Not sure if that is the proper way to judge it. He did, however, ensure that Lee would send no troops to oppose Sherman.
Agreed. Grant understood before many others, including the great conquerors in history, that to win conclusively, you must destroy the armies of the enemy, not just add territory while the enemy retreats and regroups. Thus his high casualty rate incurred in the South. When he beat you, you weren't coming back for more. You were done and grateful to be alive.@@stephennewton2223
Grant was mediocre in the Mexican War and the worst Pres. since Millard Fillmore. Also Cold Harbor.😮
@@marknewton6984 Actually he was outstanding in the Mexican War. Combat promotion while in a noncombatant position(quartermaster). A solid president, if unspectacular. Killed the clan, for instance.
As Pres. he let settlers grab the gold in Deadwood
Let alone the debacle of Little Big Horn. He was over his head.
Why the agitated near-shouting if presenting facts? I recommend revising the narrating style.
i just got yelled at for 3 minutes
Grant was a “strategist” in the Mexican War? You must have him mixed up with Bobby Lee. 0:21
I caught that, too. He was not of enough rank to have any impact on strategy. A regimental quartermaster who had to show initiative just to get on the battlefield.
Also, I believe it was Theodore Roosevelt that was instrumental in Yellowstone. Not sure if this video is based in our universe, but hey a nice collection of footage.
@@averagejoe8213 Teddy Roosevelt signed the order to make Yellowstone the first National Park. He could do that because Grant had previously signed the order keeping it off limits to development.
Lee was much greater in the Mexican War.😮
1 simple ? What does tge S stand 4?
His mother’s maiden name was Simpson. That is assumed to be the cause of the error at West Point. Grant always said the ‘S’ didn’t stand for anything.
Grant was not a military genius. He employed the most obvious and brutal campaigns. Overwhelming advantages in numbers and logistics allowed him to engage in a war of attrition which just exhausted the resources of the confederates. Incredible numbers of Union soldiers were sacrificed in pitched battles, while the South could not possibly replace their losses.
I don' think that you have studied the Civil War much. Grant was a brilliant strategist.
I bet your from Georgia
Look at his Vicksburg campaign and get back to us. A lot of civil war buffs seem to forget that the war in the west was a serious part of the whole affair. And Grant was very daring at Vicksburg. And, persistent in ways others weren't.
And, if his techniques in the east were so obvious, how come nobody actually employed them until he showed up?
Grant's internet critics tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths on this.
1. Grant was a butcher. This grew mostly out of the truth that the casualty rate of the Civil War was high by historical standards. But Lee or Hood was every bit as brutal in terms of casualties and they skate on the title "butcher". The "best" general in this regard is arguably Joseph Johnston, but he was relieved for being insufficiently aggressive (which inevitably meant his successor, Hood, was going to be bloodier and unsuccessful in the bargain).
2. Grant only did the obvious. But yet, until Grant took command, Lee had a pretty free hand and the war looked like it would grind on forever. If it was so obvious, why did it take 2 and a half years to find someone to do the obvious? Lee's brilliance largely stopped cold after Grant took over. Grant forced Lee to give up the initiative. Nobody else did that.
Basically, Grant's critics end up committing the same blunders Grant's predecessors did. They were looking for a low casualty way to end the war. Say this much for Grant's predecessors -- they tried every way they could think of to do just that. They all failed because _there was no low casualty solution_ to be had. Grant sucked it up and fought the war that was actually at hand, not the "nicer" one that nobody could execute and which was consuming a lot of lives anyhow. That _is_ genius after a fashion. The only way to stop the butcher's bill was to actually _win_.
@@curious968 Very good summation. Being a southerner I always idolized Lee as I guess anyone would after reading Douglas Southall Freemans four volume biography of Lee.
Grant was always the enemy so of little interest. Then I read a little more of Grant and came to realize he wasnt the butcher of Cold Harbor. He also realized Lees arms was the objective not Richmond and by moving toward Richmond Lee would have to maneuver
to protect Richmond. Grant did have something of an advantage when he came east and that was the smaller post Gettysburg army that Lee commanded.
Then there was, as you mentioned, the Vicksburg campaign. There was so much more to that than simply surrounding Vicksburg waiting for surrender. Setting aside the early parts up in the Delta region there was pushing Joe Johnson out of Jackson, Then drawing Pemberton out and defeating him at Champions Hill, Griersons Raid cutting rail lines then bringing the gunboats down past Vicksburg and capturing Port Gibson.
A truly massive operation. Yes I know I wrote those phases out of sequence.
Joe Johnson and his Atlanta defense falling back from one defensive position to the next was preserving his army was masterful but Jeff Davis never liked Johnson and apparently wanted Johnson to come out and inflict some stunning defeat on the Union Army. Which led to Hood destroying the army and Sherman marching to the sea.
This is stupid.
Horrible human
i dont recall where i read it but didnt grant own a slave thru out the war between the states. one more thing why arent the yankee monuments being taken down
To my understanding….
Grant’s father-in-law Fredrick Dent had a plantation in Missouri and held slaves.
Grant periodically fell on hard times prior to his rise in the military during the civil war. Grant and his wife Julia lived adjacent to Fredrick Dent’s plantation during one of their periods of economic hardship and Grant worked with slaves held by Fredrick.
Grant eventually over saw some aspects of slave labor for his father-in-law at some point during this period and ended up owning a slave named William.
Grant continued to face financial problems and moved his family to St. Louis away from his father-in-laws’ plantation. Before leaving for St. Louis he emancipated William despite the fact that selling William instead would have brought much needed income to Grant.
Grant’s wife Julia took at least a slave woman (possibly others) with them to St.Louis for cooking, cleaning, child care, etc. It isn’t clear to me if the Grant’s owned her/them or if she/they belonged to Mrs. Grant’s father. We do know that prior to the emancipation proclamation the Grant’s had no slaves and from my reading it appears a slave woman that came from plantation with them to St.Louis escaped (self emancipated) and was not pursued by the Grants.
We do know that Grant would send Federal troops into the South during reconstruction to take on the Klan and as president he had the support of black abolitionist Fredrick Douglas.
@@ErieRadioGrant did not exactly work with slaves. There was a freed slave who helped him built his 2-story log cabin.
We are not sure if he employed slaves from
another farmer.
My point? He paid everyone, slaves or hired hands the same amount. The other farmers were furious with him. An elder freed slave loved Grant. He said,” He paid them no attention, and the captain jes’ kept payin’ and payin’.
He had received a young and healthy slave from his father-in-law.
He immediately took that man to the courthouse and freed him. Grant needed the money, and that young man was worth
$ 3,000.
For a time, he even worked Julia’s father’s plantation.
The neighbors made fun of him, because he wouldn’t whip the male slaves! He ended up doing all of the plowing and seeding himself.,
Dorothy who worked in the kitchen, said that she had never seen any man, slave or free who could work as hard as he could.
Do you want to know the measure of the man? When Grant was elected president, his father-in-law, Fred Dent , came to live with Julia and him in the White House. Mr. Dent set up his chair near the front door, and speak with bombast would argue about the good of slavery for the country! Grant was always kind, and am sure he put up with the whole arrangement. Grant had a dry sense of humor.
Grant did not even campaign for the presidency. Instead, he took off for the virgin land in the Midwest. He realized that this part of the country would become industrialized.
There is lot’s more, but you will have to wait for my screenplay.
History is really a vibrant and interesting as can be.
Our young people have been brainwashed into thinking we are a terrible society.
As for reparations?
340,000 Union soldiers paid the ultimate price to free the slaves. Those who survived often had grievous wounds. Many had amputations with no anesthesia but alcohol.
That means that every 4th farm, home, cabin or apartment lost a man. That would be more than a million today.
As far as our youth?
One cannot be grateful for something about you know nothing.
Lincoln gets only one paragraph, if that.
@@ErieRadioexcellent comment. I have read that Grant obtained his slave as a marriage gift from Fredrick Dent when he married Julia. Grant and his slave would work alongside each other in the fields. Something unheard of at the time. When Grant left Missouri in financial failure and returned to Ohio, he released his slave from bondage rather than sell him for the money he desperately needed.
Why should the Yankee monuments come down? They fought to END slavery, not keep it and expand it. Oh, and Grant gave freedom before the war to a slave he inherited. He refused to sell it.
No, he did not own a slave ever. He was given a slave as a wedding present.
He immediately took that young man and legally freed him.
He said that the man had the same right to make his way in the world.
He built a very large log cabin.
He hired about three men to help him.
I think one was a slave, one a freed slave and a white man.
He paid them all equally.
The other plantation
owners were very upset with him.
A freed slave worked with Grant, and later related his experience.
He said how mad they got over his payment methods.
He said, That captain just kept payin’ and payin’.
His wife had 2 girls who worked for her father, and they helped with kitchen
and household chores.
I wish people would find the facts first.