#18 Ulysses S Grant: Failed Businessman, Brilliant General, Mediocre President --Part 2

“Grant” by Ron Chernow, 2017.

Grant’s brilliant victory at Vicksburg may have been the turning point of the war.  He followed this by taking charge of a stalemate/siege at Chattanooga, which ended in another Union victory.  Lincoln called Grant to Washington DC and promoted him to commander in chief of the Union army and gave him the rank of Lieutenant General, a title previously only held by George Washington.  Lincoln and Grant had a good working relationship and deeply respected each other.  Lincoln was pretty hands off with Grant, even though Lincoln had fired several prior commanders.  However, he knew Grant was a man of action, unlike his predecessors.

 Grant immediately outlined his basic strategy for simultaneous major offensives.  Sherman would march through Georgia and capture Atlanta.  Phil Sheridan would strike the Shenandoah Valley and Grant would personally launch the attack against Lee in Virginia.  The northern Union army, called the Army of the Potomac, had suffered so many defeats against Lee that the men were convinced he could not be beat.  But when Grant took charge, that attitude changed.  Grant made slow progress through Virginia but some brutal battles at the Wilderness and Cold Harbor had massive casualties.  Cold Harbor showed an unusually cold-hearted side of Grant.  Neither he nor Lee would agree to a truce, an indication that the other man had won, and so injured men were left on the battlefield, suffering and dying in the heat for two days.  Over 400 additional men died this horrible death.

Eventually Grant settled into a prolonged siege of Lee’s forces near Petersburg.  While this lack of progress frustrated him, Lincoln and the public, it kept Lee from reinforcing the other two fronts.  Sherman and Sheridan both used a total warfare, scorched earth approach, destroying food, crops, factories, railroads, bridges and anything of value to the south.  Sherman captured Atlanta in September, just in time to

ensure a reelection victory for Lincoln.  He then continued on to Savannah, Charleston and then turned north to the Carolinas.  Sheridan also had similar success.

As Lee’s troops began to starve and desert in massive numbers, Grant had forced him to stretch his line so thin, that he was able to breakthrough.  Lee abandoned Richmond as well and tried to retreat to find supplies for his men.  Sheridan cut off his path and took his supplies.  With no hope of food, supplies and a rapidly shrinking army, Lee was forced to surrender on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.  Lee was dressed to the nines when he came to sign the papers but Grant, who had been racing around the country coordinating the battles, was in his dirty field cloths.  Lee was stiff and formal while Grant chatted with Lee and his men.  Grant’s terms for the confederate men allowed them to maintain their dignity and guaranteed they would not be held prisoner or prosecuted.  Grant refused to let his men mock or denigrate any of the southern soldiers, reminding them that they were once again all Americans.

Grant headed to Washington to outline the final days of the war with Lincoln and massive celebrations began.  Lincoln invited Grant and Julia to go with him and Mrs. Lincoln to a play at Ford’s theater but at the last minute, they changed their plans because Julia disliked Mrs. Lincoln.  The conspiracy that included John Wilkes Booth, was designed to kill Grant at the play as well as Lincoln, also attempting to kill the Sec of State Seward, (who actually only got wounded).  Grant and Julia actually saw Booth starring angrily at their carriage as they left town, heading to their home in Burlington, New Jersey.

Grant said Lincoln was the best leader he ever knew and worried that the new president Andrew Johnson would not be aligned with his and Lincoln’s plan for the south and protect the rights of the “freedmen”.  Johnson soon showed that he preferred a south that was continued to be run by wealthy whites and would not agree to any civil rights for blacks.  Johnson also tried to prosecute Lee and other confederate military leaders, counteracting the conditions that were agreed to at Appomattox.  Grant had to threaten to quit to get Johnson to back off.   Johnson also freely used Grants name and immense popularity to push an agenda that Grant did not support.  Grant and Johnson came into major conflict and he resigned from Johnson’s cabinet in protest.  Grant became the obvious choice for the republican nomination and he won in 1968.

Grant’s biggest success as president may be his staunch defense of the rights of blacks (or “freedman” as he called them).  Grant knew that if the south was allowed to be readmitted to the union without guaranteeing their rights, then all the Union soldiers had fought for would be in vain.  Grant valiantly fought against groups like the Klu Klux Klan, made up primarily of ex confederate soldiers.  I was shocked to read that thousands of southern blacks and hundreds of white southern republicans, were murdered, abused

and harassed constantly during reconstruction. Almost none of the crimes was every prosecuted by corrupt southern states.  Those that were prosecuted ended when witnesses were scared off by the clan and the accused went free.  Grant created the Justice Dept in order to ensure southern states protected blacks.  Grant did not hesitate to send in federal troops into states like Mississippi and Louisiana which were basically under either federal martial law or Klan rule. 

The reason for Grant’s low presidential ranking by historians is based primarily on the corruption in his cabinet and appointments.  While Grant himself accepted three mansions and many other extravagant gifts from wealthy donors, primarily while he was a general, he did not seem to grant undue favoritism to them.  Grant developed a great admiration for the “robber barons” of the day, probably because he was such a failure at business his whole life.  He tended to appoint personal friends, family members or military comrades, regardless of their qualifications. And when one of them was mired in a scandal, he tended to defend them until it was so blatant that he was wrong.  He rarely asked for advice from anyone on his appointments, a style that worked as a general but not as president.  Grant was pretty gullible and always shocked by the repeated scandals.

Grant also developed an obsession with adding Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic today) to the United States as a territory then eventually a state.  He thought it would be a place the blacks could move to if the were unhappy in the south.  This idea was supported by almost no one in congress and Grant wasted so much time and political capital on this.

The economy began to struggle due to a gold crisis (caused by one of his wealthy cronies, Jay Gould) and a panic in 1873.  Grant’s pro big business approach led the Republican party to become more oriented toward business interests and less concerned with reconstruction and black rights.  The Republican party of abolition became the conservative party of big business thanks to Grant’s admiration of the gilded age robber barons.

While he was still personally popular, Grant probably could not have won a third term.  The country was weary of the constant battle to keep blacks and southern states under control.  When Hayes came into office in 1876, he undid most of the hard work Grant had done for blacks and the “Jim Crow” era began. 

Grant and family decided to go on a mammoth worldwide tour, lasting two and a half years. He was received all around the world as a celebrity and much of his tour was a gift from countries or donors. He went to Europe, the middle east, Japan and many more, meeting Queen Victoria and all the famous world leaders as they circled the globe.  He also worked as an unofficial ambassador for the US.

After returning home from this expensive tour, Grant’s wealthy friends bought him a mansion in New York City.  Grant, who had sacrificed his military pension when he became president, invested all his money in an investment company run by one of his son’s and a man named Ward.  Ward basically ran a Ponzi scheme to attract investors with false high returns, and many of Grants military friends invested based on his advice. Eventually this scheme failed in 1885 and Grant and his family were left destitute.

Grant’s health had also begun to decline and the financial stress made it worse.  Grant, who had consumed almost 20 cigars a day during the war, was diagnosed with cancer in his throat.  He immediately began to write his memoirs in an attempt to leave his family financially solvent.  The cancer progressed rapidly but Grant refused to use many pain killers has he raced to finish writing.   His autobiography, published by Mark Twain, was finished about two weeks before he died and  it set up Julia financially for the rest of her life.  It only covers his life until the end of the war but is regarded as the finest presidential autobiography ever written.  His funeral was observed by 1.5 million people in New York City and his tomb is there today.