Ulysses S. Grant: Butcher or Military Strategist?

Question

I'm doing a paper on grant and i need a thesis. This is what i chose on the paper. I know he wasn't a military strategist or a butcher. He was just someone who would attack over and over but was it when he was drunk. What was it. I need help

Answer 1

I have to disagree -- the NATURE of Grant's genius may be debated, but not that he was one. I've included several clips that argue the point rather well. For your thesis about what PARTICULAR skills, etc. were most critical to his success you may choose from things they emphasize, esp. ones that SEVERAL note, or that supplement each other,

For example, you might focus on his TENACITY (and knowing when and how to BE tenacious, not just stubborn), which this particular conflict required in spades. One common Grant quote that reveals this quality -- "Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on."

Note also the importance of MANEUVERING, outflanking and hitting the enemy at SEVERAL points on once --all of which is STRATEGY, involving planning, not JUST "hammering" or having superior numbers -- highlighted in several of these.

Personally, I like the point made by Williams -- Grant was the "complete general"... balanced, cool when he needed to be, simple, direct and clear in all his orders (a style also seen in his memoirs) and a very capable steward of whatever resources he had (which his experience as a quartermaster in the Mexican War doubtless helped develop).

In fact, part of the reason so many may downplay his genius is the steadiness, effortlessness and 'simplicity' (of a sort) of his manner, along with his personal humility, as opposed to ostentatious bravado (even in not wearing his full-dress uniform... in all this imitating Zachary Taylor --"Old Rough and Ready"-- whom he much admired).
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GENERAL EISENHOWER ON GENERAL GRANT'S GENIUS

July 1964 interview:
"I think Ulysses S. Grant is vastly underrated as a man and as a general. I know people think this and that about his drinking habits, which I think have been exaggerated way out of line. The fact is, he never demanded more men or material from the war department, he took over an army that had a long history of retreating and losing. That army had no confidence in their fighting ability and Grant came in as a real outsider. He had so many disadvantages going into the 1864 campaign. . . .
"Grant devised a strategy to end the war. He alone had the determination, foresight, and wisdom to do it."

On another occasion:
"Grant captured three armies intact, moved and coordinated his forces in a way that baffles military logic yet succeeded and he concluded the war one year after being entrusted with that aim. I'd say that was one hell of a piece of soldiering extending over a period of four years, the same time we were in the last war."

And again, esp. commenting on the alcohol charges:
"It never seemed possible to me . . . that a man who so constantly under the influence of liquor could have pursued a single course so steadfastly, could have accepted frequent failures of subordinates without losing his equilibrium, could have made numbers of close decisions which involved a nice balance between risk and advantage, and could have maintained the respect of such men as Sherman, Sheridan, Meade and, above all, President Lincoln."

http://www.granthomepage.com/grantgenius.htm


Historian Michael Korda:
" Grant understood topography, the importance of supply lines, the instant judgment of the balance between his own strengths and the enemy's weaknesses, and above all the need to keep his armies moving forward, despite casualties, even when things had gone wrong—that and the simple importance of inflicting greater losses on the enemy than he can sustain, day after day, until he breaks. Grant the boy never retraced his steps. Grant the man did not retreat—he advanced. Generals who do that win war"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant#Overland_Campaign.2C_Petersburg.2C_and_Appomattox

"Now [in the spring of 1864] armed with a monstrous army and supplies, Grant is viewed by many as one who massacred the enemy, regardless of the cost to his men. This image however is not true. The Union's multi-theatre operations that would follow were carefully planned and mapped out that included General Sherman with his operations in Georgia, General Benjamin Butler and his operations on the James River, and General Philip Sheridan's operations in the Shenandoah Valley. It was Grant's plan with others, to outflank the enemy and reach their rear, whereby destroying their communications which in turn would hinder their survival. What Grant did in the campaigns from the Wilderness to Appomattox (with the exception of a costly defeat at Cold Harbor) was to outmaneuver the Confederates, rather than outfight them. While attempting to move on Richmond, Grant decided to go around General Lee and did so through a crafty movement, and turned instead toward Petersburg. From this point, Grant used various incursions that forced Lee to extend his lines so thin that they were at the breaking point. As a result, Lee had no choice but to surrender on April 9, 1865. Grant won the war by not using force, but by his speed, coordination, and cunning."
http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1167.html



Shelby Foote:
"Grant the general had many qualities but he had a thing that's very necessary for a great general. He had what they call "four o'clock in the morning courage." You could wake him up at four o'clock in the morning and tell him they had just turned his right flank and he would be as cool as a cucumber. Grant, after that first night in the Wilderness, went to his tent, broke down, and cried very hard. Some of the staff members said they'd never seen a man so unstrung. Well, he didn't cry until the battle was over, and he wasn't crying when it began again the next day. It just shows you the tension that he lived with without letting it affect him... Grant, he's wonderful."

T. Harry Williams, Military Historian:
"There is no difficulty in composing a final evaluation of Ulysses S. Grant. With him there be no balancing and qualifying, no ifs and buts. He won battles and campaigns, and he struck the blow that won the war. No general could do what he did because of accident or luck or preponderance of numbers and weapons. He was a success because he was a complete general and a complete character. He was so complete that his countrymen have never been able to believe he was real...Grant was, judged by modern standards, the greatest general of the Civil War. He was head and shoulders above any other general on either side as an over-all strategist, as a master of global strategy. Fundamentally Grant was superior to Lee because in a modern total war he had a modern mind, and Lee did not. Lee was the last of the great old-fashioned generals, Grant was the first of the great moderns."

(followed by comments by contemporaries of Grant
http://www.granthomepage.com/grantgeneral.htm


For more see these two excellent recent biographies
* Brooks D. Simpson's Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865 (the first volume of a two-volume work) 2000
* Jean Edward Smith's Grant 2002

Answer 2

To come to be a prime rating officer is hardly ever given to "well" officials alternatively they're constituted of political animals and are as a rule puppets of a higher political curiosity. We had been in Afghanistan for just about 8 years and not anything has transformed besides that the US now owns a compliant Afghan high minister who leads a powerless and toothless tiger Government. The Taliban nonetheless manipulate the populace and Osama Bin encumbered nonetheless evades the US navy and all its corporations. Corruption is rife among the Politicians in Afghanistan and the high ministers possess brother is a good recognized worldwide drug trader. No doubt he's a well buddy of the CIA who truthfully use drug cash to finance their soiled little wars. What has occurred is that MacCrystal has been learned not like Westmoreland and others that experience long past earlier than him. At least Westmoreland had the feel to maintain his lure close for the duration of the Vietnam debacle. There is an historic pronouncing "it's larger to be idea a idiot than to open your mouth and eliminate all doubt" Mac Crystal used to be an useless average, a deficient chief, insubordinate bordering on treasonous. He will have to no longer had been allowed to renounce he will have to had been stripped of his rank and drummed out.

Answer 3

Grant was not a great strategist. What separated Grant from his predecessors was his ability to keep hammering the south with constant attacks, whereas they (particularly mcclellan) were fussily precise and overly cautious. As Lincoln said "I Like this general, he fights" He kept up the pressure on the Confederates, feeding a lot of men into the meat grinder of war in the process (look up the battle of cold harbor and the Union casualty rates). It was a nasty bloody job, but it was neccessary for the Union to win the war. As for the drinking, Grant was always fond of the booze and cigars, and if your job was to throw thousands of men into battle knowing a lot of them would die, you might reach for the bottle too.

Answer 4

Grant was a black and white person. He tolerated no gray. He insisted on unconditional surrender and he followed orders.

Answer 5

Gosh it sure would be a lot of trouble for you to look it up.