Defeat Turned into Victory

...Soon afterward Congress authorized President Abraham Lincoln to elevate 34 volunteers to the rank of brigadier general, the actual choice being made by each state's Congressional delegation...

...Above all, he and Lincoln and the 2.25 million men under arms—some 650,000 of whom died or were wounded—saved the Union...

...He would win it by relentless attack, maneuvering when he could, but always taking the battle to his enemy, whatever that required...

...Despite his war record...

...Shiloh was his bloodiest battle in the west, the two days of fighting there producing more casualties than all of this country's previous wars combined...

...He liked soldiering yet hated war...

...Given that its range was only about a hundred yards, the usual tactic was to form up in lines, fire a volley, and charge—the killing being done mainly by swords, bayonets and other edged weapons...

...Here, as at Shiloh, his persistence turned initial defeat into victory...

...In any event, Grant's success in the west made him the inevitable choice to replace Henry Halleck as general in chief of the Union Army...

...Of the 24,000 men who were killed, wounded or captured, 13,000 were Union soldiers...

...He was saved from alcoholism by his wife's visits, by the watchfulness of his adjutant, Colonel John Rawlings, and ultimately, of course, by his own efforts...

...Grant beat the odds to complete a literary masterpiece, arguably the finest book by an American soldier and a classic that is still read today, not least for its spare, elegant prose...

...In February 1885, while dying of cancer, he signed a generous contract with Mark Twain—then launching a publishing company—for what became The Personal Memoirs of U.S...

...He had no talent for business and was trusting to a fault...

...Once in the field he rose rapidly...

...Astonishingly, he succeeds...

...The memoirs earned a total of $450,000, many millions by today's standards...

...Even so, as Smith points out, the scandals of the Grant Administration were not unusual for the times and have been exaggerated by his critics...

...Lee was down to 20,000 men and 9,000 rifles when he surrendered on April 9, 1865, in contrast to Grant's over 100,000 armed soldiers...

...His race against time to provide for his family enthralled the nation...

...he fights...

...Smith tells the whole story admirably...

...But even at its lowest level, when he was accused of butchery for losing so many men, there was no denying that he won every major Civil War battle he fought in the western theater and defeated Robert E. Lee at Appomattox...

...Like many historians and biographers, Jean Edward Smith is not interested in weapons...

...He was a decent, generous, unassuming man, and a good husband, father and friend...

...The Union enlisted a total of about 2 million men to the Confederacy's 750,000...

...Lincoln promptly canceled it, and Grant apologized for it before the 1868 election, but the order remains a stain on his reputation...

...11 expelling all Jews under his jurisdiction...

...The following year Twain presented Julia with $200,000, the largest royalty check ever written to that date...

...author, "A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II" Ulysses S. Grant's reputation as a general has ebbed and flowed...

...Afterward, calls for Grant's replacement deluged the White House...

...Born in Point Pleasant, Ohio in 1822, Grant graduated from West Point 21 years later...

...He had written 275,000 words with his own hand in less than a year, despite his pain and the opiates he took for it...

...He assumed the post early in 1864, moving his headquarters into the field next to General George Meade, who commanded the Army of the Potomac and executed Grant's orders...

...Grant almost defeated Lee twice in 1864, only to be frustrated both times because other top leaders in the Army of the Potomac were excessively cautious...

...Lincoln responded: "I can't spare this man...

...His first battle was essentially a draw, but he won every fight thereafter...

...On July 23 he died...

...perhaps, who only commanded the Army of Northern Virginia while Grant eventually became the general in chief of all the Union forces...

...That statement went straight to the heart of Grant's leadership...

...he did not even have to campaign...

...Thanks to Washburne again, Illinois selected Grant...

...In virtually every other way, Grant compels respect...

...Had he not placed blind trust in these officials— some of whom privately sold government favors—perhaps there would not have been such lasting damage to his legacy...

...The General's final victory came on July 22,1885, when he finished his manuscript...

...Grant was forced to resign from the Army in 1854 for abusing alcohol...

...So long as he was President the freedmen had no better friend...

...Smith convincingly portrays a superb tactician as well as a fine strategist—better than Lee...

...As a result charges, always expensive in lives, became horrendously so...

...He himself is a fine writer and his narrative drive never falters...

...In June 1861, the 21st was mustered into Federal service...

...He ended up working as a billing clerk for his father's leather business in Galena, Illinois...

...In November 1863, Grant defeated the Confederates once more at Chattanooga...

...Instead of beating Lee in the field, Grant pinned him down in Petersburg...

...As an infantry lieutenant he served under two outstanding generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott...

...Liquor was not a problem when his family was with him, but it cursed him when they were apart, as would be the case during the Civil War...

...Although popular in his day, historians invariably rank him with Warren G. Harding and one or two other failures...

...He took Forts Henry and Donelson on the Mississippi, defeated the Confederates at Shiloh, Tennessee, then capped his career in the west with a successful siege of Vicksburg that recaptured the entire Mississippi Valley...

...The slaughter would have been even greater, although the end might have come sooner, if the Union had equipped its infantry with repeating rifles...

...All that would seem enough to earn his Presidency at least a C+, instead of the usual F. Gifts he received upon leaving office made Grant a rich man, but he lost his fortune in 1884 when the managing partner of his Wall Street firm looted its assets...

...In December 1862, for example, angered by (mostly gentile) cotton traders who were illegally dealing with Confederate planters, he issued General Order No...

...Grant did not lack compassion...

...After the War Grant turned his attention to trying to enforce Reconstruction in the South and protect the freedmen—uphill work, since President Andrew Johnson opposed Reconstruction...

...In 1868 he was swept into the White House by what may be called a genuine draft...

...This had a killing range of a thousand yards, yet basic tactics were not revised to take account of the much longer period of time advancing troops came under fire...

...After eight months of grinding position warfare Lee's lines finally broke, and when he tried to escape in a running battle Grant's men trapped him at Appomattox Court House...

...It is also true that he was a terrible judge of character, appointing unworthy men to high offices and leaving them there too long...

...Yetthe War lasted fouryears because, until Grant, no senior Union general could tolerate the high casualties victory required—even though the Union could afford them...

...His image as President has not fared as well...

...But the key to Grant's success, and his importance to the Union, lay in his being the first commander to exploit the North's advantages in men and material...

...he simply knew the War could never be won by timely retreats and successful defenses...

...Smith argues persuasively that his subject's drinking was a consequence of being separated from his beloved wife Julia, who settled in Missouri with their two young children while he was posted to California...

...The Johnson Presidency was floundering, though, while Grant's political star was on the rise...

...He does not try to conceal his subject's faults...

...a word about them, however, helps explain why the losses on both sides were so high...

...Grant did miserably in civilian life...

...Grant also mended relations with Great Britain, strengthened American currency, broke an attempt to corner the gold market, and would have reformed the Civil Service if Congress had allowed it...

...Since nearly everyone in the small professional officer's corps knew about his drinking problem, no one in the military would give him a job...

...For centuries the smoothbore musket was the standard infantry weapon...

...In this book Jean Edward Smith aims to show, among other things, that Grant's White House years were in fact somewhat above average...

...Confederate casualty rates were generally equal to those of the Union, but lower in absolute numbers because the rebels had fewer men...

...As President, Grant cracked down hard on the emergent Ku Klux Klan, giving the South in 1872 the only fair election it would have until 1968...

...Hence most of the scandals that afflicted his Presidency...

...In the Civil War both sides employed the new rifled musket...

...The Civil War rescued him from obscurity...

...From them he learned the lessons he would himself one day apply as a commander...

...But Galena's Congressman, Elihu Washburne, secured Grant an appointment as colonel in command of the 21 st Illinois, a volunteer infantry regiment...

...But neither that nor his belief that the Mexican War was unjust kept him from performing with distinction when it broke out in 1848...