“If Washington had been the father of his country, Ulysses Grant was its savior” (Bunting, 2004, p. 84).
Cool Stuff about Ulysses S. Grant
1. I wonder if you noticed this or not but I called Grant, Hiram Ulysses, to start his bio. That’s because he was christened Hiram Ulysses. His name was changed when he went to West Point because the congressman recommending him got it wrong to begin with, dubbing him Ulysses Simpson Grant. West Point, then left it as Ulysses S and the rest is history. Since Grant was so quiet and unassuming, he decided to just stick with the change of name rather than go through the trouble of changing it back.
2. Grant. Loved. Horses. He had a sort of horse-whisperer quality about him, allowing him to ride anything. Hence the livery stable he had as a kid. Later on he would surprise his peers as an acclaimed horseman. “He was known and admired as the best horseman at West Point, and later the finest horseman in the army” (p. 18).
3. Grant’s nickname at West Point was “Sam.” Everyone at school thought his name stood for “Uncle Sam.”
4. In Mexico, Grant once took a treacherous ride alone in search of more ammunition for his regiment. “Here his supreme skill as a rider probably saved his life and made possible the relief of his unit: Grant braved direct fire from the streets of Monterrey, riding like a movie cowboy, hanging by stirrups and cantle, keeping the horse’s massive body between himself and the enemy” (p. 24).
5. Grant is commonly thought to only have voted once in his entire life. “Grant had in fact voted in 1856—the only election in which he is known to have voted: he cast his ballot for the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan. About the Republican nominee, John C. Fremont, Grant would only say, ‘I knew Fremont’” (p. 33).
6. After Shiloh in 1862, Grant very seriously considered resigning from the army and would have without the council of William Tecumseh Sherman. “Halleck, however, removed Grant from command, assigned him the meaningless job of second in command (duties unprescribed), and redoubled his criticism, always behind Grant’s back, to army colleagues. Had it not been for the intervention of his friend Sherman, who found him despondent and about to leave the army on furlough, Grant would have departed this strange predicament at once” (p. 47). Can you imagine how the course of the Civil War might have been different had Grant retired instead?
7. After the Battle of Chattanooga, a bill passed through Congress to reinstate the rank of lieutenant general which was then conferred upon Grant. Do you know the last man to hold the rank of lieutenant general? That’s right—George Washington.
8. Grant spearheaded the movement to pass the 15th Amendment through Congress; thus giving black Americans the right to vote.
9. Grant created the Department of Justice to deal with Reconstruction problems. With all the racial issues in the South, Grant could not allow the army to be called out with each disturbance so he put the Department of Justice under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General and saw to it that they made sure the laws were being enacted in the South.
10. It was during the Grant administration that the Ku Klux Klan had their heyday. The Klan used violence, terrorism, and intimidation against black Americans in the South to disrupt voting and other events. “It struck through the South, doing its work mainly at night, its instruments comprising kidnapping, murder, arson, beatings, and the terror induced by not knowing when, or where, it would strike next (black churches were particularly favored targets), together with the certain knowledge that local law enforcement, when not actually conniving in such activities, would itself be sufficiently intimidated to do nothing” (p. 113). Grant pushed through the Ku Klux Klan bill in 1871 threatening to send the troops to settle Klan-related disturbances.
11. Really quick—I have to give a little Shout Out to my boy, Lew Wallace, whom I ran across in this Grant bio! Lew Wallace was a general in the Union Army and at one point in Tennessee, fought under Grant. But the best part is when Wallace went on later to write that awesome book, Ben-Hur. Sigh.
This was a pretty good biography about Grant. Although it was not the most exciting or best written biography I’ve read (I’m thinking Martin Van Buren, here, people!), I enjoyed the way that the author uses a lot of modern-day comparisons to help us understand what happened back in that day. For instance, Bunting draws the comparison between the Guilded Age (Grant’s administration) and the Roaring Twenties in America or the Regency period in England. Both time periods excelled in the arts and were a sort of backlash against years of war. Interesting. I love when the dots are connected.
Grant and I also see eye-to-eye on one particular thing: the right to vote. I am a huge proponent of voting and am disappointed in our national turnouts for current elections. As a proud citizen of the United States of America, I was given the right to vote by my forebears who fought and died for it. Thus, I believe that getting up off your (and my) lazy ass and voting for whom we think should govern our great nation should be a gimme. Grant agrees with me here. In his first inaugural address he mentions how vital it is for the nation and freed men to have this right. “It set forth those things important to Grant: the healing commonality of all American citizens—their membership in the restored American nation, a membership not to be defined by race or region, and in which the defining act of citizenship must be voting” (p. 89). Voting is important, people! I would like to see everyone get out there on Election Day to do your American duty. Seriously.
I am sorry that, in the public mind, Grant will forever be linked to the myriad dishonesties that enveloped the Reconstruction era because I really believe that he was a good man and a good president. After his trip around the world, Grant’s contemporary reputation grew almost back to what it was around Appomattox but I’m afraid that this surge did not help his overall reputation in the long run.
I have to say that I was a little shocked at all the scandals during the Grant administration. Bunting, throughout the book, depicted a Grant that was forthright and incorruptible, in a way, and yet his second term as president is literally littered with dishonesty and corruption. I was confused as to how this could have happened but then I had to remember that being a successful general and being a successful president are two totally different things. To be fair, none of the scandals involved Grant personally, aiding the idea that Grant was, personally, honest and aboveboard. However, I believe that he was notoriously lax when it came to his associates’ morals and a little too easy-going to stop any funny business from happening.
No comments:
Post a Comment