Grant and His Generals

Based on 40 years of research on the Civil War, this book portrays little-known, but dramatic events incident to General Ulysses Grant's leadership of the Union armies.Grant's Civil War career is a bright parenthesis in a long paragraph of failure. He failed as an officer in the old army; not indeed in the Mexican War itself, but thereafter, when he left the army under a cloud. He failed as a farmer; as a real-estate agent; in the opinion of many, as a President; and as a banker. But from Belmont to Appomattox, meeting and defeating one after another the ablest generals the South could pit against him, from Albert Sidney Johnston to Robert E. Lee, he enjoyed an unbroken record of victory and success.That success has puzzled many a student. How shall we account for it? Badeau, Grant's military secretary, said that neither he nor the other members of the staff knew why Grant succeeded. They believed in him 'because of his success.' Perhaps Sherman approached as nearly as anyone the secret; writing to Grant after he had been appointed lieutenant-general and commander of all the armies, he said: 'The chief characteristic of your nature is the simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in his Saviour.'A great personality always embodies intangibles which elude classification and baffle definition. Undoubtedly, one of the best ways to study Grant and penetrate to the heart and mind of this in many ways inscrutable character is to regard him in the light of his personal and military association with the leading officers who labored with him.