Gary Gallagher: observation

Transcript context

…So he’d known a lot of failure, he’d known a lot of setbacks, and his wartime record shows that he’d learned to deal with those things. He had a great, tremendous relationship with his wife, a very strong family life, a family he loved. I think that was the rock for him. But during the war, what he exhibited was an absolute willingness to break rules, to take risks, to take responsibility for what he was doing, whether it was a success or a failure, and not to be cast down by things that didn’t work. If something didn’t work, he’d say, “Okay, that didn’t work. Now let’s do this.” He very famously, when he got to Virginia in 1864 and took over the Army of the Potomac, he had all these subordinates who were saying, “Well, what if General Lee does this? What if General Lee does that?” He finally said, “Why don’t we start– let’s not worry about what General Lee is gonna do and let General Lee worry about what we’re going to do?” I mean, he just had… He was unflappable under stress. He was the perfect person to end up heading the Union armies, and he and Lincoln– And Lincoln realized that, and he proved indispensable. But he has this reputation as a butcher, Grant the Butcher. That’s something that former Confederates and some Democrats in the North fastened on him. His preferred way of fighting wasn’t just kind of slug it out. It’s really interesting to compare his record in the war and Lee’s record in the war before they wound up opposing each other in Virginia in a really bloody overland campaign. Grant’s total casualties in all his great battles before they met were 37,000. Lee’s were over 98,000- … in the same period. The bloodiest general in US history by far in terms of how many of his men get shot is Robert E. Lee. The most careful demographic study of any Civil War army is one done of Lee’s army by a scholar named Joe Glatthaar, and Joe figured out that if you were a soldier in Robert E. Lee’s army, you had a 73% chance of becoming a casualty. 73%. Grant’s casualties get high when he runs into Robert E. Lee, just like everybody else. So the butcher tag is completely unfair about Grant. He’s also known as a drunk, and people have gone back and forth on that, whether he just had a weakness, couldn’t hold his alcohol very well or was okay as long as his wife was around and he had a key staff officer to help him. and people have gone back and forth on that, whether he just had a weakness, couldn’t hold his alcohol very well or was okay as long as his wife was around and he had a key staff officer to help him. The point is, alcohol never got in the way of anything Grant did during the war, and he had a superlative record of delivering victories when the United States needed them, and Lincoln figured that out. And the absolute proof of his stature because of this is that in the March of 1864, Congress decided to dust off the rank of three-star general, lieutenant general, and give it to Grant. The only person who’d ever had that rank was George Washington, the man, Jorge. I mean, he is the man. And so they are saying, “Okay, Grant, you get the rank the man had,” and that shows there’s never been anyone else who got it. You’re the first. And then he would also be the first to get a four-star rank in the United States Army. That… There couldn’t be a better indication of his stature than that he got R- Washington’s rank. Winfield Scott had had it by brevet. Grant got the actual rank. So in part, the Grant the Butcher label was from the Overland Campaign that we’ll talk about-…

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