Grant's Final Victory by Charles Bracelen Flood

Grant's Final Victory

I recently bought Grant's Final Victory by Charles Bracelen Flood. The book is not about any of Grant's war experiences or his term as president, but only covers the last year of his life. Flood does an excellent job with this story. Although, I like a few pages finishing it, I can go ahead and recommend this book. I found it difficult to put down. It's just one of those books that gets a grip on you and you can't stop. Flood is an excellent story teller. It reminded me of a book I had read years ago about Robert Edward Lee after the Civil War. That book is called Lee: The Last Years. I went and looked in my book case among my 450 Civil War books and sure enough, Charles Flood had written that book as well. 

Lee: The Last Years also by Flood

       I strongly recommend both books by Charles Flood. The book is very readable, but one must take caution with certain points. Charles obviously idolizes Grant. He would make it appear that Grant was truthful in his biography and this is the part I have trouble with. Although, there are problems with things Grant said in his biography, this is a very good book about the last years of Grant's life. I'm a southerner and I love everything the South stood for, yet I respect Grant. Unlike his counterpart William T. Sherman, being a victor, he could forgive the south for what he saw as wrong. Grant could respect what his enemies stood for.
       He understood as the book by Flood states that the founding fathers would have included the word secession if they'd have know the county would have gone to war and cost the county nearly a million men to decide whether a state could secede. Grant actually said that he believed the founding fathers would have placed the exact words in the constitution to avoid a war like the nation endured. He truly believed the constitution protected the individual states from being forced to remain in the Federal union. 
       I've been around these northern born historians that have been given the head job in Southern battlefields, etc., and I can tell you there is no mistake about the power they have been given. I have friends that were battlefield guides and were fired because they were Southern born. All you have to do is contact a great friend of mine named Heath Mathews and he will definitely tell you how the world has changed in order to be politically correct. To hell with the true history of our nation as long as we all bow down to what the world wants us to believe in this day and time. I will speak the truth and hell with changing history to impress the ones that want people change history for their own purposes or votes. 

Civil War ego's: Grant and Banks

Nathaniel Prentiss Banks

       Ever wonder why certain generals of the Civil War were more loved by their men than others? I have a theory. First, let me set the stage.

       When Nathaniel Prentiss Banks ordered his second assault on Port Hudson against Franklin Gardner's entrenched Confederate troops, he suffered over 1500 casualties in a very short time. His wounded lay suffering in the hot July sun and when the Southern troops attempted to go assist these poor men, they were fired on by the Federals on Banks' orders. Gardner sent a flag of truce to Banks asking for a truce that his men may go out and bury Banks' dead, Banks replied that he had no dead on the field. 

       One of Banks' subordinates, General William Dwight had several Confederate officers send him messages asking for a truce to bury the dead and tend the wounded. Dwight replied, "No, sir, it is a strategem of the enemy to get the dead carcasses carried away from their works. No sir. I'll stink the rebels out of the citadel with the dead bodies of these damned volunteers. If I cannot make the cowards take it by storm, as I have ordered them to do." Surprisingly, Dwight wasn't very loved by his troops either. The bodies of his troops lay on the field as the bones were picked clean by vultures until the siege ended. 

Ulysses Grant

       Many present day historians have attempted to re-write history by attempting to show what everyone during Civil War times knew about the man. Grant was nicknamed the "butcher" and apparently for good reason. More importantly, it wasn't the people of the southern states who gave Grant this nickname, but his own people. 

       After Grant's assault at Vicksburg, hundreds of dead and wounded lay between the lines in the Mississippi sun. The cries of the wounded caused Confederate troops to venture out in the night to give these poor men water. Confederate General James Pemberton asked Grant for a truce so Grant could bury his dead and recover the wounded. Pemberton even told Grant the southern troops would do this for Grant if he didn't want to care for his own men. Grant refused citing that it would appear a weakness on his part to call a truce. The Confederate soldiers complained that Grant was attempting to stink them out of Vicksburg because he couldn't take it. Finally, Grant's own medical staff warned Grant that the bodies were bound to cause health and sanitation problems if not buried. Grant then relented. 

       After the bloody assaults at Cold Harbor which inflicted 9000 casualties on Grant's army, he found himself again with hundreds of dead and wounded between the lines. Lee's men had been entrenched and therefore had no bodies between the lines. Hancock asked his commander to ask for a truce to care for the wounded and bury the dead. 

       Grant understood that to ask Lee for a truce was the same as admitting he had been defeated in the climactic battle of his first campaign in the east. Therefore, he wrote Lee saying it has been reported to me there are wounded between the lines of both armies. If it was alright with Lee, anyone along the line could call a truce to attend these men. The wording of the note to Lee made it appear that Grant had been too busy to notice there were wounded men between the lines.

       Lee worried about misunderstandings with anyone along the line calling temporary truces replied to Grant that he would agree to a truce if Grant desired one, but it should be done by the commanders, not individual soldiers. Grant decided to pretend he misunderstood Lee. He wrote Lee saying he understood Lee wanted a flag of truce and would send the men out at noon the next day. 

       Lee was forced to write Grant again apologizing that he had not made himself clear. He stated that for a truce to be made it should be sent from one army commander to another in the proper military way. Grant finally conceded and requested the truce, but by the time he did so it was too late and the wounded lay between the lines another night. 

       It is interesting to note, that while Lee was eventually defeated by Grant, it is Lee who was more respected by his men. Although, some modern historians want us to think Grant was not what history labeled him, one can understand how he earned his nickname. His ego certainly ruled his decision making at times, where a commander who loved his men would have realized his mistake and asked for a truce right away. Of course there were commanders who cared too much for their men. Two such generals were McClellan and Joe Johnston who often refused to fight for fear of losing any men. These type men are poor commanders also. There is a fine line between a general who cares for his men and yet is able to send them to their deaths. Lee is an example of just that type commander. 

       

Grant vs. Hood: Who was the better commander?

John Bell Hood and Ulysses Grant

       The title of this blog may be a bit deceiving. General Grant has long been considered a military genius by some and a butcher by others. General Hood has been declared one of the worst army commanders of the Civil War. I would like to take this opportunity to look at the various strategies employed by each man and let us see if one general is truly a better commander than the other. 

       Why, you might ask would I compare two generals who never faced each other in battle. Historians have compared Grant and Lee to the extent that nothing further needs to be written on the subject. I’m interested in comparing Grant with Hood because both men seem to be vastly misunderstood as military commanders. 

       First, we’ll look at how Grant got the reputation of being a butcher. At Forts Donelson and Shiloh, he allowed his army to be surprised by the Confederate Army because he under-estimated his enemies will to fight. At Vicksburg, he was forced to settle the affair by siege only after having failed with frontal assaults. Then he made a frontal assault at Chattanooga that succeeded, mostly due to the ineptness of Braxton Bragg. 

       

Grant's Overland Campaign

       He then was promoted to lieutenant general and went to oversee the Army of the Potomac for the rest of the war. There he was attacked by Lee in the Wilderness. He then attempted to turn Lee and having failed, he assaulted Lee’s entrenchments at Spotsylvania. He again attempted to turn Lee and because of over-aggressiveness, he almost placed his men in a trap at the North Anna River. He then tried to turn Lee again and failing again, attacked entrenchments at Cold Harbor. The question remains, why could men like Lee and Jackson turn their enemy’s flank while Grant failed each time. 

       Many historians claim it was because Lee understood his enemy so well. There is some truth in this analysis, but I believe there is a little more to it than just that. More on that later.

       John Bell Hood didn’t begin his career as an army commander until the summer of 1864. He inherited an army that had been mismanaged the entire war. Hood faced an army almost twice as large as his own and attempted to do what Lee had done early in the war and that was to offset the enemy’s numerical advantage by maneuver. 

       The Battle of Atlanta was a near perfect copy of Lee’s flank movement at Chancellorsville, a little over a year earlier. Because of his subordinates failures and some good luck within the Federal army, he didn’t obtain the same results.

Atlanta

Chancellorsville

       The move he made at Columbia, Tennessee was a near copy of Lee’s move against Pope during the Second Manassas Campaign. He used two divisions to hold Schofield in place and marched around his left flank with the rest of his army. He arrived in Spring Hill, Tennessee in Schofield’s rear to only allow him to escape because of confusion within his ranks. He then made the greatest mistake of his career by attacking an entrenched Federal Army at Franklin. The result was the same as Grant’s assault at Cold Harbor, the only difference was at that point of the war, the South could ill afford to lose men. 

Hood's plan to destroy Schofield at Spring Hill

       In one sense, you can say that Hood’s move at Columbia worked. He arrived in Schfofield’s rear in time to trap his army. Grant was never able to accomplish this. How did Hood’s turning movement at Atlanta and Columbia almost succeed while Grant’s weren’t nearly as close?

       The answer lies in several factors. From the beginning of the war the Confederate’s (especially Lee) utilized their cavalry. The only time Lee was caught off guard was at Gettysburg when he allowed his cavalry to get away from him. At Chancellorsville, it was Lee’s cavalry that discovered Hooker’s right flank in the air. Hooker had sent his cavalry on a raid which accomplished nothing at a time when Hooker needed valuable information. 

       Meade and Sheridan had a serious disagreement about the use of cavalry in Virginia. Meade wanted to use his cavalry as Lee did, gathering information about the enemy. Sheridan wanted to attack Lee’s cavalry by raiding. Meade had been with the Army of the Potomac from the beginning. He had seen how a lack of cavalry impaired an army. Grant naturally sided with his friend Sheridan. While Grant was facing Lee during most of the spring Campaign of 1864, Sheridan was off making raids. 

       At Atlanta, Hood had Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry cover the advance of the flanking movement of Hardee’s Corps and then instructed him to take the Army of the Tennessee’s supply train. Wheeler bungled the latter job, claiming there was an infantry force too large for him to break when in fact he could have easily accomplished the job. (Wheeler was one of the most overrated cavalrymen of the war, but that’s for another blog.)

       There is another factor that most historians overlook when understanding why Grant’s turning movements always failed. While Lee and Hood left a portion of their armies facing the enemy to hold them in place, Grant would take his entire army out of line and march away. It didn’t take a genius to realize he was making some sort of movement when the entrenchments are empty. If Grant would have took a lesson from Lee or Hood and left men in the trenches and took a portion of his army around the flank, he may have ended the war far earlier and with a lot less losses. 

       When Grant removed his entire army from the front of Lee’s Army and moved away without cavalry, he had no idea where his enemy was. Lee with the help of cavalry could pretty much keep up with where Grant was headed. 

       The one time he did make this kind of move was in front of Richmond after Cold Harbor. He left men in the trenches facing Lee and marched a large part of his army across the James River to attack Petersburg. This movement, much like Hood’s would have succeeded if his subordinates hadn’t been so cautious. There was hardly a force available to stop the Federal Army from taking Petersburg, but because of their caution, Lee was able to move reinforcements up in time to save the town.

       If you look at the two commanders by how they used strategy, you would have to say that Hood better understood battlefield strategy than Grant. Hood was very poor at logistics, but as far as strategy, his plans looked just like his hero Robert E. Lee. By 1864, Hood was in the same shape as Lee, he had no Stonewall Jackson to help him carry out his plans. 

       Grant had a staff that was superb at logistics. He also had the will to continue hammering away at his enemy. He proved that at Vicksburg when he hammered away at Pemberton almost a year. Although the man grew frustrated, he never threw in the towel and gave  up. 

A Very Difficult Book To Read

       I'll post a blog a little later, but at the moment I would like to talk about a book I am currently forcing myself to finish reading. Being a writer, I don't normally like to bash another author's book, but I would like to let everyone know to skip this one and save your money.

       The title is Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not A Butcher by Edward Bonekemper. I've only read one hundred of the two hundred and sixty-six pages and maybe I can explain why. So far, Mr. Bonekemper has gone through  the campaigns in which General Grant was involved. I've made it to the Vicksburg Campaign. Mr. Bonekemper seems to be a little lax with facts. 

       The back of the book says that the author "restores Grant's heroic reputation and silences his critics". Becoming frustrated with the book, I decided to skip ahead and see how far this following of Grant's campaigns will go before he begins to convince me that Grant was a military genius. I've found the book acts as a biography of Grant's career and nothing more. The cover of the book will tempt you to buy it, but you find nothing inside thats mentioned on the cover. 

       It seems General Grant is a personal hero of Mr. Bonekemper and he has allowed his personal thoughts on his subject to interfere with writing the truth of the subject. I'll give you one example and there are many more. He says that Grant had a grand plan for the destruction of Confederate General Price's army at Iuka, Mississippi. According to Mr. Bonekemper, Grant's subordinates failed him. He goes on to say that Rosecrans fought the battle, while Ord sat by idly doing nothing. This is true, but he fails to mention that Grant was with Ord and he was the ranking officer. The author then goes on to double the Confederate army's casualties to show that Rosecrans had the battle won alone and failed to follow up the victory. 

       I have over 400 books on the Civil War and rarely do I criticize an author, but I have to admit this guy has rewritten history in his own mind. Grant is not a hero of mine, but he also wasn't an idiot. I thought this guy would publish facts to make his point, but I guess some of the facts he needed just weren't there. 

       Thanks for listening to my rant. I'll get another story posted sometime today. Tim.