GEORGE: Reviewing the life of Gen. Grant – Valdosta Daily Times

For years, Ive wanted to read the memoirs of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, especially since Id heard that Mark Twain was the moving force behind Grants writing. I imagined that there would be a lot of humor in the retelling of the Civil War. How dumb can you be?

Later, I found out that all of the memoir was written exclusively by Grant, and Twains role was mainly to encourage and promote the book for his own company and for profit. One only has to start reading to see that Grants style is strictly his own; just the facts, maam is the way he writes.

Also, I knew that Grant was known to have a drinking problem, and since addiction runs in my family, I was curious to how see how Grant was able to be a winning general and still be an alcoholic.

But at first, the size of the book I ordered, 784 pages, put me off. On opening it, I found that half of every page was comprised of footnotes, detailed listings of every mans name Grant mentioned, the birth, death, schooling and all other pertinent information, such as what each man did after the war.

Numbers of casualties and those missing were also corrected if they did not agree with Grants numbers. I soon found the footnote facts almost as interesting as what Grant was writing about. Everyone, whether they know it or not, has had a fascinating life and worthy of being written about.

As most people are aware, after the war and after his presidency, Grant had serious financial problems. He was often taken advantage of, not realizing how duplicitous some people can be. A Ponzi scheme was the final blow to his and his extended familys fortunes.

All the while writing the memoir, Grant had serious physical maladies, a fall on ice that left him partly crippled and mouth cancer that eventually killed him. In spite of these problems, Grant wrote five to seven hours each day until, on July 20, 1885, he laid down his pencil for the last time.

What makes Grants Memoirs so appealing to readers is his humility about himself and his infrequent criticism of others. Henry James found the Memoirs to be as hard and dry as sandpaper, but great is the name, when so great a bareness practically blooms.

Later readers, such as Gore Vidal, said, It is simply not possible to read Grants Memoirs without realizing that the author is a man of first-rate intelligence. His book is a classic.

Robert Johnson, a Century Magazine editor, gave Grant the best writing advice. Johnson told Grant to write as though he were speaking to a group of friends after dinner.

In the beginning, Grant quickly deals with his education and family, and that at the age of 7 or 8, he began hauling all the wood used in the house and shops. At 11, he was finally strong enough to hold a plough. And from that age until he was 17, he did all the work with horses, which gave him a life-long consideration of animals and forage.

Two other telling incidents gave Grant a life-long disdain for fancy uniforms.

When he was accepted to West Point, the tailored uniform came, and wearing it, Grant rode out, thinking how grand he looked. A little dirty ragamuffin, his own clothes in tatters, called out: Soldier! Will you work? No siree; Ill sell my shirt first. The other circumstance was closer to home, when a barefooted stable-man, dissipated but possessed of some humor paraded the streets wearing a pair of sky-blue trousers, just like Grants, with a strip of white cotton sewn down the outside seams.

The Mexican War was where Grant actually cut his teeth and learned what war was all about. He saw how little interest the actual soldiers had in the results of the war and how little knowledge they had of what it was all about.

The main thing for them was being fed and feeding the horses and mules that the army ran on. General Taylor in the Mexican War made a great impression on Grant, going about dressed entirely for comfort, sitting sideways on his horse the better to see the battle, and not often having staff following him. Taylor was not a conversationalist but wrote out orders so plainly there was no mistaking their meaning.

In the first part of the Memoir, Grant writes much on the Mexican War, seeing it as an unjust war, a stronger country against a weaker one in order to acquire territory, an instance of a republic following the bad actions of the European monarchies. One should never forget that a large portion of the West was taken from Mexico by force.

Grant also states several times that the Civil War was one fought solely to have slavery abolished. He hopes that as time passes and a true history is written that there will be no celebrations for either side, that people will realize that slavery was unjustified, no matter how it was framed, equating it to the practice of polygamy.

As a major-general in the Civil War, Grant carries the lessons of food for the soldiers and forage for animals into his directions down to the smallest details. At the end of a long plan of attack, he writes: Require your men to keep three days rations in their haversacks, not to be touched until a movement commences.

He also pays close attention to terrain, how hills and water play a big part in winning a battle. Often alone in the early morning hours, he would go out and survey the battle lines. That the scouts on the other side never fired on him was a mystery, although he was sure they recognized him. But I think it reflects the honorable conduct of the men of that era, true gentlemen.

There are very few moments of levity in Grants writing. He writes of those who traveled over the Isthmus of Panama, and says: the natives were not inconveniently burdened with clothing.

In one long passage, a reader has to ferret out Grants meaning, that he had a superstition that he should never apply for a position, but if it is given to him than he should do the job to the best of his ability. Early on, hes told he should ask for a position as a cavalry officer, and he says, hed rather cut off his right arm. Also, Grant relates, without comment, of how Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, often, before and after the war, calls himself a superior military genius.

Grant does show his own genius in using Shermans army to cut off all of Georgias food and forage supplies to the Confederacy. Sherman, himself, relates how the sweet potatoes seemed to pop up out of the Georgia soil.

But to me, the most telling story is that after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, he remarked to Grant that his troops were in bad condition for want of food, and had been living for some days on parched corn and that he would have to ask for rations. Grant answered, Certainly and asked for how many. Lee said, Twenty-five thousand.

In the October 2017 issue of The New Yorker, (given to me by Norman LaHood) an article by Adam Gopnik, Shot of Courage reviews Ron Chernows book, "Grant," and Grants conduct during the Civil War and his presidency. He admits to Grants addiction, but like Lincoln, who when told that Grant was drinking whiskey, said, Please send a keg of whatever hes drinking to my other generals. I would advise anyone even slightly interested in the Civil War to read that book and that article.

Times are a bit hard now with this virus that seems to pop up every hundred years or so, but when one thinks of all the U.S. has been through: the American Revolution, (5,000 dead), the Civil War, (700,000 dead), World War I, (68,000 dead), the influenza of 1918, (200 million dead), World War II, (417,000), its a wonder we still exist.

Keep praying that we are a nation that stands for truth and justice, even if its sometimes obscured, and therefore will not be like other empires, doomed to fail.

Roberta George is a resident of Valdosta and the founding publisher of the Snake Nation Press.

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GEORGE: Reviewing the life of Gen. Grant - Valdosta Daily Times