- Processing up to p18. - Finished: [[September 20th, 2022]] - [[∙Melvil Decimal System (DDC)]] - [[9 - History and Geography]] - [[97 - North America]] - [[973 - United States]] - [[973.8 - 1865-1901]] - [[973.82 - Ulysses Grant]] - **Review** - This is very good. It's a long one, at 959 readable pages, but the vast bulk of those are endlessly readable. This is my first book on Ulysses S. Grant, so I'm no expert. But Chernow manages to personify him beautifully throughout. He comes alive and come the end I had a very good and strong __sense__ of the man. And what on paper (no pun intended) should be a rather boring personality, achievements notwithstanding, becomes one of intrigue and sympathy. /// And talking of sympathy, Chernow seems to have a lot of it for Grant. I wouldn't say this is an out and out hagiography, but it's clear early on – even to someone like me who's fairly unfamiliar with Grant – that this a defence of Grant and he is Chernow's 'man'. Full on blame is rarely put onto him. And whilst some accusations (especially when it comes to his drinking) are quite thoroughly and roundly debunked, others are given a brief paragraph by the author where he essentially throws his hands up in his defence. /// I'll be honest, my limited impression was the cliches and that involved his drinking to. In my ignorant head his drinking was well known and not subtle. He was a remarkable man, and yes he was also an alcoholic, who took a bottle of whisky to bed with him each night. Chernow's Grant is essentially someone who has occasional binges. His propensity for drink rears its ugly head via occasional flareups of binge drinking, with the only real hangover being a political and reputational one. The man drinks less than I. If anything, I admired his ability to avoid drink. He clearly had a problem and he was always either in the job of soldiering and stressful leadership or relative poverty, all things that often lead many to find to relief in the bottle. His regular abstinence is a miracle. /// Chernow's writing is mostly to the point and doesn't dwell or linger. It moves along at a fair lick and focuses on events and people and important details. It didn't talk too much about the minutiae of battle tactics, which for me was a plus, but for others will be a negative. However, I don't know if it's just my lack of interest in politics are the writing, but the second half of the book when Grant got involved in politics for me was no where near as good as the first. Things are often dispassionately described and it didn't become a tiny bit of a slog for me. /// Overall this is a great book. I delighted opening it each day and it worth both your cash and your time. Even if you stop reading 500 pages in once the political Grant comes to the fold it would still be worth buying this book. 8/10 - **Reading** - [[August 18th, 2022]]: 66 pages (p288 - p354) - **Further reading** - The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant - A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - [American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1400069025/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=gs2&linkId=440027986bc9f2e9cf92b56aefe80d1d&tag=bpbuk01-21) ([via](https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2020/06/14/review-of-grant-by-ron-chernow/)) - [Grant by Jean Edward Smith](https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2014/09/13/review-of-grant-by-jean-edward-smith/) - [[“The Last Emperor of Mexico: A Disaster in the New World” by Edward Shawcross]] - **Links** - A [good review](https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2020/06/14/review-of-grant-by-ron-chernow/) of the book, and one I agree with. - **People** - **[[Jesse Grant]]** - Father of [[Ulysses S. Grant]] - **[[Julia Grant]]** - Came from a household that had 10-30 slaves. - Wasn’t considered a beauty and had a lazy eye. But Grant adored her. And she him. - Grant could open up around her. - She propped up Grant. Supporting him and giving him confidence. - **Henry W. Helleck** - Introduced on page 162. - Wrote a textbook on the ‘military art’. He was very much a theoretical commander and wasn’t usually near the front lines. - Was an odd looking fellow with uneven eyes. - Lincoln considered him a “pe - **[[William Tecumseh Sherman]]** - Introduced page 191. - Very friendly with Grant. They both suffered from depression. - **Albert Sidney Johnston** - Introduced on page 198. - **Pierre G. T. Beauregard** - Introduced on page 198. - **John Eaton** - Introduced page 229. - Grant named him superintendent of contraband. AKA he was in charge of the runaway slaves that came to the Union army looking for help. - **[[John Alexander McClernand]]** - Introduced p237. - Friend of [[Abraham Lincoln]]. - [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]] - Introduced page 239. - > In mid-December, Forrest initiated a terrifying campaign against Union garrisons and cavalry in western Tennessee, ripping up railroad and telegraph lines and killing Union troops. A handsome man with blue eyes and steel-gray hair, a former slave dealer and planter with little formal schooling and no military training, Forrest was legendary for his ferocity in battle. In one newspaper advertisement for recruits, he exhorted them: "Come on, boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill some Yankees."7⁹ Like Grant, Forrest was known for demanding "unconditional surrender" from opponents. His rapid-fire, zigzagging movements on horseback perplexed Union cavalry. Though never intimidated by Forrest, Grant respected, even dreaded, his prowess. He thought him peerless among Confederate cavalry officers because his methods were so unorthodox and unpredictable. - Confederate leader. - [[Edwin Stanton]] - Summarised on p 306. - Secretary of War for most the US Civil War. - [[George Thomas]] - Introduced p313. - Never got on too well with [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. But Grant respected him for what he did. Though in war found him “too slow to move, and too brave to run away”. - [[Braxton Bragg]] - Introduced p316. - > At Chattanooga, Grant profited from knowledge of his Confederate counterpart, Braxton Bragg, a North Carolina native and West Point graduate, who had met Grant during the Mexican War and later worked as a Louisiana sugar planter. A cold martinet with a gaunt, narrow face and beetling brows, Bragg had flashing eyes that suggested his combustible temperament. However much Grant respected his professionalism, he knew "he was possessed of an irascible was naturally disputatious." A stickler for rules, Bragg took sadistemper, and tic delight in punishing people for violations, forcing fellow soldiers to witness executions of deserters. "He loved to crush the spirit of his men," said a soldier. “Not a single soldier in the whole army ever loved or respected him."¹7 Whatever the dislike of his troops, Bragg had won significant victories at Perryville, Stones River, and Chickamauga and never shed the unqualified trust of his main supporter, Jefferson Davis. - Confederate. - Was at West Point. - Had a temper. - A stickler for rules. He was overly harsh with his men. Made soldiers witness the executions of deserters. - [[Joseph Hooker]] - Hard drinking, the soldiers under his command were ill-disciplined and known for drinking and whoring. - [[Ulysses S. Grant]] didn’t like him. Found him egotistical. - [[George Meade]] - Introduced p345. - > In many ways, George Gordon Meade was the antithesis of Grant. A patrician figure from Philadelphia, fluent in French, he had graduated from West Point and was well versed in military literature. With a gaunt, sallow face, bald graying beard, he had bags drooping below eyes that bulged behind oversize spectacles. Meade was forever jealous of his reputation. Thin-skinned and cantankerous, he seldom enjoyed calm moments and grew easily upset, spluttering with ungovernable rage whenever his pride was injured. This led to his nickname, the Old Goggle-Eyed Snapping Turtle, and it wasn't meant affectionately. His battlefield style was frenetic: he would explode with colossal energy, curse a blue streak, with fury behind the lines. "No man, no matter what his business or his then pace service, approached him without being insulted in one way or another," Charles Dana wrote, "and his own staff officers did not dare to speak to him unless first”. Meade later became notorious spoken to, for fear of either sneers or curses. when he seized a reporter who had criticized him, hung a among the the press corps scurrilous sign around his neck that said "Libeler of the Press," placed him backward on a mule, and ran him out of camp. For all his flaws, Meade was a competent commander and an experienced professional and was recognized as such by When apprised the year before that Meade had taken command of the Army of the Potomac, Robert E. Lee reacted respectfully, saying Meade "would commit no blunders on my front, and if I make one he will make haste to take advantage of it."Still, his failure to pursue Lee after Gettysburg revealed that Meade was not a bold, enterprising leader in the mold of either Grant or Lee. - [[Adam Badeau]] - Introduced in p364. - > Another aide new to Grant showed a literary flair comparable to Porter's. Adam Badeau joined the team of military scribes whom Grant termed his “men with quills behind their ears.” A short, stout young man, with glasses and a ruddy complexion, Badeau was emotional, high-strung, and voluble, with a weakness for alcohol that later marred his career. Born into a wealthy family, he lost his parents at an early age, but inherited enough money to attend tony boarding schools. In New York in the late 1850s, he earned a reputation as a witty commentator on culture, fashion, theater, and society for the Sunday Times. He was also a social climber and sycophant who latched on to celebrities. After seeing him in Richard III, he became smitten with Edwin Booth's exceptional talent, which far outpaced that of his brother, John Wilkes. /// Badeau became Booth's journalistic champion, literary tutor, and patron in New York society. There was something vain and pretentious about Badeau, who was prone to hero worship intermixed with underlying envy and resentment. He would attach himself to gifted, powerful men, only to turn against them. He presented himself as the trusted counselor who would groom Edwin Booth for higher levels of artistry, yet when Booth married in July 1860, Badeau felt displaced from his affection. When spurned, Badeau could turn vicious, and this, too, set a pattern later repeated with Grant. In June 1863, Badeau suffered a foot wound at Port Hudson and recuperated in New York City under the care of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth. He was still hobbling on crutches when he came to Grant and started a lasting relationship as his secretary. /// In time, Badeau emerged as the authorized historian of Grant's military campaigns and was mesmerized by the huge riddle of Grant's personality. He detected a subtle tension between the inner and outer man, a "suppressed intensity,' while "the whole man was a marvel of simplicity, a powerful nature veiled in the plainest possible exterior." Long before Grant penned his Memoirs, Badeau noted his concise style of expression: "In utterance he was slow and sometimes embarrassed, but the words were well-chosen, never leaving the remotest doubt”. Grant's thoughts could seem closed and impenetrable until battle came and his entire mind sprang into action. Then his the "utterance was prompt, the ideas were rapid, the judgment was decisive whole man became intense as it were with a white heat." - [[Benjamin Butler]] - Introduced page 371. - [[William F. Smith]] - Introduced page 421. - > Ever since Chattanooga, Grant had esteemed Brigadier General William F. “Baldy” Smith, a Vermont native who attended West Point with him. Short and stout, with a Vandyke beard, Smith had a sharp analytic mind that he applied to opening the "cracker line" that fed ravenous Union troops in Chattanooga. Grateful for this breakthrough, Grant endorsed his elevation to major general. “[Smith] is possessed of one of the clearest Military heads in the Army, is very practical, and industrious," he told Stanton. "No man in the service is better qualified than he for our largest command."But Smith frequently made enemies, sniped privately at other generals, and fumed whenever Grant ignored his advice. His subordination to Ben Butler so grated on him that he swore to his wife that "I cannot live under this man much longer."Smith was no less antagonistic toward Meade, complaining to Grant that he was "as helpless as a child on the field of battle and as visionary as an opium eater in council," and he challenged Grant to explain why he tolerated such barefaced ineptitude. /// Gradually Grant's enthusiasm for Smith cooled since he didn't care for grum- a blers and Smith was a professional malcontent. That May, Grant had written that Smith was "obstinate, and is likely to condemn whatever is not suggested by himself.”²³ In mid-June, Smith sat down with Grant and delivered a harsh critique of the Overland Campaign, pouring blame on Meade: "I tried to show [Grant] the blunders of the late campaign of the Army of the Potomac, and the terrible waste of life that had resulted from what I had considered a want of generalship in its present commander. Among other instances, I referred to the fearful slaughter at Cold Harbor on the 3d of June." According to Smith, Grant conceded there had been "butchery" at Cold Harbor, but thought it pointless to criticize Meade. Smith believed his rank entitled him to such candor, though it must have strengthened Grant's view of him as notoriously quarrelsome and vindictive. The touchy relationship between the two men formed the backdrop to a controversy that now unfolded. - [[Ambrose Burnside]] - > Aside from the drubbing Lee gave him at Fredericksburg, Ambrose Burnside is best known to history for his flourishing side-whiskers, called "sideburns” in homage to him, and the massive bald dome of his head. Elegant, gracious in his manners, he was, like Rosecrans, popular and respected, but, in Grant's estimation, scarcely "fitted to command an army. No one knew this better than himself. He always admitted his blunders, and extenuated those of officers under him beyond what they were entitled to." p428 - [[Philip Sheridan]] - Introduced p432. - > Born to poor Irish parents and reared in Somerset, Ohio, Sheridan, thirtythree, had fiery eyes, high cheekbones, and a handlebar mustache. He had been a middling student at West Point, his stay troubled by disciplinary problems. Already betraying a turbulent nature, he was suspended for a year after menacing a Virginia student with a bayonet. People tended to find "Little Phil," bowlegged and five feet five inches tall, risible in appearance, and Lincoln famously mocked him as "a brown, chunky little chap, with a long body, short legs, not enough neck to hang him, and such long arms that if his ankles itch he can scratch them without stooping."75 George Templeton Strong wisecracked that Sheridan had “hair so short that it looks like a coat of black paint." /// Sheridan moved with a vigorous stride. An inspirational force in battle, mounted on his black horse Rienzi, he seemed to be everywhere at once, a whirlwind of martial ardor. It was a matter of pride with him to fight in the front ranks, to which his men responded with adoration. "With the first smell of powder," said a journalist, "he became a blazing meteor, a pillar of fire to guide his own hosts."77 Hotheaded, profane, excessively sure of himself, he never backed down or ran from trouble and was known for his salty comments. Like Grant, Sheridan had a pugnacity that refused to quit, and Sherman described him as "a persevering terrier dog, honest, modest, plucky and smart enough. Quite unlike Grant, Sheridan was blunt and hard-drinking and almost foamed at the mouth when angry. /// A superb judge of military talent, Grant made few errors in the generals he selected or cashiered. When he first met Sheridan at a railway station early in the war, Grant found him “brusque and rough," but he came to glory in his high spirits. Most of all, he prized Sheridan's thorough preparations for battle and the very magnetic presence, sometimes rating him higher than Sherman. "He belongs to first rank of soldiers, not only of our country but of the world," Grant later commented. “I rank Sheridan with Napoleon and Frederick and the great commanders in history.” If there was an element of fraternal rivalry in Grant's relationship with Sherman, he displayed a purely paternal regard for Sheridan and was "as proud as a mother of a handsome son," said Augustus Chetlain. Sheridan reciprocated this high regard, saying Grant "inspired me with confidence; he was so self-contained, and made you feel that there was a heap more in him than you had found out." p432 - [[Andrew Johnson]] - Introduced p531. - > ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS RUDELY SNATCHED away just as many Americans had learned to appreciate his benevolence and farsighted wartime leadership. Nobody could have served as a fit successor to Lincoln, but the rise of Andrew Johnson to the presidency was an especially cruel stroke for the nation. About five feet ten inches tall and solidly built, Johnson was a humorless, pugnacious man, thin-skinned and vindictive, with a fiercely turbulent expression and closeset, beady black eyes. He was placed on the ticket with Lincoln in 1864, not for outstanding talent or intelligence, but because Republicans hoped to broadcast their status as a full-fledged Union party by drafting a border state Democrat from Tennessee. As the only senator from a secession state to retain his seat in the U.S. Congress-a courageous stand that endeared him to Republicans-a heroic aura had burnished Andrew Johnson for a time. /// His accidental presidency started promisingly enough when he announced plans to retain members of Lincoln's cabinet. Widely accused of being drunk at Lincoln's second inaugural, he worked to project a more presidential demeanor. When George Templeton Strong visited his temporary office at the Treasury Department, where Johnson had hung two flags-the one draped over Lincoln's box at Ford's Theatre, the other showing the long gash where Booth's spur had slashed the fabric as he leapt to the stage-he was pleasantly surprised by Johnson's sedate behavior, finding him "dignified, urbane, and self-possessed.” /// The early life of this rough-hewn president contained remarkable features. Born in a log cabin, reared by poor, illiterate parents in North Carolina, he was apprenticed to a tailor and ran away as an adolescent to Tennessee, where he opened a tailor shop. In future years, he would always be faultlessly dressed, at least looking the part of a model politician. At age eighteen, he began to leave behind the trappings of frontier life when he married sixteen-year-old Eliza McCardle, a shoemaker's daughter, who taught him to read and write. Like Lincoln, Johnson became a fanatic for self-improvement, avoiding theater, gambling, and horse races and admitting he “never had much time for frivolity."54 As he prospered, he came to own five slaves, whom he freed in late 1863. Living among large landowners who condescended to him, he always felt like an outsider. Their patronizing attitude deposited a bitter residue in his nature, a seething resentment and profound ambivalence toward the planter class, whom he longed to ape and punish at once. /// A gifted debater, Johnson rose fast through the political ranks in Tennessee, starting as mayor of Greeneville before going to the state legislature and shifting from Whig to Democrat. He was determined to soar in politics, and a friend depicted his tumultuous career as "one intense, unceasing, desperate upward struggle."55 Before the Civil War, he progressed from congressman to two-term Tennessee governor to U.S. senator. The obstinate Johnson barged ahead with sharp elbows, and President James K. Polk, who came from his state, perceived him as "vindictive and perverse in his temper and conduct." An abrasive quality to Johnson's ambition tended to offend people and later left him isolated in the White House, where he trusted few people and dispensed with confidants. - Although Johnson portrayed himself as a tribune of the common people, his selective populism encompassed poor whites but excluded blacks. After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, he made a speech that held up slavery as beneficial. His talk was larded with tributes to "honest yeomen," mingled with tirades against the "pampered, bloated, corrupted aristocracy" that owned slaves.57 Somehow his sympathy never extended to the slaves themselves. - 10 When it came to preserving the Union during the war, Andrew Johnson was a brave, stalwart supporter. A rabble-rousing orator, he didn't mince words when South Carolina seceded, calling it "levying war against the United States" and accusing southern rebels of "treason. "58 It took immense courage for him to maintain this view, and he confronted threats and was burned in effigy for his outspoken stand. When the state capital of Nashville fell to the Union, Lincoln named Johnson military governor of the state, hoping he would mobilize support for the federal cause.59 He enforced Unionism in a bullheaded manner that antagonized people. As the journalist Henry Villard wrote, "He was doubtless a man of unusual natural parts, [but] had too violent a temper and was too much addicted to the common Southern habit of free indulgence in strong drink."60 By late 1863, Johnson had converted to abolitionism as part of his vendetta against the slavocracy, but not from any real regard for those in bondage. "Damn the Negroes," he insisted, "I am fighting those traitorous aristocrats, their masters. - »61 "Influenced by the Emancipation Proclamation, he told a delegation of free blacks in Nashville he would stand as their Moses, leading them "through the Red Sea of war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace."62 For Republicans, Johnson's nomination was perilous because he was a racist at heart and a robust Democrattwo flaws that could no longer be papered over once he became president. - Was Vice President to [[Abraham Lincoln]] and took over after his murder. He was a bad president for [[Reconstruction]]. A poor but proud man he hated the patrician slave owners. But he also disliked blacks and was very South friendly. His poor, racist made Reconstruction close to impossible to achieve. - [[William H. Seward]] - Introduced p556. - > During the war, Grant had grown acquainted with Seward when he visited the City Point headquarters. Henry Adams thought the secretary possessed "a head like a wise macaw," with its gray hair and thickly tufted eyebrows.56 Disfigured by a knife attack the day Lincoln was shot, Seward still bore an enormous scar on his right cheek. A short, affable man, he liked to smoke, drink, and hold court in a rasping voice, issuing oracular statements. Perhaps it was inevitable that Grant and Seward would clash: Grant was blunt and straightforward in style, while Seward prided himself on being a master of diplomatic wiles. In time, Grant came to think that Seward had sacrificed his principles to retain his influence under President Johnson. - [[Ebenezer R. Hoar]] - Grant’s Attorney General. - Introduced p627. - > Grant's fealty to Reconstruction appeared in his choice of an attorney general, whose portfolio would be central to protecting black rights in the South. He turned to Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, a bespectacled Republican with a grizzled beard, who was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard College and Law School. A former member of the Free-Soil Party, an upright gentleman of starchy integrity, he had served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court where he used sarcasm to savage lesser mortals. "When on the bench," wrote an observer, "he was said to be unhappy because he could not decide against both litigants."In Boston, he belonged to the so-called Saturday Club with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. One group luminary, James Russell Lowell, was enamored of Hoar's intellect: "The extraordinary quickness and acuteness, the flash of his mind (which I never saw matched but in Dr. Holmes) have dazzled and bewildered some people so that they were blind to his solid qualities.” Even so hearty a Grant hater as Henry Adams allowed that "in the Attorney-General's office, Judge Hoar seemed to fill every possible ideal, both personal and political." Hoar loathed the spoils system and Grant would back him in appointing highcaliber judges. Because many of Andrew Johnson's judicial appointees had shown little concern for black citizens, Congress had introduced nine new circuit judgeships and Grant would name some distinguished progressives to occupy them, including Hugh Lennox Bond, a Republican judge and abolitionist from Baltimore, who championed black education after the war. - [[John Creswell]] - Grant’s postmaster general. - Introduced p629. - > For postmaster general, Grant made a superb choice, selecting John Creswell of Maryland. A Dickinson College graduate, he had practiced law in Maryland and served as a representative and U.S. senator from the state. Having started out a Democrat, he joined the Radical Republican ranks and became a protégé of Henry Winter Davis, a militant on Reconstruction. There was no job richer in patronage positions than the postmaster general's-he would employ a of sixty thousand employees and Creswell appointed a record veritable army number of African American postal workers." He introduced new efficiencies into mail delivery by rail and steamship, innovated with a penny postal card, and expanded mail routes. - [[Hamilton Fish]] - Grant’s Secretary of State. - Introduced p635. - > Elihu Washburne, having served as Secretary of State for all of five days, was now confirmed as minister to France, with Hamilton Fish chosen to run the State Department on a permanent basis. With his long face, wide mouth, wavy hair, and scraggly side-whiskers, Fish was Grant's most inspired choice. The squire of a Hudson River estate where Grant had stayed, the sixty-year-old Fish was a former New York governor and senator, a cultivated patrician fluent in four languages. With his Whig background, impeccable judgment, and long experience, he described himself as an old fogey with traditional notions of honesty. In a cabinet plagued by high turnover, he would labor for eight years, lending gravity to American foreign policy and riding out many controversies. He functioned on such confidential terms with Grant that he almost ranked as his prime minister. Steeped in statecraft, he would master reams of information, keep a voluminous diary, and tutor Grant in the mysterious ways of diplomacy. For Grant, Fish was a godsend, compensating for his own glaring inexperience in foreign affairs. Grant later boasted, with some justice, that Hamilton Fish was the best secretary of state in fifty years. - - [[Orville E. Babcock]] - Introduced p637. - > In the end, the most troubling aide was Orville E. Babcock, who enjoyed the most intimate access to Grant. A popular, congenial thirty-three-year-old with a Vandyke beard, he was born in Vermont, graduated from West Point, and was a skilled engineer. For Grant, he had been a genuine war hero, fighting with gallantry at the Wilderness and Petersburg. Much like a chief of staff, Babcock occupied a second-floor White House office that enjoyed direct admittance to Grant's private study, so that, in General Sherman's words, he became "a kind of intermediator between the people and the President." Grant trusted him so much that Babcock opened mail addressed to him and often sent replies himself. Babcock's influence rivaled that of cabinet secretaries and only Rawlins enjoyed more confidential relations with the president. Unfortunately, where Rawlins qualified as a man of fiery principles, Babcock came to personify the looser morals of the Gilded Age. - I WaS, MMy friend Robin Dalton, literary agent and film producer, died the other day in her 102nd year and was sending out optimistic, positive emails to the last. Australian by birth, she came to the UK after the war in pursuit of her English lover, David Mountbatten, the 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven - cousin and best man to the Duke of Edinburgh when he married our future Queen in 1947. Robin was already a divorcee in her early twenties, as well as an Aussie - So marrying a Mountbatten was never on the cards. He married someone else and so did she. She loved her second husband (the father of her children) and her third (Bill Fairchild, a scriptwriter, a lovely - [[Charles Sumner]] - Senator. Strongly disliked Grant. - Introduced p681. - > WHILE HE PROVED a constant irritant to Grant, Adams was merely a gadfly who posed no enduring threat beyond his wickedly funny pen. Far more fraught was the relationship with another prickly Bostonian, Senator Charles Sumner, whose differences with Grant would fester and assume the dimensions of a pathological feud that bloodied both participants. As shown in his zeal for Andrew Johnson's impeachment, the redoubtable Sumner could be motivated by idealism and implacable hatred at once. He was, in many ways, a kindred spirit to the curmudgeonly Adams. "The boy Henry worshipped him," Adams wrote, "and if he ever regarded any older man as a personal friend, it was Mr. Sumner.”37 Handsome, Harvard-educated, a cosmopolitan traveler, Sumner had long been adored by abolitionists. Right before the Civil War, his antislavery crusade led the South Carolina representative Preston Brooks to thrash him severely with a cane on the Senate floor, transforming him into a secular saint. As he droned on in endless, windy speeches, the sanctimonious Sumner was easier to admire than to love. A cold, humorless bachelor, he sashayed around Washington with his walking stick, glorying in his self-importance. As Grant's son Jesse recalled, he "was a tall man of commanding appearance, rendered doubly conHe always wore the most glaring clothes I spicuous by the garments he wore have ever seen on a civilized man: heavy plaids in vividly contrasting colors, "38 Sumner's mandarin hauteur stood looming above a foundation of white spats.' opposed to Grant's modesty and his baroque language was a from world apart Grant's spare eloquence. pud Grant had admired Sumner's statesmanship and ardent abolitionism. Sumner, for his part, had high praise for Grant as a soldier, but reluctantly endorsed him for president and only belatedly threw his weight behind him during the 1868 race. Dismissing Grant as an intellectual lightweight, he fancied he would function as Grant's tutor on foreign policy and expected to be named secretary of state as a reward for his support. His hopes were dashed when his friend Fish beat him out for the post. - [[Amos T. Akerman]] - Grant’s [[Attorney General]]. A very good choice. He was incorruptible and helped crush the [[KKK]]. - Introduced p700. - > On June 16, Grant tapped Amos T. Akerman of Georgia to replace him and he was approved by the Senate a week later. Although a somewhat obscure figure on the national scene, he was a brilliant choice, the first cabinet selection from the Confederate states. Honest and incorruptible, Akerman was a tall, slim man with a balding pate, eyebrows that jutted over deep-set eyes, and a pencil-thin mustache. The penetrating intensity of his gaze led one reporter to discern a “face of learning and disposition to deep meditation."52 A native of New Hampshire and a Dartmouth graduate, Akerman had taught at a boys' academy in North Carolina and practiced law in antebellum Georgia before serving in the Confederate quartermaster corps. After Appomattox, he switched to the Republican Party, endorsed black voting rights, and maintained that the South should renounce slavery and its extreme interpretation of states' rights. Solidly progressive, devoted to the rule of law, he took part in Georgia's constitutional convention of 1867-68, which overturned the old white supremacist constitution. Horrified by white vigilantism, Akerman, as federal district attorney for Georgia, showed a zealous dedication to black rights by prosecuting violators of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, costing him the support of many white southerners. - How it ended, p710: - > Even as he rendered superlative service in squashing the Klan, Akerman clashed with the railroads, the country's most powerful industry. In June, he had turned down an application by the Union Pacific for a huge land subsidy and incurred the enmity of railroad barons such as Jay Gould and Collis P. Huntington. He rebuffed an attempt by one railroad company to bribe him and wouldn't back down in his regulatory decisions. Grant came under enormous pressure to replace him and on December 12, he requested Akerman's resignation. He hinted at nameless forces behind the request and expressed his "approbation of the zeal, integrity and industry" Akerman had shown in performing his duties. For many months, Akerman had known special interests were gunning for him and even considered resigning to spare Grant this pressure. Now he fell on his sword, thanking Grant for the kindness he had shown and conveying his "ardent wishes for the continued success of your administration." Their exchanged letters show affection and mutual respect. Akerman declined Grant's offer of a judgeship and returned to private life in Cartersville, Georgia. He remained loyal to Grant and insisted that his administration had been the best since the days of John Quincy Adams. - [[Roscoe Conkling]] - Introduced p734. - > Of all the Stalwarts with whom Grant forged an alliance, perhaps the most improbable was Roscoe Conkling, a foe of civil service reform. Born in Albany, Conkling had trained as a lawyer and served as mayor of Utica before being elected to the House in 1858 and the Senate in 1867. Grant made peace with Conkling at a time when New York's large block of electoral votes was critical to winning national elections. Tall and handsome with a theatrical air, Conkling was a strutting peacock with foppish curls. He wore white flannel trousers and yellow vests and strolled about with his nose in the air, betraying a dandified sense of his own grandeur. An early fitness buff, he liked to ride and box and slug a punching bag drooping from his office ceiling. His female conquests were so numerous that John Hay derided him as "a patriot of the flesh-pots.”Conkling was an eloquent orator who could be charming with friends, but he was a relentless enemy when crossed. Master of numerous patronage jobs, he laughed at morality as something that bound lesser mortals.mandika ballbrinofficancial du Despite his superior manner, Conkling's political acumen made him a useful mentor for Grant, who detected virtues in Conkling that escaped others, regarding him "as the greatest mind... that has been in public life since the beginning of the government.” Hamilton Fish understood the attraction, saying Conkling's advice to Grant was always smart, if distinctly partisan.³¹ The journalist John Russell Young noted how Conkling and Grant grew strangely enamored of each other: "For Conkling Grant has a romantic affection, and this was returned by Conkling in a manner almost womanly, which was curious considering his imperious, high-toned, impetuous, yet noble character."Grant's son Jesse echoed this assessment: "Conkling and my father loved each other. They were devoted; and Conkling's devotion was quite unselfish."33 Even Julia Grant shared her husband's fawning admiration for Conkling, once urging his selection as chief justice because she thought his fair curls would look stunning when set off against black judicial robes. - **Other mentions** - **[[John Keegan]]** - P xxi (intro) - **New Words** - braggart - a person who boasts about their achievements or possessions. - pleurisy - Pleurisy is when the thin lining between your lungs and ribs becomes inflamed. - The main symptom of pleurisy is a sharp chest pain when you breathe. - Pleurisy is usually treated with painkillers until it gets better. You may need additional treatment depending on the cause. - Pleurisy is usually caused by a virus, such as the flu virus. - pecuniary - relating to or consisting of money. - "he admitted obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception" - neuralgia - Neuralgia is pain in a nerve pathway. Generally, neuralgia isn't an illness in its own right, but a symptom of injury or particular disorders. In many cases, the cause of the pain is not known. The pain can generally be managed with medication, physical therapies or surgery. - analgesic - An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic, pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used to achieve relief from pain. - scuttlebutt - Scuttlebutt in slang usage means rumor or gossip, deriving from the nautical term for the cask used to serve water. The term corresponds to the colloquial concept of a water cooler in an office setting, which at times becomes the focus of congregation and casual discussion. - "Have you heard any scuttlebutt about the new boss?" - vainglorious - excessively proud of oneself or one's achievements; overly vain. - "this vainglorious boast of personal infallibility" - erstwhile - [archaic] former. - "the erstwhile president of the company" - voluble - (of a person) talking fluently, readily, or incessantly. - "a voluble game-show host" - OR - (of speech) characterized by fluency and readiness of utterance. - "an excited and voluble discussion" - ague - [archaic] malaria or another illness involving fever and shivering. - solicitous - characterized by or showing interest or concern. - "she was always solicitous about the welfare of her students" - OR - eager or anxious to do something. - "he was solicitous to cultivate her mamma's good opinion" - grouse - complain about something trivial; grumble. - "she heard him grousing about his assistant" - past tense: groused; past participle: groused - malodorous - smelling very unpleasant. - "leaking taps and malodorous drains" - polemical - (of a piece of writing or a speech) strongly attacking or defending a particular opinion, person, idea, or set of beliefs - a polemical essay - Many philosophical texts have a highly polemical style. - apostasy - the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle. - "the execution of their leader for apostasy brought widespread criticism" - inveigh - speak or write about (something) with great hostility. - "he liked to inveigh against all forms of academic training" - terse - sparing in the use of words; abrupt. - "a terse statement" - kowtow - act in an excessively subservient manner. - "she didn't have to kowtow to a boss" - refractory - stubborn or unmanageable. - "his refractory pony" - OR - resistant to a process or stimulus. - "some granules are refractory to secretory stimuli" - **Notes** - Grant had his money managed by Ferdinand Ward – touted as the “Young Napoleon of Finance”. However, it was a fraud. Along with some of his friends and family Grant lost everything. It was due to this lack of money that he agreed to write the “Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant”. The two volume set was considered a masterpiece. P xviii - xx - Grants father Jesse was an abolitionist. P5 - Grants father Jesse was loud and talkative. His mother Hannah the complete opposite, very quiet. Grant took after his mother. P6 - Grants mother Hannah showed little emotion. She was very kind. But not emotive. Grant said he never saw her cry. She was somehow distant. And while Grant found his father Jesse irritating in many ways, he emotionally connected with him at least. P7 - Grant as a young man of 17 wasn’t interested in becoming involved in his fathers tannery business. He hated the smell of the fumes and the gore of the place due to the floor full of animal fat and a blood. So his father managed to get him enrolled at West Point. He was an okay cadet. Graduated middle of the class (though the class was halved by graduation as many dropped out). He was quite liked by the other cadets. He wasn’t a talker or a charmer. But he was known as being fair, honest and kind. But probably the big reason he only did okay at West Point was just because he didn’t want to be there. His dad forced him to go and he had no interest in being a soldier. - When the civil war begin Grant all of sudden found himself as the third most powerful person in the military. He was 39 and had spent many years with bad luck and little money. Finding himself in such a high role by chance, and often having streaks of bad luck when he got close to positions of military power in the past, you’d think he would take it easy and do his best to avoid opportunities to show himself up. Instead he grabbed the bull by the horns. In the early skirmishes of the Civil War he was happy to fight and happy to make quick, bold divisions. - Page 206: summary of the [[Battle of Shiloh]]. - In the US Civil War the word “contraband” meant runaway or escaped slave. This was apparently done to bypass the Fugitive Slave Act, then still in effect. p229 - Slavery wasn’t really the sole cause of the US Civil War. What caused it was the secession of some southern states from the Union. Followed by them taking over a fort and ‘starting’ the war. This meant the Union had to respond. But one of the reasons for the divide between the north and south was the stance of slavery. Most of the southern states were slave states. However, when [[Abraham Lincoln]] signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, [[1863]] it didn’t ensure that the war would not end with a compromise. But instead the total victory of one side. As the south would never allow themselves to ban slavery. p242 - It’s noticeable what good can happen if you have a good enough person at their job that you can let them crack on at it. Lincoln trusted Grant, so let him crack on. Grant trusted Sherman, so let him crack on. No second guessing or making demands of orders. Even Grant was often not very specific when giving plans to Sherman. It often didn’t go beyond “harass and kill the enemy in this rough area, however you see fit”. He did the same with Sheridan. Once when he met up with Sheridan to achieve a goal, Sheridan produced a map and explained his plan. Grant had his own plans. But he didn’t even bother to get them out of his pocket. Sheridan’s plans seemed to be issue-free and they came from him, not Grant. Why not let Sheridan do Sheridan’s plan? p443 - [[Ulysses S. Grant]] was outwardly quite apolitical. After the [[US Civil War]] the Democrats and the Republicans were trying to work out which side he was on. Especially as it was felt around the country that he could be [[President of the US]] one day and a powerful political figure. Though he wasn't even sure on which side of the spectrum he fell. He also, at least outwardly, didn't want to ever be President. It didn't suite his nature. However, Grant become more Republican with time as [[Reconstruction]] went on as he saw great injustices going on in the South against blacks and outspoken Republicans (Note: during this period the Democrat and Republican party where on swapped sides of the spectrum. Republicans were anti-slavery and Democrats were often the main party in the South). - Grant was president during the [[Panic of 1873]]. This was called ‘The Great Depression’ up until the second one in the 1930s came along. Covered in chapter 36, p776. - Grant was keen on the gold standard. And in the [[1870s]] he reintroduced the gold standard. p782 - [[Philip Sheridan]] said “I have so often heard expressions that the new rebellion was to be fought under the Stars and Stripes and in the north as well as the south – that the mistake made in 1861 was to have had their own flag.” Raises a good point. By forging a distinct, individual identity Confederates created a strong separation. But by doing so they probably isolated those in the middle. Rather than claiming to be Confederates, they should have claimed to be strong American. Worth bearing in mind for other movements. p795 - The [[Oglala Sioux]] Indians and the gold at Black Hills are a good example of what can happen when there’s enough money to made and when two people/cultures value different things. A treaty meant Black Hills was Oglala Sioux’s land. Which was fine. But the moment it was rumoured lots of gold was there things changed. Even [[Ulysses S. Grant]], mostly an advocate for Indians, essentially said that the wealth of that land that it’s simply impossible to hold onto it. Too many people want at it. And they will by permission or force. He offered them $6m for it. The land was both sacred to them and they had little use for lots of money. They must have found the offer insulting. Grant then implored them to just move further south and said he really can’t wait for them to settle, learn English, and attend schools. Essentially things totally alien to their culture. p829+ - **Timeline/Overview** - When [[Napoleon III]]'s forces were in [[Mexico]] during the [[Second French Intervention in Mexico]] [[William H. Seward]] – [[US Secretary of State]] – wanted to solve things diplomatically. Whereas [[Ulysses S. Grant]] wanted a more military approach. Post-surrender [[Confederate]]'s were pouring south into Mexico and he feared they would regroup and maybe even team up with Mexico and cause problems for the [[Union]]. Seward turned out to be right however, with things solved through politics, not soldiering. - **Highlights** - > It seems crystalclear that [[Ulysses S. Grant]] modeled himself after his mutely subdued mother ([[Hannah Grant]]), avoiding his father's bombast and internalizing her humility and self-control. The unflappable Hannah spoke in a low voice, never swore, and remained calm and sweet-tempered. She was kind and solicitous toward neighborhood children. One of Ulysses's friends remembered her as a woman of "deep feeling but not demonstrative," her reserve so resolute that she seldom joked and never laughed. Ulysses later praised her as "the best woman he had ever known; unselfish, devoted to her family, thoroughly good, conscientious, intelligent, of a quiet and amiable disposition, never meddling with other persons' affairs, genuinely pious without any cant, with a strong sense of right and justice.” He attributed his good sense and moral compass to her beneficent influence. Molded by her always dignified presence, Ulysses grew up with a deep, abiding respect for women and never treated them lightly or flirtatiously. /// Unlike her husband, Hannah doled out praise sparingly and recoiled from anything that faintly smacked of bragging. Even when her son grew famous, a journalist noted, "she not only refrained from boasting of him, but oftentimes blushed like a girl, and left the room when his praises were sounded in her ears; for it seemed akin to hearing self-praise."¹ Hating mean-spirited gossip, she regarded others charitably and shrank from spiteful comments. One day, when women in her church group groused about a drunken husband in the congregation, Hannah chimed in: "Well, Mr. A. was a good fiddler, anyhow." Hannah's tendency to trust people was a lesson that her innocent son Ulysses would learn almost too well. Despite her sterling traits, something was missing in Hannah Grant, a maternal warmth whose absence Ulysses felt keenly. "I never saw my mother cry," he claimed.¹ Deeply repressed, Hannah never bared her emotions or discussed them with her children. As she later told a reporter proudly, "We are not a demonstrative family." The Grants never showed affection openly and a curious distance always separated Ulysses S. Grant and his mother. In his Memoirs, he gave a fullblooded portrait of Jesse Grant's willful nature but, when it came to Hannah, he mentioned her maiden name but failed to endow her with a fully rounded personality. Jesse bursts from the page, while Hannah recedes and vanishes. However infuriating Ulysses found his father, he cared deeply about his opinion. With the emotionally arid Hannah, an enigmatic silence lingered and they had a constrained relationship in later years. This strange family background made Ulysses S. Grant a man who could seem emotionally blocked, although he freely poured forth his bottled-up feelings with his wife and children later on. page 6 - > “What a man he is! what a history! what an illustration-his life-of the capacities of that American individuality common to us all. Cynical critics are wondering "what the people can see in [[Ulysses S. Grant]]" to make such a hubbub about. They aver . . . that he has hardly the average of our day's literary and scholastic culture, and absolutely no pronounc'd genius or conventional eminence of any sort. Correct: but he proves how an average western farmer, mechanic, boatman, carried by tides of circumstances, perhaps caprices, into a position of incredible military or civil responsibilities may steer his way fitly and steadily through them all, carrying the country and himself with credit year after year-command over a million armed men-fight more than fifty pitch'd battles-rule for eight years a land larger than all the kingdoms of Europe combined-and then, retiring, quietly (with a cigar in his mouth) make the promenade of the whole world, through its courts and coteries, and kings and czars and mikados... as phlegmatically as he ever walk'd the portico of a Missouri hotel after dinner. . . . Seems to me it transcends Plutarch. How those old Greeks, indeed, would have seized on him! A mere plain man-no art, no poetry. . . A common trader, money-maker, tanner, farmer of Illinoisgeneral for the republic ... in the war of attempted secession-President following, (a task of peace, more difficult than the war itself)-nothing heroic, as the authorities put it and yet the greatest hero. The gods, the destinies, seem to have concentrated upon him.” – [[Walt Whitman]], Specimen Days - > Terrified that if he died he would leave [[Julia Grant]] destitute, [[Ulysses S. Grant]] agreed to pen his memoirs and relive his glory days of battle. As seen in his wartime orders, he had patented a lean, supple writing style, and a crisp narrative now flowed in polished sentences, honed by the habits of a lifetime. Words poured from this supposedly taciturn man, showing how much thought and pent-up feeling lay beneath his tightly buttoned facade. He wrote in an overstuffed leather armchair, his outstretched legs swaddled by blankets, resting on a facing chair. He wore a wool cap over thick brown hair now streaked with gray, a shawl draped over his shoulders, and a muffler around his neck concealing a tumor the size of baseball. // Seldom, if ever, has a literary masterpiece been composed under such horrific circumstances. Whenever he swallowed anything, Grant was stricken with pain and had to resort to opiates that clouded his brain. As a result, he endured extended periods of thirst and hunger as he labored over his manuscript. The torment of the inflamed throat never ceased. When the pain grew too great, his black valet, Harrison Terrell, sprayed his throat with "cocaine water," temporarily numbing the area, or applied hot compresses to his head. Despite his fear of morphine addiction, Grant could not dispense entirely with such powerful medication. "I suffer pain all the time, except when asleep," he told his doctor. Although bolstered by analgesics, Grant experienced only partial relief, informing a reporter that "when the suffering was so intense... he only wished for the one great relief to all human pain.' Summoning his last reserves of strength, through a stupendous act of willpower, Grant toiled four to six hours a day, adding more time on sleepless nights. For family and friends his obsessive labor was wondrous to behold: the soldier so famously reticent that someone quipped he "could be silent in several languages" pumped out 336,000 words of superb prose in a year. By May [[1885]], just two months before his death, Grant was forced to dictate, and, when his voice failed, he scribbled messages on thin strips of paper. Always cool in a crisis, Grant exhibited the prodigious stamina and granite resolve of his wartime effort. // Nobody was more thunderstruck than Samuel Clemens, aka [[Mark Twain]], who had recently formed a publishing house with his nephew-in-law Charles Webster. To snare Grant's memoirs, sure to be a literary sensation, Twain boosted the royalty promised by the Century's publishers and won the rights. Twain had never seen a writer with Grant's gritty determination. When this man “under sentence of death with that cancer" produced an astonishing ten thousand words in one day, Twain exclaimed, "It kills me these days to write half of that." He was agog when Grant dictated at one sitting a nine-thousand-word portrait of Lee's surrender at Appomattox "never pausing, never hesitating for a word, never XX INTRODUCTION repeating and in the written-out copy he made hardly a correction." Twain, who considered the final product a masterwork, scoffed at scuttlebutt he had ghostwritten it. "There is no higher literature than these modern, simple Memoirs,” he insisted. “Their style is flawless ... no man can improve upon it." For Twain, the revelation of Grant's character was as startling as his storytelling. Eager to spare his family, Grant was every inch the stoic gentleman. Only at night, when he was asleep, did his face grimace with pain. "The sick-room brought out the points of General Grant's character," Twain wrote. "His exceeding gentleness, kindness, forbearance, lovingness, charity... He was the most lovable great child in the world."¹¹ For one observer, it was wrenching to watch Grant "with a bandage about his aching head, and a horrible and mortal disease clutching his throat." He felt "a great ache when I look at him who had saved us all when we were bankrupt in treasure and in leaders, and see him thus beset by woes and wants. "In a magnificent finale, Grant finished the manuscript on July 16, [[1885]], one week before his death in upstate New York. He had steeled himself to stay alive until the last sentence was done and he could surrender his pen. - > Perhaps the most explosively persistent myth about [[Ulysses S. Grant]] is that he was a “drunkard,” with all that implies about self-indulgence and moral laxity. Modern science has shown that alcoholism is a "chronic disease," not a "personal failing as it has been viewed by many." "Because Grant's drinking has been scrutinized in purely moralistic terms, his admirers have felt the need to defend him from the charge as vigorously as detractors have rushed to pin it on him. The drinking issue, both real and imaginary, so permeated Grant's career that a thoroughgoing account is needed to settle the matter. This biography will contend that Grant was an alcoholic with an astonishingly consistent pattern of drinking, recognized by friend and foe alike: a solitary binge drinker who would not touch a drop of alcohol, then succumb at three- or four-month intervals, usually on the road. As a rule, he underwent a radical personality change and could not stop himself once he started to imbibe. Alcohol was not a recreation selfishly indulged, but a forbidden impulse against which he struggled for most of his life. He joined a temperance lodge in early adulthood and lent the movement open support in later years. While drinking almost never interfered with his official duties, it haunted his career and trailed him everywhere, an infuriating, ever-present ghost he could not shake. It influenced how people perceived him and deserves close attention. As with so many problems in his life, Grant managed to attain mastery over alcohol in the long haul, a feat as impressive as any of his wartime victories. Tags: [[Alcoholism]] - > Though never a smooth boy, skilled in social graces-he could be awkward and flustered in large groups-[[Ulysses S. Grant]]exhibited a strict [[Methodist]] propriety. No dancing, card playing, or cursing was tolerated in the proper Grant household. “It has been a principle of mine never to swear at any time in my life," Ulysses attested in future years. Even as a raw country boy, he allowed himself no oath stronger than "Thunder and Lightning!" Once, when quarreling with an acquaintance, he was provoked to say "Darn." During the [[US Civil War]], Grant recounted this episode to someone who recalled him saying "that the very sound of the word to his ears bothered him, so that for an entire week it continued to literally haunt him." He spent a lifetime avoiding the coarse jokes and bawdy anecdotes that were commonplace in the military. "He revered women and thought such stories demeaned the female sex," said a cousin. "I have seen him freeze up a man instantly with a look when a vulgar story was told in his presence. Page 11. - > Impeccably polite and usually (but not always) neatly dressed, [[Ulysses S. Grant]] reflected [[Hannah Grant]]'s prim parenting. He preferred innocent pastimes, such as swimming, playing marbles, or ice-skating. While he delighted in fishing barefoot in summer, seated by a brook near the tannery, he seldom hunted and derived no pleasure from the casual butchering of animals. "He was unusually sensitive to pain," said a friend, “and his aversion to taking any form of life was so great that he would not hunt."Such a tame boy inevitably became the butt of mockery, and Grant grew sensitive to public humiliation. Never one to initiate a fight, he refused to back down when bullied. He was roused to fury if sadistic boys tormented an innocent child or a defenseless horse, and smaller boys embraced him as their steadfast protector. On one occasion, Grant saw a big, oafish boy named Slifer picking on a much smaller boy. "Grant stepped forward, rolled up his sleeves, and told Slifer that he shouldn't fight that little fellow; that if there was any fighting to be done he could fight him,” said a cousin. Grant never deviated from this philosophy, which he later applied to his eldest son. "I do not want him to feel afraid to pitch in when boys impose on him but he had better avoid boys who are inclined to quarrel.” (Page 12) - > [[Jesse Grant]t committed the common error of willful fathers who try to stimulate their sons and overpower them instead. He doted on his eldest boy, smothering him with attention and attempting to live vicariously through him. Reluctant to assert himself against his bossy father, [[Ulysses S. Grant]] quietly resented the pressure to succeed, and Jesse was perplexed that his son "never seemed inclined to put himself forward at all; and was modest, retiring, and reticent. “Instead of accepting this, Jesse prodded the boy mercilessly at every turn. When he took Ulysses on a trip to eastern [[Ohio]], a telling scene unfolded, recounted by a friend. “At this time Ulysses though young could read very well, of this his father was naturally very proud, and when they arrived at their destination, to his little son's dismay, he brought out a school reader, and telling his friends of how beautifully Ulysses could read, proceeded to open his book and requested him to read something, but Ulysses declined absolutely and stuck to it, to his father's chagrin and disappointment.' /// From this clash between grandstanding father and stubbornly private son, Ulysses developed a deeply entrenched modesty, "a particular aversion to egotists and braggarts," said a later colleague. He wanted people to discover his strengths, not have them advertised. Reluctant to flout his father openly, he developed a strategy of passive resistance, retreating behind a facade of silent obstinacy. He only stood up to his father indirectly, holding back his emotions, as if fearing their violent release. Torn between an intrusive father and a painfully retiring mother, he kept a world of buried feelings locked up inside. Even at the end of his life, one of his physicians delivered this judgment on his emotional makeup: "He is the most suppressive man I ever knew. He is not devoid of emotional nature, but his emotions from early life have been diverted from their natural channels of expression. What has been called imperturbability in him is simply introversion of his feelings." (Page 12) Tags: [[Parenting]] - > The major outlet for [[Ulysses S. Grant]]'s suppressed emotions was his rapturous love of [[Horses]]. Hannah noted this special affinity: "Horses seem to understand Ulysses." Somewhat clumsy in his gait, the boy was surprisingly graceful on horseback. Riding horses was an ideal way to escape from the social complexities of home into a world where he enjoyed complete freedom and didn't have to kowtow to others. He liked to ride without a saddle or stirrups, sitting astride a blanket on the horse's back, and he was so expert at handling horses that he began riding at age five. He became known for breaking in wild horses for local farmers, a sight that drew admiring spectators to the village square. He tamed even the most refractory horses through a fine sensitivity to their nature rather than by his physical prowess. "If people knew how much more they could get out of a horse by gentleness than by harshness," Grant once observed, "they would save a great deal of trouble both to the horse and the man." /// For all his ingrained caution, the boy proved a daredevil on a horse, riding at top speed by age five while standing one-legged on its back. He would plant one foot on a sheepskin lashed to the animal, then maintain his balance by grasping the reins. Even when he was older and used a saddle, he had a startling way putting his left foot in the stirrup, grabbing the horse's mane with his left hand, then swinging his body nimbly over the horse in a single lithe, fluid motion. Perhaps no story better demonstrates his mastery of horses than Jesse's tale of when a circus came to town: "Once when [Ulysses] was a boy, a show came along in which thered was a mischievous pony, trained to go round the ring like lightning, and he was expected to throw any boy that attempted to ride him. "Will any boy come forward and ride this pony?" shouted the ring-master. Ulysses stepped forward, and mounted the pony. The performance began. Round and round and round the ring pony, faster and faster, making the greatest effort to dismount the rider. But Ulysses sat as steady as if he had grown to the to pony's back. Presently out came a large monkey and sprang up behind Ulysses. The people set up a great shout of laughter, and on the pony ran; but it all produced no effect on the rider. Then the ringmaster made the monkey jump on to Ulysses' shoulders, standing with his feet on his shoulders, and with his hands holding on to his hair. At this there was another and a still louder shout, but not a muscle of Ulysses' face moved. There was not a tremor of his nerves. A few more rounds and the ring-master gave it up; he had come across a boy that the pony and the monkey both could not dismount." (Page 13) - > The matter required a delicate next step. [[Jesse Grant]] needed to write to his local congressman, Thomas Hamer, who had to nominate his son for West Point. There was time pressure involved: Hamer was a lame duck whose term ended March 4. Far more worrisome was that Jesse Grant and Thomas Hamer, quondam friends, had not spoken since they parted company over Jacksonian politics, when Jesse accused him of "gross deceit."Ulysses later said both men, regretting the breach, wanted a rapprochement. Jesse addressed a businesslike letter to Hamer, making no allusion to past unpleasantness. It reached Hamer the night of March 3 and, instead of being vindictive, he graciously agreed to submit Grant's name. In his haste, he listed the applicant as [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. The confusion came about either because Hamer confused Ulysses with his younger brother Simpson or because he assumed Ulysses was his first name and he had taken Hannah's maiden name for his middle name. (Grant himself blamed Senator Morris for the long-lived error.) The mistaken name, which persisted at West Point and beyond, was the bane of the young man's life and seemed symbolic of his almost comic passivity under Jesse's heavy-handed lage. As Grant later confessed to his wife in frank exasperation, "You know I have an 'S' in my name and don't know what it stand[s] for." (Page 17)