history's three-part mini-series grant
details the life of 18th president and
celebrated union general ulysses s grant
the re-enactments in the show are
stirring but there's some material that
the series leaves out distorts are just
plain gets wrong
here are the times grant lied to you one
of the earliest scenes in grant attempts
to explain ulysses s grant's mysterious
middle initial
the show portrays the moment grant
arrived to his first day as a student at
west point in 1839
only to discover that he had been
enrolled under the name ulysses s grant
an error as his real middle initial is
h a stubborn official informs grant that
he must go by his registered name and he
nervously agrees
the story is mostly true but leaves out
the more complicated details of grant's
name
grant was born hiram ulysses grant but
went by ulysses from a young age
then when his father got their
representative to nominate him for
acceptance at west point the
representative mistakenly registered him
as ulysses s
grant but the s didn't come out of
nowhere according to the new york
historical society the s
actually originated from the maiden name
of grant's mother hannah simpson grant
the representative who registered grant
had thought that simpson was part of his
name too
when asked about the initial later in
life grant would claim it stood for
nothing
no offense mom the young grant
ultimately embraced the name
his new moniker u.s grant spawned a
number of nicknames as the show grant
explains
these included united states grant
unconditional surrender grant and uncle
sam grant
the latter of which was shortened to
grant's most famous nickname sam
grant suggests that while at west point
ulysses s grant formed a number of
lasting friendships with men who would
go on to become the leading military
officers in the civil war
in the registration scene grant is shown
forming an immediate connection with two
young cadets
james longstreet and william tecumseh
sherman longstreet would later become
one of the confederacy's most important
generals
sherman on the other hand is best known
for his famous march to the sea that
crippled the confederacy on behalf of
the union
the first connection is true grant did
indeed form a close friendship with the
future confederate general james
longstreet while at west point
some historians have even said that long
street served as the best man at grant's
wedding but the national park service
clarifies that this is not known for
sure
grant's closest friend at west point was
probably the future union general
frederick tracy dent
grant would even enter the dent family
when he married frederick's sister julia
in 1848.
grant however fabricates an early
connection between william tecumseh
sherman and ulysses s grant
while the two men would go on to become
key partners during the civil war there
was no evidence that they were close
during their west point days
sherman graduated from west point in
1840 while grant graduated in 1843
and there seems to be no record of the
two men interacting during their time at
the academy
grant does a fairly good job of showing
ulysses s grant's troubling relationship
with alcohol
grant struggled with alcoholism
throughout his life at the same time
descriptions of grant's alcoholism were
overblown in the press and by his
political enemies
while president grant is often
remembered as a drunk the true story is
more complicated
one particularly difficult incident in
grant's life occurred during his year
stationed at fort humboldt in 1854.
by the time grant had arrived at the
california fort he had been separated
from his family
including a toddler and a newborn son
for many months
as the monsterport continued grant felt
increasingly isolated
as a result he turned to alcohol as a
means of self-medication
according to biographer ron shernow
following one of his binges grant was
told by a commanding officer to resign
or reform
and it's on record that grant resigned
from the army soon after so it would be
natural to assume that grant's decision
to resign from the army was the direct
result of his failure to sober up
and grant heavily implies this but in
reality we simply don't know that for
sure
grant would later say that quote the
vice of intemperance had not a little to
do with my decision to resign and the
war department would report that nothing
stands against grant's good name while
it's certainly possible that grant's
habits contributed to his resignation
the show's implication that drunkenness
directly led to it is flimsy at best
after watching grant you probably have
the impression that ulysses s grant and
abraham lincoln had a relationship of
mutual respect from the moment the two
men learned about each other but this is
not the case
grant was not always a supporter of
president lincoln according to
biographer william mcfeely in the 1860
election which abraham lincoln would
ultimately win
grant actually favored the democrat
candidate stephen a douglas over the
republican lincoln among other things
grant feared that electing a republican
candidate would lead to increased
tensions with the south and in fact
grant was right
lincoln's election was one of the major
catalysts for the civil war which began
in 1861.
besides that grant's wife julia was a
committed democrat from a slave-owning
family so grant was willing to overlook
that most democrats defended slavery at
the time
when grant later became a key figure in
the republican party he would attempt to
do some damage control covering up his
initial lack of loyalty to lincoln grant
win emphasized that he favored abraham
lincoln over the more popular of the two
democrat candidates john c
breckenridge while technically true this
omits that douglas was his preferred
candidate all along
grant does a good job of depicting
ulysses s grant's complicated but
eventually positive relationship with
the african-american
community from his marriage into a
slave-owning family to his later
commitment to reconstruction and the
defeat of the first ku klux klan
but grant completely ignores grant's
tumultuous relationship with another
group
jewish americans by 1862 general grant's
men had claimed large swaths of
confederate territory but grant was
dismayed to find that an illegal cotton
trade ran rampant throughout the region
allowing southern plantation owners to
continue to profit by having their
cotton smuggled to the north
grant knew that as long as this trade
persisted the south would be able to
strengthen itself financially
furthermore general grant came to
believe as he would later explain in a
letter that the trade was being run
quote
mostly by jews and other unprincipled
traders so on december 17th he issued
general order number 11 which expelled
jews as a class from the land he
controlled in tennessee mississippi and
kentucky
all jewish people were forced to
evacuate their homes within 24 hours
historian bertram corn calls it the most
sweeping anti-jewish regulation in all
of american history
it should be said that grant later
attempted to atone for this anti-semitic
order
according to the atlantic he would go on
to appoint a record number of jews to
public offices during his presidency
grant publicly apologized for the order
but nonetheless continued to be haunted
by his failure to live up to the
promises of the constitution
to make ulysses s grant looked more
heroic graham makes it seem that the
union was a complete military failure in
the eastern theater of the war until
president lincoln personally selected
grant to take over the show emphasizes
how disappointed lincoln was with all
generals
that is until he found ulysses s grant a
man he could rely on
it's true that lincoln had a tumultuous
relationship with much of the union army
leadership
regularly removing commanding generals
in favor of new ones
but it's false to suggest that grant was
the only effective general that the
union ever had
before grant came along there had
already been a number of noteworthy
union successes in the eastern theater
for example union general george
mcclellan halted the confederate
invasion of maryland at the bloody
battle of antietam in 1862
later general mead was able to defeat
the advancing confederates at the famous
battle of gettysburg the civil war's
bloodiest battle for this beat lincoln
would write an
unsent letter thanking general mead for
his magnificent success but criticizing
him for his failure to pursue the
confederate army after they retreated
to his credit ulysses s grant was indeed
the general who delivered the death blow
to general robert e lee's army of
northern virginia a feat no other union
general had been able to accomplish
if you pay close attention to the battle
scenes in grant you'll notice that the
vast majority of the show's soldiers die
in one of two ways
first many soldiers are shown being hit
by a bullet to the head
second other soldiers are shown being
killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat by
bayonets blunt objects and even
strangulation
as it turns out neither of these causes
of death were particularly common during
the civil war
as for the second historian jonathan
steflix explains that quote
close quarters melees were quite
literally exceptional incidents
occurring relatively rarely in civil war
combat historian d scott hartwig agrees
critiquing popular depictions of the
battle of gettysburg for their
over-reliance on hand-to-hand fighting
while hand-to-hand combat did occur it
was probably far less common than grant
would have you believe
likewise grant gives the false
impression that the young farmers and
toolsmiths who enlisted in the civil war
all had sniper level accuracy
instantly killing their enemies with a
well-placed bullet to the brain from
yards away
in reality bullet fired during the civil
war was highly inaccurate
often striking limbs or other body parts
as a result the most common form of
surgery during the civil war was
amputation
furthermore disease was the number one
cause of death during the civil war
often resulting from infected wounds few
men were lucky enough to be given the
instantaneous death you see in grant
grant argues that the popular image of
grant as a corrupt drunkard makes the
man look far worse than he really was
on the other hand grant recognizes that
the popular narrative around confederate
general robert e lee has had the reverse
effect turning him into a fearless if
misguided leader
so to tear down this narrative grant
instead portrays general lee as a
prideful coward
lee is hardly able to maintain eye
contact with grant during his surrender
at appomattox
while it is true that lee is no hero
grant likely overstated the overall
tension surrounding his surrender
lee was not happy to have to surrender
of course over dramatically saying he
would rather die
a thousand deaths and go see general
grant but when the two men did come
together at appomattox most sources
agreed that the meeting was friendly
grant was extremely gracious in his
treatment of lee
and in his treatment of the of the
confederate soldiers
according to the civil war monitor
general grant sought to avoid
embarrassing general lee and began the
meeting by mentioning that the two men
had already met many years ago during
the mexican-american war lee replied
that he remembered grant from that war
according to the national park service
and the two men conversed quote
in a very cordial manner for
approximately 25 minutes
the grand series contradicts this having
generally remarked that he has no memory
of grant from the war
when lee turned the conversation to the
terms of surrender he was satisfied with
the terms grant put forward
many documentaries about the civil war
give the false notion that general lee
surrendered to general granted
appomattox marked the definitive end of
the civil war grant unfortunately
borrows this inaccurate cliche
while it makes for a much simpler
narrative to say that general lee
surrender was the final moment of the
civil war
the truth is much more complicated in
reality lee's surrender was only the
beginning of the end
there were numerous confederate armies
that were active during the civil war
robert e lee only commanded one of them
the army of northern virginia
as a result there were still a number of
battles that took place after lee
surrendered on april 9
1865 but that month subsequently still
saw battles between union and
confederate forces in north carolina and
georgia while fighting concluded in may
with final skirmishes in south carolina
and texas
the university of richmond explains that
the battle of palmito ranch texas is
generally considered the final armed
conflict of the civil war
it concluded on may 13 1865.
interestingly the confederates won that
battle but it was a bittersweet victory
as it was already clear that the
confederacy had no future
but even so it wasn't until august 20th
1866 that president johnson declared a
formal end to the civil war
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