Grant Versus Lee: American Civil War Generals

Comparisons of American Civil War generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have been on-going since the end of the war in 1864. Although Lee and the Confederate army did indeed surrender to Grant’s Union forces, it is often contested who was truly the superior commander. Comparing these two men often goes beyond their military prowess into an evaluation of their characters; this, in turn, has created mythologies surrounding these men, as they have become icons in American military history. Many argue that it was Robert E. Lee who had better tactics on the battlefield although he lost to Grant’s army, which it is also argued, had a better overall strategy in defeating the Confederacy. A true analysis of Generals Grant versus Lee should not remain shrouded in mythology and iconography; therefore a comparison of these two men must rely instead on determining myth versus fact.

It is remarkable that a war that happened about 150 years ago is still so fiercely debated. It should be clear, in theory, who won the war and thus who was the better leader; however, a comparison of the military genius of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and their corresponding armies is much more arbitrary than one might assume. As Charles Bowery (2005) describes in his study of the leadership styles of these two men, the final series of battles in the American Civil War were quite different than those fought in the first three years. Grant’s strategy to defeat Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia became known as the Overland Campaign, which in many ways affected the perspective of General Grant by the American people for years to come. Lee had already gained a celebrity-like status long before this time. Grant and Lee were not two men in opposition until the final and bloodiest year of the war, in the spring of 1864 when they finally met on the contested grounds of Virginia (Bowery, 2005).

The documentary series The Civil War by Ken Burns (1997) offers a clear discrepancy in the backgrounds of Grant and Lee. Both men attended West Point military academy, and both had experience in battle in Mexico that gained them recognition. By the time the Civil War rolled around, though, B.J. Murphy (2004) points to the fact that Lee was a celebrated military leader, having commanded the U.S. Marines, while Grant was retired from the armed forces and struggling to make a living for his family in Ohio (p.47). Going back further to their respective upbringings, Lee was born of privilege and reputation as the son of a Revolutionary War hero seemingly destined for a similar fate, while Grant was haphazardly accepted to West Point upon his father’s urging (Bowery, 2005; Murphy, 2004).

At West Point Lee excelled, graduating second in his class and notably being the only graduate to never earn a demerit (Bowery, 2005). Grant, on the other hand, didn’t exactly struggle, but he didn’t have the same enthusiasm as Lee for military life. Grant was a mediocre student, that is, among an already elite group of West Point students, though. Grant seemed to have his moment of inspiration rather late in his enrollment when General Winfield Scott visited campus. Grant retrospectively described him “with his commanding figure, his quite colossal size and showy uniform, I thought he was the finest specimen of manhood my eyes had ever held and to be envied…I believe I did have a presentiment for a moment that some day I should occupy his place on review” (Bowery, 2005, p.27). This is the first inkling we have of Grant’s embracing a military life, while Lee’s military career was never a question.

Misconceptions about both Grant and Lee have stemmed from hyperbolic accounts of the men, which usually aggrandized Lee to superhuman status, and demonizes Grant as a drunk and a so-called butcher who had no regard for the lives of his soldiers. None of these accounts are accurate upon closer examination. Other myths include the fact that Lee only chose to lead the Confederacy because of his loyalty to his home state of Virginia. The myth also holds it that Northerners rued his decision to represent the south because they knew he was a great leader. These exaggerations stem from partial truths; Lee was a great General and loyal to Virginia, but Grant was also a great leader and it should not be forgotten who actually won the war and who surrendered—facts that cannot be exaggerated or denied; Lee surrendered to Grant.

There is a great paradox surrounding the myth of General Lee. On one hand, he is “a man who thought of the struggle in terms of protecting his own state rather advancing the cause of the entire Confederacy” and on the other “he forged a personal bond with his soldiers reminiscent of feudal relationships, focused on winning set piece battles without taking in the broader political and social landscape of a modem war, and failed to understood the implications of new weaponry such as the rifle-musket” (Gallagher, 1999, p.295).

History has portrayed Lee as some kind of chivalric knight figure who treated his men as if they were in a feudal relationship. The anachronisms tied to Lee both solidify the myth of this man as the epitome of tradition and ancestral heritage and yet these same features cause others to criticize him for not taking a more modern, proactive approach in facing Grant in those final battles (Gallagher, 1999, p. 295).

The image of Lee in this classic, almost Arthurian depiction makes a perfect contrast to General Grant, and also General William Tecumseh Sherman, who both were similar in their overall strategies and both played a major part in the success of the Union forces. These men were progressive or “forward-looking officers who recognized the necessity of waging a modern war that engulfed entire societies, plotted their strategy accordingly, and changed the nature of the conflict” (Gallagher, 1999, 295). Those who favor Lee see his textbook approach to war as something to be commended, while those who criticize him say his old fashioned tactics lost the war for the Confederacy. Regardless of their favor or dislike of the tactics of Lee, both sides have contributed to the view of him in this outdated, anachronistic way.

A recent biography of Grant by Simpson (2000) has been subtitled “Triumph Over Adversity,” and as Bowery (2005) notes, this couldn’t be more apt. From his less than advantageous upbringing to his financial struggles after his first round serving in the military to his general obscurity and lack of reputation, Grant wasn’t the most likely pick to head the Union forces, at least not from a civilian perspective. Grant’s entire military career and personal life can be seen as overcoming adversity, so much so that he turned adversity into triumph. Grant’s quiet nature as a boy and his general sensitivity—Grant refused to work in his father’s tannery for he hated the smell and could not stand the sight of blood, ironically—often got him teased as a youth (Bowery, 2005; Burns, 1997). His father’s disappointment with the young Grant led him to call on a favor of a family friend with some political power to get Grant accepted into the West Point Military Academy to which Grant was less than enthusiastic about at the time (Burns, 1995). After Grant overcame his initial reservations, he did reasonably well at the Academy.

Grant’s reputation as a General is a departure from the young cadet portrayed by authors and even Grant himself in his memoirs. Just as there is myth surrounding General Lee, the same is true of General Grant. “His feats attained mythic status,” Waugh (2009) describes, “and, like many national myths, contained elements of truth and exaggeration, accuracy and distortion” (p. 1). Grant, after being out of retirement for just three years, and was called upon to command the entirety of Union forces, a new tactic by President Lincoln who desperately needed a new military strategy that election year, no one knew who he was. When Grant arrived in Washington D.C. to check into a hotel down the street from the White House, the desk clerk did not even recognize him (Burns, 1995). It wasn’t long before Grant the obscure became known as Grant the drunk, or worse still, Grant the butcher, the latter referring to his brutality and lack of resolve for the lives of his soldiers (Bowery, 2005). The latter premise could not be farther from the truth. Grant had a reverence and respect for all living things and once punished a soldier who mistreated a horse by tying him to a tree (Burns, 1997). As Bowery (2005) explains, “Grant the Alcoholic and Grant the Butcher have obscured the man as he really was: Grant the most uniformly successful of all Civil War generals and one of history’s greatest captains” (p.18). Hiram Ulysses Grant, later to become known as Ulysses S. Grant or Sam Grant because of mix up on his West Point registration, has been mythologized just as much as General Lee; unfortunately the portrait of Grant, in spite of the fact he admittedly had a drinking problem, often takes away from how great of a leader he really was and how much he genuinely cared for his men.

Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee had in common the drive to win the war. For Lee it was seeing his Army of Northern Virginia succeed from the United States; For Grant, keeping the Union intact was his ultimate goal. In many ways these two men couldn’t be more different, not simply because they wanted different things for the United States, but because they came from two different worlds with only their education and their military skill linking them together. From an objective standpoint, when we strip down the mythology surrounding the war and surrounding these two men, it is clear that Lee had the upper hand in terms of his wealth, fame, and an impressive military resume. Lee had nothing to prove as the commander of his Confederate forces, while when President Lincoln appointed Grant in highest rank, he had everything to prove and all the doubt to overcome as to his worthiness to lead such an incredible feat. It is hard to fathom all the young lives that were lost in the Civil war, and it seems a common practice to focus instead on a single man, or comparison of two men instead, in order to deny the reality of how horrific and widespread this war really was. In the end, it cannot be denied, though, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were both excellent commanders, but Grant won the war and kept the United States of America intact, and for that he must come out on top.

References

Burns, K. (Director). (1997). The Civil War [Documentary]. USA: PBS Video.

Bowery, C. R. (2005). Lee Grant profiles in leadership from the battlefields of Virginia. Saranac Lake, New York: American Management Association.

Gallagher, G. W. (1999). An old-fashioned soldier in a modern war? Robert E. lee as confederate general. Civil War History, 45(4), 295-321. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/208244303?accountid=10559

Murphy, B. J. (2004, 04). GRANT versus LEE. Civil War Times, 43, 42-49,63-64,66. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/199093032?accountid=10559.

Simpson, B. D. (2000). Ulysses S. Grant: triumph over adversity, 1822-1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Waugh, Joan.(2009). U.S. Grant: American hero; American myth. Chapel Hill, UNC Press.