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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLeonardo DiCaprio's Big Middle Finger to the Confederacy
Grant, a History Channel miniseries airing over three nights beginning on Memorial Day (May 25), is an overtand timelyreclamation project. His reputation having faded over the past century because, as many here assert, the Souths Lost Cause rewriting of Civil War history invariably downplayed his accomplishments, Ulysses S. Grant is restored by this informative and entertaining TV documentary to the prototypical modern American hero. Based on Ron Chernows critically acclaimed 2017 biography of the same name, its a stirring tribute to an individual who embodied Americas finest ideals: hard work, determination, courage, resolve, and belief in democracy and equality for all, no matter the color of their skin.
Executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, and featuring participation from numerous historians, writers and servicemen, including Chernow, Ta-Nehisi Coates and David Petraeus, Grant is a non-fiction tale about the intertwined self-definition of a man and a nation. Born on April 27, 1822, Grant grew up the working-class son of an Ohio tanner and merchant, and found his first calling as an accomplished horseman. Disinterested in taking over the family business, and having garnered the nickname Useless Grant as a kid, he was sentwithout being askedto West Point, where a typo bestowed him with the middle initial S (rather than H, for Hiram), thereby resulting in the more patriotic US Grant moniker. The reconfiguration of Grants name would continue once he joined President Abraham Lincolns Civil War army, his initials eventually coming to stand for Unconditional Surrender Grant due to his habit of securing definitive victory over his adversaries.
The evolution of Grants handle goes hand-in-hand with the upwards trajectory of his life. Post-military school graduation, Grant entered the infantry, and soon fell in love with and married Julia Dent, the daughter of a family that owned slavesa situation that caused some friction for Grant and his own abolitionist clan. Triumphs in the Mexican-American War proved that he was preternaturally cool under pressure, but in the years immediately following that conflict, Grant left the service and fell on hard times, to the point of taking various odd jobs just to make sure his family didnt starve. Even at his most destitute, however, he hewed to his convictions, freeing his only slave, William Jonesgiven to him by his father-in-law.
The Civil War altered Grants fortunes forever, and after establishing the mans backstory, this series roots itself in the commanders rise up the ranks via a series of impressive and daring campaigns that confirmed his imposing mettle, intelligence, and strategic shrewdness. On the battlefields against a Confederate Army led by his fellow West Point graduate Robert E. Lee, Grant exhibited canny tactical acumen and equally formidable tenacity, taking immense gambits (such as at Vicksburg, hailed as his masterpiece, where he seized control of the Mississippi River) and often pursuing enemies into hostile territory in order to attain decisive wins. Grant began to develop into a legend in the thick of warfare, and its there that Grant spends the majority of its time, recounting in exhaustive detail the many clashes that marked his Civil War tenure, and the famously daring and clever maneuvers that allowed him to eventually secure victory for the Union.
https://news.yahoo.com/leonardo-dicaprio-big-middle-finger-084052124.html
Looking forward to it.
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,785 posts)We have friends who owned a restaurant there, the Perry Street Brasserie, now closed. We visit them 3 times a year since 2006.
4 years ago, we finally made it over to Grant's House. Very modest in size and decor for the Civil War era. 9 of his top Generals lived in Galena as well. Worth the time to go through. The town is historic, as many of the original buildings still stand. The Belvedere Mansion is worth the time as well.
mac56
(17,567 posts)It's amazing.
hedda_foil
(16,374 posts)I really want to know how that came about. My late brother and his now-widow lived in Galena. She's still there.
47of74
(18,470 posts)I live about 1/2 hour from Galena. Lots of different places that I hope will come back.
dameatball
(7,397 posts)Niagara
(7,605 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,161 posts)or at least the impression I got in school, was that Grant's administration was among the more corrupt. Is that gone now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_administration_scandals
No I don't think so. So what's with the rehab? This show sounds like the first fake news rehab timed to begin the rehab genre. Did I tell you there's someone in the White House who might like this trend?
AleksS
(1,665 posts)Unfortunately Grant went through a de-habilitation at the hands of the south.
This is more of a stripping of the tarnish the south put on his reputation than a rehabilitation.
Recommend the biography; its a good deconstruction of the stain the traitor-states tried to smear on him.
CatWoman
(79,301 posts)Lee suddenly emerged (according to the south) as a benevolent, slavery hating crusader -- the exact opposite of what he was really like.
Lee sucked as a general, too.
oasis
(49,383 posts)Buzz cook
(2,471 posts)Had a Pickett's charge incident. McClellan at Antitem to Grant at Cold Harbor. Lots of times generals would send troops into the meat grinder.
Lee was a good general that was face with not so good opponents. When you read the history of the war you don't so much end up admiring Lee as get pissed off at how awful the Union leadership was.
bucolic_frolic
(43,161 posts)but the scandals of Grant, if that's what they were, need close examination, and still to be explained in my mind is how the South managed to tarnish his administration because most scholars and historians were in private northern colleges which were conservative (the only kind prior to about 1920). I doubt land-grant colleges had much production or influence post-war, and the private ones were sort of industrialist backed since that's where their money came from. Should have been friendly to manufacturers, growth capitalism, expansion. Yet US Grant got a rep somehow.
Yeehah
(4,587 posts)He unwisely (stupidly) trusted some big business people who created massive scandals during his second term.
bucolic_frolic
(43,161 posts)It's a low bar to say he was not corrupt but stupid. The office does, in ordinary times unlike the present, require some degree of competence, awareness of management and law, spine, and integrity. Lax oversight is a current problem, was a problem for Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, and for US Grant. You'd think a former General would know the dark capacities of human nature.
Yeehah
(4,587 posts)In addition to the wikipedia page, there are several biographies out there, along with his memoirs.
Aristus
(66,349 posts)He lamented that the only thing he was good at in life was war. And he hated war.
AdamGG
(1,291 posts)malchickiwick
(1,474 posts)Can't wait; thanks for the reminder to set my DVR!
Zorro
(15,740 posts)There is an incredible amount of detail about both major and minor military actions during the Civil War; it does not go into his two terms in office.
Grant made some very interesting points:
The entry of Texas into the Union as a slave state was the root cause of the Civil War.
He considered the Confederate generals as traitors, and condemned efforts to promote them as heroic icons. He particularly despised Robert E. Lee, blaming him for the deaths not only of Union soldiers, but also for the deaths of Lee's own troops for a cruel, dishonorable cause.
Both volumes are available as a free Kindle download.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)They should have all been hanged. Including Lee.
stopdiggin
(11,306 posts)And the old adage "history is written by the victor .." was allowed to be turned on it's head in this case. To the detriment of both country and moral truth. The Confederacy was a stain and a blight on the country (although hardly the only one) .. and the whitewash of that stain was a a disservice to all by history and historians.
Many of the men the "old south" chose to memorialize and lionize were not only servants to an ugly cause .. but also, as individuals, utterly foul creatures of no creditable reputation or honor.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)jeffreyi
(1,939 posts)Written when he was in the late stages of throat cancer. He finished writing the book under great duress and died soon thereafter. He wanted the book sales to help his family after his demise.
farmbo
(3,121 posts)There are but two parties now, Traitor & Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger one..
SunSeeker
(51,554 posts)dlk
(11,566 posts)Thanks for sharing!
Hekate
(90,681 posts)pecosbob
(7,538 posts)Politics of the time was naked power grabs, patronage and self-enrichment. Credit Mobilier was ongoing and two thirds of Congress was on the take and this sort of thing was the rule and not the exception.
DBoon
(22,366 posts)Speaking about how the former Confederacy has re-written history.
I'd love to tour Civil War sites, but definitely do not want something that glosses over slavery and glorifies those who fought for slavery.
Anyone run across something with this perspective?
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,972 posts)It's the only Civil War site I've been to. The tour talks about the battle and Lincoln's Gettysburg address.
DBoon
(22,366 posts)will see what I can find.
Thanks for the idea
Cognitive_Resonance
(1,546 posts)and Abolitionist activity in the Old South. Here's a good starting point with heavy focus on the rebellion against the Confederacy in the Piney Woods region of Mississippi (five counties were involved centered in Jones County):
https://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/
DBoon
(22,366 posts)lot of great places
roamer65
(36,745 posts)There were some who felt it would be better to just let the secessionist states leave.
Jefferson Daviss lawyer was one. The federal government never tried Davis for treason. They were scared that an innocent ruling would legitimize secession.
DBoon
(22,366 posts)President Ulysses S. Grant sympathized with the plight of Native Americans and believed that the original occupants of the land were worthy of study. During the 19th Century, the term "Indian" was used to describe Native peoples of America. Grant's Inauguration Address set the tone for the Grant administration Native American Peace policy. The Board of Indian Commissioners was created to make reforms in Native policy and to ensure Native tribes received federal help. Grant lobbied the United States Congress to ensure that Native peoples would receive adequate funding. The hallmark of the Grant's Peace policy was the incorporation of religious groups that served on Native agencies, which were dispersed throughout the United States.
Grant was the first President of the United States to appoint a Native American, Ely S. Parker, as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. After the Piegan massacre, in 1870, military officers were barred from holding elected or appointed offices. During Grant's first term, American Indian Wars decreased. By his second term, his Peace policy fell apart. Settlers demanded to invade Native land to get access to gold in the Black Hills. The Modoc War (18721873) and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), were detrimental to Grant's goal of Native assimilation to European American culture and society.
Historians admire Grant's sincere efforts to improve Native relations in the United States but remain critical of the destruction of American bison herds, which served as a tribal food supply. Native American culture was destroyed in order to engineer the Cultural assimilation of Native Americans into citizenship, and European American culture and government. Detrimental to his Peace policy was religious agency infighting in addition to Parker's resignation in 1871. Grant's intentions of peacefully "civilizing" Natives were often in conflict with the nation's westward settlement, the pursuit of gold, the Long Depression (1873-1896), financial corruption, racism, and ranchers. The driving force behind the Peace policy and Native land displacement, was the American ideal of Manifest Destiny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_policy_of_the_Ulysses_S._Grant_administration
Interesting
Aristus
(66,349 posts)My favorite part is, after detailing Grant's years of personal and professional failure before the Civil War, Chernow's recounting of how Grant obtained a command at the start of the war, and he suddenly came into his own. He started issues clear, effective orders directed toward winning the war. His esteem on a national level shot through the roof. I nearly wept with happiness to read it after all of that soul-crushing failure.
Jersey Devil
(9,874 posts)like that.