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CHAPTER 1
What We Think We Know
"I have had bitter cause for complaint and reason for resentment. We shall all soon pass away, and history will do us justice. ..."
In 1885, the best-known man of his generation published one of the most influential books ever written about the Civil War. The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant had been eagerly awaited by an entire generation of Americans. When published they were widely read, and historians, who have expended enormous effort in an attempt to understand who was responsible for winning the war, have made extensive use of Grant's book. The Memoirs have often been a key source in understanding and evaluating the Union Army's triumphs and failures. Fine historians such as J. F. C. Fuller, Steven Woodworth, and James Marshall-Cornwall, have used Grant as the principal source — sometimes the only source — for their reconstruction of many of the war's most important events.
Grant wrote his Memoirs under extraordinarily trying circumstances. He was dying, but was deeply in debt and needed a way to provide for his family; authorship seemed the best way to accomplish this. The book he produced was, under the circumstances, very well written. It also provided Grant with a way to set before the world his views on a number of issues. As a former president of the United States as well as a soldier of towering reputation, his opinions were eagerly sought by the reading public. Since its original publication, Grant's Memoirs have never been out of print. Because of Grant's status and his undeniable writing skill, his version of history has been commonly accepted.
His version should not, however, be the last word. As important as Grant's Memoirs are, there is much more to know and to understand — and, I would argue — errors to correct, prejudices to overcome, and distortions to be balanced. The reason for this lies in the deliberate efforts of Grant to manipulate the historical record. Like other memoir writers, Ulysses Simpson Grant set out to control how we would remember the Civil War, and in large measure he succeeded. As a result, our understanding of much of the war is flawed and should be rethought. Although there is much worth noting in his writings, we need to look again at our blind acceptance of certain historical "truths." Ulysses S. Grant was a fine soldier and, we have long believed, a fine man in many ways. But he was not always a shrewd judge of character or competence; nor was he always as honest as we have assumed. For us to uncritically accept his evaluations of the men with whom he served, and then to use those evaluations as the foundation upon which we develop Civil War history, does them, and us, a disservice.
Many of the actors upon the stage of conflict tried to get their own versions of events before the public, but Grant had an advantage others did not have. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, he was the man — after Lincoln — whom most people regarded as the reason the North had won the war. He made use of his power — first as general in chief of the army, then as president of the United States, then as the friend and mentor of the men who succeeded him as general in chief — to suppress, alter, and destroy evidence. He refused to hold courts of inquiry that might have cleared the names of his victims, he advanced the careers of his allies, and he cut short the careers of his enemies. It all added up, I suggest, to deliberate manipulation and distortion.
Grant spoke well of many men in his Memoirs, and not so well of others. The name of William S. Rosecrans does not often come to mind when there is discussion of the major contributors to Union victory. Perhaps it should; but in large measure because of the efforts of Grant, his contributions have been minimized. The same thing happened to a number of other men.
We have accepted certain facts about the Civil War. One of them is that William S. Rosecrans was a sometimes brilliant but frequently erratic general who panicked on the field of Chickamauga and abandoned his men to their fate. Yet Rosecrans was for a time considered equal to Grant among Union commanders in the Western theater until Grant relieved him from command, not once, but twice. There ensued a feud which would follow the antagonists to their graves, and beyond. Grant pilloried Rosecrans in his Memoirs, and that has shaped in large measure the way we remember him today. There are certainly other men we could focus on, but space precludes too broad a study in one volume. A future book will look at some others.
It is important to establish a few facts early on. Before we can judge whether Grant was unfair to Rosecrans, we must form some conclusion as to the latter's competence. If he was not an effective commander, then obviously Grant — and historians who followed him — were quite correct in ranking him low on the ladder of Union leaders. In that case, although Grant's manipulation of the historical record would still be a concern, it cannot be blamed for the negative view history holds of Rosecrans.
If he was competent, however, then we must ask why Grant, and others, did not give him the credit he deserves. As we shall see, when we look at Rosecrans shorn of the distortions of Grant, the record indicates that, although he was certainly far from perfect, he was in fact important to the Union victory. Why, then, does he get so little credit for his contributions?
Grant disliked and distrusted Rosecrans. Did he have good reason to? And whether or not he did, should we not evaluate Rosecrans on his own merits, rather than through the eyes of his personal enemy? Grant's actions can tell us how he felt about Rosecrans, and his own words can tell us more. If Rosecrans was actually more capable than Grant makes him seem, then the determined effort to ruin him — undertaken by the general in chief of the army, in apparently coincidental collusion with the secretary of war and with a United States congressman and future president — needs to be explained.
These men took great pains to remove Rosecrans from command and, in an attempt to minimize his accomplishments, criticized him to the president and to the chief of staff of the army. Grant submitted reports that damaged Rosecrans's reputation. He belittled Rosecrans's efforts at Stones River and in Missouri; he downplayed Rosecrans's successes, taking credit for some of them himself; and he besmirched Rosecrans's name to the press, and again when he wrote his Memoirs, which he used to justify the actions he took during the war. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton routinely denied Rosecrans the resources he needed to succeed, sent a minion to spy on him and build a case for his removal, and continually badgered him to move even when moving was inappropriate and dangerous. James A. Garfield deliberately sacrificed Rosecrans's good name and historical reputation in order to advance his own political career and there are indications that afterward the otherwise apparently honest Garfield long regretted what he had done to a man who had trusted him and counted him as a friend. Stanton and Garfield worked together, while Grant used and was used by them in his attempt to ruin Rosecrans. He then used his Memoirs to cover his tracks. It is time to look beyond the same old truths, to re-examine the primary source material of the Civil War, and to stop depending so heavily on the judgments of Ulysses S. Grant. Otherwise we will continue to be misled.
We must also ask why so many historians have accepted Grant at his word instead of looking at other accounts and examining other available data. The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion are readily available to any student of the Civil War; in many cases those records contradict Grant's account. Why then, is Grant's testimony accorded such weight? And how did he so successfully manipulate historians that most of us never even noticed he was doing so?
Immediately after the war, Grant himself was subject to criticism. The various advocates of the "Lost Cause" used him to illustrate the way in which the North supposedly triumphed: through sheer force of numbers. Grant was derided by most Southerners as a butcher, his victories demeaned as the mere application of brute strength. There were Northern critics as well, who claimed that he lacked true genius and that his primary military abilities were simple stubbornness and tenacity. There were exceptions to this trend, to be sure; they were primarily men who had served directly under and with him, and who remained loyal to him. Grenville Dodge, for example, said of him: "As a soldier, General Grant stands first in all the history of warfare." Adam Badeau, Grant's former staff officer and one of his earliest biographers — who sent Grant drafts of his chapters before submitting them to the publisher — said that his chief "did not lack the energy of Stanton nor the sympathy of Lincoln with the people; his strategy was not inferior to that of Sherman, and he proved himself equal to Sheridan in that power of audacious and skillful combination in the presence of the enemy which, above and beyond every other trait, is what is highest and most essential in a general." In other words, he possessed all the best traits of the other leaders of the Union combined.
Other staff officers, subordinates, and colleagues, including Ely Parker, John Rawlins, William T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, Oliver Otis Howard, and Horace Porter, also praised Grant in print and in public addresses — as he had done for them. But the overarching tendency among historians of the era seems to have been the recurrent theme that Grant was a capable soldier who had the good fortune to be in command of a larger army, with greater resources, than his adversaries. His willingness to expend those resources, both human and otherwise, was — according to this theory — the primary cause of his success.
Grant's Memoirs helped to change that perspective. Edward Bonekemper has pointed out that the trend toward upgrading the evaluation of Grant's abilities did not truly begin until the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. This coincides neatly with the publication of Grant's Memoirs. In short, the rehabilitation of Grant's military record was greatly aided by Grant himself. Unfortunately, he did this, in part, by attacking others. It is Mr. Bonekemper's contention that Grant was almost universally derided by historians and the press until approximately 1930. However, this raises the intriguing question of how he had been twice elected to the highest office in the land long before that. In fact, the rehabilitation of his reputation — if such was needed — took place much earlier.
Later generations of historians were kinder to Grant, but they were perhaps too willing to use Grant himself as their greatest resource. Bruce Catton, for example, said that "of all the men who wrote about U. S. Grant it was he himself who did the best job." Edmund Wilson called Grant's Memoirs "the best work of its kind since Julius Caesar's Commentaries." That may very well be true; but it is wise, when examining a man, to consider other opinions of him — and of his friends and enemies — than his own. Bonekemper, for example, not only took Grant's word as the final arbiter in any point of debate on what Mr. Bonekemper argues is the unrecognized genius of Grant, but also used Grant's Memoirs as his primary source for the majority of the controversies addressed in the book. In many cases, in fact, Grant's Memoirs was his only source.
Another example of how some historians have adopted Grant's position without examining other perspectives is Grant as Military Commander by James Marshall-Cornwall. In his discussion of the battles of Iuka and Corinth, for instance, Marshall-Cornwall uses Grant's Memoirs almost exclusively as his only source. In that chapter, there are ten footnotes; seven of them cite Grant's Memoirs as their source, while another cites an article Grant wrote for Century magazine. Rosecrans is twice cited, but in both instances derisively, and in both cases Grant is then cited — as though to show that Rosecrans was lying. For Marshall-Cornwall's Vicksburg chapters, Grant is cited in six of seven footnotes; for the Wilderness Campaign, Grant is the authority for more than one-third of the footnotes, and his highly sympathetic aide Horace Porter for all but one of the rest. For the remainder of Grant's campaigns in Virginia, from Spotsylvania through Appomattox, Grant provides seventeen of twenty-two footnotes, while his aide Porter provides three more. In the chapters noted, there are fifty-eight footnotes; thirty-nine refer to Grant's Memoirs, two to articles he wrote, and Grant's aide is cited in twelve instances. Only five refer to sources other than Grant or his immediate staff. Grant, to Marshall-Cornwall, is plainly to be trusted. But while Grant is an obvious source for anyone writing a history of those campaigns, a book which purports to analyze his generalship should logically refer to other opinions than those of Grant himself.
Grant's perspectives are certainly useful, but they should not be accorded undue weight. The outstanding Civil War historian James M. McPherson has said that in Memoirs, "Grant is generous with praise of other officers (especially Sherman, Sheridan, and Meade) and sparing with criticism, carping, and backbiting. He is also willing to admit mistakes. ..." This is not entirely correct. While certainly willing to praise his favorites, Grant was not always honest in his reporting. He was careful to cover many of his own errors, and willing to exaggerate or even invent the supposed flaws of others to do so.
Influenced in part by Grant's Memoirs, modern historians have generally tended to praise him. Professor T. Harry Williams called him "[t]he greatest general of the Civil War. He was head and shoulders above any general on either side as an over-all strategist, as a master of what in later wars would be called global strategy. He was a brilliant theater strategist ... a better than average tactician."
Of Rosecrans, on the other hand, Professor Williams was less complimentary. He described him as a general "who fought little and shrieked loudly" and said of him that "like some other generals in the war, he tended to break down under the responsibility of command." Professor Williams did acknowledge that Rosecrans possessed a modest degree of military ability, but his overall opinion of the general was not high. Steven Woodworth, in his fine history of the Union Army of the Tennessee, acknowledged that Rosecrans was "an excellent general as long as his enemy gave him plenty of time to prepare," which is likely true of many army commanders, but that he "was rendered all but helpless by an aggressive enemy. At Corinth he had handled his troops poorly, and in the crisis he had given way to almost complete panic and consequent ineffectiveness."
In the following chapters, we shall examine those allegations more closely. Although Professor Woodworth has some basis for his statements, there is more to be said. The well has been so poisoned that Rosecrans can hardly get a fair evaluation today.
CHAPTER 2
Shiloh: A Pattern of Deceit Emerges
The Context
When the Civil War broke out, Ulysses S. Grant was quick to offer his services, but at first his offer was ignored. When finally given a command, he quickly whipped it into shape and attacked a rebel base at Belmont, on the Mississippi River. In doing so he exceeded his orders, which required him to demonstrate but not to attack. He was successful at first, but then rebel reinforcements cut off his command and he had to fight his way out. Grant exhibited personal courage and a cool head, and no real harm was done; but it was an unnecessary battle, and had it gone less well it might have done his reputation great harm. More alarmingly, there are strong indications that he made an attempt to cover his mistake after the fact through falsifying documents.
But since he had at least exhibited initiative, Grant was charged with opening the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. These two tributaries of the Ohio penetrated deep into the heart of the Confederacy and would make prime avenues for invasion. He successfully captured Forts Henry and Donelson, which guarded the rivers, but the operations were far from flawless. Henry was reduced by a powerful gunboat squadron before Grant's arrival, and he was away from his army when a rebel attempt to break out of Donelson nearly succeeded. Even so, he opened the river and captured the powerful fort and the rebel army it contained. His demand for unconditional surrender earned him an immediate reputation as a fighting general.
Success breeds opportunity, and Grant was given field command of an operation to seize the key railhead of Corinth, Mississippi. General Henry Halleck, who was in overall command, was to have at his disposal not only Grant's army and the cooperation of a naval flotilla, but also the Army of the Ohio under Don Carlos Buell.
But Buell had not arrived by the time the rebels struck Grant's encampment near Shiloh Church. The Confederates, under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston, attacked on the morning of April 6, 1862. The Union camps were overrun, but a delaying action by the division of Gen. Benjamin Prentiss, along with elements of other commands, helped hold the rebels back long enough for Grant to hurry to the battlefield and establish a second line. Buell's army arrived that night, as did Lew Wallace's division — of Grant's army — which had been camped several miles away. The next morning Grant and Buell led a counterattack that, in heavy fighting, drove the rebels from the field.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "General Grant and the Rewriting of History"
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Copyright © 2013 Frank P. Varney.
Excerpted by permission of Savas Beatie LLC.
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