The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Volume 2: April-September, 1861. Edited by John Y. Simon. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. Pp. xxxiii, 399. $15.00.) The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Volume 3: October 1, 1861-January 7, 1862. Edited by John Y. Simon. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971. Pp. xxv, 479. $15.00.) The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Volume 4: January 8, 1862-March 31, 1862. Edited by John Y. Simon. Assistant Editor, Roger D. Bridges. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972. Pp. xxv, 520. $15.00.) The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Volume 5: April 1-August 31, 1862. Edited by John Y. Simon. Assistant Editor, Thomas G. Alexander. (Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 1973. Pp. xxv, 458. $15.00.) Ulysses S. Grant was always a little mysterious, to his contemporaries and to historians. Bruce Catton's volumes erased some of the mystery and the collected papers prepared under the auspices of the Ulysses S. Grant Association will further illumine the life of one of America's most successful generals (and one of its least successful Presidents). The letters and papers, so skillfully edited by John Y. Simon, reveal the Grant of the early Civil War as a sensitive, sometimes frightened, man, whose calm demeanor led observors to think of him as a machine. He was an ambitious man, jealous of his military reputation and the perquisites of rank; his feelings were easily bruised by those superior to him and he was particularly concerned for the good opinion of his father. He prospered in 1861, mainly because he was a good clerk. Grant could move paper and fill out forms. Lincoln may have looked for fighters but the offiicers who received the best appointments and advanced most rapidly were those who understood the Army bureaucracy . Editor Simon notes that most of the letters in 1861 were Grant's own; he had no staff. Thus they reveal a man who understood the need for organization but one who also demanded celerity, energy, and precise execution of orders. In the political vein he predicted that the war would destroy slavery , not because of a great moral feeling in the North, but because the Confederate war effort rested on its peculiar institution. He also noted 65 66CIVIL WAR HISTORY very early that sympathy for the South on the part of moderates (he may have been a Douglas Democrat in 1860) was misplaced. "There are but two parties now, Traitors and Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter" (11,7). In the defense of the nation, which he revered with near mystical fervor, he wished to see a short war, with the vast power of the North concentrated to that end. Yet, fear of slave unrest prompted him to write that the Union soldier would put down such a rebellion with the same ardor he brought to the fight against the slave owner. Politics are a recurring theme in these volumes, but Grant necessarily spent most of 1861 trying to bring his troops to a fighting trim. He needed equipment in vast amounts but more than that he needed to instill proper martial attitudes in his men and officers. The soldiers did not take to military life and followed too much their propensity to disregard orders and the niceties of military courtesy and tradition. As for the officers, too many were self-seekers with no grasp of their duties or their responsibilities. To Grant's particular chagrin was that "the closest intimacy exists between many of the officers and soldiers of his command; that they visit together in the lowest drinking and dancing saloons; quarrel, curse, drink and carouse generally on the lowest level of equality, and neglect generally the interests of the Government they are sworn to serve. . . . Discipline cannot be maintained where the officers do not command respect and such conduct cannot insure it" ( II, 207-208). As for himself, he wished to command a fighting army and to take it into the field himself. To this end he sought a battle that would test himself and his men. Aside from personal considerations Grant early recognized the need for a...