Grant by Ron Chernow (review)

This volume is not likely to become a Broadway musical. It may be the most satisfactory biography of Ulysses S. Grant yet written. “In truth, Grant was instrumental in helping the Union vanquish the Confederacy and in realizing the wartime ideals enshrined in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. The Civil War and Reconstruction formed two acts of a single historical drama to gain freedom and justice for black Americans, and Grant was the major personality who united the two periods” (xxii).

His place as military leader remains reasonably secure, but Chernow’s major contribution is his compelling description of Grant’s rule as liberator and protector of the slaves and freedmen. He concludes, with Sean Wilentz: “The evidence clearly shows that [Grant] created the most auspicious record on racial equality and civil rights of any president from Lincoln to Lyndon B. Johnson” (xxii).

Chernow’s account of Grant’s military success is a familiar story, with some stimulating insights. The war was an escape of sorts for Grant, not the least from his father and father-in-law. Having Elihu B. Washburne as a political guide and patron was as consequential as what seemed to be innate leadership qualities and a pronounced, if veiled, ambition and self-regard. He almost left the army in 1862 because he felt unappreciated by Henry W. Halleck, but a timely promotion for Halleck rescued Grant for continued success in the west. He fully deserved credit for Vicksburg and not quite so much for Chattanooga, but these victories and reassurances to Lincoln that he was not interested (as yet) in becoming president led to his elevation to command of the Union armies.

The great campaigns of 1864–65 secured Grant and Sherman’s reputations, but with reservations. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta may have won the election of 1864 for Lincoln, but historians of consequence believe that he should have done it earlier. Grant led the Army of the Potomac to eventual victory, but Robert E. Lee is often regarded as Grant’s equal, if not superior. Proximity to the cotton curtain has affected opinions about the Civil War, even among academic historians. Chernow clearly admires Grant and with good reasons. This does not preclude a thorough discussion of Grant’s two major missteps—the attack at Cold Harbor and the Battle of the Crater. Why did this ordinarily clear-minded officer contribute so directly to these disasters? Grant suffered from severe headaches during the overland campaign, due no doubt to the stress of combat. And to the political pressure to carry the war to Lee. His soldiers paid the price for ill-advised tactical decisions, and Grant has yet to fully overcome the belief that “He had merely been the lucky beneficiary of superiority of men and resources.” He always resented this verdict. Long after the war, he recalled that “southern generals were [seen as] models of chivalry and valor—our generals were venal, incompetent, coarse . . .” (516). And often drunkards.

Grant’s early comments after the war stressed reconciliation, but events of the Andrew Johnson administration convinced him that the radical Republicans’ approach to Reconstruction was necessary. Far from accepting military defeat, southern whites began a campaign of terror against the freedmen and their allies. Armed and organized whites, many of them Confederate veterans, resolved to negate the results of the war. And they had a willing ally in President Johnson.

Grant’s election in 1868 and the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment were encouraging signs. Grant termed the amendment a “measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day” (68).

The Reconstruction amendments provided that Congress could enforce them through appropriate legislation. This Congress did, including the creation of the Department of Justice. Grant, at least for a time, brought the full power of the federal government, including the army, to the defense of the freedmen and the eradication of the Ku Klux Klan. “For...