Grant and Lee: Victorious American and Vanquished Virginian (review)

While historians add dozens of new biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee every year in almost mechanistic fashion, Edward H. Bonekemper’s most recent study adds a surprisingly interesting new perspective to the ever-burgeoning scholarship on these Civil War icons. He examines the leadership of both generals in arguably the first in-depth comparison of the two commanders spanning the entire war, not just the 1864–65 campaign.

Bonekemper’s narrative does little to hide his affection for Grant, building on the themes and conclusions from his previous works, How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War and A Victor, Not a Butcher: Ulysses S. Grant’s Overlooked Military Genius. He asserts that Grant earned his military successes through the tactical brilliance of knowing when to take gambles and selectively calculate when to sacrifice his men for maximum gain. Moreover, these battlefield triumphs reflected Grant’s greater genius of possessing a masterful comprehension of the North’s strategy and abundant resources that allowed him to translate his audacity into victory.

The author’s criticism of Robert E. Lee often overshadows his praise of Grant. Unlike his opponent, Lee failed to link his military operations with the strategic realities and needs of the Confederacy. In sum, Grant’s aggressiveness was astute and his high casualties acceptable while Lee’s aggressiveness was foolhardy and his high casualties irresponsible. Bonekemper rests much of his appraisal of Lee on the assumption that the South could have won the war by simply waiting out the Union and allowing enemy war weariness to achieve its independence. Yet, in some sense, this contradicts his acknowledgement of the North’s numerous resources, which Grant used to overwhelm the Confederacy.

Lee’s poor strategic assessment caused him to adopt an aggressively offensive strategy throughout the war, leading to two ill-conceived invasions of the North as well as numerous bold assaults in several battles, which ultimately bled his army to death. The failures of his overly offensive mindset against the Union Army in the East ultimately spread to other theatres such as Vicksburg and Chattanooga. These campaigns, Bonekemper argues, resulted in disaster because of the poor strategic risks taken in Virginia. Lee’s aggressive nature also adversely affected a number of his protégés, such as General John B. Hood, who carelessly sacrificed the flower of his army in pointless frontal attacks during the Franklin and Nashville campaigns.

Students of military leadership will find great value in the author’s final chapter, which analyzes Lee and Grant’s managerial styles in administering their staffs and resources as well as their intangible qualities such as strategic vision, moral courage, and religious faith. Grant, not surprisingly, comes out superior in nearly every category. The book also supplements these assertions with over fifty pages of appendixes listing the casualties from each of Grant and Lee’s engagements in an effort to let the numbers do the talking.

In spite of its slant, this rigorously researched book will serve as a useful launching point for intellectual discussion regarding the legacies of these legendary commanders.