Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant Publisher: ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 730
Book Description
This volume provides material that will allow a fresh evaluation of Grant's activities following Appomattox. In April Grant commanded an army of more than 1,000,000 men maintained at enormous cost. Disbanding this army took priority. By mid-July, more than two-thirds of the volunteers had been mustered out. Grant as peacemaker exerted his power to protect his former adversaries. He opposed prosecuting Southern military leaders, including Robert E. Lee and others who had been indicted for treason. The South had to accept defeat, but Grant was no believer in a Carthaginian peace. Two military tasks remained. Grant sent his two most trusted subordinates to solve these problems: Major General Philip H. Sheridan to pressure the French in Mexico and Major General William T. Sherman to keep settlers and Indians apart. During the summer, Grant drafted his report on the last year of the war. The style as well as the substance of the report attracted widespread attention. It also made clear Grant's mastery of events during that terrible year.
Author: Earl J. Hess Publisher: LSU Press ISBN: 0807174475 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 447
Book Description
Winner of the Colonel Richard W. Ulbrich Memorial Book Award Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award Civil War Supply and Strategy stands as a sweeping examination of the decisive link between the distribution of provisions to soldiers and the strategic movement of armies during the Civil War. Award-winning historian Earl J. Hess reveals how that dynamic served as the key to success, especially for the Union army as it undertook bold offensives striking far behind Confederate lines. How generals and their subordinates organized military resources to provide food for both men and animals under their command, he argues, proved essential to Union victory. The Union army developed a powerful logistical capability that enabled it to penetrate deep into Confederate territory and exert control over select regions of the South. Logistics and supply empowered Union offensive strategy but limited it as well; heavily dependent on supply lines, road systems, preexisting railroad lines, and natural waterways, Union strategy worked far better in the more developed Upper South. Union commanders encountered unique problems in the Deep South, where needed infrastructure was more scarce. While the Mississippi River allowed Northern armies to access the region along a narrow corridor and capture key cities and towns along its banks, the dearth of rail lines nearly stymied William T. Sherman’s advance to Atlanta. In other parts of the Deep South, the Union army relied on massive strategic raids to destroy resources and propel its military might into the heart of the Confederacy. As Hess’s study shows, from the perspective of maintaining food supply and moving armies, there existed two main theaters of operation, north and south, that proved just as important as the three conventional eastern, western, and Trans-Mississippi theaters. Indeed, the conflict in the Upper South proved so different from that in the Deep South that the ability of Federal officials to negotiate the logistical complications associated with army mobility played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war.
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant Publisher: ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 702
Book Description
Although Ulysses S. Grant is best remembered as Civil War commander and as president, documents included here demonstrate his importance in the intervening years. Grant interpreted Reconstruction as the means to preserve battlefield victories. He avoided taking a public stand in the bitter dispute between President Andrew Johnson and Congress because he believed that military men served the country, not partisan interests. Nevertheless, he recognized that presidential Reconstruction had failed and privately supported passage of the First Reconstruction Act. Grant's public silence on political issues led to lively newspaper speculation, and individuals from unreconstructed rebels to ardent Unionists wrote to him offering support and advice. Circumstances were forcing him inexorably onto the political battlefield.
Author: Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez Publisher: LSU Press ISBN: 0807171417 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 377
Book Description
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, federal officials captured, imprisoned, and indicted Jefferson Davis for treason. If found guilty, the former Confederate president faced execution for his role in levying war against the United States. Although the federal government pursued the charges for over four years, the case never went to trial. In this comprehensive analysis of the saga, Treason on Trial, Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez suggests that while national politics played a role in the trial’s direction, the actions of lesser-known individuals ultimately resulted in the failure to convict Davis. Early on, two primary factions argued against trying the case. Influential northerners dreaded the prospect of a public trial, fearing it would reopen the wounds of the war and make a martyr of Davis. Conversely, white southerners pointed to the treatment and prosecution of Davis as vindictive on the part of the federal government. Moreover, they maintained, the right to secede from the Union remained within the bounds of the law, effectively linking the treason charge against Davis with the constitutionality of secession. While Icenhauer-Ramirez agrees that politics played a role in the case, he suggests that focusing exclusively on that aspect obscures the importance of the participants. In the United States of America v. Jefferson Davis, preeminent lawyers represented both parties. According to Icenhauer-Ramirez, Lucius H. Chandler, the local prosecuting attorney, lacked the skill and temperament necessary to put the case on a footing that would lead to trial. In addition, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase had little desire to preside over the divisive case and intentionally stymied the prosecution’s efforts. The deft analysis in Treason on Trial illustrates how complications caused by Chandler and Chase led to a three-year delay and, eventually, to the dismissal of the case in 1868, when President Andrew Johnson granted blanket amnesty to those who participated in the armed rebellion.
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant Publisher: ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 536
Book Description
Mexico had interested Ulysses S. Grant since the young lieutenant fought there. Now, as president of the Mexican Southern Railroad, he emerged as a strong advocate of increased trade and investment. Appointed by President Chester A. Arthur to negotiate a commercial treaty, Grant spent most of January, 1883, at the capital, working with his friend and counterpart Matías Romero. For months, Grant promoted the resulting treaty, granting interviews, giving speeches, and toasting visiting Mexican statesman Porfirio Díaz. Success gave way to bitter failure when the Senate rejected the treaty, led by sugar and tobacco protectionists, amid charges that Grant had crafted provisions to benefit his moribund railroad. Grant's support for Fitz John Porter, a former general who sought to reverse a wartime court-martial, brought him more controversy in Washington. U.S. Senator John A. Logan of Illinois, a stalwart supporter, broke with Grant and fought the measure. The bill passed anyway, but Arthur vetoed it. As Grant lost influence in the White House and in Congress, he turned his attention and energy elsewhere. In September, 1883, Grant joined a tour to celebrate the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad, begun during his first presidential term. From Minnesota to Oregon, Grant saw firsthand the rapid growth of the northwest. "I was not prepared to see so rich a country or one so rapidly developing." On Christmas Eve, 1883, Grant slipped on an icy sidewalk. His injured leg kept him in bed for weeks and on crutches for months. Another crippling blow came in May, 1884, with the failure of Grant & Ward, the brokerage firm co-founded by Ulysses, Jr., in which his father was a silent partner. Ferdinand Ward had bilked the firm of its few real assets and all the Grant family had. Grant was devastated. "I could bear all the pecuniary loss if that was all, but that I could be so long deceived by a man who I had such opportunity to know is humiliating." Buoyed by loans from friends, determined to repay his debts, Grant wrote a series of articles about his Civil War campaigns, then began his Memoirs. In February, 1885, he was diagnosed with cancer. Newspapers published daily updates as Grant steadily declined. Fading health spurred Grant to finish his Memoirs. He accepted a generous publishing offer from Samuel L. Clemens and completed the first of two volumes by March. The second was nearly done in June, when the Grants left sweltering New York City for upstate Mount McGregor. Here Grant finished his work and faced his end, unable to speak, communicating by notes to his doctors and friends. "There never was one more willing to go than I am." Grant died on July 23, his family at his side. The late John Y. Simon was a professor of history at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He wrote or edited, in addition to the thirty published volumes of the Grant Papers, four books, among which is The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant. Aaron M. Lisec is associate editor of the Grant Papers. Leigh Fought is assistant editor of the Grant Papers. Cheryl R. Ragar is textual editor of the Grant Papers.
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Author: Ulysses S. Grant
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Author: Earl J. Hess
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Author: Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez
Author: Ulysses Simpson Grant