Status Updates From Grant

“This anticlimactic moment was formative for Grant, who never forgot the nugget of practical wisdom learned. He would emerge as a master of the psychology of war, intuitive about enemy weakness. Henceforth he would project himself into opponents’ minds and comprehend their fears and anxieties instead of blowing them up into all-powerful bugaboos, giving him courage when others quailed.”

“Grant struck up an intimate friendship with the regimental chaplain, James L. Crane, whom he asked to deliver blessings at meals. Crane marveled at Grant’s cool, unruffled temperament, his candor among trusted friends, and his charitable nature: “He has no desire to rise by the fall of others; no glorying over another’s abasement; no exulting over another’s tears.””

“In plain blue coat and black felt hat without marks of rank, he showed an egalitarian spirit that the volunteers appreciated. In ten days, he boosted regimental numbers from 630 to a full complement of 1,000…Short of cash, Grant turned to his father and Orvil for a loan to enable him to buy a horse and a dress uniform appropriate to his new rank.”

“As so often with Grant, people badly underestimated him, and his small size and slatternly appearance brought out sadistic impulses in some men. A few soldiers began to razz their new colonel, hissing in derision, “Well, I’ll be damned. Is that our colonel?” One man said mockingly, “He don’t look as if he knew enough to find cows if you gave him the hay.””

“…on June 16, 1861, Grant received a telegram…appointing him colonel of the 7th Congressional District Regiment… the same outfit he had drilled into shape at Mattoon. No sooner had he digested this long-awaited news and wired acceptance to Yates than he received an offer to command an Ohio regiment, which he declined. Grant’s life had changed abruptly, irrevocably, and rather miraculously.”

“Soon to turn thirty-nine, Grant lingered in the shadowy wings of history, ready to fight. Emboldened by the cause, he cast off the lethargy and depression that had enwrapped him like a tight cloak…The Civil War was about to rescue Grant from a dismal record of antebellum business failures. Even his posture became more erect, more military.”

“Both sides underestimated the duration and savagery of the warfare ahead, nourishing pleasing fantasies of a massive blow that would knock out the enemy. The U.S. Army was shockingly understaffed, leaving gaping holes in the national defense.”

“Despite pro-Union sentiment thinly scattered through the South, many southern officers felt that loyalty to their states outweighed attachment to the federal government... As Grant recounted, “The Southern feeling in the army among high officers was so strong that when the war broke out the army dissolved.””

“AT 4:30 A.M. ON APRIL 12, 1861, the elegant Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard…gave orders to shell Fort Sumter amid rejoicing from Charleston citizens, who crowded nearby rooftops as if rooting for a sporting event… Lincoln had seized the moral high ground and avoided firing the first shot of the Civil War, lest he lend credence to southern charges of being a despot and thereby forfeit the loyalty of border states.”

“Grant’s fortuitous move to Illinois on the eve of the election had monumental consequences, conveniently situating him in the president’s home state and overtly pro-Union northern Illinois…Had Grant remained in Missouri, riven by internal strife, he would never have enjoyed the same chance for rapid advancement in the coming war.”

“When the race boiled down to Lincoln versus Breckinridge, Grant wrote that “he wanted . . . to see Mr. Lincoln elected.”34 Grant did not foresee how momentous the November election would be, nor how profoundly it would transform his entire existence.”

“As befit employment in a family firm, Ulysses performed multiple functions, serving customers, buying and selling hides, handling paperwork, and collecting bills… Grant displayed small business aptitude and sometimes acted as if the work were so much meaningless drudgery. “He was restless I think,” Julia speculated. “It wasn’t congenial to do the work required of him.””

“IN APRIL 1860, Ulysses S. Grant, cloaked in his old blue army cape, arrived in Galena aboard the Mississippi steamer Itasca. Clasping in each hand chairs that had served the family as deck seats, Grant, along with Julia and the four children, stepped ashore into what they hoped would be a new, more secure life.”

Almost there