Susan in NC’s Reviews > Grant > Status Update

“ This first major Union victory bestowed instant fame on Grant, who became the war’s first certified hero. Rocketed to stardom—The New York Times affirmed that Grant’s “prestige is second now to that of no general in our army”—he leapt to the front pages of newspapers across America.”

“ Grant had captured an army of at least thirteen thousand men…He showed mercy toward the conquered force, giving them food and letting them keep their sidearms…he refused to shame defeated soldiers and vetoed any ceremony…“Why should we go through with vain forms and mortify and injure the spirit of brave men, who, after all, are our own countrymen,” he asked.”

“…Grant retired outmoded forms of chivalry, showing that gentility had given way to a stark new brand of modern warfare. He did not soften his words in deference to past friendship with Buckner and delivered a powerful military message instead…Grant believed the South had conducted an illegal rebellion and wasn’t entitled to enjoy the niceties of military etiquette.”

“For Grant it had been a day of bloody triumph…he didn’t whoop with delight over enemy losses. At dusk, riding back to headquarters through fields littered with frozen corpses, he came upon a wounded Union lieutenant sprawled next to a Confederate private. Grant dismounted, got a flask of brandy, and impartially gave a swig to each man.”

“ Typically for Grant, he focused on enemy defects, not on his own. Unlike other Union generals who magnified rebel power to imaginary proportions, Grant’s knowledge of his foes demystified them. Perhaps from his own background of failure, he was always attuned to the mentality of defeat.”

“ Later explaining why he dared to confront a larger Confederate force at the fort, Grant said: “Of course there was a risk in attacking Donelson as I did, but I knew the men who commanded it. I knew some of them in Mexico. Knowledge of that kind goes far toward determining a movement like this.” The comment again speaks to Grant’s command of the psychology of battle.”

“DESPITE HIS IMPLACABLE WILL, Grant stood under no illusions that Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River would succumb as easily as its sister fort on the Tennessee. The Cumberland commanded river traffic to nearby Nashville, a regional entrepôt for many agricultural and manufacturing goods, boosting dramatically the fort’s strategic value.”

“ The sailors had performed the lion’s share of the work and by the time Grant arrived at 3 p.m., the Union flag had already fluttered above the fort for almost an hour. It was a stunning victory for new naval technology, mobilized by an old infantryman, U. S. Grant.”

“ To figure out the range of Fort Henry’s guns, Grant didn’t leave matters to a team of officers, but showed personal bravery and involvement. He boarded the gunboat Essex, joined by two other gunboats, and the three ships crept slowly toward Fort Henry until they drew fire, establishing the precise trajectory of rebel weapons.”

“ On the rainy morning of February 3, 1862, Grant set off up the Tennessee River from Paducah, Kentucky, toward Fort Henry, leading a fearsome flotilla of four ironclad and three wooden gunboats that protected twenty-three regiments of Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa volunteers, who stood packed on transports.”