Grant and Lee

In the 19th century, one of the surest ways to rise to prominence in American society was to be a war hero, like Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. But few would have predicted such a destiny for Hiram Ulysses Grant, who had been a career soldier with little experience in combat and a failed businessman when the Civil War broke out in 1861.

However, while all eyes were fixed on the Eastern theater at places like Manassas, Richmond, the Shenandoah Valley and Antietam, Grant went about a steady rise up the ranks through a series of successes in the West. His victory at Fort Donelson, in which his terms to the doomed Confederate garrison earned him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant, could be considered the first major Union victory of the war, and Grant’s fame and rank only grew after that at battlefields like Shiloh and Vicksburg. Along the way, Grant nearly fell prey to military politics and the belief that he was at fault for the near defeat at Shiloh, but President Lincoln famously defended him, remarking, “I can’t spare this man. He fights.” Lincoln’s steadfastness ensured that Grant’s victories out West continued to pile up, and after Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Grant had effectively ensured Union control of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as the entire Mississippi River. At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln put him in charge of all federal armies, and he led the Army of the Potomac against Robert E. Lee in the Overland campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and famously, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

Despite being the best known Union general of the Civil War and a former president of the United States, Grant was penniless after being swindled by a fraudulent business deal when he learned that he had terminal cancer in the mid-1880s. Facing death, and with his family suffering financial difficulties, Grant set about writing personal memoirs that would not only secure his legacy but also provide for his family. Grant finished his memoirs just a few days before his death, but he wrote what is almost universally considered to be the best memoirs of the Civil War and one of the best personal memoirs ever written. Grant’s Memoirs, published by Mark Twain, sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family over $450,000. Twain promoted the book as «the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar.»

With the exception of George Washington, perhaps the most famous general in American history is Robert E. Lee (January 19, 1807 — October 12, 1870), despite the fact he led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia against the Union in the Civil War. As the son of U.S. Revolutionary War hero Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee III, and a relative of Martha Custis Washington, Lee was imbued with a strong sense of honor and duty from the beginning. And as a top graduate of West Point, Lee had distinguished himself so well before the Civil War that President Lincoln asked him to command the entire Union Army. Lee famously declined, serving his home state of Virginia instead after it seceded.

Lee is remembered today for constantly defeating the Union’s Army of the Potomac in the Eastern theater from 1862–1865, considerably frustrating Lincoln and his generals. His leadership of his army led to him being deified after the war by some of his former subordinates, especially Virginians, and he came to personify the Lost Cause’s ideal Southern soldier. His reputation was secured in the decades after the war as a general who brilliantly led his men to amazing victories against all odds.

Despite his successes and his legacy, Lee wasn’t perfect. And of all the battles Lee fought in, he was most criticized for Gettysburg, particularly his order of Pickett’s Charge on the third and final day of the war.