Test captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 so his mind is on several things, i think that would be fair to say. Actually, what grant does, grant basically takes a look at whats going on, he calls halak, the commanding general in washington, gets sherman, theyre fighting in north mississippi, and the idea is they are going to move and attack vicksburg before John Mcclaren can get there. These soldiers are coming down to memphis. Guess who is waiting for them. William t. Sherman, come on boys, were going to go down and attack vicksburg. When mcclaren shows up, he looks around, he says, where are my soldiers, where are all these people that i just theyre not around. Theyre with sherman. What happens, of course, the real problem, as grant sees it, is that mcclaren outranks sherman, so if he comes down, he can take over that army. So what does grant do . Grant becomes the person who controls that army in mississippi completely because grant outranks mcclaren. You have this situation. And then halak, who cant stand mcclaren and one of the reasons being hes not a west pointer, not even whatever thats worth. Whatever that means. Yeah. Im not going to miss a straight line. The whole idea being that grant will command and he gets halak to agree to make mcclaren one of the core commanders in grants army. Grant just outmaneuvers all of these people. He doesnt have to outma new mer does he resent the fact that lincoln put him in this position at all . He doesnt seem to. Thats the part that i find amazing too. It just seems that he understand whats going on, the issue of the politics of it. Later on grant does relieve mcclaren of his command. Do you know if he checked with lincoln before he did that . No, he didnt. In fa in fact, thats one of the most amazing things. Later on when theyre fighting in the vicksburg area, et cetera, mcclaren takes credit for one of the first attacks on the vicksburg encampment, encirclement would be a better way of putting it, and so he takes credit for it and grant had said nobody is to send anything to any newspapers unless i give the okay. Mcclaren does it anyway. Out he goes. Out he goes. Lincoln says, grant is doing great, whatever you want to do, grant, thats fine. We know that we talked about how lincoln came to admire grant. What about grants opinion of lincoln . Im going to he says in his memoirs, page 473, you might want to check it out, john. Yeah. He said he was by no means a lincoln man. Yes. When does he become one . I think and thats right, hes not interested. In fact, you should pardon the expression, but actually grant voted for buchanan in that first election and he was a douglas guy more than anything else coming from illinois, et cetera. I think that he doesnt really recognize the greatness of lincoln until he gets to washington. I really do. I think when he visits lincoln in the white house and they agree on how theyre going to fight the war, he just finds that lincoln later on he says lincoln is the greatest man i ever met. But he had to meet him to know that. They had never seen each other until that famous episode speaking of that meeting. Yes. I put a picture of Willards Hotel on the screen, a famous scene in march of 1864, late february early march 64 went grant arrives, comes and hes unknown in the east, the famous story told by many historians he walked up to the clerk and asked if they had a room. They said were pretty crowded. A lot of things going on in washington. We might be able to find you a room in the back. He signs u. S. Grant. Oh, sir, we have the president ial suite available for you. Once hes checked in, the story goes, goes over to the white house and they meet, this is obviously not a photograph, but this is the first time the two men actually see each other at this reception in the white house. Yes. Its a reception going on, exactly. In fact, its an even greater, better story because what happens is, when that clerk, you know, says oh, my gosh, general grant, oh, you can have this wonderful room, may i help you with your suit cases to take them up to the room, helps him with that and all the rest, then so grant goes up and comes back down and he goes into the restaurant and these people are starting to whisper. Who is that guy. Oh, my gosh, thats general grant. They start cheering and start yelling and grant is a shy person. If he walked in his room, what he would do, i guarantee you, he walked in those doors, he would look around and he would find the place with the fewest people and he would kind of hide himself so he wouldnt have to talk to people. Conversely someone like sherman would walk in and say hey, charlie, how are you doing, you havent been here in a while. That sort of thing. Once he gets to the white house and he picks up some pennsylvania congressmen i forget somebody else oh, the former secretary of war cameron, they escort him then originally they were supposed to meet him, they dont, its a big mess, but they get there and theres a big reception going on. Lincoln says, oh, general grant, im so pleased to meet you. Anyway, what happens is, grant is about my size, about 56 Something Like that, so hes short, ate right for that period but a short guy. Lincoln is 64, lincoln puts him on top of a sofa so everybody can see him. I mean its its amazing. And he does it. He does it. Thats right. Hes got his 14yearold teenage son, thats the and son from galena. Imagine what this kid is think sthoog early on in this conversation, they have the meeting of the minds, the sense they each have an understanding of what concentration in time means and the best way to approach the overall war, but theres a moment that in his memoirs grant notes that halak, you know a little about halak. Yeah. That halak warned him not to tell the president or to tell secretary stanton any of his plans for the forthcoming campaign. Thats right. You wrote halaks biography. Whats halak thinking . Halak does not like lincoln because lincoln is not a soldier. Hes not a professional soldier. Hes a politician. Halak doesnt like politicians. For a lot a lot of army people dont like politicians. What halak is telling grant and telling others, whatever you do, you make up make your plans and you do them but dont tell the president because hes a blabber mouth. The next person that comes in, he will tell them the whole story. It will remind him of a joke. Yes. Thats right. About what at relationship while grant was commander in chief in the field with the army, we know, for example, that lincoln was unhappy with the fact that mcclellan sent infrequent reports, if any, didnt keep him informed with the army and what was going on, Jefferson Davis craved daily reports from his field commanders, how frequently did grant communicate with lincoln and was lincoln satisfied with the number of messages that he got . Well, interestingly, what seemed to be going on was that a lot of grants messages some were coming to the president but some were coming to halak, some were coming to the secretary of war stanton, who then talked to the president , et cetera but lincoln really, as i think i said earlier, basically said look, heres what i want to do. Lincoln says heres what i want to do, we agree, just do it. I dont have to know. The difference that is happening is that grant is moving things forward. Hes not pulling back. And most importantly, i think, he says to lincoln in one of those first meetings, now, no matter what happens in my attempt to win in virginia, ill take the credit or ill take the blame. You dont have to worry. Lincoln says ill take care of you and give you everything you want. I think that is really interesting. We like to joke, people like to ask us in mississippi about how is it weve got, you know, the grant papers in mississippi, for example. One of the things we tell them and some actually believe it, that what you have happening is you have the famous letter during the wilderness campaign, lincoln writes to grant and in that letter he says grant had already written to lincoln back and forth, what he says basically is look, hang on with a bulldog grip and chew as much as possible. The mascot of Mississippi State university is the bulldog. Oh, no, no, no. Were not going there. I had to get that in. You did. All right. One last question then were going to take questions from the audience. Be thinking what you want to ask john, not so much me, about this wonderful work. That is that grant ends his memoirs at the end of the war. Is that because thats what people were interested in . Is it because he was declining . Is it because the war he didnt want to talk about the presidency . Whats that about . Here he is as president by the way on the screen. The answer is yes. Okay. Actually, what grant came to realize was that i think thats why i say yes grant came to realize that people wanteded to read about what he did in that war. They couldnt have cared less about his presidency, interestingly enough, but by the same token, grant is the only president in American History from Andrew Jackson to woodrow wilson. Nobody else serves two terms. Nobody else serves two terms except for ulysses s. Grant. Today historians consider him the first of the modern president. He did a lot in Foreign Policy that was not done until grant came along and did what he was going to do. The only reason he said he was president he was worried if somebody else got elected they would lose the effects of the war and he wanted to make sure what happened in the war keep in mind, for example, hes the only president , only president , between Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson to do anything about africanamerican citizenship. This is another major thing, yeah. Well take your questions and we have someone already at the microphone and others i hope will line up. Sir . Thank you. Im not sure this is on or not. I enjoyed the book. You indicated that grant was very fair in his presentation, wasnt arguing for a particular position or anything, but reporting only. In the footnotes, they help understand his thinking and so forth and what he was saying. My question is, what did grant leave out that was significant . Good question. Good question. One of the major things, i think, and weekend spend a lot of time obviously on it, but one of the major questions i think is the whole issue of was grant a drunk. He never talks about this. If you want maybe the best thing ive seen trying to get in to explain that, is rons thing, he says hes a binge drinker. There are times when he drinks, and sherman says this too, but he never drinks when he has to do something important. For example, during his presidency we have no indication that he drank. In fact, the indication we have, he would take his wine glass and turn it over so nobody you know, so aides or whoever would not fill it up for him. Thats an issue. We dont really know a lot about julio. He doesnt say much about julio. Whats fascinating is there arent many letters between them. There were a lot of letters. We dont know where they went. Thats another thing. I think what it does come down to, grant understand the average reader is not going to buy his book for anything about the president. Theyre sick of politics. But they like this idea, what went on during the war itself and how he came upon some of these ideas. Quick comment. We also have the slides of grants tumor at the museum of health. It was basically tongue cancer. My question to you, also a biographer of sherman, ive read shermans memoirs and i think theyre really well written. How is a piece of writing would you compare shermans memoirs to grants . I like grants a lot more. Sherman tends to over talk. Thats the way he was. I will tell you that what you will want to do in two years is buy the new completely annotated version of shermans memoirs because were working on that as we speak. Get that. But thats really i really think grants grant people we could talk about this too, people who are literary critics and i am not, have talked about that grants mem mayors, next to moby dick is the greatest piece of writing in american literature. Thats saying a heck of a lot. You might disagree or agree, but these are the people that said it. One of the things i try to tell my students and i suspect john as well, when we were still teaching, dont take 25 words what you can stay clearly in 10 or 12. Thats what grant does. Theyre clean. Its lean. It goes places. You dont waste language. Sherman i think is occasionally guilty of that. He is and he puts a lot of prints a lot of his letters. I was going to say i cant remember all these things. Your microphone. I apologize. I keep dropping this. Just to give you an idea of some of the people who really thought grants memoirs were important, people like matthew arnold, william dean howell, sherwood anderson, gertrude stein, 1920s writer, loves what sherman did, sinchair lewis, robert frost. And, of course, the modern people. Grants position is now as one of the great writers in American Literary history. Nobody would have believed that when he was a cadet at west point. He was famous for being a good horseman. Yeah. Thats right. Not a in fact, when his wife had a dream one night and she dreamed he was president , this was when he was losing his shirt in missouri, she told people and they laughed. Hes going to be . No, he wont be president. Your beginning conversation sort of set this up perfectly, if anybody actually wants to read the handwritten manuscript of grants mem mayors. Yes. The library of congress has it and weve put the grant papers online so you can go and for yourself read all of what we have of grants memoirs in his handwriting and you can see the clear handwriting at the beginning, you can see when hes having a bad day because the handwriting changes drastically. Whats the website to get to that . The website is well you can go on www. Loc. Gov and search digital collections and youll get right to it or if you want to talk to me afterwards i can explain how to get to a finding aid. In the items of the grant papers the one i put to represent grants memoirs is the page of ive always regretted the last assault at cold harbor. I will be happy to talk to anybody who wants to get into it. This is the lady that knows. If anybody knows that collection at the library of congress shes the one. [ applause ] did you have a question . One more comment and a question. We also have julias memoirs. Oh, yes. That were not published until the 1970s. Theyre not in her handwriting, mostly in her clerks or secretarys, so we have grant and julias memoirs there. What i want withed john to talk about ill kind of give my opinion here that skunk adam and what his impact was or what he was doing when grant was trying to write the memoirs. Who . Adam bedo. I got to dislike adam bedo. Keep your mic i got to dislike adam bedo because he was working with grant and he had written his own book but he was worried grants memoirs might take away from here so here grant is writing and dying and bedo says, i want more money. I want more money to continue helping you. He acted as a clerk for grant. So did fred grant and his sisterinlaws. Yeah. His sisterinlaws. This side. Okay. Back and forth to be fair. It was halak who accused lincoln of being a blabber mouth . Yes. Whats the justification for that charge . Well they may both have thought that. Halak did not really like lincoln and he certainly didnt like stanton so you keep anything the way you do what youre going to do, talk to me. Ill take care of it. Think of the context, grant is replacing halak. Yes. Pushing him to the side. Halak becomes glorified chief of staff, but kind of a secretary, a conduit for orderers from washington to orders down in the field. Theres that resentment, halak had come from the west to save the union and hadnt done it and grant comes from the west and is going to save the union. Halak is saying watch out for this snake pit. Thats part of whats going on in the background. Thats exactly right. Although actually i think the one thing i would disagree with slightly is that halak really does not believe he believes what is being said, but he likes the idea that he no longer has to make decisions. Now heck say hey, general grant told me to shape up. Yes. I do have to say on my 7,000 mile car trip. Yes. I stopped in starkville, mississippi, to visit good friends at the university there and they took me with great pride to your center there and i just have to say how marvelous it was to get this glimpse of grant, i recommend everyone to go and visit the wonderful center, and also i think having it deep in the heart of mississippi shows the kind of historical restitution and looking north, looking south, we can look anywhere to find our heros and renovations of them. Please do. The only thing missing, of course, was you, john. I went there in august. I appreciate that. Yeah. Unfortunately, i should also mention, we also have the lincoln papers that frank and Virginia Williams donated to us, which is a marvelous collection. If you are doing any research, you know, and again we say any serious student or whatever, we would love to have you come, not only see our material, but to use our material. We have Something Like 17,000 linear feet of grant material, just grant letters basically. I dont know. We havent counted yet all of Frank Williams contributions, but its huge. You cant believe some of the stuff. Terrific. Yes, maam. You spoke of grants work towards striving for africanamerican rights and thats one of the things that i admire him so much for, but i struggle still with his general orderers number 11 and really wishing that he would have explained himself and trying to understand what provoked that and trying to wrap my mind around that and sure. Trying to forgive him for doing that. Ill tell you what, the best oh, yeah. This is a question, sometimes thats orders 11 or 12, because they screwed up in the numbering, but in any case what grant did is he ordered all the jews out of the Mississippi Valley and it was a horrible thing and youre right, but the thing is if you really want to know about what actually happened, Jonathan Sarna, sarna at university, has written several books but the one book, first book is particularly interesting and one of the things he points out that would be helpful, grant understood almost immediately what a blunder he had made and spends the rest of his life trying to make up for that. For example, he goes to passover at the temple in washington, d. C. , and sits through the whole ceremony and not understanding anything thats going on, but my favorite one grant also is known for trying to do something for the native americans and indians and change the way so what they did was to what grant tried to do is to get some churches involved, bit in order to do that, what he did was he appointed somebody over all the Christian Missionary that were there. Guess what religious denomination that individual belonged to. He was a jewish. He was the one who made sure that the christian missionaries were doing the right thing. Get ahold of that Jonathan Sarna book and it explains everything better than i can. Thank you. How do you reconcile again im a novice on grant, how do you reconcile the fact that julia owned slaves or her father gave them slaves . Yes. Julia came from a Slave Holding Family outside stainless ste. L national park, near grants farm, the budweiser thing. Yes, she, throughout her life was favorable towards slavery. He was not. The best example i think about grant himself, there was a situation where we think its his fatherinlaw gave him a slave. Well, he worked next to the slav slave, hired two africanamericans, including grant, who worked on the property, worked on the land constantly, and the neighbors thought this was terrible. Whites were not supposed to be doing this sort of thing. When julia and Ulysses Grant are to be married, theyre married without grants family being there. They could not accept the idea he was marrying a slave holders daughter. You have that. You do have that problem. Grant is very much not an abolitionist but antislavery, really from that period throughout the civil war and during the time of his presidency hes doing more for africanamericans to make sure they get Citizen Rights than anybody has we talked about lincolns growth. Right. Would you say the same thing is true of grant . Yes. His views matured and evolved as he went on. It did. The interesting thing julias did not. She continued to believe that slaves, her father treated the slaves well, et cetera, and i should point out too, we are going to be putting on a new edition of the julia memoirs too through Southern Illinois youre a regular little factory, arent you, john . Sir. At the beginning of your talk you mentioned how a lot of people consider grant to be more of a slugger type of general where he just kind of walked in and tried to beat the enemy with brute force and lee is considered more of a clever generale. In all reality theyre both clever generals. How do you believe that these kind of stereotypes of grant being someone not very clever came to be . We both thats really a good example of the lost cause. Microphone. I apologize. Its the lost cause. There was a group of lees former generals who formed a Southern Historical association and the very purpose of it was to make sure that lee was considered the great general and the fighting in virginia was considered the most important. If youre going to build somebody up, you have to knock somebody down. A lot of these stories and myths about grant developed, which fortunately historians are putting down. Exactly right. The south is simply overwhelmed by numbers and machinery, that we were the higher, more brilliant, more intelligent warriors. We werent defeated, we were out numbered and pounded and it was grant with his bulldog tactics, bulldog grip that defeated us. They were clever. You look at the Vicksburg Campaign and the way he orchestrated that whole thing, given the political constraints and the military and terrain constraints he over mastered in those circumstances and we look at lee, lees map was northern virginia, he did not see the entire map. When he had a general who didnt do well, he sent them out to the jv out west where the war was won and lost. Im going to have to call this off. Im getting a big wave from harold in the back. Im so sorry. John will talk to you later. I will be happy. One on one. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. With the recent protests unfolding across the country, watch our live unfiltered coverage of the governments response with briefings from the white house, congress, governors and mayors from across the nation updating the situation. Plus, efforts addressing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and campaign 2020. Join in the conversation every day on our Program Washington journal. If you missed any of our live coverage watch on demand at cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Tonight on American History tv, the National History center hosts a conversation on gun rights and regulations. Historians join the Second Amendment discussion on capitol hill. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan 3. Mississippi governor tate reeves announced changes to the safe return order in his state, but noted that the coronavirus was not gone. The governor announced that hes lifting curfews for bars and restaurants that serve alcohol as long as they abide by social distancing guidelines and the lou allowed capacity increased for fitness centers, reception halls and sports venues