The Real Truth

[Wild Bill]

What hit list, Laurie? I do not discount the story of Grant being drunk, particularly at Sartaria up the Yazoo during the siege at Vicksburg, which I assume is different from the Cadwallader affair. But I do not recall a single instance where Grant was drunk on the field or that any battle or campaign was adversely affected by him being drunk.

I think that Grant had an addictive personality and booze and tobacco played a part. He died from throat cancer, did he not? This came from the notion that the public got early in the war that he liked cigars. He was sent hundreds by the public and Grant was too embarrassed not to smoke them, or so the story goes.

But his Chief of Staff Rawlins kept him sober by keeping an eye on him and keeping Mrs Grant as near as possible to the general during any lulls in campaigns because she above all knew how to counter his alcohol problem with her TLC. So long as campaigns keep moving and battle occurred Grant never missed a beat. He made battlefield mistakes but these are attributable to the back and forth of war.

As president I think that he was too willing to defer to congress, but he of all others did his best to destroy the KKK and pacify the South--until congress stopped his necessary funds by cutting the army appropriations and the numbers of soldiers in the field during his second term.

So while I do not give Grant a pass on his human frailties, I have no problem honoring him as a general or a president. If Nathan Bedford Forrest could honor Grant as victor, how can we do less? But he had his foibles, just like his predecessors, Lincoln and Johnson. I am just sorry so many of us fail to see those as well as his good points.