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86fa944
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Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.
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learning
american-civil-war-biography
experience
mistakes
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Shelby Foote |
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c154929
|
"On Lee as commander: "He had a cheerful dignity and could praise them (his men) without seeming to court their favor."
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leadership
encouragement
american-civil-war-biography
confederate-army
robert-e-lee
dignity
confederate-states-of-america
|
Shelby Foote |
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a20ef13
|
"Worse, Lee felt isolated. In Texas he skipped meals with others to avoid "uninteresting men," wishing he was back by his campfire on the plains eating his meals alone.211 He avoided sharing quarters and found that he "would infinitely prefer my tent to my-self."212 In a group he felt more alone than out on the prairie, and that "my pleasure is derived from my own thoughts." --
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american-civil-war-biography
confederate-army
robert-e-lee
union-army
|
William C. Davis |
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297969f
|
Both men lost speech in their last days and hours. Both died at age sixty-three, Lee long since weary of life, and Grant ready to live it again. Their war made them national icons, and their war reputations dictated the balance of their lives, careers, and posterity.
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american-civil-war-biography
confederate-army
robert-e-lee
union-army
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William C. Davis |
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6d07022
|
The mythology serves purposes darker than sentiment, nothing more so than the currently popular, and arrantly nonsensical, assertion that Lee freed his inherited slaves in 1862 before the war was over, while Grant kept his until the Thirteenth Amendment freed them in 1865. The subtext is transparent. If Southerner Lee freed his slaves while Northerner Grant kept his, then secession and the war that followed can hardly have had anything to do with slavery and must instead have been over the tariff or state rights, or some other handy pretext invented to cloak slavery's pivotal role.
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slavery
confederate
slavery-in-the-united-states
american-civil-war-biography
robert-e-lee
confederate-states-of-america
|
William C. Davis |
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94af456
|
Grant was forty-two and Lee fifty-seven, Grant at the peak of health and energy, while Lee feared his weakening body and lagging faculties. Each was defending his notion of home. Grant by now was the most popular man in the Union, arguably more so even than Lincoln. Lee was easily the most important man in the Confederacy, his popularity and influence, had he chosen to use it, far outstripping Davis's. Unquestionably, they were at this moment the preeminent military figures in America, and arguably the world.
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american-civil-war-biography
confederate-army
robert-e-lee
union-army
confederate-states-of-america
|
William C. Davis |
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f461082
|
Notwithstanding our boastful assertions to the world, for nearly a century, that our government was based on the consent of the people, it rests upon force, as much as any government that ever existed. - Robert E. Lee
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american-civil-war-biography
confederate-army
robert-e-lee
union-army
|
William C. Davis |
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725ff47
|
For pure patriotism, however, the Gists of South Carolina stood above the rest. Their father had been an ardent patriot during the Revolution, in consequence of which he named his first son Independence Gist. Independence without some sort of restraint being close to anarchy, however, the father tempered his zeal by naming the second son Constitution Gist. But in 1831 when his third son arrived, it was already evident that Independence and Constitution were not enough. The liberties for which he fought still stood endangered by radicals in Washington. Consequently, as an admonition to all, he named this youngest boy States Rights Gist.
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confederate
american-civil-war-biography
confederate-states-of-america
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William C. Davis |