...I highly recommend. A gracefully written tome that integrates dozens and dozens of resources. I've read a lot about Grant in past (including McFeely's Bio and Grant's own Memoirs), but Chernow has given me a greater appreciation of the man. Especially his life-long battle with alcoholism and his efforts to protect former slaves during the early Reconstruction Period.
One thought I came away with... maybe former slaves would have been better off had President Lincoln and General Grant failed to achieve their overriding priority at Appomattox -- that is, the peaceful disbandment of Lee’s Army, thus preventing irregular, guerilla warfare that could have gone on for decades.
Imagine for a moment a post-Civil War period in which no formal peace treaty had ever been signed, and bands of roving ex-Confederate soldiers engaged in internecine warfare. For one thing, the North would have been committed to a mobilized invading army which would have shielded former slaves and allowed them the full benefits of U.S. citizenship. That includes a longer transition period from slave to citizen… more training, more education, greater socialization / integration.
What, of course, actually transpired was the opening of a preciously small window of opportunity for former slaves during the first Grant Administration in which the former General was willing to protect the freedman at the point of a bayonet. Alas, both the North in general and Grant in particular lost the political will to defend former slaves by the mid-1870s.
Ironically, the very thing that Lincoln and Grant feared most came about in a most pernicious manner. Under the guise of full surrender, the South / Confederacy organized para-military organizations (KKK, hunting clubs, etc.) to suppress the tentative gains made by the freedman. The South’s resistance was so violent (and effective) that it was the North that ended up waving the white flag, allowing the freedman’s status to sink to a level not much better than the ante-bellum period.
Had we remained at war with the South after Appomattox… had the North been more of an occupying army, perhaps the freedman would have had a truer and peaceful transition from freedman to citizen. That outcome could have reverberated down through the generations to this very day.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
I highly recommend "Grant."
LOL - history book spoilers!
One aspect of Grant's life that is a thunderbolt--somewhat related to the much ballyhooed alcoholism (poor Rawlins, dead of TB, not around to protect his mentor, hero, and charge) but also a phenomenon unto itself is how down and out--financially, emotionally, self-esteem--Grant was in the ~4 years before the war broke out and he had resigned from the US Army (a choice preferable to court-martial from an SOB C.O. up near Humboldt, CA): Grant had become a stumblebum, reduced to begging on the streets of MO and IL to sell firewood to support his family.
But, politically, this arrangement would become untenable for the long term and the descent to black codes and Jim Crow and the ascendancy of the KKK were on, the latter led by a former General.
Grant became the first American president to openly speak out against the persecution of Jews abroad. In response to anti-Jewish pogroms in Romania, he took the unprecedented step of sending a Jewish consul-general to Bucharest to “work for the benefit of the people who are laboring under severe oppression.” All in all, the eight years of Grant’s presidency proved to be a “golden age” in US Jewish history. When he died in 1885, he was mourned in synagogues nationwide.
The Globe could have taken this straight from Chernow.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/05/jacoby/YEQhAs7UWrOfXirKcs3DvJ/story.html
Great question. I cannot do the book justice on this topic, but a summary is thus:
(1) Chernow provides evidence that Grant deeply regretted this order;
(2) Grant later on admitted his terrible mistake, and made up for it by his friendly attitude and support of Jews;
(3) Chernow provides a few examples in which he was embraced by the Jewish community during his Presidency and afterward;
(4) Perhaps most interesting, Chernow provides some evidence that his lashing out at Jewish merchants during the war was a displacement of anger and resentment that he harbored for his father!
One aspect of Grant's life that is a thunderbolt--somewhat related to the much ballyhooed alcoholism (poor Rawlins, dead of TB, not around to protect his mentor, hero, and charge) but also a phenomenon unto itself is how down and out--financially, emotionally, self-esteem--Grant was in the ~4 years before the war broke out and he had resigned from the US Army (a choice preferable to court-martial from an SOB C.O. up near Humboldt, CA): Grant had become a stumblebum, reduced to begging on the streets of MO and IL to sell firewood to support his family.
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For one thing, the North would have been committed to a mobilized invading army which would have shielded former slaves and allowed them the full benefits of U.S. citizenship. That includes a longer transition period from slave to citizen… more training, more education, greater socialization / integration.
In fact (and here is where I take issue) this is exactly what Grant, as Lieutenant General of the Army, ordered in the months following the war, sending Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Hooker et al. to NC, LA, MI, and TX to impose a type of martial law that superseded Confederate State (which states were only gradually re-admitted to the Union) and local authorities in the face of atrocities (cold blooded massacres of blacks), to protect freed slaves as well as Northern Republicans.
But, politically, this arrangement would become untenable for the long term and the descent to black codes and Jim Crow and the ascendancy of the KKK were on, the latter led by a former General.
You make an important point. I wonder, however, what would have been the North's attitude had there been no declaration of peace, and Lee scattered his army into the trans-Appalachian region to wage on-going guerilla warfare? Perhaps the North would have supported full military occupation of major Southern cities, hence a protective shield for recent slaves that could have lasted a generation! Just a speculation.
This definitely covers Milton's question... well put!
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But it was as president that the full extent of Grant’s regret became clear. He opposed a movement to make the United States an explicitly Christian state through a constitutional amendment designating Jesus as “ruler among the nations.” He named more Jews to government office than any of his predecessors — including to positions, such as governor of the Washington Territory, previously considered too lofty for a Jewish nominee.
Grant became the first American president to openly speak out against the persecution of Jews abroad. In response to anti-Jewish pogroms in Romania, he took the unprecedented step of sending a Jewish consul-general to Bucharest to “work for the benefit of the people who are laboring under severe oppression.” All in all, the eight years of Grant’s presidency proved to be a “golden age” in US Jewish history. When he died in 1885, he was mourned in synagogues nationwide.
The Globe could have taken this straight from Chernow.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/05/jacoby/YEQhAs7UWrOfXirKcs3DvJ/story.html
Quote:
But it was as president that the full extent of Grant’s regret became clear. He opposed a movement to make the United States an explicitly Christian state through a constitutional amendment designating Jesus as “ruler among the nations.” He named more Jews to government office than any of his predecessors — including to positions, such as governor of the Washington Territory, previously considered too lofty for a Jewish nominee.
Grant became the first American president to openly speak out against the persecution of Jews abroad. In response to anti-Jewish pogroms in Romania, he took the unprecedented step of sending a Jewish consul-general to Bucharest to “work for the benefit of the people who are laboring under severe oppression.” All in all, the eight years of Grant’s presidency proved to be a “golden age” in US Jewish history. When he died in 1885, he was mourned in synagogues nationwide.
The Globe could have taken this straight from Chernow.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/05/jacoby/YEQhAs7UWrOfXirKcs3DvJ/story.html
This definitely covers Milton's question... well put!
{:-)
Perhaps. But I don't think the ultimate failure of Reconstruction was due to the impossibility of sustaining an enlarged bureaucracy. Rather, implacable racism, which was not solely confined to the old Confederacy.
Perhaps. But I don't think the ultimate failure of Reconstruction was due to the impossibility of sustaining an enlarged bureaucracy. Rather, implacable racism, which was not solely confined to the old Confederacy.
I think that’s exactly it. There’s only so far a government can go in opposition to the will of the people. Also, it’s not really a bureaucracy we’re talking about — it’s an occupation army. Because in the south in particular, the only way black rights could be upheld is at the point of gun. Cost aside, that’s not a sustainable policy.
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Probably. A robust occupation might have permitted freedmen the opportunity to relocate to safe haven in and around the cities, or perhaps to organize for collective self-defense, but the Civil War was an aberration, requiring a massive expansion of the federal government and the money to sustain it. The bureaucracy to sustain such an endeavor in perpetuity, never mind the will, simply wasn't there.
Perhaps. But I don't think the ultimate failure of Reconstruction was due to the impossibility of sustaining an enlarged bureaucracy. Rather, implacable racism, which was not solely confined to the old Confederacy.
A mix of Southern racism and Northern apathy. Not that Northerners couldn't be and weren't racist, but the further the country moved from Appomattox the more the North wanted to treat the Civil War as a piece of history rather than as a peace that needed to be won too.
That figure doesn’t include the army, which was @15,000 pre-War. And that who would have to administer this — the Army. That was the only way to ensure Blacks the right due to them —at gunpoint.
At least the 14th and 15th amendments stayed on the books even if they were sabotaged for a long while. The Civil Rights Era would have been even more difficult if the constitutional reforms weren't already in place.
At least the 14th and 15th amendments stayed on the books even if they were sabotaged for a long while. The Civil Rights Era would have been even more difficult if the constitutional reforms weren't already in place.
Certainly in the south, but the amendments were meaningful in the north. Not that blacks achieved anything near full equality of rights, but it did open doors.
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the view of the federal governments limited role vis-a-vis the states (even after the war) doomed any efforts to protect the freed slaves rights against a white southern population very determined to relegate them to an inferior position.
At least the 14th and 15th amendments stayed on the books even if they were sabotaged for a long while. The Civil Rights Era would have been even more difficult if the constitutional reforms weren't already in place.
Certainly in the south, but the amendments were meaningful in the north. Not that blacks achieved anything near full equality of rights, but it did open doors.
And eventually it gave them a destination, decades before the civil rights movement hit it's stride. Tough to envision the Great Migration without the changes brought about by the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments, even if the reception was sometimes begrudging.
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the view of the federal governments limited role vis-a-vis the states (even after the war) doomed any efforts to protect the freed slaves rights against a white southern population very determined to relegate them to an inferior position.
At least the 14th and 15th amendments stayed on the books even if they were sabotaged for a long while. The Civil Rights Era would have been even more difficult if the constitutional reforms weren't already in place.
Certainly in the south, but the amendments were meaningful in the north. Not that blacks achieved anything near full equality of rights, but it did open doors.
Yes, good point. When southern blacks began migrating to the north they could vote and for a time (about the 30's thru the 60's) they were a crucial swing bloc that both parties courted.