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Biographical Notes
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Ulysses S. Grant
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Grant's strategy for the prosecution of the war involved Sherman and Meade's forces coordinating their attacks on the major Confederate forces in their respective areas of operation. He ordered Sherman to move against Mobile as soon as possible and instructed Meade to start preparing to move south toward Richmond. He also ordered Sheridan to take over the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps. In 1864 the Union army of 533,000 soldiers was one of the largest ever assembled and Grant intended to use its weight against the south in a relentless war of attrition. He made the Confederate Army the objective and sought to destroy it rather than capture any given location. Richmond's significance was that General Robert E. Lee would attempt to defend it and thereby put his force in a position that could be attacked. Grant also believed that a scorched earth policy would shorten the war. In May 1864, the Battle of the Wilderness was fought to a draw with horrible loss of life on both sides. It was the first time that Grant and Lee had faced one another and both were bloodied. Unlike any of the northern generals before him, all of whom had retreated after such a battle with Lee, Grant pronounced victory and kept Meade moving south. A few days after the Battle of the Wilderness, Lee and Grant met again at Spotsylvania. Again the fighting was intense and again losses were heavy on both sides. An associated battle took place at Yellow Tavern between Sheridan's cavalry and southern units led by the legendary J.E.B. Stuart. Sheridan prevailed and Stuart was killed in the action.
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Since May 5, 1864, when he ordered Meade south, Grant had lost 32,000 men killed, wounded or missing. Lee's losses were 18,000. During the fighting Grant had lost ten key officers while Lee had lost twenty. Grant regretted the bloodshed, but believed that he was succeeding in wearing Lee down. He reported to Lincoln that things were going as planned. With northern losses in excess of 10,000, Lee actually won the next hard fought battle at Cold Harbor in June, but Grant continued to relentlessly press the Confederates. In the North the wind up to the presidential election was starting with Lincoln campaigning on a platform that included total support for the way General Grant was prosecuting the war. Grant disengaged from Lee at Cold Harbor and moved south to lay siege to Petersburg. By so doing the Army of the Potomac was no longer between Lee and Washington. This fact worried Halleck, but Lincoln urged Grant on. With the battle for Petersburg underway Union losses since May totaled 65,000 while the South had lost 35,000. Public support for Grant was impacted adversely, but Lincoln's support remained firm. In July Major General Jubal Early advanced up the Shenadoah Valley and managed to threaten Washington, but Grant reinforced the city's defenses and the Confederate force was beaten back. Grant placed Sheridan in command of an army with instructions to destroy Early and lay waste to the Shenadoah Valley so that it could not be used by any Confederate force to attack Washington again.
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On August 31, 1864, the Democratic Party nominated George McClellan as their candidate for president. Given the flagging support for the war on the home front they were very optimistic that they might be able to win the election. On September 2, the North learned that Sherman had taken Atlanta and public opinion shifted in favor of Lincoln. Later that month Sheridan pushed Early out of the Shenadoah and destroyed all crops and any ability to support a future Confederate advance. Grant promoted him to Brigadier General in the regular army. In November, Lincoln was reelected with 55% of the popular vote and 212 out of 233 electoral college votes. Sherman began his famous March to the Sea on November 16 and captured Savannah on December 22. After Savannah, Sherman turned north and advanced steadily through the Carolinas toward Virginia. Sherman was the man of the hour and lack of progress at Petersburg generated some to call publicly for Sherman to replace Grant. Sherman wrote Grant that he would not accept such an arrangement and Grant wrote back that he would gladly accept it if it came to pass. In the end nothing of the sort happened. On March 28, 1865, President Lincoln met with Grant, Sherman and Admiral David Porter. During the discussion Sherman asked the president what his pollicy was to be regarding the Confederate Army once it was defeated. Lincoln replied that he sought reconciliation between North and South and wanted to give generous terms to those who surrendered.
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On April 2, 1865, Grant, in an assault led by Sheridan, finally pushed the Confederates out of Petersburg. Lee withdrew to Appomatiox and met with Grant to discuss surrender on April 9. Grant offered generous terms of surrender and Lee accepted. Grant returned to Washington on April 13 and spent part of the day with President Lincoln. On April 14, the President invited General and Mrs. Grant to attend the theatre with himself and his wife, but Grant declined saying that he and his wife wished to leave at once to visit their children in New Jersey. Later that night, Lincoln was assassinated and Vice President Andrew Johnson was elevated to the presidency. A few days later General Sherman took the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnson, the last remaining major Confederate commander. The terms that Sherman offered were too liberal and touched on sensitive political issues. President Johnson refused to honor them. Grant traveled to Sherman's headquarters in North Carolina to inform his friend that the terms of surrender had to be renegotiated. On April 26 Sherman met with Johnson and terms identical to those granted to Lee by Grant were offered and accepted. The fighting was effectively over.
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On May 3, 1865, Grant, still General-in-Chief, assigned Sheridan to take command of all U.S. Army units in Louisiana and Texas with orders to accept the surrender of any and all remaining Confederate units. Privately, he also instructed Sheridan to assist Benito Juarez in his resistance to Emperor Maximillian. (Sheridan provided weapons and supplies as well as moral support and Maximillian was ousted in the summer of 1866.) Right from the start, General Grant and President Johnson did not get along very well. Johnson favored trying senior Confederate officers for treason, but Grant argued that was precluded by the terms of the Appomattox surrender and would be politically counter-productive in the South. Johnson did not like giving in to Grant, but recognized that the General had enormous popular support and the President needed to retain him in his government. He dropped his effort to try the senior Confederate military. In November and December 1865 Grant spent two weeks inspecting the situation in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. He reported back to Johnson that progress was being made in the reconstruction of the South, but that the military occupation of the region would have to continue for some time. Johnson wanted to end the military occupation as quickly as possible. He was sympathetic with southerners who wanted to rejoin the Union and send their delegates to Congress, but Grant felt that this was being done without due regard for the civil rights of blacks living in the South.
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Civil rights of blacks became an important political issue on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. The political battle that ensued resulted in Congress overriding several presidential vetoes and the passage of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution. In the South, civil unrest flared up and, when the white civil authorities refused to act, Grant used the military to put down several of the worst outbreaks of lawlessness. Martial law was declared in several jurisdictions, but acts of violence and voter fraud continued to be a common occurrence throughout the South. In August 1866, Johnson, accompanied by most of his cabinet and several flag rank military officers including a reluctant General Grant, made his famous "Swing Around the Circle" trip. During the trip, the president attempted to take his policies regarding the South to the people. Grant disagreed with much of what the President was saying and withdrew from the trip before it concluded. On his return to Washington, President Johnson attempted to remove Grant from the political scene by sending him to Mexico on a diplomatic mission. The president intended to replace either Grant or the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, with General Sherman, thus diminishing Grant's political influence. Grant refused to leave town and Sherman refused to participate in the president's machinations against his friend.
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