A Victor, Not a Butcher: Ulysses S. Grants Overlooked Military Genius
by Edward H. Bonekemper
Category: History

Ulysses S. Grant is often dismissed as a simple butcher of his troops. In fact, Grant was an inspired military leader with a genius for issuing lucid orders, maneuvering his troops adroitly, and making excellent use of his staff. Grant is unfairly maligned because of the bloody 1864 campaigns he conducted against Robert E. Lee to secure final victory for the Union. A Victor, Not a Butcher proves that, far from being a crude butcher (as he has been characterized not only by Southern partisans, but by many historians), Grant's casualty rates actually compared favorably with those of other Civil War generals. His perseverance, decisiveness, moral courage, and political acumen place him among the greatest generals of the Civil War - indeed, of all military history. Author Edward Bonekemper traces Grant's record of unparalleled success - Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Iuka, Corinth, Raymond, Jackson, Champion's Hill, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Overland Campaign, the James Crossing, Five Forks, Petersburg, and Appomattox - showing how Grant won his victories through expert execution of carefully planned military strategies, not the meat-grinder tactics of myth. This book also explores the paradoxes of Grant's early life and deals forthrightly with his struggles in civilian life - particularly the allegations of alcoholism and other factors that led his contemporaries (as well as historians of later generations) to underestimate him. Bonekemper identifies the key elements of Grant's success as a general. He even demonstrates that as a military strategist and leader, Grant outshone his much-lionized rival, Robert E. Lee. He examines casualty records that prove that Grant lost fewer men in his successful effort to take Richmond and end the war than his predecessors lost in making the same attempt and failing. Bonekemper proves that it was no historical accident that Grant accepted the surrender of three entire Confederate armies. (No other general on either side accepted the surrender of even one army until Sherman accepted the capitulation of the remnants of the Army of Tennessee at the war's end.) Grant's tactics are studied carefully by American military personnel to this day. Ulysses Grant won the Civil War. He was responsible for virtually all major Union victories. Bonekemper ably silences Grant's critics and restores Grant to the heroic reputation he so richly deserves.