Tags Posts tagged with "Ulysses S. Grant"

Ulysses S. Grant

Former Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower. Photo on left from National Endowment for the Humanities website, photo on right from American Legion website

By Rich Acritelli

“The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7, 1945.”

It was at this moment 72 years ago that General Dwight Eisenhower flashed the victory sign to the free people of the world to signal the end of World War II against the Nazis in Europe. During the war, he was often criticized by other American generals as being too “pro-British,” or by the English as not having enough experience to run the war effort. But it was Eisenhower who was credited for seeing the big picture of the war effort to put aside the military differences of the British and Americans to achieve victory.

Some 152 years ago, General Ulysses S. Grant proudly watched his army completely defeat the Confederacy. Almost a year after President Abraham Lincoln made him the commanding general of all Union armies, he was at the cusp of a monumental victory. Grant was often criticized as a “butcher” who accepted extreme losses under his command, but he wrote a letter to Robert E. Lee expressing the need for his army to surrender. Grant told his adversary that all was lost and that peace must be restored to the divided nation. At Appomattox Court House, Grant offered Lee generous terms to prevent any further loss of life, to the surprise of the enemy. When northern artillery guns opened fire to celebrate the victory, Grant ordered them to stop because the Confederates were countrymen of the Union.

There are many similarities between Eisenhower and Grant. Both men were born in the Midwest — Eisenhower was from Kansas and Grant from Ohio. They both utilized West Point to leave a small town. Eisenhower was an outstanding football and baseball player. Grant was a superior horseman, who made one of the highest jumps ever recorded at the academy. They were both well-liked by their peers, as Eisenhower flashed a well-known grin and it was said at West Point, if you had a problem, Grant was seen as the fairest cadet to find a solution.

By the start of their respective wars, both men had not reached their professional goals. Grant earlier resigned his commission and he was later forced to work at his family store as a clerk in Galena, Illinois amid speculation about issues with alcohol. His first job for the Civil War was mustering soldiers into service for the Illinois government. Eisenhower always believed that he was cursed for not serving in France during World War I and he expected to retire as a colonel. But their senior officers and government officials found that these men could be counted on to carry out their military responsibilities.

These two officers were different politically than their commanders in chief. Grant voted as a Democrat before the war, but he openly wept at Lincoln’s funeral. Eisenhower was a Republican who did not support the New Deal. Perhaps due to the immense expectations that were placed on them, Eisenhower smoked five packs of cigarettes a day and Grant was believed to puff on thousands of cigars from 1861 to 1865.

Both men were known for their calm demeanors. During the Wilderness Campaign in 1864, Grant told his officers to stop thinking about the exploits of Lee and for them to create plans to hurt the southerners. At the height of Hitler’s failed attempt to overcome the Allies during the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower reorganized his armies and told his commanding generals that he expected to see only positive faces. He understood that the enemy had come out of their fortifications and they were now in the open where they could be destroyed. 

At the end of the war, Grant was concerned that Lee would move his army into the Appalachian Mountains where his men would conduct guerilla operations. Eisenhower had no interest in attacking Berlin. He refused to take a city that would have to be partially given back to the Soviet Union. Instead, he pushed his army southeast towards Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Alps. Like Grant, he did not want any German forces prolonging the war in the mountains. Eisenhower and Grant were both from regular backgrounds. They evolved into two epic military figures in American history, and they were only interested in successfully carrying out their duties for the nation.

Rich Acritelli is a social studies teacher at Rocky Point High School and an adjunct professor of American history at Suffolk County Community College. Research for this story was contributed by the Rocky Point High School History Honor Society.

by -
0 176
President Dwight D. Eisenhower makes Veterans Day an official holiday. Photo in the public domain

By Rich Acritelli

Veterans Day is a time to remember all of our past, present and future members of the Armed Forces, but it was only about 60 years ago that President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially created the holiday we know today. Much happened on Nov. 11 even before it became a date of remembrance — there were significant losses and gains for our militaries during this month throughout history.

In the fall of 1776, Gen. George Washington was reeling from one loss after another that sent his army retreating from Long Island, Manhattan and across New Jersey toward Pennsylvania. It was a dark moment in the Revolutionary War for Washington to lose ground to the British, though he ultimately led the colonies to victory.

President George H.W. Bush rides in an armored jeep with Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. in Saudi Arabia, Nov. 22, 1990. Photo in the public domain
President George H.W. Bush rides in an armored jeep with Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. in Saudi Arabia, Nov. 22, 1990. Photo in the public domain

During the Civil War, in November 1863, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was summoned to Chattanooga, Tenn., to prevent a total collapse of Union forces against the Confederacy. As Grant headed into the beleaguered city, he saw northern forces terribly hurt from the nearby Battle of Chickamauga. President Abraham Lincoln sent 20,000 soldiers from the Army of the Potomac to aid the defensive and later offensive efforts of Grant to defeat the South in that region, and while the Confederates had been on the verge of gaining a huge victory, Grant opened up the “Cracker Line” to Chattanooga, with additional men, supplies and horses to deter the enemy. Grant’s calm and cool presence helped secure a much-needed victory for a thankful Lincoln, who saw the battle as one of the greatest tests of survival for the Union.

Eisenhower had his own recollections of this date through his experience leading the Allied Forces during World War II. As a new commanding general, he planned the mid-November 1942 allied landings of Operation Torch against the Germans and the Vichy French in North Africa. From Morocco to Algeria, untested American military troops drove to destroy the war machine of Germany. The chainsmoking Eisenhower eagerly waited in Gibraltar for news that his men had achieved all of their objectives against the enemy. Two years later, in the fall of 1944, Eisenhower looked eastward as his forces operated on a broad front against the Nazis in France. By that time, his armies were nearing the German frontier with the belief that their bitter enemy was about to surrender. Little did he know that Hitler was planning a final December offensive, which would later be called the Battle of the Bulge, to drive a wedge against the Allies on the Western Front.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush led the American efforts to destroy the strength of Saddam Hussein. That dictator had invaded Kuwait and was poised to attack Saudi Arabia, but the U.S. aimed to protect the Saudis through Desert Shield. Two weeks after Veterans Day, Bush was eating Thanksgiving dinner in the desert with the American military forces that eventually led the fighting into Iraq and Kuwait to defeat Hussein’s Republican Guard army.

Over the last 15 years, the United States has been in a constant state of warfare against aggressor and terrorist forces. From the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, American service members from across the country have tirelessly fought against an enemy bent on hurting our way of life. Currently, this mission has expanded over the skies of Northern Iraq and Syria to limit the growing expansion and influence of ISIS.

Americans should not neglect the “Forgotten War” veterans of the Korean conflict who bitterly fought against the communists during that Cold War battle, nor the Vietnam War veterans who honorably served for a decade in that Southeast Asian country.

May we always remember and honor our veterans from every American conflict, on Veterans Day and throughout the year.

Rich Acritelli is a social studies teacher at Rocky Point High School and an adjunct professor of American history at Suffolk County Community College. He was a staff sergeant in the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing in Westhampton Beach.

The barracks of the 124th Illinois Infantry in Vicksburg, Miss. Photo in the public domain

By Rich Acritelli

Independence Day commemorates the birth of our nation as well as a day when the Union Army notched a huge victory during the Civil War. It was a July 4 more than 150 years ago that saw some of the most serious fighting ever to take place on U.S. soil.

President Abraham Lincoln wanted desperately to end the Civil War and preserve the Union. By mid-1863, the only way to accomplish that goal was to destroy the southern will to fight. Lincoln’s most important leader was Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who in 1861 was a shop clerk in his family’s store in Illinois. Nobody, including Grant, could have foreseen his quick rise from obscurity to one of the best fighting figures the nation ever produced.

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant poses in Virginia in 1864. Photo in the public domain
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant poses in Virginia in 1864. Photo in the public domain

During the war, Lincoln grew increasingly bitter toward the officers tasked with attacking the South. He detested Gen. George B. McClellan and later fired him for his unwillingness to crush the rebellion in Northern Virginia. For two years, the Army of the Potomac became a revolving door for other officers who failed to defeat Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln had a limited military background, serving as a captain during the Black Hawk War between the U.S. and Native Americans three decades earlier, but took his job as commander-in-chief seriously. One of his most important decisions was keeping Grant as the head of the Army of the Tennessee after the 1862 Battle of Shiloh and in the face of rumors that Grant was an alcoholic and unable to carry out his duties.

Grant’s rise to commanding general began during the Battle of Vicksburg.

Vicksburg was known as the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy” and the “citadel” on the Mississippi River. Early in the Civil War, Grant understood taking that location would divide the Confederacy, open the river to Union naval and commerce shipping and prevent resources from reaching Lee in Northern Virginia. Grant was determined to destroy it.

In April 1863, he saw he would only gain a victory by moving his army south and attacking Vicksburg on the same side of the Mississippi held by the enemy. This was a risky decision — one that could win or lose the war in the West. The campaign involved Grant cutting off his own supply and communication lines, with he and his men living off the land using the lessons he learned while fighting in the Mexican-American War. If he and his fellow soldiers could survive in the deserts and heat of Mexico, the Civil War fighters could do the same with the hearty agriculture, cattle and poultry resources in Mississippi.

On April 16, with his wife and youngest son Frederick next to him, Grant ordered a naval flotilla of gunboats and barges to make the perilous journey south. The Confederacy opened up its vast armaments but failed to destroy the ships, and Grant turned his gamble into a string of victories that led to the demise of Vicksburg.

Through July 4, Lincoln watched in amazement as the general decisively drove against the enemy. When one politician suggested the operation was a failure and that Grant was again drinking too much, Lincoln retorted that Grant was engaged in some of the most serious and successful fighting the world had ever known.

It was a cunning campaign to operate within the Confederacy. Southern Gens. Joseph E. Johnston and John C. Pemberton both commanded larger forces but under the attack of Grant’s Union Army were unable to combine their forces in battle. In Washington, D.C., Lincoln watched Grant take Jackson, Miss., the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, thereby cutting off the supply, communication and transportation links that supported Vicksburg.

In late May 1863, Grant began a 48-day siege that trapped Pemberton, a native of Pennsylvania, and his forces on the Mississippi River. By July 4, Pemberton’s men were starving and had lost their morale; they surrendered. On our nation’s birthday, Grant took 31,000 Confederate soldiers as prisoners of war, and seized 172 cannons and 60,000 rifles.

Church bells rang out in northern cities to celebrate the Army of the Tennessee’s efforts to finally take Vicksburg in one of the most vital campaigns of the war, on the road to reuniting America.

Rich Acritelli is a social studies teacher at Rocky Point High School and an adjunct professor of American history at Suffolk County Community College. He was a staff sergeant in the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing in Westhampton Beach.