State university. We are very grateful not only to have one of the mentors of kennesaws tom scotto over here, but david parker is a good representative from my department. Thank you, david, for coming. And thank you to all of you for being here, and thank you to our speaker for making it here. Because we had actually planned for him to come to a Different Event some time ago and the weather got in the way. This time, the weather did not prevent him from arriving and we are so excited to have Steve Woodworth. Stephen i do go steve and i do go a long way back. He taught for eight years at toccoa, so he has some good georgia roots in that area, and he went on to texas christian university, where he is the powerhouse. Different people who say, who should i study with . He is one of the first names to come up for them and for me. One of my first books of steves was Jefferson Davis as general. It wasnt an area that did not have his name associated with it. I picked of volume that had a thomas connection, the chickamauga campaign. Steve has coedited many more than that. Because this is dated a couple of years anyway. I asked him, i said have you continued to produce looks at books at the same level that you have produced children . Because he has a huge family. He said no, the books have finally overlapped the kids i have. One of the absolute nicest people in the world, just a genuine figure for the Civil War Community in both his knowledge and personality. People just love Steve Woodworth and there is a reason. He has added so much to our understanding of leadership and the war. There are times he and i can clash a little bit. I think he still thinks lee was up in pennsylvania for slave duty and i dont come up that we dont think he was up there to do. But thats all right. There are times academics can agreed to disagree. I know that isnt very fashionable in our world anymore but its good to know we can do that. Steve is one of the people that is a font of knowledge. Today, he will tell us a little bit about Ulysses Grant. And share his thoughts about him. And so without further ado, from texas christian university, lets welcome Steve Woodworth. [applause] prof. Woodworth thank you brian and thank you everyone. It is an honor to be here and it is good to be back in georgia. Come back here and i remember be reminded of the many things i liked about living in georgia. Atlanta traffic was not one of them. [laughter] prof. Woodworth i think it has gotten worse, but that is ok. It is good to be here. My topic this morning is Ulysses Grant and his leadership at the highest level of command of union forces during the civil war. I am currently working on a book dealing with grant and the virginia campaign. During the last 13 months of the civil war, Ulysses Grant commanded all of the union armies, the highestranking general of the union forces. He oversaw all of the union forces in the last 13 months of the war. He had a more direct command, almost real direct command, of union forces in virginia during that time. He oversaw the final series of union offenses that led to appomattox and lees surrender and grants victory. That ended the major combat of the civil war. I wanted to look at grant from a point of view of leadership. I know there are a lot of things that can go into this, a lot of things that contributed to grants victory. And the Union Victory, not just grant, obviously there were other people involved. There were material and numbers involved, and a number of good commanders and obviously the rankandfile, without the courage of common soldiers none of this could have happened. Without the patient endurance of the folks back home, none of this could have happened. And there was the matter of numbers. Here i come to what i believe is a myth popular in some quarters, which is that grant won simply solely by dint of superior numbers. The degree and simply had so many more men that grant simply had so many more men that he could win by serving as a butcher. To put it in crass terms, grant felt he could continue to shove troops into the virtual meatgrinder of battle until at some point his enemys army would be ground to hamburger. And he would still have an army left. That is simply a myth. That was not true. It is true that grant had an advantage of numbers and in material, but a couple of things can be said about that. The union had the advantage of numbers before grant came to command. The union had the advantage of numbers before grant took over the direct supervision of operations in virginia. And got nowhere. As for grant being a butcher, the union forces in virginia lost almost half again as many troops in virginia, or the Virginia Theater, including maryland and pennsylvania, fighting against lee before grant came to command there. During which time, before grant came to command in virginia, the union got precisely nowhere. Grant came and yes, lost a lot of people, because it was going to take a lot of people to defeat robert e. Lee in the Confederate Forces of virginia. You were not going to do that for free or for cheap. Grant got it done. The union had had superior forces in virginia before but it took grant to make the superiority of forces pay off. Also, the superiority of forces was not at such a level as to allow an idiot to win the war. Or someone who was drunk all the time, that is another myth about grant, that he was drunk all the time. I have known some friends who have perhaps leaned the other way from me in the civil war, and you can tell where i come from by my complete absence of an accent i am joking. Some people think i have an accent. At any rate, i have had some friends who leaned the other way and they said grant was drunk all the time in the civil war. I thought, that is a small complement to robert e. Lee. I think he said so after the war that it wasnt much of a complement to him that grant was drunk the entire time he was beating lee. The union superiority of numbers was not such as to allow someone who was an idiot or a poor general or drunk all the time to win. If the union had that kind of superiority in numbers, burnside would have won in 1862. Instead of suffering the unions most lopsided defeat. So theres that. Grants superiority in numbers was only three to two, which is not a decisive advantage when you consider to have been in the at thear, three to two fighting friends. More troops are required. But three to two at the front. Its not enough to be decisive when you realize that at the civil war, one soldier behind entrenchment is the equivalent of three attacking an open fields. You could argue that yes, but the attacker has the advantage of choosing the time and place of combat. That is true only if you succeed in outgeneraling the other guy. Since the other guys robert e lee, it wont be that easy. I think the odds are about even. The attacker always has more force, wherever you look, and the attacker does not always win. The point i make with this discussion is to say that although there are complications and many other factors at work, grant still had to accomplish something to win the war. Something was required of grant. And grant brought forward a number of things to meet that. Obviously there is his skill in the area of strategy and operational art and tactics. There was his appreciation of the factor of time, which i think he had to a greater degree than almost any other general in the civil war. Certainly any other general on the union side, how much time counts in warfare. There is that. But i think another factor is grants leadership ability. Looking at grant and how he exercised his top command, his leadership, and that means getting your generals to do you to do what you want the way you want them to do it when you want them to do it. I looked at four characteristics of grant, and you could call them personality traits. Although in calling them personality traits, i would not refer to them all as things he was born with, but ways he exercised command. Four traits that made him effective as a leader. The first one is in some ways the most interesting to me because i dont believe this was one of grants natural traits. This is not something he was born with or in his dna. And that is his confidence. Wasnt grand just naturally confident . No he was not, actually. Grant was naturally a fairly diffident fellow. He was not by nature someone who was going to put his will over others. There is the famous situation grant did not want to be an officer or go to west point. Grants father was a forceful feather, jesse grant a forceful fellow, jesse grant. He told ulysses that he was going to west point. Ulysses said he did not want to that, and his father said, i guess you will. Grant later said, i guess if he thought so, i would too. So he went to west point. He served in the mexican war with conspicuous courage in a number of battles. The problem for grant in battle was not a fear so much of getting shot at it. He was not like apocalypse smith in the war of 1812. He had been shot at a lot in the mexican war and had done a lot of very bold and brave things there. But it was being responsible, and this was something that got to a lot of people. Brian mentioned joseph johnston, and that was certainly a problem for him. It bothered Ulysses Grant too and early in the war. Very early in the war, grant was singleing only a regiment, the 21st illinois. He had an assignment to go to the town of florida, missouri and attack a confederate named harris. Granta leads his regiment there and as he went, he said he became increasingly nervous, and he described it as feeling more and more trepidation, i think we would translate as fear. He said my heart seemed to be higher and higher until finally my heart was in my throat. He said, if he had been able to get up the courage to tell the regiment to turn around and go back, he would have. He was sure that harris must have more men and know they were coming and would beat them. He came over the last hill and looked into the creek bottom, and they could see that there had been a camp there but they were gone. The rebels have left when they heard the grant was coming. He said, this was a great revelation for him that he had never forgot for the rest of the war. Harris was more scared of him than he was of harris. And he said he never forgot that. He said after that, coming up on a battle, he might feel more or less anxiety come up did not feel trepidation. He was able to control his fear after that, control that nervous feeling of responsibility. But it was still with him. This was something he had to overcome and he did overcome it. For example, during the vicksburg campaign, brian mentioned how forrest and van doren ruined the first drive on vicksburg. Now think about the last drive on vicksburg in 1863, when grant lands on the mississippi shore south of the vicksburg, and he pulled off an Amazing Campaign of maneuvers through the interior of mississippi that i think is a textbook case that ranks alongside stonewall jacksons Shenandoah Valley campaign. This was something that was not this was bold, this was daring, and it could have gone the wrong way. It could have gone the wrong way for grant. This is as daring as going for it on fourth and three on your own eight yard line. This could really turn out badly for you. He decided this was what he would have to do to get the result he needed. His most trusted subordinate, we have already seen sherman told him not to do it. This is not the thing to do. Dont do it. And grant did it anyway. Grant had confidence in his decisions and could see them through. Even against the advice of people he really trusted. When he came to a decision, this is the thing i need to do, i have thought it through, and this is what i need to do. If you have ever been responsible for big things and have had people you trust tell you that is not going to work, ive got an Event Planning in september and a guy told me it will not work. I said i think it will, but we will see. Sometimes being confident well can get you into trouble. Sometimes you have an idea and you think you have it figured out. For example, before the battle of shiloh, i anticipate nothing like a general attack being made, and one was made. It was a near run things for grant. I trust our thing in september will not end up like shiloh. But we will get through it. Sometimes you could have about have a bad result. Sometimes that confidence could steer you wrong, but most of the time it worked out for grant. In order to have the confidence that you are right and have your plan had better be right most of the time. Coaches who dont make it, the majority of the time, they end up being Television Commentators or Something Like that. [laughter] prof. Woodworth nothing against coaches who are Television Commentators, there are some good ones. I hope Gary Patterson doesnt become a commentator for a long time. He needs to stay, we enjoy him being there. Grant had the confidence going for him. Again, i dont think that became something that did not cost grant some effort. He put effort into that. Making up his mind, figuring out what he needed to do, deciding it was the thing to do, im going to stick with that course. It cost him. One place you see that, the effort it required of grant, this was not an effortless thing, it was not just hohum, everything will go my way, it was the first day of the battle of the wilderness actually both days. For grant, this was a new thing. He had been very successful in the civil war. The battle of the wilderness happens in may of 1864 and it is grants First Encounter against lee. This is the first time the best general on each side of the war are going up against each other, grant versus lee. This is the first time on the big stage in virginia. It didnt decide the war but it sure saw the biggest army face each other and got the most attention and most news reporters. The most photographers were around there. That is why most of the pictures you see in the civil war are the Virginia Theater. It gets attention. Hes going against top tough opposition. He is going to be teaching the army of the potomac to make war in a new way. And he has to exercise a lot of confidence. Now, one thing grant had started doing during the civil war was smoking cigars. Before the civil war, he smoked a pipe. Had a mayor some pipe pipe. M in the early pictures of grant in the civil war, he has a beard down to his chest and a pipe and he doesnt look anything like ulysses s. Grant during the war. He learns how to smoke cigars and look like ulysses s. Grant. Someone had sent him a cigar after some of his early victories. Actually given him a cigar, and he had that cigar in his mouth during the battle of fort donaldson, and people heard about grant riding around the battlefield with a cigar clamped in his mouth, and he got all of these cigars given to him. He felt like he needed to smoke them instead of his pipe. I dont know if it made a difference to the throat cancer that ultimately killed him years later. That is not a good thing. Anyway, he smoked. There at the battle of andthere at the battle of wilderness, he started the day of that battle by putting two dozen cigars in his pockets. Later in the day he asked one of his generals, one of his generals stopped by headquarters, and grant said lets talk. General Winfield Scott hancock. Red said lets talk, and he reached in his pocket to pull out a cigar to give to hancock and he discovered it was his last cigar of the two dozen cigars. That was the last cigar of the day. He may have given away a couple of other cigars, but one of his top aides estimated that grant had personally reduced 20 of those cigars to ashes during the day. And he had smoked his pipe between times. Smoke his cigar, smoke his pipe so he was smoking at a pretty good rate for something that was not on fire throughout the day. And i think that indicates to me that he was struggling with quite the case of nerves. Another way that you can see grants nervous tension through the two days of the battle of the wilderness, he had started out he intended to dress very informally during his service out in the west. He came to virginia and he heard they dressed more formally. So he was wearing a full dress uniform with the whole insignia, frockcoat, Everything Else oh, and thread gloves. So he kind of seemed to forget he was wearing his thread gloves during the battle of the wilderness. And during the battle of the wilderness, one thing you have to realize, there was a limited amount that grant could do while the battle was going on. He could bring them to battle lee said later, regarding any battle, lee said that you bring your army to battle and once it starts you kind of watch it go that is certainly true of the wilderness. A couple of times, grant had to ride out to see what was going on and where his troops were, and you could not see your troops. It was fought in a thicket. It was the battle of the wilderness. So you could not see your troops. You could send them into action and that was it. Most of the time you had to wait. I think that is one of the things that contributed to grants anxiety. He told an aide that what bothered him the most in battle is that when he gave an order for troops to do something and he was waiting for them to do it and time just seemed to stretch on endlessly. Waiting for the results of his decision to be played out. And i mentioned Gary Patterson, our ball coach there at tcu. And he is famous, and we are in a situation, maybe wisconsin is trailing by two, and they are going to go for the twopoint conversion to tie the game, and you know what patterson he is giving the signals to the defense and he is yelling and everything, and you know what else he is going to do, he is going to tuck in his shirt and tie his shoes. That is important. He needs to do that. And we stopped them on the twopoint conversion. That was great. Anyway, nervous things that we do. For grant, he whittled. He spent that day at the wilderness whittling and forgot to take off his gloves. And he said that by the end of the two days, his gloves were in shreds and ruined. None of his Staff Officers wanted to mention it. You do not tell the chief sir, did you mean to whittle those gloves to pieces . You dont say that. So grant was confident but it was not an inherent aspect to his personality. It did not come naturally, he learned to do it and did it. As an act of the will. That impresses me. Andthat impresses me. He recognized, i need to think through what i need to do and then i need to do it. I had a phd student years ago who wrote his dissertation on ways in which grant actually unwittingly conformed to the ideas of the art of war. I say unwittingly, because the work had not been translated from german into english at this time. Very few american authors and almost certainly grant, i do not think he spoke any german arete any german at all. Some read french but none red german. He could not have read about it, yet many things granted aligned many things grant did aligned , with it. One of the things that was said is what you need in a general is not a brilliant mind but a strong mind. Not necessarily just stubborn, but strength of character. Grant was able to figure out what he needed to do and stick to that course with great confidence. Even sometimes at great internal cost in nerves. That said, he also conveyed, the second thing that stands out to me, calmness. You would think a guy who is chainsmoking and whittling his gloves to pieces would convey an attitude or sense of nervousness. I think nervousness is almost as contagious as panic, but so is calmness. The sense that grant conveyed to those around him was a great calmness. That must have been an effort, too, to convey that to those around him. One staff officer watched grant throughout the day and said he seemed as calm as a summer evening. Another said, he is the coolest man i ever saw. The provost army general of the the Provost Marshal general of the potomac army said he does nothing but sit and whittle and smoke. Of course it didnt look like he , was doing much but when he needed to do things, he did then conveyed this sense of calmness that conveyed good things to his troops. I think these two things together stand out great deal to me. He could figure out what needed to be done, and despite the internal anxiety, could hold fast on that. Not only do what needed to be done and stick to the course of action, he had figured out this is what i need to do to accomplish what i need to accomplish, he could do that and at the same time convey calmness to his men. Unlike Gary Patterson, he is not screaming at his men. Not screaming and yelling and shouting from the sidelines. You ever watch a tcu Football Game and its not just after the game when they interview him, they ask questions at halftime when theyre headed into the locker room and he has already lost his voice. He is croaking. Grant was not that way. He created he conveyed great calmness. That was important. What has this got to do with leadership . Getting your generals to do the things you need them to do when you need them to do them in the way you need them to do them, it is helpful if you convey the sense that you are sure you have figured out the right course of action. You have the right game plan, you are giving the right orders and are confident about them and have a calmness about them. If a general conveys a sense of nervousness. And i think it was interesting that grant was able to chainsmoking and whittle throughout the day and still not convey a sense of nervousness, but a sense of calmness. That is very effective, contrary to rosecrans during the battle of chickamauga, who conveyed a sense of nervousness. He was nervous in the service. Not grant. Those are two things. To go to a third thing, with that confidence he had and the calmness he conveyed, you might get the feeling that grant possibly might have been cocky. That there might have been a sense of cockiness and almost a supercilious sense of superiority. But grant was not that way. In fact, and this is my third point, humility, and amazing as of humility. Again, i dont mean he lacked confidence. Obviously he didnt. And i dont mean that he was not in command or insist on being in command, giving orders, and having his orders carried out. He did. But he had a great indifference to receiving adulation and recognition. Grant just did not need to be celebrated, to have fanfares played for him or have his men cheer for him. He was indifferent to receiving recognition. I will say in a minute how i think that contributed to his leadership ability and getting his generals to do what he needed them to do, how he needed them to do it, when he needed them to do it. Several stories illustrate this. For one thing, grant was frequently mistaken for a common man. When he was ordered to come from the west to the east and take command of all the union armies, he came to washington, d. C. In march of 1864. He gets to the train station, his aides go to make arrangements, and grant goes from the baltimore and ohio depot to Willards Hotel. It was one of the Nicest Hotels in washington, it was the place to stay. So grant goes to willards. He is wearing a very unadorned uniform, typical of grant, and a linen duster, which was typical for traveling. To keep the travel stains off your uniform. But it looks rather nondescript. Grant looked rather nondescript. It was said about another general in the civil war, hancock, perhaps the best general in the army of the potomac that he was the sort , of man that if he showed up on the battlefield wearing civilian clothes and started giving orders, people would obey him. He had that air, something that conveyed that he was the general. Grant did not have that. Grant almost did not convey that when he did wear a uniform. He shows up at Willards Hotel in the linen duster and he walks to the desk and asks, do you have a room . The clerk sizes up grant, here is another army officer, what if he is a general . I do not even know if you can see his insignia but who cares . Generals are a dime a dozen in washington in 1864. So he rather you know, you go to the wrong kind of hotel. For me, and for me the wrong kind of hotel is really expensive, you know you cant afford it, they will let you know, and convey the idea that you dont belong there. The desk clerk sizes him up and says, i suppose we might be able to find something for you, a small room below the attic. [laughter] not prized real estate. Grant says that will be fine. The desk clerk pushes the hotel so, register over to him, and thats of a signed in those days. And grant signs the register and hands it back to the clerk and glances down at it and the clerk andrk nonchalantly the bottom line says u. S. Grant, illinois. And the clerk jumps and gets big eyes and says, we did not know. We have been saving the best suite in the house for you. He did not recognize him and he thought he was somebody who deserved the little room under the attic. Grant did not wind up having to stay in that little room under the attic. This happened even when he was dressed up. At the battle of the wilderness, he was in full dress uniform. While the fighting was going on, there was not much for him to do. You just had to wait while your orders were carried out. Grant was at his headquarters during the fighting, and he and a couple of his Staff Officers took a little walk, maybe 200 yards from his headquarters to the road. As they are down there near the germ and a road and the wilderness run near it, along the road comes a herd of cattle. The Army Commissary department would drive the cattle along as sort of rations on the hoof for troops. Here comes the cattle and several enlisted men serving as drovers. For the cattle. Grant is standing there and the officers are standing there, and and onele are coming by of the steers strays out of the herd and starts down to the going creek. He is straying from the herd, and one of the drovers looks at the officers, not at the Staff Officers, knotted either of the two Staff Officers he looks at , grant, and says, stranger, head off that beef critter for me. No grant we are saying that , grant looks more like a farmer in his dress uniform . I dont care if his gloves are snagged, in his dress uniform, he looks more like a farmer than his two Staff Officers. I dont know what it was that he could look like a farmer doing anything. He had been a farmer before the war in missouri and grown up the son of a tanner in ohio. So grant knew cattle, so he so when the drover yelled head off that beef critter, grant jumps out in front of the steer and raises his arms and yells, and the steer turned back into the herd. Grant and his officers go their way, and grant doesnt say anything. He doesnt rebuke the soldier or anything. When soldiers spoke disrespectfully to grant and obviously knew it was grant this happened when he was colonel of the 21st in illinois, early in the war grant would , reprimand the soldier. That is not the way you speak to your kernel. But this soldier obviously did not know he was speaking to the commanding general of the army of the united states. He just thought he was a private soldier. There was no disrespect or and sothere was no disrespect or, insubordination in the action. Grant thought nothing of it, he just went on his way as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He had been mistaken for a private that was fine. Soldier that was fine. And with u. S. Grant he did not , like to receive recognition and he liked to go unnoticed, and he liked it so much he had become very good at it even before the war started. What does that have to do with leadership ability . Well, generals as a rule i have not known many, i have not known any personally, i shook hands with one once and interacted with him for a few minutes and he seemed like a good guy maybe a couple of generals i have met. [laughter] but i am told they can be a fairly arrogant lot, especially those that make it to top command. After all, they have accomplished a lot to make it to the rank of general and they are very impressive people, especially to themselves. Think of douglas macarthur, was he known for his humility . Not so much. What about George Patton . Maybe not for his humility, either. Various things, not humility. These are guys known for their skill and billions as generals, and their brilliance as generals, and they get very controversial and some people say they are stupid, but they were successful generals. They were not at all known for humility. That was the case with a lot of other generals, and the case for a lot of generals in the civil war, and not always successful generals. They could be very arrogant and proud people. They could be very demanding about their rights and recognitions. They could have big egos. They could have big clashes with other people because of those egos. We mentioned Braxton Bragg and forrest, and how many commanders did forrest say i will not obey orders from you anymore. How many did he threaten to kill . I think it was two. [laughter] i think you would have done it. But the Confederate Army of tennessee was rendered almost combat ineffective at one point, maybe more than one point, because of personality clashes between the top generals. Personality clashes largely fed by clashing egos. This could happen. It did not happen on grants watch. Grant had Difficult People serving under him, one of the meade, theeorge commander of the army of the potomac serving immediately , under grant named the old snapping turtle, might have had a temper. Baldy smith who served under william fbaldy smith who served under grant was notoriously difficult to get along with. Benjamin butler was a politician turned general who never stopped being a politician. He was very solicitous about his status and recognition. Yet grant never had the struct if personality conflicts with these people and i think one of the reasons was grants humility. He did not demand recognition and did not therefore necessarily lord it over generals in a way that rubbed their fur the wrong way more than was necessary. He did insist they carry out his orders and that was all. The fourth point i thought of, looking at grant, and this is a little different, the others might be considered traits, but the fourth one is something he did throughout these 13 months. That is he insisted on teaching , his subordinates to think in new ways. In the army of the potomac and the Virginia Theater in general they had a way of , thinking that wasnt working. Grant insisted, were not going to do it that way anymore, were going to think in new ways. You have been doing it this way and we are not going to do it that way anymore. It was not an easy process. It started there at the battle of the wilderness in may of 1864, but it continued right up to the closing days of the war. That ongoing struggle. Yet increasingly, grant got the army of the potomac, the union forces in virginia, to act more and more on his system and way of doing things, and think in his way, and do it effectively. So that by the end of the war, they were operating largely that way. We think of the appomattox campaign, and again, without going through the blowbyblow, it is so tempting for historians, we love to tell stories. You can tell i am having fun. You look at the appomattox campaign, and lasted exactly a week from the time the Confederate Forces had to flee from richmond to the time of the surrender at appomattox. As is often the case in history, there is a temptation to look at it as a foregone conclusion. We know how it came out so it is tempting to think it had to come out that way. It could have come out another way. George mcclellan would have found a way for lee to get away. Lee would have found a way to away from him. Or a number of other generals. But that very fast pursuit, and that opportunistic pursuit, that leads to victory at Sailors Creek in three days before the surrender that was grants , thinking. Kind of the process was never fully complete. He never had everybody in the army of the potomac thinking his way but he did switch them over to a large degree in thinking his kind of way. It was not easy. The incident that stands out most with grant demanding his subordinates think in different ways and where he stated his case most plainly, although he was always putting it across in the orders that he gave we are , going to do it that way, we are going to do it this way. We are not going to wait and have everything just so. We are going to be opportunistic, we are going to take our opportunities quickly and capitalizing on them quickly. Where he states that the most plainly was the evening of the second day of the battle of the wilderness, the confederates made a surprise attack on the union flank, what forrest wouldve called the and just as , it was getting dark on the second day of the battle. It hit the union forces pretty hard, it routed two brigades and captured some brigadiers. A lot of the men, you are in the thickets and you cant see well and it is getting dark, you know how it gets dark first in the woods and everything looks worse and seems worse. It is getting dark and all of these reports are coming in and the mood around the army of the potomac headquarters was verging on panic. Grant was, of course, remaining calm. Grants calmness most seem to provoke some of the army of the potomac generals. He just doesnt understand what we have been up against against lee. So general rides to general rides to headquarters, one and a staff officer describes the exchange thoughtfully, but did not record the generals name. Some general rides to headquarters and jumps off his horse and strides up to grant and says, this is a crisis that cannot be taken too seriously. I know lees methods from experience, he will throw his whole force between us and the river and cut off our communications. Grant is sitting on his camp chair at this time instead of a stump or the ground, and you can picture him there after pausing a couple of beats. He slowly stands up and takes his cigar out of his mouth, and he says with a little more emphasis than he had been speaking that day, oh i am heartily tired of hearing about what lee is going to do. Some of you seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and land on both our flanks and our rear at the same time. Go back to your command and try to think what we are going to do instead of what lee is going to do. And it was true. A lot of those army of the potomac generals had far too much experience with lees methods. And waiting around for what they we would do. Had come to expect and almost accept that they would be beaten by lee. We go out there and lee is going to beat us. Why wait for lee to do some maneuver that would defeat you when you could retreat now and save you the trouble . That had been too much their attitude. Grant was insisting, very explicitly in that case, but it was implicit in the orders he continued to give to the army of the potomac we are not going to wait and see what lee is going to do to us. We are going to keep him busy. We are going to do something to him first. And he did. Lee will not be thinking about what he will do to us because we will be doing things to him first. So he insisted to the support and its think in new ways. Many factors one into the Union Victory, and talking about what has been going on in virginia here. Obviously the Union Victory west of the appalachians was decisive. But, and even within virginia, many others contributed from political leaders to voters at home to soldiers in the ranks to officers up and down the chain of command. And many factors were necessary from grant. But his leadership ability, i i think his ability was enhanced his ability to get his generals , and he worked on it the whole 13 months to get his generals to do what he wanted them to do the way he wanted them to do it when he wanted them to do it. That everincreasing success in that was enhanced by the confidence and calmness that he practiced as an act of will. By the humility that may have been his personality or he learned to do that too. And his insistence on teaching his subordinates to think in new ways. Thank you for your attention. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] day,nday, president s American History tv is live at 9 00 a. M. Eastern from mount vernon, the home, library and museum of our first president , George Washington. A historian and ceo mount vernon , doug bradburn. It is the start of museum week highlighting washington, d. C. Area museums with exhibits exploring the american story. Watch American History tv. And be sure to watch museum week, onyx we get a clock p. M. Eastern on American History tv. On cspan3. During this election season, the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed over time. This because you cannot be everywhere there cspan. Our campaign 2020 programming differs from all other political coverage for one reason. It is cspan. We have brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979. This year we are bringing you an unfiltered view of the people seeking to steer that government. This is november. In other words, your future. Season, directn and unfiltered, see the biggest picture for yourself. And make up your own mind. With cspan, campaign 2020. Brought you as a Public Service to your television providers. Tonight, and on 00 p. M. Eastern, on afterwards. Sally pikes makes the argument against medicare for all. In her latest book, false premise,. Just in december, there are over 4 million britons on a waiting list to get treatment. The Cancer Treatment is not supposed to be delayed from seeing a general practitioner to getting treatment more than 62 days. They have not met in the United Kingdom that standard in over five years. Or important, under the World Health Organization study, the britons are at the bottom of the wrong in most industrialized countries. Watch afterwards tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on book tv, on cspan2. This is American History tv. Exploring our nations past every weekend on cspan3. Next on our weekly series, reel 1968 u. S. Information agency film George Washington , the courage that made a nation followed by president obama fees on truman and eisenhower. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern, 3 00 p. M. Pacific on our series american artifacts, the sculptor David Addicks crated 42 giant bus of american residents for a williams for virginia president s park that opened in 2004. Busts. After the car park closed the statues were moved to private property where they have been decaying since. We met a storyteller who leads walking tours and photography clinics at the location to learn more. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern, 3 30 p. M. Pacific, Kansas City Public Library cohosts authors devin mills and kyla westra, who talk about their book, great wartime escapes and rescues. They focus on stories about world war ii pows and concentration camps. Theat 8 00 p. M. Eastern on presidency, former white house curator william almond talks about the long history of the white house east room and how president s have used it for political and ceremonial purposes. That is what is coming up here on American History tv. [wind blowing] the temperature a bear 10 degrees above zero. The wind, a cutting 20 miles per hour. The date, almost any day in january, 1778. The place, valley forge, pennsylvania. The event, famine, disease
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