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 di