Jack davis. And mr. Davis is from independence, missouri. Has a bachelor, masters degree from sonoma state university. And many of you may know him as longtime editor of civil war times illustrated back in, i guess, the 1970s and 1980s when it was really the only popular civil war magazine. Its heyday. The best years that it was in existence. It still is, obviously. But hes the author, editor of 60 books relating to primarily to civil war, but also 19th century history, southern u. S. History. Think about that for a minute. 60 books. Among those, just a few, his i think first book was a history of the new market campaign, which i still think is a model small battle history, forty years after it was written. I think its one of the best small battle histories that have ever been written on the civil war battle. Biography of john c. Breckenridge. General history of the confederate war. Book on the end of the war in florida and other locations, cornered with him about the escape of southern cabinet members down through florida. He is the editor of a recent series on the civil war in virginia, a separate volume for each year. He was the editor of the now its i guess 20 years old, but the newer photographic history of the civil war, which i believe was image of war. Which is a great supplement to the older history. Mr. Davis also was the on camera Senior Consultant and commentator for 52 episodes of civil war journal which many of you remember which was on a and e and History Channel for a number of years. And hes involved in many other production activities for television. In 2013 mr. Davis retired after 13 years as the professor of history and executive director of the Civil War Center for civil war studies at virginia tech. He is the only fourtime winner of the Jefferson Davis award given for length works and confederate and civil war history. And there were copies of his newest book. Hopefully they havent been well, maybe hopefully they will have been sold out correct. And hopefully hes working on some new books for us. And mr. Davis talk today is grant lee and leadership, which is based on one of his more recent books. So please welcome mr. Davis. [applause] good morning. Its great to be back here again. Im delighted to see all of you here. I congratulate ralph peters for taking care of the first couple of minutes of the talk that i was going to do, because i now dont have to say that my favorite branch of the United States government is the National Park service, which i almost always do if i get the chance. They give us more bang for the buck than any other branch of government, and its a wonderful, dedicated corps of people working there. And its been a great pleasure for me for 45 years to have known so many of them and to work with so many of them. Its really something to be proud of, with the possible exception of england, i dont know of any nation in the world that has anything to compare with it. Its just wonderful what they do. And bringing you people together for an event like this is part of that, i think. Thanks also to ralph peters. Im going to rewrite my talk while im giving it, because he addressed so many interesting things. And im going to talk about grant and lee and leadership and what characterized them, but im going to give you some of the background of their lives. First, the sort of thing that informs the way people like these made decisions. Grant and lee as people. I think you find some surprises when you learn something about them. First, did you know that u. S. S grant grew up in the wealthiest household in his county in ohio . Grant was the son of rural western privilege. His house had books in it. His house had a piano. Lee, as youve always heard, grew up in somewhat stranger circumstances, but maybe not quite as poor as has often been implied. His number did inherit a number of slaves which she hired out usually at 50 a year. She inherited a lot of shares in banks and railroads. And unlike shares today, those actually paid dividends. Her income when lee was a boy ran between 2 and 4,000 a year, which in that era put her in the top 10 of earners in america. So they werent living in genteel poverty, but she was very careful with her money. There was a famous story that they would have a debate in the family one day over what meat they would buy for the next days dinner. They could afford a lot more than just one meat at a time, but his mother was obsessed with she know something about poverty. If you were married to light horse perry lee, you knew about poverty and you knew about debt and you knew about shame and humiliation. So she was always a pinch penny and interestingly enough lee will always be a pinch penny. It was a continuing bone of contention between lee and his wife over her spending. He teased one of his sons about her spending. He said the most dangerous thing that can happen is when she finds a bargain because it will usually cost twice what the asking price. So he didnt grow up poor, but he grew up very, very conscious of money. Their childhoods are very, very different. Lees is quite constrained and i think ralph was right on the money when he pointed out that lee from probably his earliest moments of awareness is conscious of the load that he and his brothers bear as the sons of Lighthorse Harry lee and eventually spend all of his life trying to overcome that, trying to turn around the reputation of his branch of the lee family. He scarcely, scarcely knew his father. His father disappeared when lee was, ive forgotten now, about seven years old. He never saw him again. And i think its very significant that during the war when lee is in command down in south carolina, he will go visit his fathers grave. As you heard, his father was coming back from selfimposed exile to avoid debtors prison and died on the way and is buried in near savannah, georgia. So lee went to visit his fathers grave and he wrote a letter, two letters back, in fact, one to his wife and one to his son describing it. And essentially this is how he described it. Went to i think it was then nathaniel green plantation. Saw fathers grave. Theres a beautiful grove of orange trees all around it. The hibiscus bloom wonderfully. One sentence about his father. He was writing about visiting the grave of a stranger. And i think this will follow him all of his life. Grant has his own cross to bear in the parental department. His father jesse grant was a jackass, bombastic, boastful, egotistical, annoying, but hes the wealthiest man in town and he knows it. And keep rubbing everybody elses face in it. Hes really a boob. He and his own son never really get along all that well. So grant has a different parental cross to bear, and that is to get past being the son of this bunctiuos character who spends much of his time or some of his time doing his best to tear down his sons ego, his own sense of selfworth. Jesse grant will be his sons worst critic in childhood and will continue doing that well into the war. Its so revealing that after the surrender of pemberton and vicksburg, one of the first letters grant will write is to his father, and it says essentially dad, i took vicksburg and you can see in it its buried within the formal letter is this plea, have i done well, daddy . And his father would be a cross around his neck all his life. But there were tradeoffs. Grant had an enormous amount of freedom as a child. Jesse may been a jacks, but he didnt scold. They didnt discipline their children. They gave them enormous freedom, a kind of freedom that those of us with children today im happy to say thats no longer my concern mine are grown and gone, would never think of today. There were no boundaries to speak of. List as he was called would take off and travel around the county. He could take one of his fathers horses ride anywhere he wanted to from about the age of seven or eight. Its a cliche about grant, but its true. Hes something of a horse whisperer. He has this unusual connection with horses and handle almost any barnyard animal, but especially horses. Hes allowed to go off into the country. In time his father will be sending out to make goods deliveries or to make goods purchases for the grant stores. Plural, more than one grant store. And its not a leather tannery by the way. They sell Leather Goods that have been tanned by others, to the point that by the time hes about 15 years old grant has by himself with a team of horses traveled from georgetown, ohio maysville, kentucky, louisville, kentucky, lexington, kentucky, cincinnati, pittsburg, detroit, chicago. If any of you study geography in school and remember it, you can tell hes getting farther and farther away from home and hes only a kid. By himself. My calculation is that by the time he left for west point when he was 17, he had by himself with a wagon and team traveled over 1,500 miles. How many of you would trust any 17yearold you know to travel 1,500 miles by himself . With no supervision. What it did for grant was to open up the world to him. He developed then and never lost a fascination with travel, of seeing whats beyond the hill, seeing new things, meeting new people. In that same period of his life, in his teen years, by my best guess id say robert e. Lee probably never traveled more than a hundred miles from home. He stayed fixed in Northern Virginia. The lees didnt travel except for his father and that was of course to escape debt. Lee was never worldly. He had no interest to speak of in the affairs of the rest of the world or really even went what on beyond the confines of virginia, because that had been his world. When the war was over, im sure most of you know, of course, grant becomes president. When he leaves the white house, he will take off on a twoyearlong tour of the world in which he nearly bankrupted himself. And he loved every moment of it. So that we have photos of him in egypt, in china, in japan. Hell be the first jimmy carter of a sort because as an expresident he will broker a peace between japan and china over a local dispute. Believe it or not there is still today just outside, in kyoto a monument to u. S. Grant that was put up in the 1890s for the peace he made. Its still there today. He loved the world. Lee never got over that sort of fixation on localism. They both have their prejudices, but they kind of reflect their childhoods and their experiences. Grant pretty much loves everybody. He was indifferent to slavery. Theres not a word from him about the institution of slavery for or against until toward the end of the war. He did briefly own one slave that was a gift who when he was broke he emancipated rather than selling it to get money that he needed. And it was a slave that had been in his wifes family anyhow. But he gets along with virtually everybody else because hes not just interested in the world. Hes interested in its peoples. You can see a very open, very open mind there. Lee pretty much doesnt like anybody except white virginians. Much has been made out of this famous letter he wrote in 1858 in which he castigates slavery. But he then goes on to say, which people forget to quote, that slavery is a bigger miss fortune for white men than it is for the slaves because the white men have to take care of the slaves. His experience with his family because they had never been planners, was that they hired out the few slaves he had and he inherited about a half a dozen. They caused trouble. They lied. They stole. They run away and you had to spend money, money that you were pinching pennies on to send somebody after them, to bring them back. So he did not like slavery, at least a southern wig. Essentially they dont like slavery, but they dont know what to do about it. But hes no friend of the slave. Hes not keen on freed blacks, he also doesnt like mexicans, indians. Hes not real keen on catholics. Hes pretty openminded about jews and actually will go out of his way to when hes command of the army of Northern Virginia to make some allowances for jewish holidays as long as they dont conflict with actions in the field. So again, you see kind of two different minds in operations. Two different world views. Of two men who are very different, who yet share a lot of things in common. And i think its important to try to emphasize that in saying some things about one that you havent heard before, that doesnt mean that i or anyone else am antilee or antigrant. We simply need to level the Playing Field so were looking at them with the blinders off and trying to give as fair an approximation as we can of who they are. Let me play a little game with you. Ill give you a couple of scenarios. We will speak of generals a and b. You notice that the letters cannot possibly relate directly either to grant or lee. General a expects the enemy to advance but doesnt expect it just yet. Hes taken by surprise when he leaves avenues of approach unguarded. He reacts to that surprise by being pushed back and fighting defensively at first, but then he consolidates his position, then he takes the offensive and he dries the foe from the field. Who does that describe, grant or lee . Both. Thats grant at shiloh. Thats lee at chantsville. Scenario two struck hard on his flank and pushed back, general b into we actively reasons the enemy must have weakened the other end of his line. So general b counterattacks and wins the battle. Which one is it . Both. Grant on february 15th, 1862 at ft. Donaldson. And lee at spotsylvania. Third and last, general b divides his army in front of the enemy and sends a major portion of it on a Wide Movement around the enemy flank and rear to strike a decisive blow . Which is it . Both. Lee at second manassas, grant at iuka in vicksburg. The myth is that lee is a virtually undefeated genius only overpowered by superior numbers and resources while grant is of course a plodding butcher who won only by overhauling power. Yet in fact in many respects their skills and their general ship approach the identical. Theres no question lee had genius, and his was hardly a hopeless task. And grant did have great advantages. For a start, actually early in the war grant had more experience. We tend to forget, he was already a National Hero in the north after donaldson and then again after shiloh at a time when lee was being virtually forgotten in the south because of a campaign in western virginia that did not come out well. Only after he took active command of the army of what he termed the army of Northern Virginia in the summer of 62 does the robert e. Lee that we know begin to emerge. Grant had more men, was better equipped and supplied and was backed by seemingly unlimited resources. But counter that with the fact that lee fought on home ground. He had the advantage of interior lines. He knew the ground or had people with him who knew it, and he and his army had the vital support of the local people. And lee had another tremendous advantage, and hes almost unique in this in the confederate army, and that is that he had the unwavering support of president Jefferson Davis. And in fact, a wonderful working relationship with him, which nobody else had with davis. Grant on the other hand never even met lincoln until early 1864. And lincoln had actually been wary of grant for a some time until he was finally convinced that this the uniquest greatest military here row would not challenge for the republican nomination in 1864 because grant was being court by opponents to lincoln in his own party. Lee knew davis much better than grant would ever know lincoln. Grant also faced a constant peril of political infighting in his rear. First the jealousy of henry, then don carlos, john mcclernen was the worst of all, but there was also men of the stripe steven hurtbet, Nathaniel Banks and grants onetime field officer William Stark rosecrans. They and their allies and almost all of them, among other things, allied themselves with newspaper men. Communications and information and the creation of impressions versus the actual expression of fact, its nothing new as ralph told you in his talk. And its very evident there. These men constantly fed the press stories to hurt grant. Like the charges of drunkenness, and i might deal with that later on. Lee never has to contend with that. He has no one working against him behind his lines except possibly longstreet, who was more interested in getting an independent command of his own than he was in undercutting lee. From 1861 onward lee will report directly, facetoface to Jefferson Davis. Grant, through his career will report first to john c. Fremont, then henry halleck, briefly to George Mcclellan and then to halleck again. Talk about a losing hand at cards. Theres four deuces. Grant will start the army start the war with an army in which virtually every Division Commander in 1862 was a political general from illinois. Talk about poison. Mcclellan, hurlburt, prentiss, w. H. L. Wallace, only sherman among his Division Commanders was a professional. Later grant had to command and control the likes of banks, benjamin f. Butler and france segal. Lee had no none professional or political generals in his armys Upper Echelon until the death of jeb stewart and his replacement by wade hampton and later of course by john b. Gordon. End of the second corps in the final days. Grant has to operate entirely in enemy country, maintaining long and increasingly longer lines of communication subject to degradations of bipartisans. Lee campaigned almost exclusively on home ground except for gettysburg. In short, lee has got some substantial and significant advantages to help offset grants superiority of numbers and materiel. That they could offset those things is amply demonstrated with what lee did to mcclellan, polk, burnside, hooker. Theres another losing hand. Had any of those officers been in command in virginia in the spring of 1864, is there any reason to suppose they would have done any better against lee than they had before . So what if . But its a tantalizing one. There are strong differences in their personal pluses and minuses. In 1864 when they first meet in the field, lee is 57, which right now doesnt sound too old to me. His physical, mental, emotional and Spiritual Health were in decline. You heard, he suffered from heart ailments, which he treated, by the way, mostly with quinine, which in many cases just aggravated the problem, but no one knew that. Hes tired. He complains of not having energy. He complains that he cant concentrate, that he has trouble seeing. The war has exhausted him. Mentally he is older than his years.