4/16/2023 0 Comments Ulysses lee![]() ![]() But taken on its own terms, Grant was an exceptional general of both theater commands, as in his seige of Vicksburg, and in command of all the Union armies when he came east. Grant’s personal charisma was never as high as Lee’s anyway and he has been dogged by questions about his drinking. Grant’s haplessness as president has redounded to color his performance during the War. As such, Lee increasingly was seen as blameless or beyond reproach, which caused his mistakes or errors on the battlefield.Ĭonversely, Grant’s military reputation suffers from his reputation as president, which historically is regarded as one of the worst administrations of all. With the southern ideology of the “Lost Cause” Lee, the heroic, self-sacrificing soldier, was romanticized as the exemplar of southern civilization. Lee also benefits from the cult of the “Marble Man” that arose after the War. He knew the South couldn’t just sit back and hold what it had: the North was too strong and some sort of early end to the war had to be found, probably a negotiated peace after a shock Union defeat in Pennsylvania or Maryland. Lee also had the difficult task of implementing a strategy to win the war that required him to invade the northern states, which he did twice. His victory at Chancellorsville, where he divided his army three times in the face of the enemy while being outnumbered three to one, is a master class in the use of speed and maneuver as a force multiplier. He scored outrageous victories against the Army of the Potomac up until Gettysburg 1863, fighting against superior numbers and better supplied troops. Lee is usually accounted the superior commander. ![]() The question has intrigued historians and armchair strategists since the Civil War itself. "These men epitomized their societies." Grant is an unexceptional-looking tanner from Ohio-while Lee is "more patriarchical than the partriarch." The story of these men, their fallacies, their reputations, their legacies are well depicted in a number of art works, including the significant loan of a Winslow Homer painting titled, Skirmish in the Wilderness, from Connecticut's New Britain Museum of American Art.īut we asked curator Ward if he'd tell us who was the better general, and here is what he sent us. "They are products of their times," says Ward. The photographs, drawings and paintings depicting the lives of these two men seem to pulse with a kind of tension that recalls the horrifying 19th-century era when the country was riven, yet united behind their respective generals-Grant in the North and Lee from the South. The room itself seems too small for such large personalities. ![]() Grant from Ohio faces off with the southern patrician Robert E. The one-room salon is the site where the museum's scholars have previously exhibited the portraits, letters and personal artifacts of such cultural luminaries as Ronald Reagan, Katharine Hepburn, Abraham Lincoln and Sandra Day O'Connor. Ward with the challenge of featuring the Civil War's two most storied generals in its "One Life" gallery. To showcase one of history's most memorable rivalries, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery tasked its senior historian David C. ![]()
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