Discussion Topic
Comparing and contrasting Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee
Summary:
Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee had distinct leadership styles and backgrounds. Grant, representing the Union, was known for his aggressive tactics and ability to leverage the North's industrial advantages. Lee, leading the Confederacy, was celebrated for his strategic brilliance and defensive maneuvers despite limited resources. Both were respected for their tenacity and commitment to their respective causes.
How were Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee similar and different?
Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant emerged as the supreme commanders of the Confederate and Union armies respectively by 1864. Like many generals in both armies, both men were educated at the United States Military Academy at West Point, which Lee attended in the 1820s, about twenty years before Grant. Both men, like many other Civil War officers, gained combat experience in the war with Mexico in the 1840s. Once the Civil War began, both men rose through the ranks through their military successes, with Lee emerging as the commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia by 1862 and Grant, who won pivotal battles in the western theater of the war, as the Lieutenant General and commander of all Union armies by 1864.
Despite these similarities, Lee and Grant were different in many important ways. Lee was the son of an old, prominent Virginia family, though it was...
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in decline by the time he was born. Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. When the Civil War broke out, it emerged that Grant and Lee had very different concepts of duty. Lee, offered the command of the United States army by President Abraham Lincoln, declined the appointment, feeling that he owed his talents to his home state of Virginia. Grant, on the other hand, having left military service, received a commission to serve in the Union army immediately.
Lee was also thoroughly the product of a slave-holding society and owned dozens of enslaved people on his plantation in Arlington, Virginia. Grant was not an abolitionist—he actually held one enslaved man in the years leading up to the war—but the war made him an opponent of slavery.
In terms of military tactics, both men were bold, decisive leaders. Lee is generally more praised for his tactical approach to particular battles, especially Chancellorsville, while Grant tended to be a more methodical leader, relentlessly putting pressure on the Confederate armies in order to exploit the numerical and material advantages that the Union possessed. To what extent these differences in approach were dictated by strategic concerns, as opposed to personality, is an open question.
References
In an essay entitled "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts," Civil War historian Bruce Catton describes some of the differences between the two opposing generals. In sum, Catton argues that Lee represented an old, static, backward looking order, and Grant, a new, growing, vigorous order.
Catton characterizes Lee as a land-based aristocrat who harkened back to a way of life represented by the knight and the medieval squire. Lee believed in a "leisure class" of men who would have (according to this ideal):
a strong sense of obligation to the community; men who lived not to gain advantage for themselves, but to meet the solemn obligations which had been laid on them by the very fact that they were privileged. From them the country would get its leadership; to them it could look for the higher values—of thought, of conduct, of personal deportment—to give it strength and virtue.
Grant, on the other hand, represented being tough and self-reliant, owing nothing to the past, and bringing oneself up by one's bootstraps. He was future oriented and believed a man should only possess what he earned for himself. He was tied to a competitive view of life and was acutely aware of the importance of "dollars and cents."
Lee represented a static, unchanging, aristocratic ideal of what life should be that was rooted in tradition. Grant represented modernity and restless change, the age of "steel and machinery."
How are Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant similar?
In an essay called "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts" from The American Story, a series of essays by historians, Civil War expert Bruce Catton compared and contrasted Grant and Lee.
While he argues that the two men were largely dissimilar and represented different "elements" in the American experience, Catton states they shared the following traits:
Both were stubborn and faithful. They dug in and didn't give up easily. Both were tenacious fighters.
Each was a resourceful risk taker. Lee illustrated this in the "dazzling campaigns" of Second Manassas and Chancellorville; Grant at Vicksburg.
Each man rose to greatness in his ability to turn to peace at the war's end. Both Lee and Grant, Catton contends, behaved with enormous graciousness when they met briefly in Appomattox to finalize the South's surrender that led to peace.
Each man came from a different background. Lee's was backward-looking, aristocratic, and agrarian, while Grant represented the forward-looking perspective of the industrial North, but both were men of courage and conviction.
General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant had many similarities and differences. The biggest similarity is that they were both great civil war generals. They had a great deal of passion for what they were fighting for. They both wanted to preserve the Union but it was inevitable that the North and South would soon engage in war.
General Lee and General Grant both fought in the Mexican War. They later questioned if it was right to invade and because of the carnage they witnessed they were both opposed to war in 1861. Both also participated in Scott's march from Vera Cruz to Mexico City.
In addition, they both went to school at West Point.
What are the main similarities between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant?
The similarities were few between the two great commanding generals of the American Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was the son of a poor tanner from Pennsylvania who had moved to Ohio. Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) was a Southern aristocrat and a member of one of Virginia's most famous families. His father, Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, was a Revolutionary War hero and Governor of Virginia. Robert E. Lee's wife was the step-daughter of George Washington. Grant was a Methodist who rarely attended church and who "prayed in private." Lee was a pious member of the Episcopal Church who believed that God would favor his Confederate armies.
As for their similarities:
- Both were experienced veterans of the Mexican War: Lee as a captain (breveted to colonel) of engineers and a close aide to commanding General Winfield Scott. Grant was a lieutenant and a quartermaster.
- Both attended West Point: Lee graduated 2nd in his class; Grant was 21st out of 39 students.
- Both Lee and Grant owned slaves. Oddly, however, Lee generally opposed slavery, freeing his slaves at the beginning of the war. Meanwhile, Grant "had no animosity toward slavery."
- Prior to the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln promoted Lee to colonel in the U. S. Army; Lincoln later promoted Grant several times.
- Both men became president: Grant was elected President of the United States in 1868 and 1872; Lee became President of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia.
- Both men were beloved figures post-war. Lee was revered throughout the South (as he was during the war) and by students at Washington College. Grant was a highly-popular President, elected twice by landslide votes.
- Both men died when they were 63 years old.
What are the similarities and differences between Generals Grant and Lee?
Side by side and in person, these men weren't much alike. Lee was a more stately and well spoken man, while Grant was rougher around the edges and more direct. Grant was short and unremarkable in appearance, while Lee was a more imposing figure. Lee would often be dressed to the nines in splendid military regalia and Grant often wore a mere officer's tunic and dislike pretense in his rank. Grant drank too much, while Lee didn't like to cloud his judgement.
On the battlefield, however, they were both fearless. They fought without reservation and seldom hesitated when making critical decisions. Both men could inspire their soldiers to fight. Lee was pure soldier and he made the most of every battlefield opportunity. Grant was pure toughness, and he would never give up.
References