To Rescue the Republic by Bret Baier

Author:Bret Baier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Custom House
Published: 2021-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

However, Grant’s leadership style might have suffered in office by his reliance on his military ways. As his former brigadier general James Harrison Wilson wrote, “He unconsciously treated his Cabinet rather as staff officers than as his constitutional advisers; rather as clerks than as counsellors, and unfortunately for him and for the country, this view of their relations was too frequently accepted without question by his new associates.”

Badeau’s insight about Grant’s inner thinking seems to get to the heart of the matter. “Grant was in reality one of the most sensitive of men. He regarded the feelings of others carefully, and it was always painful to him to inflict pain. Although few supposed so, he felt acutely all the censures and attacks and even the slights of which he was the object. He said nothing, perhaps, when he received them, but there was abundant evidence, which those who were with him closely could detect, that Grant was a thin-skinned man.”

It appears that even those who knew him best and were dedicated to serving his interests did not understand him. Hamilton Fish’s biographer Allan Nevins underscored this, noting that one of Fish’s “first and most imperative tasks was to try to penetrate that great national enigma, the President. Even today Grant is partly an enigma; then he was wholly so. Men waited—and hoped.” It might also be noted that, although Grant was beloved as a general, in the presidency Lincoln was a very hard act to follow.

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