Grant and Lee Ulysses S.

Grant and Lee

ULYSSES S. GRANT and ROBERT E. LEE:

COMPARISON/CONTRAST

According to Civil War historian and scholar Bruce Catton, Ulysses S. Grant, the Commander of the Union army who went on to become President of the United States in 1869, and Robert E. Lee, the Commander of all Confederate forces, played very similar roles in "bringing the Civil War to its virtual finish" in April of 1865 when both men "met in the parlor of a modest house at Appomattox Courthouse" in Virginia and signed the document which effectively brought an end to the war, despite the fact that other armies linked to the Confederacy "had yet to surrender" and the Confederate government struggled "desperately... trying to find some way" to continue the traditions of the Old South and its aristocracy (2003, 631).

As Catton tells us, both Grant and Lee "were two strong men" and "oddly different generals" and represented "the strengths of two conflicting currents," being the Union (i.e., the U.S. federal government under the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln) and its efforts to eradicate slavery in the South and bring about equal rights and protections for African-Americans, and the Confederacy under the leadership of Jefferson Davis which was vainly attempting to preserve so-called Southern aristocracy (the plantation/slavery system) and its creed that Southern states had the God-given right to keep and hold slaves which in essence served as the foundation for the Confederacy's economic health.

Robert E. Lee who "embodied the noblest elements" (Catton, 2003, 632) of the Southern aristocratic ideal, was loved and admired by not only those in the South but also in the North, yet certain political and social leaders in the North viewed Lee as a traitor, due to once being a Union military leader with connections to the bloody raid at Harper's Ferry by the abolitionist John

Brown. But in fact, Lee was ardently against one of the main reasons why the Civil War was fought in the first place, namely, the institution of slavery. A slice of historical fact supports this, for many years before the outbreak of the War Between the States, Lee felt compelled by his religious beliefs as a Christian to free the slaves from the household he had inherited from his wife.

Although Robert E. Lee is viewed by Catton and other scholars as symbolizing the very nature of the Confederacy, due to being a steadfast supporter of Virginia and its antebellum culture, he most earnestly wished for the institution of slavery in America to disappear and become nothing more than a distant memory for his Confederate brothers and sisters. Amazingly, after signing the document at Appomattox Courthouse and surrendering to Grant, Lee make it clear to his men that they must not hold any deep grudges against their conquerors and even argued that upon returning to their homes they should honor the laws of the Union and become responsible and caring U.S. citizens.

Despite all of the destruction and chaos that had crippled the South as a result of the war and his surrender to Grant, Lee was considered "the symbol of everything for which (the Confederate soldiers) had been willing to die." Thus, "if the Lost Cause," being the loss of the Old South and its aristocratic/slavery system, "sanctified by so much heroism and so many deaths, had a living justification," it was Robert E. Lee (Catton, 2003, 632).

In contrast, Ulysses S. Grant "was everything Lee was not," for instead of being raised in a rather well-to-do family with close and important ties to a number of wealthy and prominent Southern political figures and leaders, Grant, the son of a skin tanner of the Western American frontier, had been raised "the hard way" and symbolized the "eternal toughness" and sinewy fiber" of the great mountain men, those who had fled civilization for a life of roughness and struggle in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains and beyond (Catton, 2003, 632). Grant was also what one might call a non-conformist, for he felt that he was his own man and owed nothing to no one, much unlike Lee who came from a family background filled with reverence and admiration for all things southern and a deep respect for the Southern way of life with its laid-back indifference to the plight of the black man and woman. But like Lee, Grant was also a firm detractor of the institution of slavery in the South and felt that blacks deserved to be treated as human beings instead of like cattle.