Booknotes: General Grant and the Verdict of History

New Arrival:
• General Grant and the Verdict of History: Memoir, Memory, and the Civil War by Frank P. Varney (Savas Beatie, 2023).

Regular Civil War readers are well aware that the personal and professional relationship between prominent Union generals U.S. Grant and William S. Rosecrans was a tense one that boiled over into outright hostility during the war. It is also recognized that those ill-feelings continued to fester during the decades of historical memory forming that so many veterans actively engaged with through various print outlets. Clearly, in the war of reputations Grant came out on top, but some believe that the victory was in many ways gained through a sullying of truth. Historian Frank Varney explored that topic at great length in his 2013 book (it's hard to believe it's been ten years already!) General Grant and the Rewriting of History: How the Destruction of General William S. Rosecrans Influenced Our Understanding of the Civil War. In Varney's view, our appreciation of Rosecrans's war record faded, while Grant's soared, primarily because "Grant orchestrated the effort."

From the description: "Unbeknownst to most students of the war, Grant used his official reports, interviews with the press, and his memoirs to influence how future generations would remember the war and his part in it. Aided greatly by his two terms as president, by the clarity and eloquence of his memoirs, and in particular by the dramatic backdrop against which those memoirs were written, our historical memory has been influenced to a degree greater than many realize."

In his new book General Grant and the Verdict of History: Memoir, Memory, and the Civil War, a direct follow-up to General Grant and the Rewriting of History, Varney reveals the complex story behind three other Grant "victims" (Varney believes that word is an appropriate descriptor) of Grant's wartime actions and alleged postwar distortions. The trio of generals are "the brash and uncompromising “Fighting Joe” Hooker; George H. Thomas, the stellar commander who earned the sobriquet “Rock of Chickamauga”; and Gouverneur Kemble Warren, who served honorably and well in every major action of the Army of the Potomac before being relieved less than two weeks before Appomattox, and only after he had played a prominent part in the major Union victory at Five Forks."

In his Verdict preface, the author reflects on the positive and negative reaction among readers to the arguments presented in the Rosecrans volume. While same or similar Grant behavioral patterns identified in the Rosecrans-focused book extend throughout this one, the author does also mention in the new preface that the second book can be fully appreciated without having already read the first.

While Varney's opinion of Grant's greatness has diminished since embarking of this two-volume project, he does retain an appreciation of the general's finer qualities. As expressed in the book's final paragraph, in Varney's view Grant "was in many ways an admirable man, and an excellent—if imperfect—general"...who "compiled an enviable record of achievement." The crux of his study's historiographical fault-finding rather lies in "our willingness to overlook the less admirable things he did: and, most importantly, with the willingness of some historians to take his word for it all" (pg. 207).