There can be no doubt that General U.S. Grant was one of history’s most successful commanders. Some have compared him to such greats as Hannibal and Napoleon. Others have questioned his sobriety.
In the long, uncertain months after a humiliating defeat at Bull Run, United States President Abraham Lincoln grew increasingly frustrated with generals in the army who seemed unable to mount a battle-winning strategy.
But then, almost out of nowhere, the strategic Grant defeated the Confederates at Fort Donelson in Tennessee, forcing their surrender in February, 1862. That fort was a key outpost on the Cumberland River and its loss to Grant opened up the Tennessee Valley and delivered Kentucky to the Union. Suddenly, Grant’s name was all over the Union newspapers and he had become the long-awaited hero.
Many, if not most people would tell you that the most important battle of the Civil War was at Gettysburg. But consider this: Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson became the main reason Lincoln elevated him to overall command. Without Grant you could easily argue that the North might have lost the war.
Fort Donelson’s Confederate commander, General Simon Bolivar Buckner, had known Grant at West Point and had lent him some money when Grant needed it. They had been friends. Buckner thought they still were.
He assumed Grant would agree to fair terms of surrender. He asked for that in a note to Grant. Grants response to his old friend was “no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.” From then on, Grant’s initials stood for “Unconditional Surrender.”
It was no secret in the army that Grant liked whiskey. His preferred brand was “Old Crow”, first bottled by Scottish immigrant, James Crow in Kentucky, in 1830.
There were high-ranking officers in the Union Army who were jealous of Grant’s tremendous popularity after the victory at Fort Donelson and they joined forces with a few members of Lincoln’s cabinet as well as Union Commanding General Henry Halleck to carp about Grant’s drinking habits, accusing him of being an alcoholic.
But Lincoln would hear none of that. He ordered the tattle-tales to go and find what brand of whiskey Grant drank and to come back and tell him so that he could buy a barrel of it for each one of his generals. “I can’t spare this man,” Lincoln told them, “he fights!”
Thus Grant became a national icon. Later, when General Buckner’s troops were prisoners and were starving, Grant instructed his own personal commissary to send those troops a two-day’s supply of rations.
Contrary to the myth of Grant’s alcoholism is the fact that he rarely drank whiskey during the war. But on those rare occasions when he did he would sometimes drink enough to get drunk and to need help getting into bed. Rumors went abroad and were hard to counter but Grant survived them.
Grant’s favorite meal was breakfast. It was not the sort of breakfast you might imagine for a fighting general during war because it consisted of cucumbers sliced in vinegar and consumed with black coffee. After he was elected as the country’s 18th president, Grant greatly enlarged his breakfasts to include broiled Spanish mackerel, steak, bacon and fried apples and buckwheat cakes. Black coffee remained on the menu.
At his first inaugural, President Grant’s White House staff went beyond cucumbers sliced in vinegar and laid out a spread of delicacies which would have amazed Amenhotep, including 138 roasted turkeys, 1,600 pounds of corned beef, 200 hams, 8,000 sandwiches, 2,000 pounds of lobster, 1,800 pounds of chicken salad and hundreds more pounds of cake, ice cream, wine punch and 400 gallons of coffee and tea. And that list is short of the total spread by a good margin.
Unfortunately, the big event was held outside under tents. It was very cold. Many women stayed inside their fur coats and men wore gloves. Canaries which had been brought to the event in cages to sing for the guests died of exposure.
Grants favorite thing to eat was not on the event’s bill of fare, however. Believe it or not, rice pudding was his go-to comfort food and he could find none at his first inauguration gala. But the original recipe remains and you can make it for yourself and thereby eat your history.
(preheat your oven to 350 degrees (F).
You Can Do This
Stir 1 tablespoon of butter into 3 cups of hot, cooked rice.
Separate 4 large eggs and whip the whites until stiff. Set aside.
Beat the yolks in a large bowl and add the rice and 1/2 cup sugar.
Add 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
Add 2 cups half & half, 2 cups milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Turn the mixture into a greased shallow 2 1/2 quart baking dish.
Place this dish into a large pan containing 1 inch of hot water
Bake at 350 (F) for 1 hour. Serve warm with lemon sauce.
Lemon Sauce:
Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, salt to taste in a medium saucepan and slowly stir in 1 cup boiling water for 5 minutes. Blend in 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel and 3 tablespoons lemon juice.
General Grant could have retired after the war ended but the people would not accept that. Instead, they propelled him into the presidency where he served for two terms. His presidency was marred by political corruption all around him which he was ill-equipped to correct.
He was a commanding general, not a politician and had limited experience dealing with the wiles of venal and amoral office holders. One might add that his very real accomplishments negate a history of habitual drunken behavior.
Grant despised the Confederacy but not Southerners. He admired their bravery and skill but not their institutions and was as magnanimous toward them as he felt he could get away with at the time. Most southern people had nothing to do with slavery but saw the Civil War as “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”. If a Southerner owned a minimum of 20 slaves he was exempt from military service and able to continue his life of leisure. The average southern soldier fought not for slavery but against invasion and fought very hard to save his home.
After the Civil War, Grant summed it up this way:
“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”
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