Books: Yankee Hero

ULYSSES S. GRANT—Robert R. McCormick—Appleton-Century ($5).

“The truth is I am more of a farmer than a soldier. I take little or no interest in military affairs. I never went into the army without regret and I never retired without pleasure.” Thus, to a shocked German Crown Prince, spoke the great General Grant, full fed on victories and honors. Biographer McCormick quotes his hero’s unheroic remark with Yankee pride, proceeds to argue that Grant was the greatest soldier of them all. Grant’s military genius, thinks the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, has never had its due; his reputation has been unjustly overshadowed by the flashier fame of soldiers he defeated—or could have. Says his biographer: “It is time that we repudiate these servile Americans, time that we no longer allow an American general who in four years commanded forces ranging in size from one thousand to one million men. who was never defeated, who compelled the capitulation of ten fortresses, five armies, and eventually of the entire hostile government, to be relegated as inferior to the men he conquered, to his column-commanders or to foreign generals whose achievements fell far below his own.”

Not a history of the Civil War or even of Grant’s campaigns, Ulysses S. Grant is an avowedly partisan attempt to paint Grant with whitewash bright and glistening. Biographer McCormick lays it on thick but his able brushwork does bring out the sturdy lines of his hero’s dingy figure. Grant, like his 15-year senior, Lee, served in the Mexican War, but his no less brilliant accomplishments were overlooked, says McCormick. Shortly afterward he resigned from the army, under the accusation of intoxication while paying off troops. His belligerent biographer does not admit the truth of the charge, denies that Grant ever drank more “than any number of successful men in and out of military life.” Later, however, he admits that Grant was induced by one of his subordinates to sign the pledge for the duration of the war, sometimes broke it.

Grant should have full credit, says Mc-Cormick, for the conception and execution of the 1864 campaign that ended the Civil War—”the most comprehensive campaign of all time.” His plan included Sherman’s March to the Sea, the destruction of Hood’s army in Tennessee. As commander-in-chief of the Army of the Potomac, he had to fight not only the redoubtable Lee but his own inefficient, stupid or untrustworthy lieutenants. Only two of Grant’s generals whom Biographer McCormick praises are Sherman and Sheridan: Sherman was a good tactician but a poor fighter; Sheridan was Grant’s equal in battle but never commanded a large army. For Burnside, Hancock, Meade, et al., McCormick has little but harsh words: “Strive as he might, Grant could not drive them forward.”

McCormick refuses to compare Grant and Lee but implies that Lee was defeated not so much by attrition and force of numbers as by Grant’s superior tactics and determination. He brushes aside Grant’s heavy losses: “Criticism of Grant for incurring heavy casualty lists in utterly destroying his adversary refutes itself.” Biographer McCormick lays many a florid wreath at his paladin’s feet: “A hero, without fear and without reproach, who needed neither the panoply of war nor the customary mannerisms of command to buoy up his iron will.” He sums up his admiration by declaring Grant the superior of Napoleon himself.

The Author. Onetime guest at Allied headquarters (1915), onetime cavalry major on the Mexican border (1916-17), onetime aide on General Pershing’s A. E. F. staff and artillery officer in the line, Major Robert Rutherford Mc-Cormick emerged from the War with a D. S. M., a colonelcy and decided opinions about warfare. Six feet four. 200-lbs.. 54, Tribune Publisher McCormick is variously called dynamic and domineering. For 25 years, in his leisure moments, he has mulled over the “neglected” figure of his hero, Grant, gradually got his militant musings on paper.