The Leadership Principles of Ulysses S. Grant - Stories & Myths (Episode 16)
Considered one of the three greatest American leaders by Teddy Roosevelt, U.S. Grant led the union to victory as a general and the nation to peace as president. Learn the timeless leadership principles that brought Grant success on this week's Stories & Myths with Craig von Buseck.
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Forward! The Leadership Principles of Ulysses S. Grant
Victor! The Final Battle of Ulysses S. Grant
More Books by Craig von Buseck
Transcript:
meeting with Christian book
owners, bookstore owners, and
meeting with uh various
different kinds of folks uh to
talk about my different books
and hopefully to uh encourage
them uh stock their shelves
with those books and what books
are those that you'll be
promoting? The ones behind me.
Alright. Yes. So, so it should
should be an entertaining
interesting time. So, uh I'll
I'll probably do a couple of
research stops along the way.
Um I had stopped at Fort
Donelson a couple of years ago
after I had gone to the Ulysses
S Grant Presidential Library
and then I was heading up to
Pennsylvania to visit with my
parents and so I stopped at
Fort Donelson but I didn't have
enough time to get over to Fort
Henry uh which was the first
fort that grant uh defeated. it
actually wasn't grant. It was
his planning but it was the
navy that defeated Fort Henry
but then Grant and the Navy
working together defeated Fort
Donald and so I plan to stop at
Fort Henry because it's kind of
right on the way. Nice And then
uh also there may be a couple
other stops depending on how
much time I have. Uh Mark Twain
Birthplace is about an hour and
a half from where Yes. uh well,
not his birthplace but his
where he grew up. He was born
in Florida, Missouri which is a
little bit uh further west but
uh Hannibal is about an hour
and a half from where we're
going to be. So, if I find the
time I might zing up there as
well. So, It should be. It
should be an interesting time.
Awesome. Awesome that I plan to
hear or I look forward to
hearing some stories about it
next week and um at the office
and here on um on your podcast
stories and myths. That's
right. Yes. So, what do we got
on top for this evening? So,
we're actually going to be
talking about one of your grant
books. We're going to be
talking about the leadership
one. Um just got a couple of
questions about that and so um
this is the second It is called
the lord. The leadership
principles of Ulysses S Grant.
That's right, which is the
companion book to the biography
Victor, the final Battle of
Ulysses S Grant. So, and this
one came out in May of 2021,
right? And the biography Victor
came out in April. So, just a
month apart and so yeah. Um so,
I'll go ahead and jump right
into my first question. So,
Roosevelt declared in nineteen
mightiest among the mighty dead
loom. the three great figures
of Washington Lincoln, and
Grant. So, why did Grant's
reputation suffer such a
decline since that point? Well,
it's interesting II. Don't know
if there would be anyone today
who would say the same thing
now, everything shifts with
context and with time and uh
we've had an awful lot. You
know, we've had more than a
century since
Uh Teddy Roosevelt made that
quote and there have been a lot
of great American leaders since
that time but when you look
back from 1900 back to 1776 and
consider what Teddy Roosevelt
said, uh what I didn't share in
that quote was that he said in
the second tier there would be
people like Patrick or not not
Patrick Henry but Alexander
Hamilton, Tom Thomas Jefferson,
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
Franklin, those Teddy Roosevelt
considered those second tier
and he considered the first
tier Washington, Lincoln and
Grant basically people of that
era looked at Washington as the
father of the country and he,
you know, not only as a general
but also as a two-term
president and his important
contribution of not uh going
for a third term but retiring
and saying I'm not a king. we
don't want a king In America,
we want a president and so that
very important contribution,
Then, they looked at Lincoln in
his work in saving the union
and keeping it from being
divided and conquered and they
looked at grants in two
different ways. One was his uh
military strategy working with
Lincoln. I mean, Lincoln and
Grant had very similar strategy
but Lincoln Lincoln didn't have
the military training that
Grant had and so Lincoln needed
Grant. That's why three full
years went by where the union
lost. Most of the time, the
only place that the union was
winning was out west where
Grant was in charge because
Grant was a military genius as
far as his strategy was
concerned and as far as his
discipline was concerned and so
that's why Lincoln brought him
east so that the north's
strongest general went up
against the strongest general
in Robert E. Lee. So, it was
kind of like Rocky Balboa
against Apollo Creed and um and
Grant one and so he he not only
was hailed for winning the war
but he also uh helped the
country steer through the
dangerous waters of
reconstruction and of the rise
of Jim Crow racism in the south
uh basically, you know, the uh
the Southern aristocrats and
politicians who were in charge
before the war very quickly
became in charge again after
the war because they suppressed
uh the black vote and so it was
the same people voting for the
same people and they wanted to
continue slavery just in
different terms and that is you
know the uh Jim Crow racism and
grants fought against that for
all. 8 years of his two terms
as president and this is what
we forget. You know, I know
growing up that I was told that
Grant was one of the worst
presidents we ever had because
of the scandals that took
place. Well, that was nothing
but Southern Pro Southern
Confederate propaganda. It's
simply not true. The truth of
the matter is that Grant is one
of the most important
presidents we ever had because
he kept us together. He kept
the the country unified. He Jim
Crow. He knocked down the KKK.
He came out with the Civil
Rights Act of 1975. He came out
with the KKK laws and so he's,
you know, slogan was let us
have peace and he did that in
three ways. One, he tried to
reconcile wherever he could
with the south as long as they
obey the laws. federal, state,
and local two, he kept the
Union Army uh deployed
throughout the south to enforce
that and three, he he helped to
form the justice department and
his attorney general along with
Grant uh went after the KKK and
basically in the courts, they
wiped them out and so the KKK
was pretty much uh toothless
for the next 20 years because
of Ulysses S Grant, we forget
how important he was not only
as general but also as
president and then of course as
elder statesman in those last 2
years as he was writing his
memoirs, he not only wrote
about his experiences but he
reminded the country that the
war was not about state's
rights. The war was not about
tariffs. The only way they were
the war was about tariffs and
state's rights was as it was
connected to slavery. The war
was about slavery. Grant made
that very clear in his memoirs
and he made it very clear to
the people that he spoke to
including Chancellor, a Von
Bismarck. He said we had to
destroy slavery. It was a
cancer upon our country and so
that is why the people of the
nineteenth century next to
Lincoln and very closely next
to Lincoln. So, Ulysses S Grant
as one of the great leaders in
American history happily after
100 years of what is called the
law school which is a pro
confederate uh philosophy of
writers and historians and
media mogul after 100. years of
knocking grants reputation down
and raising Lee's reputation up
um after the civil rights
movement uh writers and
historians and educators
started to take a second look
at Grant and started to look at
the actual documents which is
what historians are supposed to
do and what journalists are
supposed to do and so in the
last Twenty-five or 30 years,
there has been a reexamine of
the importance of Ulysses S
Grant That's one of the reasons
why I wrote these two books.
Victor and Forward. Awesome.
So, Grant, look for the
advantage in every setback. So,
how was this a key to his
success? well II mentioned
earlier for uh Henry and Fort
Donaldson Grant. um saw the
strategy right away uh when he
was employed as a colonel in
the uh Union Army in Illinois
and he was placed under uh
General Freeman uh who was the
general of the west at the time
free mantle gave grant a
promotion to Brigadier General
and he basically said go get
him. Well, uh Freeman
unfortunately made some really
bad decisions and Lincoln
removed him and brought in
General Hallock Hallock was a
good politician but not a very
good Uh he was good at uh the
paper pushing part of being a
general. He was not good in the
field. He just wasn't good in
the field and yet Grant now had
to answer to Hallock and so
Grant saw very clearly that the
key to um to defeating the
south was to control the
rivers. It would be like us
controlling the highways and
airports today uh because
rivers could be, you know,
things and troops and supplies
and weapons could be moved in
rivers both in the summertime
and in the winter time. So,
it's vitally important and so
Grant saw that what he needed
to do first was to take the two
forts uh that were on the
Cumberland and the Tennessee
Rivers Fort Henry which was an
Earth and fort and it was not
very well built and then Fort
Donaldson which was a
combination of earth and also
Woodstock which was actually
well built and so he went to
Hallock to request permission
all the while Grant was making
plans for how he would do this.
In fact, he went and he talked
to the Admiral um of the navy
because back then there there
was no joint chiefs of staff.
The navy was in charge of the
navy and the army was in charge
of the army. So, the army
generals had to go and ask for
permission uh to use the boats
and so Grant went and spoke
with the commandant of the navy
in that area who agreed that
that was what needed to happen.
I believe it was uh admiral
Foot and um So, Grant went to
Hallock with this plan and
because it wasn't hall's plan,
he said, no, I don't want you
to do that even though it was
the obvious thing to do and so,
grants uh almost quit because
of this because he was so
discouraged by this politics
and yet he thought, okay, his
wife encouraged him and said,
no, you know, tough it out.
stay there. Something will
change. Well, what changed Is
that Abraham Lincoln was sick
and tired of the union just
sitting around doing nothing
and so he gave an order that by
this date, I want action. while
the only plan that Hale had was
grants and so he took it on as
his own and said, oh, I think
that is a very good idea Now
that Lincoln ordered him to
move forward and so he went
ahead and gave permission for
grant to go ahead and to
attack. So had Grant not made
his plans, had not been
proactive By the time Hallock
would have said, yes, there
would have been nothing in
place but Grant had not only
made his plans, he had started
stockpiling all the equipment
and the weapons and the
uniforms and everything that
was needed. The Navy got all
their plans together. So, as
soon as Hallock said, yes, they
were off. I think the next day
or maybe 2 days and um it had
been raining torrential and so
the Tennessee River had flooded
and so um the navy floated
right into Fort Henry. They
literally floated right into
the fort because it had flooded
and so it was the army never
even got there and so the navy
uh telegram uh or telegraphed
uh to general grant saying Fort
Henry has fallen Grant forward
to that that to Hale but he
never ask permission to move on
to Fort Donaldson. He just went
and did it because he thought
if I ask permission, he might
say no. So I'm just going to go
with uh interpreting his
original uh orders as taking
both forts, right? And so,
Grant, go out there and
surrounded three sides of the
fort, the other side was facing
the river and so the navy gun
boats went down to Tennessee
and then up the Cumberland and
started shelling Fort Donaldson
from from the but the
Confederates had built a very
good fort and the Confederates
actually took out the gun
votes. Uh they didn't sink but
they damaged them and killed a
lot of the navy. uh Navy
sailors So, the navy actually
uh retreated because their
boats were not capable of
keeping up the war and so Grant
said, okay, I guess we're just
going to have to take this and
so um he he gave the order to
charge on all fronts. It took
several days uh but eventually
uh they were able to overwhelm
the forts and um and they won.
So that's an example of how
grant um made his plans um his
strategy but then he stuck to
it and pushed forward. Awesome.
So, during the Civil War,
General Grant had a gift for
identifying talent and um
trustworthy people. So, how did
this help the union to win the
war? Well, the generals that we
know of as the great generals,
many, if not, most of them were
picked by Grant at one point
along the lines. Okay And those
that we don't really know about
or at least that your typical
person doesn't know about um
god on Grant's bad side which
could happen. There were some
generals who really uh made him
angry. Uh some that he fired uh
McLennan was an example. So
McLennan was a political
general. This was one of the
crazy things about the Civil
War is that they had most of
the generals and officers were
West Point excuse me, West
Point trained or one of the
other uh military colleges like
um the Citadel or or the uh
VIVI, right? But the majority
were from West Point. however,
because um the war was looked
on as a Republican war at the
beginning, Lincoln needed to uh
pull over to his side Democrats
who agreed with the war because
many Democrats did not and they
actually fought tooth and nail.
They were called Copperheads
because they would snip. uh the
face of liberty off of a copper
penny and of a fix it to their
shirt or their hat or their
lapel of their coat and so they
were named copperheads. There's
actually a movie named
Copperhead that kind of gives
that perspective. It's very
good. Ron Maxwell, the director
of Gettysburg and and Gods and
Generals also directed this
very very good movie but um so
Lincoln needed these Democrats
and so he turned I mean, right
now, it seems ridiculous but he
turned several of these
politicians into generals and
so, some of the more famous
were uh Fremont and II had
mentioned uh McLennan who was
actually uh Lincoln's friend in
Illinois and then probably the
most famous or infamous is
General Ben Butler uh who got
the name the beast Ben Butler
because he was put in charge of
New Orleans after New Orleans