Comments
TrailerBuilder t1_iy4lsix wrote
Me, 47, sitting here day drinking at work like "shit, I gotta act busy here comes a customer".
1angrylittlevoice t1_iy4n2ts wrote
Grant, 47, sitting there day drinking at work like "shit, I gotta act busy here comes my chief of staff"
StupidizeMe t1_iy4npmz wrote
In photos from the Civil War most men look much older than they are. This is partly due to their large beards, but their skin also became very "weathered" due to exposure to the elements.
I've seen photos where a Civil War soldier is in his mid-20s but looks like he's in his 40s.
ChuckChuckelson t1_iy4o1sg wrote
he was elected president not made
New_Insect_Overlords t1_iy4toka wrote
That because he had the beard of a 62 year old
yousorename t1_iy4u94u wrote
This is true, but my favorite Grant anecdote is that after the Mexican American war he worked at his father in law’s leather goods shop in IL and he fucking sucked at it
A guy who essentially won the US Civil War for the good guys, was a two term president in a time when that was rare, and made it his mission to destroy the KKK, was just straight up BAD at running a store. Importantly, it’s not like he was some violent skull-cracker when he was in the army and just couldn’t get used to civilian life. He was a logistics guy during the Mexican American War, he should have been able to run a store!
I think about this a lot because it’s important to remember that just because you are bad at one thing doesn’t mean that you are a bad person or bad at everything. Some people are just not in the right job and that’s ok.
But if it weren’t for the Civil War, Grant would have probably just drank himself to death in Galena IL and nobody would have ever heard his name. Maybe you suck at your email job and would be a great leader, but there isn’t a war for you to fight in. Or maybe you’re at war right now and are really much better suited to run a store but never will. Everything lined up for Grant in the most destructive way possible and he did a historic amount of good, killed a ton of people, did deeds that will be remembered throughout the ages, and died penniless, cancer stricken, and in horrible pain
Life is a wild fucking ride
Regular_Ferret1080 t1_iy4xxh3 wrote
He died of throat cancer and was desperate for money if I recall thats why he allowed someone to write his memoirs. The disgrace of his life after the presidency led to giving ex presidents a dotation.
john510runner t1_iy502cl wrote
Believe it or not I see parallels between what you just said and Grant.
He loved to drink but kept it somewhat undercover. He was a store keeper. Not saying you're a storekeeper but the customer service angle.
john510runner t1_iy50iq4 wrote
Grant at multiple times in his life was where you were.
He kept doing different jobs until he found some he excelled at.
At one time in Grant's life, he sold firewood on the streets of St. Louis.
TheodoreFMRoosevelt t1_iy5198e wrote
"I feel myself up to commanding a Regiment." - Guy who would command all Union Armies.
TrailerBuilder t1_iy51n8n wrote
My wife and I own a retail florist and greenhouse business.
john510runner t1_iy52fnk wrote
That's (Grant not writing his own memoir) been debunked. Mark Twain acted in the capacity of a literary agent/publisher of Grant's memoir.
Twain, who I think Grant addressed as Clemens, talked Grant out of signing a bad deal with a different publisher.
john510runner t1_iy53fws wrote
Grant didn't own the shop he worked in. He was a junior clerk at a leather goods store and his younger brother(s?) had more senior positions there.
edit words
john510runner t1_iy564y2 wrote
I wonder if there's a movie being made about him...
From what I can gather he could do amazing things on a horse and the only reason he went along with plans to go to West Point was so he could join the cavalry. Some of the action sequences on horseback... I see Grant being shot/portrayed like he's the main character in an Assassin's Creed game.
Grant didn't graduate high enough in his class to be assigned to a cavalry unit like he wanted.
One of the things that's fascinating to me about Grant is all of the setbacks he's had in his life and how he worked through them in practical and humble ways.
GiantIrish_Elk t1_iy57yg6 wrote
He was also broke because he had paid off the money that his sons "friend" and partner in the brokerage he had invested in had embezzled and fled the country.
thepillsburypoboy t1_iy58cif wrote
What are elections if not people making other people what they end up being? Couldn’t tell if you’re making a joke or just have a hard on for semantics.
Huli_Blue_Eyes t1_iy596ee wrote
stfu 🙄
I have 2 degrees, worked in marketing, sales, retail, pierced ears, ran a group home, was a banker and teller, ran rides at an amusement park, and a bunch of other jobs in between.
ChuckChuckelson t1_iy59eh8 wrote
Stickler for semantics
dog_superiority t1_iy5brj6 wrote
Maybe this makes you feel better:
Alexander the Great conquered the known world by the time he was 32.
ahornysmurf t1_iy5fj8w wrote
thanks for this. needed it rn
FavorablePrint t1_iy5h3w8 wrote
Grant was a total badass. He gets maligned because of his trust in the wrong people but the dude was as legit as they came.
yousorename t1_iy5i24r wrote
Really glad it could help.
Whether you’re into non-fiction history or not, I’d highly recommend the book “Grant” by Ron Chernow. I listened to it on Audible and it was wonderfully narrated and absolutely riveting from start to finish. Grant’s life is fascinating and he truly is a great man.
Another interesting thing about him that I think about often is that he was described as “being a man utterly without guile”, meaning that he had no mind at all for scams, or really business for the most part. He was never a guy that could make money, and he was often conned out of the money he had because he was all too willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and trust their good intentions.
Again, this is a guy who ground the Confederate army to dust in multiple theaters of war, but if he was alive today would have totally lost money on a timeshare if a friend talked him into it. Again, we’re all better at some things than others, and that’s ok
LurkerRushMeta t1_iy5ld4c wrote
Ah, so it's the attitude. Got it.
ClydeenMarland t1_iy5madg wrote
A Great Big Bushy Beard!
Dblenvelopment t1_iy5qmc9 wrote
Grant was a cool guy- but so are you. Heroes come in many forms.
capt_tuttle t1_iy5wjih wrote
An absolute gem of a biography and, as you said, Grant was a fascinating human being.
YaBoy566 t1_iy5z4ra wrote
I remember reading somewhere that Grant hated the sight of blood, so much so that he would request his steaks to be nearly charred before he ate them, this coming from the man who lost 50,000 soldiers in one battle, they didnt call him "Grant the Butcher" for nothing.
He also was apparently stone cold in the face of danger on the battlefield, barking orders at his soldiers as bullets quite literally wiz past him without him even flinching.
Huli_Blue_Eyes t1_iy60lo7 wrote
Yeah, I'm f**king exhausted. I've been working since I was 11 and people like you fail upwards without any empathy for people who are truly struggling right now.
Happy holidays.
complete_hick t1_iy61jj8 wrote
Al Capone's 7 year rein as crime boss ended with his imprisonment at age 33
LurkerRushMeta t1_iy64gjq wrote
Riiiight🤙
capt_tuttle t1_iy65mdc wrote
One thing that Grant is known for always taking the initiative. One anecdote of his that I love is how that came to be. As a young officer in command he is was attacked and, surviving, he reflected on how terrifying that was. Instead of being afraid he just resolved to always take the initiative so that the other guy would be terrified instead.
I think Grant is among the most normal or relatable “great men.”
Caleb-Rentpayer t1_iy676dx wrote
Why is it that, in the modern era, great people like Grant don't seem to arise like they did in the past? Seriously, when was the last truly great leader?
[deleted] t1_iy68ao2 wrote
[deleted]
Huli_Blue_Eyes t1_iy69war wrote
👌🏼 boomer
LurkerRushMeta t1_iy6a0r9 wrote
yousorename t1_iy6a6r4 wrote
Absolutely agree on him being the most normal and relatable because his only “super power” to the degree that he had one was just being fucking relentless and methodical. I think it was a story from Shilo maybe, but it’s the middle of the night and poring down rain and Sherman is having a breakdown about the losses they had and how everything was falling apart and Grant, standing under a tree and smoking a cigar said, “Yeah, but we’ll lick em tomorrow” and then they did.
He just kept going, but not in an action hero John McClane way, but more like a rising tide.
yousorename t1_iy6almx wrote
Also maligned because people started to believe generations worth of “Lost Cause” neo-Confederate sick-head propaganda that painted him as an incompetent drunk.
Pikesmakker t1_iy6bn13 wrote
Grant was a truly great American, and has been the victim of Confederate revisionist slander
LifeBuilder t1_iy6enru wrote
Great! So now all I have to do is make commander of all the union armies at 40 and president and 45?
Empereor_Norton t1_iy6kord wrote
I would imagine his military and political careers were helped by the fact people knew his face from the $50 bill.
mrpenchant t1_iy6mhbw wrote
He was made president by the people electing him.
You're attempting to correct OP on a really pedantic detail but not even correct in saying OP is wrong because they aren't mutually exclusive events.
ChuckChuckelson t1_iy6o6o1 wrote
You right my bad. Just sounds off.
Yancy_Farnesworth t1_iy6o8iq wrote
I have to wonder how Grant would have done in the era of industrialized war. The Civil War was in a lot of ways a prelude to that. It seems like he would have had the right strategic chops for it given how he fought the Confederacy... He used the Union's material might to great effect, but it was costly in terms of the body count. Something that generals would have to learn how to deal with in WWI and WWII.
iwantacoolnametoo t1_iy6vpx3 wrote
Voqk qp just nkk pkn0ql wm. Lk
normpoleon t1_iy6zbdf wrote
Less wars?
DukeDoozy t1_iy7k57n wrote
Two of my favorite Ulysses S Grant stories that accentuate that wild ride point:
- As he was on his way to the grave, sick and slowly dying, he wrote his memoirs in a vain hope to save his family from poverty after his death. The company he signed with was ripping him off, and it wasn't going to matter, but his great admirer Mark "Mother Fucking" Twain stepped in and published it for him with a MUCH better deal.
He allowed Grant's last act to be saving his family from the same poverty he got them into after being swindled multiple times.
- Grant actually started sucking at business really young. When he was a boy, he and his father saw a horse little boy Grant wanted (he loved horses) with a price of $25. His father thought it wasn't worth it, so they walked away, but Ulysses wouldn't stop pestering his dad.
Finally, his dad says, "Fine. You can go to the merchant and offer him 20. If he doesn't take that, you can offer 23. Only if he doesn't take that can you buy the horse for 25."
Ulysses turns around, walks straight back to the merchant, and says, "My dad says I can offer you 20, and if you don't take that, I can offer you 23, and if you don't take that I can offer you 25."
They settled on $25.
- Grant was actually briefly a slave owner for about a year. This was after the Mexican-American War, and his family was reduced to selling firewood to make ends meet, entirely impoverished. His father-in-law, patriarch of a major slave family, gave him a slave.
Now, Ulysses wasn't very ideologically driven at this point. He was from an abolitionist family, but he married into a slave-holding one. And the slave he received was worth probably $1,000 at market, a life changing amount for his family at the time.
But even though he didn't yet have a mind for politics, he couldn't square the act of owning another person. It wasn't a political stance. It just didn't compute. He took the man to the court house and freed him roughly a year after taking ownership. A bold move considering that money would have definitely risen his family from poverty.
Grant definitely didn't succeed at everything he tried, but as a man, I have found no other president and few other figures as compelling as him.
ricanhavoc t1_iy8vkxs wrote
He didn't really die penniless, he lost his life savings towards the end of his life because of con men, but the final thing he did was write his autobiography which provided his family enough income to be financially secure.
My_Space_page t1_iy8xex0 wrote
According to a letter. Apparently, Lincoln initially had no trust in Grant to win anything. This opinion changed only after Vicksburg Campaign.
FavorablePrint t1_iy8zb5i wrote
People venerate RELee as this great military leader but Grant routinely stomped him. Even during the Mexican War, Lee's reputation was overblown.
IllustriousAct28 OP t1_iy92btf wrote
Lots of comments about Grant's drinking. Yes he was a heavy drinker as a soldier but it was always during lulls, he was never drunk at a critical point. He didn't drink while leading men in combat, And he was clear headed when he planned his strategies, tactics and logistics.
DrRexMorman t1_iy98xx4 wrote
Before starting work in Galena, Grant soldd firewood on the streets of St. Louis to get money to buy his kids Christmas presents.
He ran into a friend from the army who asked him what had happened, Grant reportedly replied, "I am solving the problem of poverty."
Billy1121 t1_iy99qyo wrote
He might have a few Cold Harbor-sized losses, but Grant may have been one of the few generals with a chance of adapting to the machinegun and mechanized warfare.
Though he liked horses a lot, maybe he would be too attached to cavalry
Billy1121 t1_iy99ym8 wrote
> 10 cigars a day
Billy1121 t1_iy9afhp wrote
Less need? The Union went through a lot of trash generals before finding Grant. It was desperate times.
Now if someone like McChrystal fucks up in Afghanistan we have a deep bench of highly trained officers hungry for stars on their chest.
BanjoB0y t1_iy9n1hg wrote
Hopefully he'd have seen mechanization as "Oh great, now no horses have to die"
It would have been interesting to see how a protege of his might have used horses in WW1 alongside mechanized tanks
Huli_Blue_Eyes t1_iy4lc68 wrote
I’m 42 and can’t land a job but this jabroni was running the Union armies at the same age. fml