27th book of 2020: This man Fights.
Grant was not destined to rise through the ranks. Had the civil war not created a dire need for somebody, (anybody!) with an officer’s training, he would have lived out his life as a struggling head of a poor family with a problem drinking and driving fast cars horses. Indeed both before and after his second run in public service, this was his life path.
Yet at the right moments, Grant had the audacity to pursue victory with a stoic zeal that proved the lever needed assure a Union victory. He didn’t need the tactical genius of Napoleon, the academic prowess of Hamilton, or the diplomatic skills of Bismarck to unleash the Union’s vastly superior economic might and population to subdue the South. Grant kept his weaknesses at bay for long enough such that weren’t crippling, and then rode the long wave that being the victorious general of America’s most traumatic war can bring.
One conversation between a Grant detractor and Lincoln sums it up as Lincoln searched among generals that would pursue the confederates and not shy away from losses or hard decisions:
“I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and, in giving my reasons for it, I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from the loyal people of the land against Grant’s continuance in command. I could form no judgment during the conversation as to what effect my arguments had upon him beyond the fact that he was greatly distressed at this new complication. When I had said everything that could be said from my standpoint, we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then gathered himself up in his chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget: ‘I can’t spare this man; he fights.’”