Appomattox: How did Ulysses S. Grant become an embarrassment of history and Robert E. Lee a role model?

Appomattox: How did Ulysses S. Grant become an embarrassment of history and Robert E. Lee a role model?

by Jamelle Bouie

"One hundred fifty years ago, at the courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia, Ulysses S. Grant won the Civil War. His chief opponent, Gen. Robert E. Lee of the Confederate States, had surrendered, all but ending the rebellion that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives but freed millions more.



But this was just the beginning of Grant’s career. Three years later, after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and the terrible tenure of Andrew Johnson, he was elected president and served two terms, leaving office as a celebrated statesman. Afterward, he would manage a bank, lose his wealth, and die from cancer, although not before penning the greatest memoir of any former president. But this isn’t the end of his story; Grant would die a second death of sorts, as opponents reduced his life to its worst qualities: His bloody tactics came to the forefront, as did his drinking and the corruption in his administration. There are few monuments to Grant, and they are mostly ignored."



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