. Grant’s opinion of Lee is from his own hand. He scored outrageous victories against the Army of the Potomac up until Gettysburg 1863, fighting against superior numbers and better supplied troops. Lee was a traditional soldier who had a gift for leadership and was an inspiration for his subordinates. Actually Lee did compliment Grant. When one of Lee's subordinates poo-pooed Grant's generalship Lee said that he thought Grant had handled himself quite well. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. Grant grew up in Ohio and his father was a tanner. Lee didn’t think much of Grant as a general, saying that McClellan was the superior foe. Smithsonian Institution, (Alonzo Chappel, Smithsonian American Art Museum), (Unidentified Artist, National Portrait Gallery), (Charles G. Crehen, National Portrait Gallery), (Mathew B. Brady, National Portrait Gallery), (Frederick Gutekunst, National Portrait Gallery), (A. Hoen Lithography Company, National Portrait Gallery). or Lee was born into a prominent family and was already a famous military figure at the start of the war, while Grant was an unknown who rose up through the ranks and became known as a great general through his ongoing victories. Vote Now! He didn’t beat Grant. Copying his comments to Stanton in the reply, he wrote on June 20, 1865: “This opinion, I am informed, is substantially the same as that entertained by the Government.” Lee was safe from trial, but Grant never told him how far he had gone to protect him. is on view at the National Portrait Gallery through May 31, 2015. I think that Grant slightly shades Lee as a commander because in the last year of the War he managed all of the Union armies, including Sherman in the South and Sheridan in the Shenendoah Valley. Lee had sent a letter to Grant requesting a meeting to discuss his army's surrender and this letter overtook Grant and his party just before noon about four miles west of Walker's Church (present-day Hixburg). Grant began his military career as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1839. The question has intrigued historians and armchair strategists since the Civil War itself. Grant then responded to Lee’s letter. Grant realized that his place was in the field with the principal Union army in the East, the Army of the Potomac. The photographs, drawings and paintings depicting the lives of these two men seem to pulse with a kind of tension that recalls the horrifying 19th-century era when the country was riven, yet united behind their respective generals—Grant in the North and Lee from the South. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. After shooting Lincoln, … The story of these men, their fallacies, their reputations, their legacies are well depicted in a number of art works, including the significant loan of a Winslow Homer painting titled, Skirmish in the Wilderness, from Connecticut's New Britain Museum of American Art. But we asked curator Ward if he'd tell us who was the better general, and here is what he sent us. Colonel Ely Parker, … If the Southerners advanced into the Blue Grass State, the administration in Washington would pressure Grant to detach troops to the endangered region. By contrast, Robert E. Lee didn’t have Grant’s long career in public life. The final draft of the surrender document was written by an American Indian. A nation must expect its generals to be lucky, however; and both Grant and Lee were! At one point, Grant quipped that he and Lee had “had more to do with destroying railroads than building them,” but the frosty ex-Confederate ignored this attempt at levity. 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