U.S. Grant on West Point’s Confederates

News of the decision by West Point to remove Confederate symbols from its campus reminded me of just how tightly intertwined Confederate military history is with America's story.

The news turned my research mind to the primary source for information about early West Pointers, the "Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy." This book is commonly known as "Cullum's Register" after its author, Gen. George Washington Cullum.

Inside the 1868 volume I found an endorsement by the top general who received Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Here's Ulysses S. Grant's thoughts on those who resigned their commissions to join the Confederate army.

[schizoidboy]

Recently at West Point Museum there was a portrait of Robert E Lee from the time he was the academy's superintendent. It was taken down. Granted I don't believe in the southern cause - lost cause or otherwise - but Lee regardless of his politics was the Superintendent of West Point and this aspect of his history should not be altered for political correctness. Sorry if this is off the topic but regarding Lee and West Point it is something vital.

[johnschuh]

the lawyer Lincoln knew the weakness of his legal position. Being himself Kentuckian-born and married to a Kentuckian, with his best friend Speed being one, he once said that he knew that if he had been in their place he would have acted as they did, which was to divide on the issue of staying in the Union. I think that if you want to understand Lincoln, you have to read what Speed said. No one, even his wife, understood Lincoln as well as Speeds. But just read the 2nd Inaugural Address. The view of a hard fighter who would not give up unless beaten, and himself willing to lift up another hard fighter who had been beaten in a fair fight. America had lived half slave and half free. He was convinced that this could not continue to be the case. America would have to be one or the other. It could not survive in the modern world except as a free nation.

[TerryDowne]

Southern graduates who remained loyal included George H. Thomas (Virginia), Edward O.C. Ord (Maryland), William H. Emory (Maryland), John Buford (Kentucky), and John Gibbon (North Carolina), to name only some of the most distinguished.

[cameltanker]

In order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, we need to know about our past. Good, bad or indifferent; it's our history.

[timothyowen]

For several years at West Point they used a textbook "A View of the Constitution" that clearly and strongly taught that states had the right to withdraw from the Union. So Southerners could leave and join the Confederatacy with clear conscience because they knew they both a moral and legal right to do so.

[LunaticLeftLunaticRight]

Wow! Thank you so
much sir for bringing us this fascinating information with your research.

[thomast]

Three separate incidents help to sum up what kind of a fighter Grant truly was. During his first engagement with Southern forces, he was unsure of himself and what would occur. He came upon what had been their position, but found it empty. The enemy had fled during the night and he realized that they had been as scared of him as he of they. He said that he never forgot that lesson. At Shiloh his army had been sorely tested on the first day, but the Union held in front of Pittsburg Landing. Sherman said to him, "the Devil had his own today", to which Grant replied, "yeah...whoop 'em tomorrow though". Later in 1864, when his staff was stymied, concerned about what Lee was planning to do as they fought desperately through Virginia, Grant shut them down by saying, "stop fretting about where Bobby Lee was and what he was going to do and bring up some guns". Grant was relentlessly motivated, mentally tough, and sure of the abilities of his men, but was also grounded enough to understand how much it would cost to stop the bloodshed once and for all.

[edwardricketts]

But he hired and appointed a number of Confederate Generals in his administration. Wade Hampton in national railroads, Longstreet in railroads aswell as ambassador to the Ottoman empire, and Mosby to China and to clean up the Indian reservation corruption to name a few.

[hesedken]

It was against the Northern Aggression that the South were forced to defend themselves. Perhaps, we have different views. Today, people don't really understand history very well due to a blurred media. America's democracy became a multi-democracy, no longer a democracy, in Platonic terms a form of riot-like paranomosic, inter-racial ochlocratiac diversity and multi-democracy. This was seen through the loss of sovereignty of the white citizens in their homelands and persecutory laws favoring prosperity (Afffirmative Action) and protection (HB 1076) of other races and cultures instead of the indigenous founder-heir.
War became a tool to divide a nation from love of its former Christian religion and homogeneous race. Eventually, apartheidic post-slavery, Jim Crow came about as the last remainder of democracy and the sovereign white. Now, the white male children have last choice of opportunity through "legal" manipulation of an overthrown nation.
Today, America has its proponents of pseudo-humanitarianism and haters of biblical institution (slavery and release), self-haters and non-whites who lift up opponents with unproven gender, Dr. Rachel Levin for instance, and those contrary to democracy and the founding republic to replace those it has attempted to erase from its history. Erasure and bad replacement -- that's how Russia influenced its constituents. The components of global tyranny are running neck and neck with the same tactics. As KJB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, related to Ed Griffin in an interview "crisis" and "normalization", it seems the US may not be far from not being able to see the truth.
If General Grant and the many other fine, northern military cadets had known what their progeny adversaries deluded and visioned, they may have gladly resigned and joined Lee's army.

[KevinCave-rjeq]

You know Ron I never really thought about it but all them guys fighting against each other probably knew one another some of them pretty well in most wars you don't know your counterpart but this was entirely different keep up the good work you keep us all think n🍀🍀🍀

[frankmcgowan]

What other nation has erected and maintained monuments extolling the virtues of the losing side of its civil war(s)?

[leeholder]

Robert E Lee and Grant I want to hear that

[stelladonaconfredobutler]

I adore Robert E Lee and i am living in Baltimore where he built two dams.

[danwallach]

U.S. Grant was right.
Odious, indeed.

[martinm]

The Civil War was not a moral issue. The tariff to support northern industry pushed the southern to leave the United States. The northern states responded with aggression. The slave issue was an after thought.

[jessegriffin]

And now Gen. Grant is a five star general.

[georgegordon]

nazis did this sort of thing, you are a good company

[Malbeefance]

Remember to always point out the term Confederate is, even today, interchangeable with the term Democrat. This is a key legacy from the Civil War that many have forgotten.

[KYPopskull]

“Amazed at how tightly wound confederate history is with United States “. …………….. (blank stair) well knock me down with a feather. Why on earth would you lead off with that statement?

[ericwerner]

At the time of the war between the states some americans had family roots going back almost 250 years. Most held more reverence and loyalty to the area of their birth and history than the federal government, a fairly new entity and distrusted by many. It was a question of honor and allegiance for them and they could not in good conscience be part of a military force bent on invading their home states with the intention to do violence to their families. They believed (as really any rational logical thinker would) that their recent ancestors had had joined this experiment called “the union” willingly as free people, and had every right to remove themselves from this association with the other states and resume their sovereignty when they so desired. Same as England removing itself from the EU recently…