admiral, united states navy. [ applause ] mr. gorbichav, tear down this wall. >> sunday night at 9:00, marked the 25th anniversary of president ronald reagan's speech from west germany. also this weekend on c-span3, our series, the contenders, 14 key political figures who ran for president and lost but changed political history. this sunday at 7:30 p.m. republican candidate, james plain, american history this weekend on c-span3. this week on the civil war, two historians discuss the generalship of u little cease s. grant. they discuss his leadership and talk about how other officials

admired and praised his abilities. this is the third in a series of sessions we are airing. the theme of this year's gathering was leadership and generalship in the civil war. the virginia military institute in lexington, virginia, hosted the conference. this portion is about an hour and ten minutes. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and welcome back. teachers sometimes complain that the class period immediately after lunch is the deadest and most sleep-inducing hour of the

day. i don't expect that to be a problem with our speakers this afternoon. our panel is on general ulysses grant, rest olute, tenacious, t i turn. ulysses grant will never be anything other than rest so salute, tas i turn and tenacious. in an effort to make him lessen i go matt tick, it is pry privilege and pleasure to int due not only two fine scholars but two old and dear personal friends. josiah bunting the third was 13th superintendent of the vmi. record as an academic, administrator, included terms as president of briarcliff and hampton sydney colleges and head master at lawrenceville school. he has taught courses at west point, the naval war college,

hampton city, vmi, lawrenceville, and the institution up the road, from lawrenceville, princeton university. i will refrain in the interest of time from detailing and dazzling you with the multiple disciplines and enormous diversity of subject matter which he has taught. at these institutions. he currently serves as president of the harry frank guggenheim foundation and as a visiting lecturer at princeton. he is a vmi alumnus. a rhodes scholar. a vietnam veteran, an ardent red sox fan. the author of five books ranging from novels to biographies. most recent among them his ulysses s. grant which is simply the finest brief biography of grant which we have.

presently he is finishing a biography of another great general and statesman, george c. marshall. in short, he is that rarest of phenomena in modern academics, a renaissance man. james i. robertson recently retired as alumni distirng wished professor of history at virginia tech where he founded and directed the virginia center for civil war stud dis. professor robertson had done nothing other than to write the definitive biography of t.j. jackson, stone wall jackson, the man, the soldier, the legend. his name would be enshrined among the greatest civil war historians of our time. or more accurately of all time. as it happens, he has written or

edited over 20 books during a career that spans more than half a century, a body of work for which he has received every major award given in the field of civil war history. among his titles are such landmark studies as stonewall brigade and soldiers blue and gray. he not only has been a distinguished scholar, but a revered teacher as well. his lecture course for undergraduates at virginia tech averaged an enrollment of about 300 students per semester and has been called the largest civil war history class in american higher education. robertson trained at emory under the late bill wily. it truly can be said, if you will pardon a slightly vernacular, nonacademic expression, that the student has done the mentor proud. as you will see from our program, from your program, our

first speaker is sy bunting who will offer answers to the question what was grant like. followed by bud robertson with insights regarding grant on the eve of the wilderness campaign. folks, i know we are in for a good time. and i give you now josiah bunting. [ applause ] >> i need to tell you at the beginning that -- bud robertson is not only a great historian but a practitioner of the fine art of refereeing college football games. and i first got to know him at hampton sydney college about 35

years ago. and, if you are in the football refereeing business, you get used to taking a lot of abuse. and, this was a game between hampton sydney and sowanti. you can imagine the level of football being played. and i asked dr. robertson, a little bit about his saturday afternoon profession. and then he said, wistfully, these two teams pass the ball a lot. but they're not very good at catching the ball. and we're going to be here until 6:30 or 6:45. and he went on to say in his saturday profession he was abused continuously by members of the audience. most of whom could not find their automobile when the game was over.

i would look to say something quickly about dr. rierdan's remarks this morning to offer an example, amplifying a little bit of the points that she made about general lee. namely the willing subordination of a subordinate to orders from on high with which the subordinate might disagree. in 1920, george marshall returned to the united states as aide to john pershing. and general mallory then at vmi asked marshall what were the important lessons he had learned from serving under pershing in the first u.s. army in france and then as his aide. he said the most important lesson of all was that when you are given an order with which you disagreed, or harbored

doubts, you must call yourself to account to execute that order with redoubled efficiency and visible enthusiasm. because those responsible to you will judge the order by how you take it and execute it. this is what the british call hard cheese. but i thought that was the kind of lesson that young officers when they hear it tend to remember it. i certainly did. two weeks ago, excuse me, a student asked me whether we would ever again have generals like lee and grant or eisenhower and patton and stillwell or macarthur. have the circumstances and conditions of war changed so much that battlefield leadership of the kind we are considering is impossible or unnecessary or irrelevant? no one in my seminar could furnish the name of an american

general now serving who is not called david petraeus who i reminded the seminar had retired three months ago. in 1940, the secretary ol war congratulated the head of the army on having selected what he called "good war men" on his first list of new generals to be sent up to congress. mr. stinson was saying two things -- battlefield commanders of large formations, mainly infantry, and second, soldiers most of whom probably had blots on their records during peacetime service. men of an eccentric career pattern or occasional lapses in judgment. three of the five most famous american generals of the last big war, the war of the 1940s, would not advance today beyond the grade of major. battlefield command as we think of it by general officers is no

longer a matter of demonstrating physical bravery, efficiency, and grace, and inspirational qualities under terrible pressure. it has become something else altogether. something which tends to foreclose, in the preparatory phase, declarations of fiercely independent judgment. it took seven weeks for the admiralty in london to learn of nelson's victory at the nile in 1798. it takes less than 7 seconds for wolf blitzer or rachel maddow, and their millions of viewers, to learn that a gi accidentally burned holy books or deranged soldiers executed 16 people in whose behalf the government tells us we are fighting. and yet our subject, military history, and the history of war, retains a powerful allure for

the lay public as witness the success of recent books on the subjects within its history, biographies, books of reminiscence, the bookshelves at banners & noble are groaning with these books. the subject broadly conceived, however, is ignored only in the american university, present company accepted. where military history occupies a cast as low as home ec or speech. and whose practitioners are assumed to be either weird people or arch conservatives or both. the reasons for this, known to all of us here, and perhaps especially to that cohort of men in uniform who wore -- men and women who wore the uniform in the 1940s are powerful, the troubles of our problem angry dust are from eternity and shall, shall not fail.

we read and we study military history most of us and some of us write it, both for the satisfaction we find in a disciplined attempt to reconstruct an important part of the past, but because we want to know what leaders of armies were like. aside from leading a democracy at war, we think of lincoln, churchill and franklin roosevelt. there can be few challenges to human mind and character greater than leading an army in war time or a navy. in the roaring flux of battles and the making of strategy, in the histories of how such leaders have conducted themselves, we find enduring lessons in such behavior, lessons as we look to say, a value to ourselves in all of our pursuits. the two generations of american leaders, civil and military, which i believe represent our very best, those who led and served from 1770 until 1800, and

from 1940 until 1950, will repay study by succeeding generations and generations somehow schooled not only to learn, but to use to advantage the lessons their lives have left us. of the greatest of our 20th century secretaries of state, an observer wrote "it was not what he did but what he was, what he was like." that lingers in the mind. if any of us still believes in the guiding principle of education at the time of our country's founding, namely emulation, our knowledge of what we loosely call war time leadership must form a staple of that education. an american secretary of state at a much earlier time in the 20th century confided to his friend mark twain his intention to write his memoirs.

and mark twain said, "this is a good idea." he admonished him, however, remember this "your facts and your fictions will cooperate loyally together for the protection of the reader." if you undertake this task earnestly, the intelligent reader will know exactly what you are like. hold that thought for 15 minutes or so. because we will be talking very briefly about the memoirs of ulysses grant. like so many in sh this vast room, we are drawn to questions about how the people we think about who become great generals, how were they raised, what were they like at children, what did they read, who taught them, what influences quickened and molded their character?

and in those we admire the most, those who are always obedient to the strictures of conscience, what made them that way? when i began looking hard at the character of ulysses grant, i found myself disappointed in my subject's shyness, his diffidence, his unwillingness to give tongue to his thoughts. i read a book about the great lover of this country. his biographer said that those who refuse to write and talk about themselves are condemned to be written about by others. i read all of the things that most of you have read that i could get my hands on about grant and about the civil war. my sicerone was john simon, a singular man and a great grant scholar in carbondale, illinois. he asked me what i knew about ulysses grant. i said nothing. he said, perfect. read everything you can get your hands on.

spend as much time as you can in that part of the state of ohio which broke the heart of al gore in the year 2000, i.e. southwestern ohio. i don't know how many of you know that part of our country. but you might as well be in central mississippi, a slow-moving, quiet, very conservative part of the united states. and indeed of that state. i went to all of the battle fields. i talked to other writers about him including bud robertson. i did my tour in galina. from the very beginning, ulysses grant was what the sociologist david reeseman calls a profoundly inner-directed person, calm, quiet, always keeping his own counsel, bruised some what by other boys in the neighborhood who invariably called him useless.

he was what we would call average student. what we should call an average student. those of you who are military history readers know the cliche in all books about american generals. it occurs about halfway through chapter 2 of every biography, an opening homeric phrase. although a mediocre student at west point, comma -- more than ten years ago i was working here during the time of what we called the court case. and we were preparing ourselves for the admission of women into the corps. and we sought counsel from just about everyone, except from the federal academies with whom we were forbidden to talk because of the strictures of the case. united states versus virginia. my wife and i found ourselves partly as a consequence, at the french national military academy where we were permitted to hold

parly. and the general commanding reminded us at the french academy, every cadet has a horse. we asked him why? he said because it teaches them courage. it teaches them responsibility. it teaches them always to be aware of how their own actions, all of their actions, not only their words, may guide for good or for ill other beings. you're at one with a horse, your concentration must be total. ulysses grant was regarded by his contemporaries, literally, as the great horseman of his generation. and by the way, when he arrived at west point, this always helps if you are going to be a great horseman -- he was 5'1" and weighed 102 pounds. a small, small man. in the famous photo of grant which all of us know, in which

john simon proved was made near cold harbor and not at city point, we are looking at a grant who had just turned 42, 5'6 1/2" weighed approximately 130. a small, thin, rather unprepossessing person. and yet as a commander he had a quality which does not translate or should we say endure very well through history down the generations. what psychologists call, affect. an affect of quietude, calm, resolution, determination. making allowances for certain large differences in temperament, it is a quality we find in another soldier who was at west point, and a generation rich with men who became famous in the civil war, thomas jackson. stonewall jackson.

certificatety tud, determination, self-control, self-restraint. when congressman john logan introduced him to his first civil war command, the 21st volunteer regiment of illinois, at the fairgrounds in, in springfield, logan, a famous orator of his time spoke for more than 30 minutes talking about the revolution in washington, preparatory to introducing their new colonel. when he subsided he turned to the new colonel, grant, who had only half of his uniform, he was still technically a civilian, who responded to this, this wonderful oration by looking at this fractious, difficult regiment. by saying, "men, go to your quarters." the men instantly went to their quarters.

if words were the coin of military exchange, none should be wasted. language must be purposive and austere. not nine months later we find him responding to his old friend and west point contemporary, kentuckian simon bolivar buckner, the general left holding the bag at fort donaldson as you all know and sent to ask for terms from his old friend, general grant. everyone can quote those terms, but, in case you have forgotten them. my terms as an immediate unconditional surrender. i propose to move upon your works. buckner sent a note back, i have received your unchivalrous note, but of course he was obliged to comply. the country connected u.s. with unconditional surrender. buckner conceded famously.

it its poignant to remember -- buckner and grant as so many of that cohort of west point cadets who became generals in the war remained close all during their lives afterwards. if you are an antiquarian as well as historian, i can't resist reminding you, the senior american general killed in the second world war on okinawa was a 3 star general. simon bolivar buckner jr. not the grand nephew or great grandson, but the son of the general grant, this friend of general grant's. i'm sure most of you think from time to time about the connections between the civil war and the second world war. there are constantly in writing about marshall in front of me. we have to remind ourselves that when the generation of marshall and macarthur and those a little younger, eisenhower, mark clark, and so on, when they were school

boys in their teens, they were still being taught by men who had fought at gettysburg and chancellorsville, and shiloh, relatively young men. they were much closer to that experience than we are for example to vietnam. the impress of the civil war on that generation as you know was very, very powerful. affect. on the evening of the first and terrible day of shiloh, to most of us, the most tragic of all the civil war battles, a battle fought by gangs and groups and ragged cohorts of 18-year-olds from wisconsin and mississippi. and alabama and indiana. and who were being led by -- elected regimental colonels who in today's terms would be officers in the kiwanis club or state farm agents. quite literally. the slaughter was unspeakable.

here is grant from his memoirs remembering his experience that night. "i made my headquarters under a tree a few hundred yards back from the river bank. the rain fell in torrents. my ankle was much swollen from the fall. from the fall of my horse on the friday evening preceding. and the bruise was so painful i could get no sleep. i moved back to the log house under the back. it had now been taken over as a hospital, and all night wounded men were being brought in. the sight was more unendurable than the encounter with the enemy's fire or my pains or the rain. end quote. by this time after midnight. some time after midnight, grant's friend sherman, looking for him, found him sitting there

apparently back lit as we would say against the moonlight or the reflection or whatever. he had gone looking for him to onned mob object luz stalg offer the more or less standard counsel of civil war generals whose armies had been mauled and badly battered. we should probably prepare to leave the field tomorrow. as sherman in his own memoirs remembered that as he approached grant, who was there sitting in the rain with his, inevitable cigar, that there was something about his posture, his affect, his expression, which persuaded him not to say anything like that. he said "we have had the devil's own time, haven't we brad. lick them tomorrow," said grant, very quietly. in virtually all of grant's battles from shiloh forward there is a moment at some point like that, grant by his presence

or by a word or two somehow manages to inspirit an army which has lost its sense of pride in itself and what it can do. in chattanooga, some five, six months after his great victory at vicksburg, we have another picture of grant dated october 23rd, 1863. the writer is a young officer of great promise. like most of grant's staff, a uniformed civilian called horace porter, a man incidentally who like many of the persons whose names we know from the civil war went on to have a distinguished career later on about which we know almost nothing. but porter was a known man for his expertise in artillery. a staff officer but a staff officer who would soon be recognized for heroism with a congressional medal of honor. he is taken into grant's temporary home, a simple house in chattanooga, now used as a

headquarters. grant has arrived after a 30-mile nighttime ride over the mountains. a chilled rain was falling. seems to rain all the time at night during that time. porter enters the room and finds grant seated before a table. two other officers are present watching. grant looks up and says "sit down." porter gives him some information about union artillery emplacements. grant, as the porter begins to move out of his presence, says simply -- "sit still." the kind of guy that really makes you feel at home. porter recalls, quote, my attention was soon attracted to the manner in which he went to work at his correspondence.

at this time, as through out his later career, he wrote nearly all of his documents in his own hand. he seldom dictated to anyone even the most unimportant dispatch. his work was performed as it always was performed, swiftly and uninterruptedly without any display of nervous energy. his thoughts seemed to flow as freely from his mind as the ink from his pen. he was never at a loss for an expression. he seldom interlined the word or made a correction. he sat with his head bent low over the table. and when he had occasion to step to another table or a desk to get another paper he wanted, he would glide rapidly and return to his seat with his body still bent at the angle he had been sitting when he left his chair. when he completed his work, he gathered up all of the scattered sheets, read them over rapidly, arranged them in their proper order, turned to me and said --