Ulysses S. Grant: Final Report of Military Operations

As both general and president Ulysses S. Grant played a major role in preserving the Union, destroying slavery, and battling for equal rights for blacks in the face of white supremacist terrorism. At the outset of the Civil War, Grant predicted the collapse of slavery, if for no other reason than that the wear and tear of military operations would erode the viability of the institution. At first he was reluctant to strike at slavery out of fear that doing so would deepen the resistance of white southerners. By 1862, however, he had come to accept the destruction of slavery as a critical part of the Union war effort, and by 1863 he had come to embrace emancipation and black enlistment as essential to Union victory, although he still defined that victory in terms of reunion. Equally important to achieving Union victory was the adoption of an approach to waging war against the Confederacy that targeted Confederate morale, logistics, and resources just as much as it aimed to destroy enemy armies. To achieve that goal, Grant believed that Union operations had to be coordinated and continuous. He explained his plan in a Letter to William Tecumseh Sherman; he would revert to outlining that philosophy once more in his Final Report of Military Operations.