General “Butcher”: the most famous US military leader, who was feared by his own soldiers more than by their enemies (8 photos)

He holds the anti-record for losses among soldiers in the Civil War. Although he did not worry about it.





Ulysses Simpson Grant - Civil War hero, general and 18th President of the United States.



Ulysses Grant

He has a rather interesting biography: in 1843 he graduated from the West Point military academy and fought with the Indians. Then he took part in the war with Mexico, after which California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and other territories were annexed to the country. Grant showed himself well, but when all these wars ended, he began to drink like crazy. And the commander ordered him to leave the service. For Grant, this was a good slap in the face, he gathered his strength and finally gave up alcohol. In order not to sit idle, he took up farming and was quite successful. Soon he got married - by the way, to a girl from a family of slave owners.

But his finest hour came during the Civil War between the North and the South.





The northerners were called Yankees - they allegedly fought for the abolition of slavery. But in fact, they simply wanted to weaken the power of the southern states and force them to obey the general laws. The second party to the conflict were the Confederates - those same southerners who used slaves in the cotton fields and were fabulously rich.

The South had money and training - almost every wealthy young man there wanted to graduate from a military academy and become an officer. The North had a production base and human resources. From the very beginning of the conflict, they simply had more soldiers.

The Civil War began in the spring of 1861, and three years later it became clear that the South had no chance of winning. Grant proved himself to be a good organizer and even a strategist. He was taken back into service, and by 1864 he became the commander of all Northern troops. The leadership really liked his discipline and the fact that he carried out orders, never counting losses.



Then Grant once again clashed with the Confederate army, commanded by General Robert Lee. The North had 108 thousand soldiers, the South - 59. The troops met at Cold Harbor, Virginia.



Robert Lee

Grant waited for reinforcements and maneuvered for a long time. Lee realized that he would not have additional troops, so he took a more advantageous position and ordered the soldiers to dig in. When fresh units approached the Northerners, they stretched out their flanks and tried to envelop the enemy positions. This fuss took 2 days, then Grant lost his temper and ordered the soldiers to go on a frontal attack - through swampy terrain and straight at the Confederate guns. They took advantage of the chance and fired from all guns - in twenty minutes of a senseless attack, the Northerners lost several thousand fighters and rolled back. This is an anti-record for one-time losses in the entire history of that civil war.



Battle of Cold Harbor. The Confederate positions are marked in red

The battle lasted for days. Soldiers died and were horribly wounded. All the while, Grant was yelling and demanding that the soldiers attack the enemy positions head-on, calling them cowards.

Something terrible and merciless was happening, and old words like “victory” and “defeat” lost their meaning. The awkward little man with the red, bristly beard was determined to keep moving forward, and now the whole war was one continuous slaughter. If one blow failed, another was immediately delivered, as historian Bruce Catton later described it.

It ended with Grant’s own staff rebelling against him, so the general canceled his order for crazy attacks. By that time, 13,000 of his soldiers were dead. The morale of the others was corresponding: they nicknamed the general "The Butcher".



The Southerners suffered much fewer losses, so Lee is considered the winner of that battle. But he ultimately lost the war: the Northerners constantly tormented his army with attacks, he snapped back, counterattacked, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.



General Robert E. Lee capitulated after the fall of Atlanta, one of the main centers of the Confederates. There was no point in fighting any further - that was in 1865. And Grant made a dizzying political career and in 1869 became the 18th President of the United States. So the "Butcher" became the head of state and remained in this post for the next 8 years.