This isn’t a full blown review of Dr. Frank P. Varney’s book, General Grant and the Rewriting of History, as I just started reading some of it yesterday. I’m jumping the gun here abit as after reading the Preface I could not put the book down. I believe it was Machiavelli who declared that you should judge a leader by those he keeps around him; his lieutenants, ect., the quote…

Colonel William H. Kinsman of the 23rd Iowa Infantry was a hero on May 17, 1863. After his smashing defeat at Champion’s Hill, Confederate Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton decided one last time to stop or at least slow Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s advance on Vicksburg at Big Black River and an important bridge that resided there. Brigadier General Michael K. Lawler’s Second Brigade (21, 22, 23 Iowa, 11…

Ulysses S. Grant, of course, was a leader of soldiers. He was in many respects a simple soldier himself. I won’t say he would have been happy to have been a simple soldier in the Civil War; he was a driven man out to prove himself in 1861-62. Though I wonder if there were times in 1864 he wouldn’t have minded trading places with some anonymous soldier somewhere other than…